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#i recently bought these nice paints for a school project and i really like using em. its relaxing to draw with them

snappedsky · 2 months

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ROTTMNT: You Are Not Alone Epilogue

The End.

*Reblogs appreciated*

Epilogue

One month later

Casey walks through the lair. He’s dressed in recently bought clothes, cleaner and more relaxed than he’s been in years.

He goes into the med bay where he does his usual, daily routine. He makes sure everything is clean; he checks the IV bag and changes it if he has to; he records the vitals, making sure they’re stable.

Finally, he sits in his chair and takes a deep breath.

“Hi, Sensei.”

Leonardo lies in the bed, completely unconscious. He’s been in a coma since the Krang battle ended a month ago. He had received a much needed blood transfusion immediately after and all of his injuries have long since healed- even the nasty crack down his shell is now just a scar. Most of the healing was done during his power surge from the Hamato ninpo, but everyone figures that’s also why he’s comatose. His body is beyond exhausted.

“So, today we went to Run of the Mill Pizza again,” Casey says, “Señor Hueso finally agreed to put our picture up on his Wall of Champions for saving the world. Leo wouldn’t stop hugging him. And he said he’d give us free pizza when you come to see him, mostly just to prove that you’re real. He still doesn’t believe that you’re from the future.”

“Cass got mad at me again today when I accidentally called her Mom. I’m getting better about it, but I still forget sometimes. I told her it’s just because I’ve gotten so comfortable around her that sometimes I forget. She said that it’s fine if I only do it once in a while. Then Leo and Mikey made fun of her for blushing and she punched them. She really is the same.”

“April and Sunita showed me around the city some more. They took me to Central Park, and Times Square, and we did a bunch of shopping. I’m getting better about being around people. And I’ve found out I like buying clothes. I got a nice pair of boots and Sunita painted my nails black. They look really cool.”

“April said I should go to school to learn more about the modern world. Donnie said there’s nothing he can’t teach me, and Cass said there’s nothing I can’t learn on the street. I told them that Master Donatello taught me all kinds of things so I think I’m okay.”

“The guys showed me another Lou Jitsu movie last night. It’s even better than the stories you used to tell me. And Master Splinter had a bunch of stories about the productions. Then we watched a Jupiter Jim movie, but Splinter didn’t like that one as much. I think they’re all great.”

#rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles #rise of the tmnt #rottmnt #rottmnt fanfiction #rise leo #rise casey #casey jones #casey jones jr #rottmnt au #myart

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sartorialadventure · 3 years

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As a new book is published on African wax print textiles, Vogue speaks to its author about the complex origins and stories behind eight of the most vibrant prints. Once a craze confined to Africa’s Gold Coast; now, African wax prints have gone global. Take Beyoncé, who rocked the printed cotton fabric for her baby shower last year, asking her guests to wear African-centred gelées, kufis and wax-printed pieces. “It is everywhere but at the same time people don’t know really the story and the meanings of this textile,” says Anne Grosfilley, author of a new book, African Wax Print Textiles, published by Prestel this month (£45, available here). The book is a detailed exploration of the fabric’s origins, techniques and cultural currency as well as a showcase of vibrant, eye-popping designs. “There are colours you would not see in other types of textiles,” Grosfilley says, citing deep blue with orange. These are also clothes with deep meaning: often, fabrics have hidden messages. African wax prints actually came from the Netherlands. In the second half of the 19th century, fuelled by the industrial revolution and colonial expansion, new markets opened in the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) as well as Africa. With the Netherlands securing its presence in Java, its textile companies began competing with the local artisanal batik techniques, producing their own cotton prints. These Dutch wax prints, however, bombed as the Dutch dyes created cracks, so new markets had to be found. In 1893 the first Dutch wax prints landed in the African Gold Coast (now Ghana), where they became style and status symbols. During the 1950s, their appeal spread across west Africa, when the Mercedes-Benz driving female entrepreneurs (known as the Nana Benz) bought the fabrics into Togo and gave them names to add mystique. Africa’s fight for independence in the 1960s led to wax prints being made locally. More recently, cheap Chinese copies have made wax prints more accessible to the rest of the world. Now, wax prints are worn with denim and other Western styles with men donning the print too. Here, a selection of the most intriguing wax prints and the unusual stories and meanings behind them.

Alphabet, 1920

Created in 1920, this alphabet design was worn mainly by people who went to the colonial school, and could read, write and count with the new mathematics. “People were very proud of it and they would wear this wax print to say, 'look, I’m literate and an educated person’”, says Grosfilley. Today, the design still retains this symbolism, even used by political parties for propaganda, "as if to say, 'look, this is a good value design and I am a good value president, so you should support me because I am as good as education,’” she says. Modern motifs have updated the design with computers replacing blackboards.

Elizabeth II, 1956

Designed for Queen Elizabeth II’s first visit to Nigeria in 1956, Grosfilley believes this wax print was given away to ensure a crowd gave her a warm welcome - as the visit was shortly before the country gained independence. It’s an African tradition for people to wear the same fabric for a specific occasion, whether it's close family and friends at a wedding, or at a political rally where the crowd wears a print with the president’s face, or to show solidarity with a group or community. "In Africa, we are less individualistic than in the western cultures,” argues Grosfilley, though explains that each person wears print in their own way. “So you are part of a group but at the same time you are unique." Don't miss the imperfections of the wax process that appear as cracks in her fur and the early wax print colours, brown and indigo, on the original white of the fabric.

Fly-Whisk, 1950

A fly swatter may seem like an everyday symbol, but actually it symbolises power and prestige. Why? These are the brooms used to swat away the mosquitoes and other flies from the kings and traditional chiefs of the Akan people who live across the Ivory Coast and Ghana. Once wielding great economic power selling gold and ivory to the British and other countries, today these kings and chiefs are more symbolic. Designed in 1950, the pattern is set in big squares à la Adinkra, Adire and other African handmade textiles and has a decorative background to prevent any cracks caused by the batik process being seen.

Darling, Don't Turn Your Back On Me, 1980s

This abstract pattern from the 1980s was inspired by paper used to wrap meat in a French butcher. According to Grosfilley: “This is the magic of wax print, as you see a design and you project something which may be completely different from the original meaning.” For women in Toga, it's known as, “darling, don’t turn your back on me,” when they think their man is not looking at them anymore, but another woman. “In real life, the men don’t understand or don’t care as they don’t pay attention to the meaning of wax print. So although the message is to the man, really it is to the other woman,” she says.

[I am suddenly visualizing women wearing clothing with the boyfriend meme printed on it!]

Shell

One of the earliest wax print designs, produced in Ivory Coast, this is now a classic. Depicting the wings of the Garuda bird, Indonesia’s national emblem, this print symbolises how Indonesian designs have been re-interpreted in Africa. Take the Ghanaians, who see the design as a bunch of bananas, as “it’s part of their basic food as you’d eat it as a fruit or in a stew,” says Grosfilley. Or the Togans, who call the print, “the snail coming out of its shell,” after the snails they eat (and local phrase meaning "busybody"). Wearing the design, according to Grosfilley, means that “you should look at your own business instead of looking at what other people are doing,” she says.

Michelle Obama's Handbag, 2008

Some designs take on famous names. There’s Kofi Annan’s brain, the heart of Barack Obama and this one, named after Michelle Obama when her husband first became the president of the United States, in 2008. The basic appeal translates as: “You cannot afford to be Michelle Obama or buy the same bag as she carries, but because you can buy the pattern on wax print it’s like you’re part of it,” says Grosfilley. Yet, the connection to Obama is accidental. “Vlisco just designed a nice bag but then it’s the African market who said, 'Wow, we should make a connection between Michelle Obama and the bag',” she says. Made from Super Wax, which is softer, thinner and has an extra colour, wearing this more expensive fabric symbolises prestige.

Violent Eyes, The Mouth Says Nothing, 2011

The surrealist shoe with its tongue-like heel and multiple red-varnished toes is a detail of a larger design, created in 2011, in the Netherlands. Called "the eyes see, but the mouth does not speak,” the print is dominated by a huge mouth with a finger against it to say "shush, don’t speak" in the centre with little mouths in the background which also say nothing. “It’s about being an elegant woman and at the same time full of humour,” says Grosfilley. “We are saying, wear something just to see the good side of things.” The quirky design is accentuated by a bright red outline instead of the classic indigo, showing new ways of using the batik technique.

Reproduction Fan Print, 2000s

When electrical fans were introduced to Africa in the 1980s, they appeared on wax print as signs of modernity (as did mobile phones). Now, as fans are only bought by those without air-conditioning, the meaning has changed. “It is casual. You’ve got chairs, table, so what, there’s no point,” the author says. Printed on polycotton from China rather than cotton, bright new colours have been added, like the maroon and yellow and green combo since the original design debuted.

#fashion #african fashion #vlisco #prints #fashion history #africa #dutch fashion #javanese fashion #java #the netherland

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bffsoobin · 4 years

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Dulce Periculum

➤ Halloween!au, highschool!au, (vague)80s!au, punk!yeonjun x reader, general horror, ghosts, fluff, angst

↳ when yeonjun’s best friend dares the two of you to spend Halloween night camping in the abandoned old school your whole city thought was haunted; you think nothing of it. After all, there was no way the rumors of spirits that would follow you home were true, and you really wanted the prize from winning the bet.

Warnings: general horror themes, breaking and entering, underage drinking and smoking, mentions of drug use, ghosts, mentions of blood, hauntings, creepy shit in general so don’t read if you’re sensitive/not a fan.

Word Count: 4,994

A/N: I hope no one is surprised that I wrote an actually scary Halloween fic 💀 this was so much fun and totally captured all of the things I really love the most! It also felt so good to write another long fic for Yeonjun since I definitely don’t do that enough. As always, I didn’t proof read or edit this, but I hope you all enjoy it anyway! (also pretend this gif is dark hair Yeonjun for the vibes)

•:•.•:•.•:•:•:•:•:•:•:•☾☼☽•:•.•:•.•:•:•:•:•:•:•:••:•.•

“Seriously?” Yeonjun lifted a dark eyebrow as he popped a potato chip into his mouth. You held out your hand to silently ask for one that he set in your hand with no hesitation. Your usually populated lunch table was eerily empty today, and even inside the walls of your high school, the chill of the October air had you leaning into Yeonjun’s body to soak up his perpetual warmth. Across the table, Johnny sat on the top of a chair, exaggerating his already insane height as he spoke down to the two of you.

“Seriously, man! The place is haunted. My cousin went there once a few years ago and-”

A laugh bubbled out of your throat at the sight of tough looking Johnny; donning his classic black leather jacket and silver belt chains, a half burnt cigarette glowing eerily orange at the end with a thin streak of smoke leading it’s way to the ceiling, visibly frightened over the idea of a haunted old school.

“You’re losing it if you think the place is actually haunted. Johnny. It’s just a town legend for gods sake. People just go there and get high and fuck. It’s called Grave Academy. You think that shit is for real?” You spat, disbelief soaking every edge of your voice. You loved a good horror story just as much as the next fucked up teenager, but there was no fucking way that half burnt building was actually haunted. Beside you, your boyfriend had reduced himself into a fit of giggles, draping an arm around your shoulders and pulling you until you were almost sitting in his lap. He pressed a kiss to your cheek, the cool metal of his lip piercing making your nose crinkle.

“I love when you act like that,” he whispered, gently biting at the lobe of your ear before laughing even more at the gagging noise Johnny had begun to project into the air. Yeonjun backed away just as suddenly as he had descended on you, taking his scent of mint and smoke with him.

“What’s your point, Johnny? Just tryin to scare us?” Yeonjun asked, balancing his chin on his palms as he stared lazily across the table again.

“The point is a dare,” Johnny began, leaning forward as if he were about to tell a secret only your ears could hear. “I dare you to spend Halloween night at Grave Academy. Then you’ll see how haunted that place actually is.” He took a long drag off of his cigarette, ignoring the pointed throat clearing of a cafeteria worker you knew for a fact smoked at least three a day while sitting in the parking lot. Johnny waved her off and reached into one of his jacket pockets, producing the worn leather wallet that he kept on him like a religious talisman. From its folds he produced a crisp, wonderfully green 50 dollar bill and held it between his fingers. Your eyes widened at the bill, and if it weren’t for Yeonjun’s hand on your thigh stalling you, you would have been launching yourself across the table to snatch it from Johnny. “I bet you,” his voice was muffled around the cigarette, “this 50 dollar bill and a six pack that the two of you couldn’t spend a whole night there without getting spooked.”

You and Yeonjun exchanged incredulous looks as Johnny continued to watch over the two of you.

“Well, yeah,” Yeonjun announced, standing so abruptly that the chair he had once occupied was sent skidding awkwardly against the tiled floor. He extended a paled, jewelry decorated hand across the table and waited for Johnny to meet it in the middle. As soon as their hands connected, the smirk on Yeonjun’s face widened. “It’s a deal.”

-----

Halloween of ‘87 brought along frigid whipping winds that cut to the bone. You and Yeonjun had layered up in all your warmest clothing but he still had to crank up the heat in his old car as the two of you drove to the abandoned school to meet up with Johnny. With your hands tucked underneath your legs, you grumbled, “it’s way too cold for this shit, Jun.” Still focused on the road, Yeonjun hummed in acknowledgement.

“Got another idea for how to make 50 bucks and get a free case of beer?” He finally glanced over to you, eyebrow arched in question as you pouted. “Don’t worry, baby, I’ll warm you up when we get there.” Despite the chill of the air, a warm blush sprouted on your cheeks that Yeonjun only smiled at as he made the final turn before crunching the gravel of the parking lot under the tires. Johnny was already there, leaning against the side of his car with a freshly lit cigarette balanced between gloved fingers. Seconds after Yeonjun parked the car, Johnny was next to it in two large strides, leaning down and knocking on the driver’s side window. Yeonjun pushed the door open, forcing Johnny to step back instead of getting nailed in the legs with the heavy metal.

“Hello to you too,” Johnny grumbled, crossing his arms over his chest like a scolded child. “Nice of you to finally fucking show up.” Yeonjun laughed as he rounded the car to pop the trunk and haul out the copious amounts of blankets and pillows you had insisted on bringing.

“What, Johnny? Afraid out here all by yourself?” Your boyfriend teased as you scooped a pile of blankets into your arms. Johnny exhaled through his nose, throwing his hands in the air.

“Well fuck, Yeonjun. I don’t know, is it wrong of me to be afraid of the ghost of the little kid who literally got possessed and killed all of his classmates? Or the fact that all the kid’s spirits are stuck here? Plus, it’s Halloween so you know...the dead walk among us and shit.” He was shifting on his feet, taking intermittent drags from his cigarette as he spoke. You snickered to yourself, the weight of the blankets in your arms making your muscles a bit sore.

“Can we just get this over with?” You ask loudly.

“I would love to,” Johnny nods, patting Yeonjun on the shoulder and gently shoving him toward the old, slightly crumbling building. After the initial fire, the lot had been bought and rebuilt as a halfway house for troubled youth. The company ended up going bankrupt and the building was left to rot.

“If you two make it out alive, my money and beer are yours.” Yeonjun nodded as a gust of wind ripped through the lot, sending a complaint flying from your mouth as you glared pointedly toward your boyfriend. He took the hint easily, maneuvering his blankets under one arm and placing the other at the small of your back.

“See ya tomorrow, Johnny,” he waved him off easily, pushing you forward through the rusted, overgrown gate. You heard Johnny peel out of the parking lot just as you and Yeonjun stepped onto the first cement block of steps. An old sign hung at the top of the entrance, paint chipped off in large strips that have disintegrated with time. For a moment, you hesitated, your chunky black boots seemingly stuck to the surface under you.

“C’mon,” Yeonjun encouraged, walking up the next four steps until he wrapped his free hand around the tarnished iron handle. “Aren’t you cold?” He asked, prompting your feet to move behind him. You wouldn’t admit it to Yeonjun, but a slight feeling of anxiety was beginning to make your palms sweat. Producing a flashlight out of his pocket, Yeonjun readied himself to step into the building.

The door opened with a high groan, it’s hinges crackling underneath the weight of Yeonjun’s push. From your spot just outside the door, it was hard to understand the layout of what was once considered a grand building. Hiding slightly behind your boyfriend’s broad shoulders, all you could see was part of a staircase which surely had steps rotted away from years of disuse. A sudden fear for the integrity of the floorboards shot through you, and if you had had a free hand, you would have clutched it into the soft material of Yeonjun’s jacket.

Forever fearless, he took the first step inside the building and hummed thoughtfully.

“Well,” his dark mass of hair swished around as he looked side to side, “no ghosts that I can see.” You knew he was joking for the sake of your comfort, but you couldn’t bring yourself to rally back as you took a tentative step inside. From this point, you could see the interior of the entry hall in its full glory.

Wallpaper, which you assumed was once a gentle cream color, was peeling in jagged, messy strips to expose the inner structure of the house. A more recent addition, the various colors of spray paint from other visitors, struck a stark contrast with Above you, a dangerously loose looking chandelier hung. It was small enough, but still obviously made with a tough metal that had begun to fall down with the water-logged sagging and cracking of the plaster ceiling. The image of it falling down had your stomach churning. Maybe Johnny had been right.

Slowly, the two of you made your way inside, surveying the floors through the measly yellow light of the flashlight until you found a good spot to place your blankets. Although it was “good” in the sense that there were no massive holes in the wall or ceiling to expose you to the cold, you still felt uneasy. As you set to work laying down a thick patch of blankets to protect you, Yeonjun took a lap around the room to see what he could find. This room, like all of the others, had streaks of spray paint on almost every surface. Most of it was harmless, and it almost gave you comfort to know that so many other people before you had come here and made it back out alive. Not that anyone would miss you or Yeonjun if you didn’t. Another shiver, this one not borne from the cold, ran down your back. Once you’d made a successful little nest, you found the will to walk over to Yeonjun again.

He was slouched a bit, studying something with a surprising intensity. When you walked up behind him and slipped your hands under his jacket-mostly to warm your hands- he startled a bit.

“Did I scare you?” You teased, pushing your face into his back as you nuzzled up closer.

“No, just surprised. Can I steal the flashlight?” Pouting, you handed it over and resumed your snuggling in hopes that he would finally catch the hint. If you were going to be stuck in this creepy house all night you might as well have some fun. The vague thought of stealing a cigarette from Yeonjun’s back pocket crossed your mind, and your hand was well on it’s way until he muttered under his breath.

“What?”

“Just- look at this,” his voice was higher pitched, bordering a bit too close on surprised for your liking. Your mind buzzed as you slid to his side to lean into the point of interest. While you were making up the blankets, Yeonjun had been messing with what seemed to be an inconspicuous old blackboard, shut tightly due to years and years of misuse. Somehow, he had managed to slide it open, revealing a second layer of blackboard underneath. For a second, you were going to make a joke about skipping school and forgetting what a blackboard looked like- until you saw the writing.

Inside the ring of light casted by the flashlight, a sentence made of slightly messy, too close together letters stood.

“Don’t let him catch you.”

Neither you or Yeonjun moved as you processed the words.

“Jun,” your voice was wavering, choked over the tears building in the back of your eyes. “Maybe we should-”

“No, I’m sure it was just someone here before who messed with it. It wasn’t even that hard to push and there were obviously other kids here before us.” He turned on his heel quickly, putting your backs to the wall and taking your hands in his calloused palms. His nose and cheeks were red from the cold, but he still looked the image of perfection.

“Still cold?” He asked, eyebrow cocked as he leaned imperceptibly closer to you. All thoughts of fear vanished, replaced quickly by the heat that swamped you upon seeing the gleam in his honeyed eyes. You couldn’t ignore the way the black metal of his lip ring glinted in the low lighting.

“Y-yeah,” you confirmed quickly, tearing your eyes away from his lips just long enough to get the message across. Swiftly, he pressed his lips against your own, the cold brush of his nose skimming against yours making you giggle. He laughed back, using his hands tangled in your hair to keep you steady as he walked you backwards in a direction only he could see, deepening the kiss until you forgot that you were deep in the heart of Grave Academy.

----

Morning came surprisingly fast after you and Yeonjun had worn yourselves out to your heart’s content. When you woke up, it was to the soft sound of the fall breeze rustling what was left of the leaves on a nearby maple tree. In the stark daylight, the building felt like much less of a scare than it did last night. As you laid on Yeonjun’s chest, blankets piled high over your body for insulation, you almost felt at peace. Even the once ominous looking spray paint on the wall now made you chuckle as you read the curse words and artist tags that overlapped in a rainbow of colors. The movement stirred Yeonjun awake, his eyes blinking slowly until he finally adjusted to the daylight.

“Hey,” he croaked, voice thick and full with a surprisingly restful night of sleep. “Feel up to a beer later? Celebrate our survival?”

You smacked his chest playfully out of reflex, silently reveling in just how easy this bet with Johnny had turned out to be. Your pile of protective blankets slipped down your back, exposing you to a rush of cold that made you frown.

“How about we get going? I’m starving.”

Yeonjun took no more convincing than that, fully motivated by the idea of food. It took almost no time at all to fold up all the blankets and make sure you hadn’t left anything behind.

“Oh, the flashlight!” You stomped your way back over to the blackboard where you’d left it, feeling much bolder in the sunlight. You pocketed the flashlight easily, tucking it away in the jacket that used to belong to your father. As you straightened back up, you came face to face with the same board that had almost sent you straight home last night, only to see that there was nothing written on it.

The blackboard stared back at you, totally blank. The cramped, messy words from yesterday night had completely vanished. Not even a trace of wiped off chalk stayed behind to suggest that Yeonjun may have erased the words without you noticing. A sick feeling washed over you, nervousness balling in the pit of your stomach until you felt like you could pass out.

“Y/N?” Yeonjun called, whining as the blankets weighed him down and his stomach growled. His voice snapped you out of your stupor as you quickly turned, striding toward him in confident steps to assume him- and yourself- that everything was just fine.

----

“Yeonjun,” you hissed, leaning across your desk to better catch his attention. He turned lazily, half asleep as a result of the 20 year old projector video. “Did you steal my pencil?” You accused, slightly annoyed that he would have the nerve to take one of the very few school supplies you still bothered to bring, even if just for show. His eyebrows furrowed and he shook his head.

“No, why the hell would I take your pencil? I stopped taking notes in sophomore year. Are you sure you didn’t just drop it?”

Violently, you shook your head.

“I already looked, Jun! It’s gone! I literally just had it!” Anger bubbled in your chest as you abandoned all reserve. Yeonjun’s eyes went wide with concern as the teacher turned toward you and shushed loudly.

You spent the rest of the day in an angered stupor, having to borrow a pencil from the nerdy kid who salivated over you every day in biology. It bothered you much more than it probably should have, but losing the pencil seemed to set off an odd emotion within you. You were many things, but you were never disorganized or forgetful. There was no way you simply lost the pencil.

----

Senior year crawled by and your missed days of school stacked up quick. You and Yeonjun wasted the days away, sharing cigarettes and liquor bottles until the day was over. On one surprisingly nice winter afternoon, the two of you went for a walk. The route was innately familiar, as you’d been walking it since you were both young children. As you curbed the corner near Mrs. Berger’s house, Yeonjun stopped dead in his tracks.

“Did you see that?” He asked, grasping at your forearm and making you slip a little on a patch of ice.

“Did I see what?”

“That- over there!” Yeonjun pointed toward a patch of bare trees laced with snow. There was nothing odd among them, but he was clearly convinced. “You don’t see that?” He hissed, an edge of fear in his voice that made you glance around for possible threat.

“No, I don’t. Yeonjun, are you okay?”

“Seriously, Y/N, now is not the time to fuck with me,” he pleaded, pulling on your arm harder. He was scared.

“Yeonjun, let’s go, let’s just go back to your house, please, you’re scaring me-”

“SHIT, go go go!” Suddenly he yanked you into the snow covered yard to your right to avoid the slip of ice as the two of you sprinted, hand in hand, not stopping for a second until you reached his home.

Chests heaving, you sunk to the floor with tears in your eyes. Yeonjun slumped into the couch, hand resting on his stomach as he tried to calm himself.

“It was-” he gasped loudly, “a little boy. He was wearing like-like a fuckin’ school uniform? Just standing there like a- a little demon. And then he started to walk, and when I realized he was coming near us I just fucking panicked.”

If you weren’t already breathless, the words would have sucked the air right from your lungs.

Don’t let him catch you.

----

You and Yeonjun had made a vow to never speak of that day again. Silently, you both had an inkling of what was going on, but neither of you wanted to admit it. Who would?

Two days later, the two of you sat in the parking lot of a fast food joint, passing a cigarette back and forth. Neither of you had slept more than a few hours, and you were starting to feel it as the pull of another tension headache came to wreak havoc. Yeonjun said nothing as you closed your eyes for a few seconds, allowing yourself to succumb to a comforting darkness. The pain began to subside as you let yourself tire, the steady sound of Yeonjun’s breathing lulling you even further.

Just as sleep began to invade the edges of your mind, a faint whisper sounded. You couldn’t quite make it out, so you just assumed maybe it was the way the wind whipped or your mind filling in some gaps. Just as you relaxed again, the whisper reignited, louder this time. You couldn’t make out the words, but the voice was childish and made your heart race. In a panic, you tried to open your eyes, but they wouldn’t budge.

“Y/N, why won’t you play with me?” The voice asked. “You came to visit and then you just...left me.” Fear wracked your body the longer you fought against the voice. You knew that you hadn’t fallen asleep. This was not a dream.

Suddenly, the face of a wide-eyed little boy crowded your vision. His eyes were piercing, upturned nose charming enough to distract you for half a second. But it didn’t take long to register the streaks of blood running from his hairline down to his chin, dripping off in thick drops. It was almost like you could feel them falling down, landing with a wet plop every time. A sick grin split his face, revealing a mouthful of blood just as dark and thick as the stuff running down his face. Your heart was hammering loudly, threatening to burst right out of your chest. Hot tears streamed down your face as you fought against whatever was ailing you.

“Don’t you want to play?”

Suddenly, like coming up for air from underwater, you were back to reality. The sunlight burned your already sore eyes, washing out your vision so much that you almost didn’t see Yeonjun hovering over you as best as he could within the confines of the car.

“Holy shit,” he gasped, gathering you into a tight hug as your body shook. “Did you have a nightmare?” He asked, wiping at the tears on your cheeks.

“I-I wasn’t asleep,” you sobbed, grabbing at his arms desperately. “It was him,” you choked out, shuddering at the thought of that demonic little boy whispering to you. Yeonjun swallowed harshly, slumping back into his seat with a shake in his limbs.

----

That night, you both skipped sleep. Yeonjun turned on all the lights in his bedroom and made sure that every single door to the outside was locked before you laid down together. On the small screened television a late night program played nonsense that provided welcome white noise. No matter how hard you tried, you couldn’t forget the image of the little boy dripping with blood. How he called you by your name and implored you to play.

“I think it’s the same,” Yeonjun finally said.

“The same?”

“Yeah, the same...the same kid. The one I saw outside, the one you saw. I think it’s the boy who-”

“Please don’t even say it,” you whined, burying your face into his shoulder. Deep down, you knew exactly what he meant. It was a million times scarier to hear it out loud.

The sound of the talk show host suddenly quieted, television shut off suddenly with a crackle of light.

“What the fuck,” Yeonjun groaned, getting up to check the outlet he had the unit plugged into. The plug was still secure in the outlet, giving no answer to the sudden end of your background noise. “Maybe the cable went out,” he suggested, dropping the subject as quickly as he began it. He wasn’t much for late night television anyway. On a normal night, he would have tried to make idle chit chat, or maybe even bite a few bruises into the column of your neck; but today he simply laid next to you and played with your hair.

In what first seemed like a stroke of luck, the television set roared back to life. Both of you sat up in alarm, confused at the sudden change, but you had almost no time to ponder it as the rest of the lights in the room cut, plunging you into a sick darkness. Immediately you cried out, indescribable anxiety crawling up your throat and leaving you speechless. Yeonjun tensed, selflessly guarding your body with his as the television flickered static patterns at you. A high pitched whine emitted from the speakers, prompting you to search the sheets for the remote until the sound stalled.

With all other sources of light drained, the television seemed to glow as bright as a full moon as scrolls of distorted text began to roll across the screen. They were a bit hard to make out, pixelated and cramped at first, but soon became clear as day in their full form:

YEonJuN, Y/n

WhY wON’t you PLAy WiTH ME?

YOU CaMe tO visiT mE, BuT yOu DIDN’t StaY.

I aM LOnEly.

i KILled aLl OF mY FriENDS.

Too stunned to react, you simply clutched onto Yeonjun’s shirt for dear life and squeezed your eyes shut in hopes this really all was some awful dream.

“Holy shit, Y/N, Y/N!” Yeonjun yelled, forcing your eyes open just to witness the sight of the same horrificaly thick and deep red blood you’d seen earlier begin seeping from the top of Yeonjun’s bedroom walls. Everywhere you looked, streams of blood stained his walls red, ruining the collection of poster you’d memorized. The room smelled so strongly of iron that it made you gag, the threat of puking right at the back of your tongue. The television began whining again, high and shrieking until morphing into the sickly sweet voice of a young boy.

“Don’t you want to play? I promise I’m nice.”

Upon recieving nothing for a response from either of you, the voice let out a sigh.

“Fine. I guess I’ll just have to force you to play with me.”

The television fizzled out again, plunging the room into temporary darkness as both you and Yeonjun shake with fear. As if nothing had even happened, the lights resumed their warm yellowy glow, exposing completely clean walls.

----

“You two look like shit,” Johnny laughed, picking at the soggy tater tots on his plastic lunch tray. He had recently dyed his hair a deep black, and the dye was still staining the sides of his neck and his hands. “On a bender?”

Yeonjun gave a noncommittal laugh, eyes downcast as you shrugged loosely.

“Jesus, some bad cocaine? Did you buy from Taehyung? I told you he’s the worst to-”

“Stop, please,” you groaned, a tension headache permeating from the base of your neck to the top of your head. “You wouldn’t even believe us if we told you.”

“Try me. I’ve gotten blow from all of Bangtan, they aren’t the most trustworthy all the time, especially that Namjoon guy. He charms you into thinking it’s good and then-”

“We did not buy blow from Bangtan!” Yeonjun exploded, drawing the attention of a few passersby.

“Oh.” Johnny blinked, shocked by his best friend’s sudden loss of temper. “What’s wrong?”

“Grave Academy,” you mumbled, laying your head on the cold tabletop as Yeonjun rested a steady hand on your back.

“Huh? You were there months ago.”

“Yeah, that’s the issue. We were there months ago and we’re both still,” Yeonjun paused, unsure of what to even say. “We’re still getting haunted.”

“You what?” The hurried scrape of his chair had you looking up again just as he crossed the distance until he was right next to Yeonjun. “My cousin...he- he had the same thing happen.” A sudden edge of sadness overtook his voice and your eyes widened.

“Really? D’you think this happens to everyone?” Desperation spilled out alongside your words although you tried to stop it.

“I think...I think that I’m definitely fucking with you.” Johnny laughed, standing back up to his full height as both you and Yeonjun deflated. “My cousin is literally insane. Always has been. So it was no surprise to us when he started ‘seeing ghosts’ and finally got himself carted away.”

“Fuck you, Johnny.” Yeonjun snorted, pulling you up with him as he left the lunch room in a hurry and waltzed straight out of the school.

----

“What do we do?” Yeonjun’s eyes were bloodshot, for once a side effect of nothing but lack of sleep.

“We can run.” You suggested weakly, picking at a loose thread on your sweatshirt. “If we stay here we’ll either get send to the looney bin or murdered. And no one will miss us here, anyway.” Yeonjun knew you were right, but the thought plagued him still. Would running away even help?

“I guess you have a point.” He surmised, glancing around the home that he had come to run basically on his own. Since the death of his mother, his dad had been reckless and absent, only sending enough money for basics in a manila envelope every few months. If he left, the house would be reclaimed by the town and no one would be any wiser to why the two of you left. Just your run of the mill high school dropouts.

“I’d rather run away with you than die here.” You added, shrugging again as you imagined some kind of perfectly twisted life traveling the country with Yeonjun, living day to day. “Maybe you can finally start that band and I can be your groupie,” you joked, running your hands through his greasy locks and pressing a kiss to his forehead. “I’ll start packing a bag.”

The next morning, you and Yeonjun said what little goodbyes you had to make. You visited Johnny, telling him an abbreviated lie about a cross-country trip that he bought well enough. If he suspected anything when Yeonjun hugged him for longer than he had in their entire friendship, he didn’t say much.

The two of you made a stop at the cemetery, bidding farewell to your respective parents, before climbing back into his old Chevy. It was kind of hard to believe that all of your belongings fit snugly into his trunk, but it made escaping that much easier in the end.

The town you’d grown up in disappeared in the rearview mirror, and as you held Yeonjun’s hand tightly between your own, you hoped that your misfortune would disappear too.

You would never tell Yeonjun, but even as you drove miles and miles away from Grave Academy, you could still hear the little boy whispering every time you closed your eyes.

382 notes · View notes

trillian-anders · 4 years

Text

first blood

pairing: ransom drysdale x reader

warnings: angst, general asshole-ness.

word count: 4.6k

description: part 3 of 5. how did you become ransom’s glorified babysitter? and why the fuck are you keeping this job? who knows. you hate it, you hate him, but... the money.

note: tumblr is being super shitty rn so I can only post on mobile, but I really wanted to get this off my desk! will add a read more and properly link later 💕

prequel to the assistant && four christmases, spoiler free loves.

You have to do this.

You don’t think your eyes will ever feel normal again. They were dry and scratchy. There were no more tears to shed. You’d buried your Mom two months ago, but you didn’t know how it would ever feel okay. She did everything for you and Julia. Everything. She worked hard, made pretty good money, allowed you to have a part time job and just focus on school. Julia was in this really nice private school, she played the cello now for fucks sake. She had friends and was talking about maybe starting soccer soon, but after funeral costs and your sister’s tuition the life insurance money was running out.

You had to sell the house.

You’d moved the two of you into a small apartment right outside of Chinatown. Not the safest area, but not the most unsafe either. You’d be fine. You had each other, and she needed you to do this. You had to do this.

For her.

You sat uncomfortably in the cheap office chair, sitting across from a woman with too many papers on her desk, everything sloppily arranged around a couple of potted succulents and a framed picture of her and her three kids, no spouse.

“So your last job was in tutoring?” She asked you. You shifted nervously in your seat, nodding your head,

“Yeah, I tutored a high school student in English and Math.” You needed some water. The cheap pencil skirt and blouse you were wearing made your skin itch. She types into her computer some more.

“So why are you here?” She asked, “Why not continue tutoring?” A few more clicks and then more typing.

“The family I worked for paid me pretty well,” You admitted, “But she’s graduating this year and they didn’t need me anymore, I don’t really,” You cleared your throat, “I don’t really have much job experience outside of that and I need to start making money now… I’ve put out job applications but haven’t really gotten any luck.” Not with the income you needed anyway. The woman nodded. The plaque on her desk said her name is Stacy Chandler.

“Alright, here you are.” A printed page, address, date, and time. A job. Clerical work. Data entry. You have to do this...

“How was your last day of school?” Julia sat heavily at the kitchen table, backpack slumped on the floor next to her. She buried her face in her arms.

“I’m never going again.” Came muffled from her mouth. She lifted her head to look at you. The beginnings of puberty. You’d recently gone bra shopping for the first time. Real ones, no more training bras. You’d recently taken her to the dermatologist for her acne, but she’s not good at remembering to put on the expensive creams you bought. What a hard time. You don’t envy her.

“Luckily for you,” You smiled, placing a fudgy brownie in front of her, “You don’t have to go back for three whole months!” She rolled her eyes heavily, taking the brownie and disappearing into her room presumably to sit on her computer until dinner.

She was feeling the absence of your Mother just as you were. You weren’t sure what to do here. You loved your sister and you know she loves you too, but in the last few months it’s just been closed doors and a few parting sentences. Only because you had to work so much. Only because she spent a lot of time at friend’s houses where you’d think she would feel normal for a while. It would help ease the burden of being in your mid-twenties and suddenly feeling like a single mother. Of course you can sleep over at Mila’s house, her family is going to their cabin for the weekend of course you can go!

You didn’t know what to do other than keeping her in school and alive. You weren’t ready for this. But the only other option was your estranged aunt who reeked of mothballs and was constantly asking you if you were married, or dating, or ‘You’re Mother wouldn’t have wanted this’. No. It was very clear that your Mom wanted the two of you to stay together, and that’s how it’s going to be.

This summer she was going to spend with her friend Mila at their family’s lake house. Mila’s mother was a stay at home mom with six kids under the age of 12 and would be planning to spend the summer pintresting activities and projects with them while simultaneously getting out of her stuffy-old 10 bedroom, 8 bathroom mansion. Lucky her. Lucky Julia.

The apartment would be empty without the 12-year-old pre-teen for three months, but Julia has really been looking forward to it. Her bags were packed and ready by the door.

You hugged her tightly in front of Mila’s house, burying your face in her hair, partially not wanting her to go, but otherwise knowing that she’s going to have a better time than you could ever provide her. “Okay, you can let me go now.” She shifted in your arms, trying to pull away.

“Just another minute.” You mumbled, pulling her in tighter. “I’m gonna miss you.” She laughed,

“I’m gonna miss you too.” The two of you pulled apart and you tucked her hair behind her ears, cupping her sweet face.

“I love you,” You said very seriously, “If you ever want to come home just-”

“I’ll let you know.” She was getting impatient, the car Mila’s mom was taking to the lake house, a beautifully large black Range Rover sat packed next to you, they were waiting. “I love you too.” She slowly backed away towards the car.

“If she gets homesick, my husband still comes back every week for work so he can bring her home if need be,” Andrea was her name, Mila’s Mom. “She’ll be fine.” Andy was really nice. She made a lot of the food the two of you had eaten in the early days after your Mom’s death. Her gentle reassurance soothed you slightly. It made driving away a little easier, but it didn’t stop the tears that fell as you entered your apartment, alone. For the first time in a while. You didn’t have to hold it in anymore.

You sunk down against your front door, staring out into your living room, tears rolling down your cheeks in the silence of the home. Dirty shoes lined up against the wall, throw blanket hanging halfway off the couch, dirty dishes from breakfast still in the sink, and somewhere you’re sure under all of it was the will to pick yourself back up.

You just didn’t know if you were ready for that quite yet.

But you did it anyway.

More clerical work. More data entry. More bills going half paid and others being ignored all together. Student loans you didn’t even want to think about from a school where you hadn’t even graduated. Medical bills you didn’t even know where to begin paying back, itchy stockings, and uncomfortable shoes. With every day that passed you reexamined your life. How did you get here?

A new job, a new office. Temp assigned, but you knew who worked here. The building that housed it stood tall against the Boston skyline. Contemporary. You sat comfortably in a cushy office chair. The plaque on the desk read Linda Drysdale, CEO. And you waited.

You hadn’t seen the Thrombey’s, let alone the Drysdale branch of the family, for five months. Zero contact. Joni had talked to you last, thanking you for helping Meg, but also trying to sell you eye cream. “You really should invest in taking better care of yourself.” Which was her kind way of trying to tell you that you look old. Thanks.

You couldn’t imagine what Linda would want you for. You’d been doing some filing, they were transferring all of their documents to digital and hired extra help to do so, you were one of three hired from your particular temp agency, but yesterday she had called you personally and asked you to come in for an appointment today at 3 pm. And here you are.

Waiting.

There was a portrait of her family on the wall. Linda herself sitting in a high backed intricate chair, her husband Richard standing to her right, and to her left was her son, Hugh. He went by his middle name Ransom. They were stone faced, serious looking. This painting seemed ridiculous. If you didn’t know the Thrombey’s you’d think it was there to be ironic, as a joke, a play on what rich families were like.

But they were a rich family, and this is what they were like.

Linda was self-serving. She only ever talked to you when it suited her own interests and as soon as she was satisfied she would quickly direct her attention somewhere else, to someone more important. She used you to get what she wanted and when you served her purpose you were gone. She had no time for anyone, only her father. Anything for Harlan.

Richard was a predator. He was always making an uncomfortable comment about either your body or your face. He stood uncomfortably close at times and liked to settle a hand on the small of your back. He was a well kept man, throwing his wife’s money around like it was his own. He kept a money clip of hundreds in his pocket.

Ransom was a piece of shit. He was a self-centered egotistical asshole who was sure to make your life a living hell every time he saw you. There was always a comment, a jab at your clothes, your hair, the fact that you are poor. He once ‘accidentally’ threw your cardigan away because, “I thought it was one of those fucking rags you dust with, I didn’t want it touching my burberry.” He, like his father, felt predatory. Something about being a rich white man just really got them going, and the money clip with the hundreds… a learned habit.

“Alright,” Linda’s voice came from the doorway, you turned slightly in your seat. She was on the phone, “Well we will send Michael out to show them the properties instead, I’m sure we’ll find something they like.” She gave you a finger, hold on, even though you’d been sitting here patiently waiting for her for close to twenty minutes now. “Okay,” She continued, “Sounds good.” Sitting down in her chair, tapping a few keys to illuminate her computer screen. “Alright now, bye-bye.” She took her phone from her ear, looking down at the screen before placing it face down on the desk and smiling at you.

You knew that smile. She wanted something.

“So, Y/N right?” You nodded, “I see you’re looking for work.”

“Well, I’m with a temp agency right now but-”

“Would you like something a little more permanent?” A permanent job? The Thrombey’s had paid you very well to tutor Meg, better than you were making now. Granted you had only worked 15 hours a week when you were tutoring her, so $20 an hour didn’t seem like that big of a deal, but if they were looking for something, anything full time…

“Absolutely,” You smiled, shifting in your seat, “I’ve had trouble being hired because my-”

“Okay so you’re going to need Ransom’s number, and you’ll start tomorrow.” Your smile dropped.

“Ransom needs a tutor?” You asked skeptically. She laughed.

“No, he needs an assistant.” She gestured towards herself, “I can’t keep telling him when or where to be for family events and he has a fairly active social life so I’m gifting him an assistant for his birthday.” Oh.

“I uhm,” You really didn’t want to work for Ransom. You REALLY didn’t want to work for Ransom. “How much would it…?” You trailed off nervously.

“My father paid you $20 an hour to tutor Meg, yes?” She asked, typing something into her computer, no longer looking at you.

“Yes, he did.” You moved trying to see what she was typing without bringing too much attention to it. She was drafting an email.

“So I’ll pay you the same. Ransom will set hours for you and decide what days of the week he’ll need you and what else he wants you to do,” She waved her hand dismissively, “Cleaning, cooking, whatever.” She scribbled on a post-it before peeling and handing it to you. “Here’s his number and address, you can go over the particulars of your job tomorrow morning.” You opened your mouth to speak again, ask her the million and one questions you have but before you could say anything she dismissed you, “That is all.” She said. And she was done with you.

She got what she wanted. And now she wanted you to leave.

So you did.

“Well,” He grinned, “Linda really scooped you up from the bottom of the barrel, huh?” You stood on Ransom’s front porch. The only texts you sent and received last night were ‘What time do you need me to be there?’ and an hour later the reply of ‘11’. The scumbag was standing in the doorway, leant against the frame, looking down on you. In more than one way.

“Can I come in?” You asked. You really didn’t want to do this. But a $12 an hour temp job versus $20 hour stability… hard to beat. He smirked, pushing off the frame before looking you up and down, turning to disappear into the house.

“Take off your shoes.” What a fucking joke. His house was a mess. Clothes thrown haphazardly around, a pile of dishes not in the sink, but on the counter. Abandoned cups, tv was rolling on in the background, some political documentary. The house, while contemporary and clean, well kept on the outside. The inside looked like a frat house during rush week. You didn’t want to take off your shoes in fear that you’d step in vomit or something worse.

He grinned off to the side, “Had some people over last night.” He explained, drinking what looked like orange juice from a coffee mug. The vodka bottle that was capless on the counter led you to believe that orange juice wasn’t the only thing in the cup. “You can start by cleaning up.” He gestured around, sinking back down into the sofa. “I’m sure I’ll think of something else you can do when you’re done.” The fucking prick.

You shut the door a little heavier than intended, slipping your sneakers off and placing them by the door. “You’ve got a laundry room?” You asked, he didn’t look away from the television,

“Basement.” And he was done with you too. The tone was very, don’t talk to me. Which honestly you were grateful for.

You cleaned up his messes, the red solo cups that littered almost every surface in every room, laundry was running in the basement, dishwasher working hard to sanitize the first round of plates and cups that could fit, the others waiting patiently in the sink as you wipe counters and dusted picture frames, the thick film of unappreciation. He didn’t care about his house, his furniture, the art that cost more than your apartment that lined his walls. His clothes, while having an extensive closet, some were threadbare and with holes.

He didn’t care.

And it made you angry.

You thought of the furniture you were able to keep from your Mother’s house, well oiled and kept. No scratches. The fabrics of the couches and chairs carefully cleaned and maintained.

His sheets were stained and you were unsure when the last time he had washed them actually was. The dampness made you gag. It wasn’t long before you were cleaning under his feet. His ankles crossed and feet resting on the coffee table as you straightened the area around him. You felt his eyes on you, briefly, but ignored it.

“Do you have any real clothes?” He asked suddenly. He stood from the sofa, rounding it to pull the vodka bottle back out from the cabinet you’d placed it in, pouring heavily into the coffee mug before leaving the bottle and the orange juice carton he followed with next to it.

“These are real clothes.” You stated, coming behind him to put the items away. He scoffed,

“I’m important,” He claimed, “I go to parties, events.” He took a large mouthful of the screwdriver he’d just made, “You can’t wear clothes like that if you’re gonna be babysitting me the whole time.” You rolled your eyes,

“I don’t have to go. You set my hours, I don’t-”

“As much as I love the whole, ‘I’m poor and don’t care what I look like’, thing you have going on,” Ransom laughed, “You’re gonna be around me, and as a reflection of me, you need to look presentable.” He gestured to the demin shorts a t-shirt you were currently wearing, mismatched socks on your feet. You felt your face flush. “And slap a little makeup on.” You rolled your eyes at that. Fucking dick. He smirked when you didn’t reply, turning back around to leave you and disappeared upstairs.

He didn’t come down for a while. In that time you’d finished cleaning the living area, the house looking a complete 180 from where it had been when you’d originally entered, it was nearing dinner time. Your stomach was growling and you’d realized you had been cleaning for five hours without stopping.

You didn’t get to enjoy the sense of accomplishment because Ransom came down the stairs not a moment later, dressed for his evening. If you didn’t hate him so much you’d drool. He looked good. Patterned slacks, chelsea boots, a lightweight white button down, blazer over one arm. “Let’s go.” He said, not stopping on his way towards the front door.

“Where are we going?” You felt gross, covered in grime from cleaning, sweat dried on your skin you knew you probably didn’t smell amazing, hair frizzed up in a bun. He didn’t answer you, continuing outside. You sighed heavily, throwing the pair of socks you’d just matched back into the laundry basket before slipping your shoes on and following him outside.

“C’mon!” He yelled from the front seat of his beamer, sunglasses on his nose, he was annoyed with you. Whatever. You sat heavily in his passenger seat, the dickwad not even giving you time to close the door before he was speeding down the driveway.

“Where are we going?” You asked again. One hand on the wheel, the other’s fingertips brushing against his lower lip he looked at you from behind his sunglasses.

“To dinner.” He smirked, looking back towards the road as you merged onto the interstate.

He was a fucking asshole. If you hadn’t thought he was before you definitely knew now. You were surprised the hostess even let you into this place. It was expensive, and you were very, very underdressed. Point taken Ransom. Thank you. Fucking prick.

He took glances at you ever so often, seated a few feet away from him at the long banquet style table that housed all of his ‘friends.’ Gorgeous women and equally as gorgeous men who had money to burn. You weren’t sure any of these people have ever worked a day in their life, much like Ransom himself. You’d met a few of them before, briefly, when Ransom would show up and ask Harlan for money before disappearing for a week, one or two of them would be in tow bragging about going on some guy’s yacht or flying out to some private island.

Regardless, they weren’t talking to you. You were a strange interloper, easily ignored, but only after a few poked fun at the stray dog at Ransom’s heels. It only stung a little bit when he laughed with them. You were wildly uncomfortable. You poked at your deconstructed salad, the little bits lined neatly up on the plate, a smear of salad dressing beside it. This menu was ridiculous. Why were you here again? You were so hungry and this was not your speed at all. Ransom’s booming laugh met your ears and you could feel the anger rising in your chest.

Fucking asshole. You hoped he would choke on one of the olives in his martini. His eyes met yours momentarily and he smirked. He fucking smirked, cheersing you with his martini before it met his lips again. You could kill him right now.

The money.

Technically you were still working. As the sun set behind the horizon. You’d been at work, technically, for about 10 hours. That’s $200. Okay, you can do this. You can do this.

You know he did this to embarass you. He made it clear when you’d pull up to the restaurant to give you a taunting look. Whether the dinner was already planned or he had planned it after the conversation about clothes and makeup earlier was anyone’s guess. You had the feeling it was the latter.

He’d paid the bill after all.

The entirety of it.

You’d wished you’d ordered more.

Afterward a giggling girl took your place in the front seat, you glared at the back of her head from the back seat,

“Ransom.” She whined, leaning over in her seat to press her lips to his neck, “I want you to fuck me.” Lips around his ear, sucking the lobe into her mouth. You shifted your gaze to the window, the city landscape passing your eyes as you’d pulled into another valet parking, a bar this time. A nice one.

Ransom and the bubbly girl from the car ride over slipped hastily into the bathroom, he’d sent you a dark look before leaving you to your own devices. Looking over the cocktail list while sitting uncomfortably on a bar stool while your boss was fucking a girl who’d laughed at you for being a ‘dog’ earlier in the bathroom of a bar that had a $20 old fashioned and their most expensive wine came with a thousand dollar price tag.

“You lost?” Another smirking asshole, sidled up next to you at the bar as you took a sip from the beautifully balanced old fashioned you’d tacked onto Ransom’s tab. He was handsome, the guy bothering you, almost everyone in this room was handsome. The lights low and romantic, candles on every table and across the bar, soft music played from the piano across the room where a man sat gently stroking the melodies to create the ambiance of the room. Close, cozy, romantic, and dark enough to forget yourself in.

“Oh c’mon honey.” The man slipped onto the barstool, thighs spread wide around you as you face away from him, his hand meeting your back. “I can help you find what you’re looking for.” His breath reeked of alcohol. You glanced over at him,

“I’m fine thank you.” Another sip, damn this drink was good. He chuckled, moving in closer, drifting a hand down to your thigh.

“Don’t be like that.” He laughed, “You obviously don’t belong here honey.” His hand traced your bare thigh, “You’ve gotta be wanting some company.”

Ransom had returned face flushed and you could almost see a tiny bit of white on his nose, but it was quickly rubbed away. He sat on the opposite end of the bar, the girl from earlier taking his lap. He looked down at you briefly, he had to have seen how uncomfortable you were, how this guy was breathing down your neck. He ignored it, ordering a drink from the bartender.

“I don’t want any company,” You shoved the man’s hand away, “Have a great night.” He leaned back in his seat, downing his drink before leaning back over to put his face in yours.

“Fucking ugly bitch.” He spat, standing from the stool, “Tryna give you a little charity here, you could've at least been grateful.” You wanted to leave. He shoved your shoulder slightly as he walked away from you, no doubt going to bother some other unsuspecting woman in his radius.

You needed some air, taking the last sip of your drink you’d scooted back from the bar, walking by Ransom to take your exit, walking out into the summer night. It was early summer. It was still only 60 at night. A chill went through you. You hadn’t expected to be out so late, the comfortable denim shorts and old ratty t shirt you’d chosen to wear had obviously been a mistake for this day. Ransom made sure to make you see that.

The bar was on the harbor, and it brought in a breeze that caused goosebumps to rise on your skin. You checked your phone, the battery almost dead. Julia had been texting you periodically, but not as much as you would have liked. You scrolled through the most recent messages, you asking how her trip was going and what she was up to and her stilted replies. She was busy you supposed. She didn’t need you, but right now you really needed her.

This night has been a massive blow to your self-esteem. You’d never felt more ugly and unwanted in your life. You just wanted to go home, but Ransom wasn’t done yet. You looked at him from the window, his fingers were gone between that girl’s thighs, they were both drinking expensive cocktails, completely oblivious to you.

He’d watched you exit, not giving it much thought it seemed, because he hadn’t made any motion to bring the night to a close, but you weren’t really expecting him to. It was Ransom’s world and you were just living in it. You worked for him. And you wondered if this is how every day is going to be from here on out. You really don’t know if you could do this forever, but you knew you didn’t want to go back inside.

So you didn’t.

Thankfully Ransom stumbled out about thirty minutes later, girl from earlier on his arm. “Let’s go.” He said. Valet pulling the beamer around he threw you the keys, “Take me home.”

He sunk down in the back seat, high and drunk. His words almost incoherent. Her’s were no better. They sloppily attacked each other in the back seat, indecently. And you were pointedly looking anywhere but in the rearview. Soft grunts and moans made you uncomfortable for the fourth time that night. Your skin crawling in unease as the girl’s giggles turned into breathy moans. Your foot sunk against the gas pedal in hopes you’d get back to his home faster, tears welling up in your eyes. The cry on the way home was going to be so good. So cathartic.

The gravel crunching against the wheels of the car was a sweet relief, so was the haste in which you left the keys in the car, running and skipped to your own car. His eyes met yours through the darkness as he was leant up against his car door, slacks loose around his hips, the girl’s lips attached to his neck as her hand worked quickly between his thighs. He smirked, waving a sarcastic ‘good-bye’. You turned your eyes to the road, cranking up the radio as you began to cry.

You didn’t want to do this anymore.

A text came through right as you finally laid down in your own bed, snuggling into the covers, ready to forget the night.

See you at 9.

taglist // @littlechillies @hellizhelusive2 @notbexmader @marvelouspottering @whitequeenasitbgan @Thegraylaway @readermia @i-believe-in-unicorns-and-you @princess-evans-addict @perplexed3001 @Diedrashouseofpain @hailmary-yramliah @sleepycvpid @joannaliceevans-fanficblog @starlywars @gifsbysimplysonia @rocknbasil @imnotelasticheart @wannabegonnie @d1sconnect3d @heyguyz13 @unimomajo @this-is-serenaa @steviemae @bemysugarbean @truefangirlheart @babiiface95 @mydarlingharry @elzzin @bookish-shristi @saturnki @jennmurawski13 @geeksareunique

#ransom drysdale #ransom drysdale x reader #knives out #chris evans

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ganda4ever · 4 years

Text

The Story He Wanted

She is now living on her own and she doesn’t need a man to get what she wants. As helpful as her dad, brothers, and friends would be; Analía Reneé Delgado de La Cruz was determined to build her door sign herself. After being recently hired as parental educator and case manager for teenage parents, Anie wanted to create a way for her families to know if it was okay to drop in and visit her; while they were in the building for other courses with a cute door sign she made herself. “You are strong. You are powerful. You are capable of making the impossible; your possibilities,” Anie repeats to herself as she sits in her Toyota Corolla in the late August heat of Los Angeles. These 3 simple, but most meaningful, sentences are what her grand-dad and abuelo have for her for the last 21 years of her life.

As soon as she walks into Home Depot, Anie could feel her anxiety wash over her by all of the overwhelming sounds and insights in front of her. For years, her behavior therapist have always encouraged her to go out into the world and overcome her sensory issues; but today should not have been the day she thought she could handle it. Anie swallows forcefully and marches over to the wood section to ask an employee what types of materials she should buy.

“It’s okay. Thanks for trying to help. Have a good day” Anie sights to herself as she repeats the same generic sentences to the 9th employee that said, “uhh...sorry I don’t really know. You could try asking so and so” as they point lazily toward another general white guy with an orange apron on. She puts her hand on her temples to soothe the anxiety and headache coming on. “You are strong. You are powerful. You are capable of making the impossible; your possibilities'' Anie repeats once again to herself. She looks around to see if she can find another employee, but this guy with short, slightly frizzy hair starts walking up to her.

Anie tries to walk away as fast as possible but the young hottie catches her and says, “Hey, do you need help?” as his brown eyes catch the dim lighting in aisle 9 of this Home Depot.

“Yea, I could use some help. Do you work here?” Anie says with the breath she didn’t realize she was holding in.

“Haha!!” he booms out of his mouth a little louder than the average person. “No, I don’t; but they really should look into hiring me. May quit my day job for it” he says a little quieter and flashes you a full grin showcasing his pearly white teeth.

Anie smiles at this kind and good looking stranger and says, “You know what they say, ‘don’t quit your day job,’” she says trying to be funny, and failing miserably at. “Well if you aren’t busy, I really could use some help. I have no clue what I’m doing,” she says, feeling as desperate as they came. “I’m Analía by the way” as she extends her hand to shake his.

“Grayson, but you can call me Gray,” he says as he meets her hand.

She shows him the picture and explains her vision, so they are able to work together. For 3 hours, they go up and down every aisle in the store picking out woods and screws. Every once in a while Anie catches herself staring at Grayson, no Gray, a little longer than she probably should. When she isn’t staring at him or trying to pick the right screw and hinge color, Anie is answering one of the many questions Gray has asked her. She tells him about her new job, starting graduate school in a week, and little details about herself. Normally, Anie would never respond in that fashion; especially after what happened with her ex. Anie always told herself, “no one cares. just smile, nod, and look pretty. that’s what you do.” But Gray has made her feel welcomed and safe. Every question he asks makes what she says the most important thing in the world. She tells herself , “he is just being nice. Maybe looking for a quick hook-up in the parking lot.”

By the time Anie is able to convince herself Gray may just be a nice guy, they find themselves in the paint aisle. “Okay, if you go with this brand in any color; it shouldn’t fade or chip for a long time. That way you won’t need to come to this scary place for some time” Grayson says as he points to the BEHR selection on the swatch display.

“Okay, perfect. Thank you so much for all of your help. Is there any way I could prepaid you? Seriously, I was ready to completely give up.”

Grayson shakes his head no and says, “Nothing, really. Just knowing you got everything you need and that’s right; is all the payment I need. Also if you need a power drill you can rent one at customer services. It’s pretty cheap and probably a better option for a one time project.”

“That’s great! Thanks again for all of your help.” Anie smiles at Gray, hoping it will show him she is interested in him; as he flashes a little grin to her. To not make it awkward Anie says, “well, I’m sure you came here for a reason and I think I could be here for hours; so thanks again. Have a nice day.”

“Oh, yea. Yea. Of course, no problem. Have a good day and good luck with work and school,” he says with a little wave and a wink. And with that Anie watched him walk away. She frowns with the disappointment that she couldn’t get the courage to ask this beautiful man out.

The Gods or her brain must have known Analie has been in this overwhelming situation for far too long and needs to get home; because she picked the 2 paint colors she needed in record time for someone that took 5 days just to pick a mattress. She grabs her paint for the employee after they mixed it and places it in the cart. As she is pushing her heavier load up to the front, she can’t tell where a line starts and where one ends. Analie puts herself into what she thought was an okay spot until she hears, “Sweetheart. You may be able to push pass all of the ugly girls in high school, but here you always go behind the men.”

Analie starts to turn around when she realizes the man was talking to her; but then she hears in a harsher , but still very deep and sexy tone, a voice that memorized her all day says, “Dude. Calm the fuck down. She’s with me. Babe! Analie, I am over here. Did you get the paint we needed?” As Anie finishes her turn around she feels a strong, but still gentle, hand pulling her over to the check-out line to her left.

“Oh. I am so sorry. Guess I didn’t see you sir. I’m so sorry again.” She turns to Gray and says, “Yea, I did. Only took 10 minutes after all.” She smiles at Gray as to say, “Thank you for saving me from the dick over there.”

“Yea. Well ‘dude’, just keep your bitch in line and she won’t have any problems.” Anie can visibly see how upset Grayson is getting the more and more this man tries to speak and how he thinks it’s funny to verbally disrespect a woman in public. Anie thinks about her dad and brothers and tries to get in between this guy and Grayson to prevent a fight from breaking out; except Grayson just smiles and tells the guy, “Why don’t you just get in front of us and I’ll pay for your materials? Since being in line any longer is such a big deal for you.”

The dick of a man, just stares at Grayson like he is seeing a ghost. When Grayson pushes you and your cart back to allow the man to get over, the man practically runs over. After the man is finished checking out and Grayson finishes paying. He starts to put your materials on the belt and mixes your things together.

“Oh, no. You have done plenty for me. Seriously, I need to pay for our things.” Anie says as she tries to get passed Grayson to the card reader, but he bets her to it by sticking his credit card into the chip reader. He smiles as to tell her, “It’s okay. Please let me do this.” After the cashier puts all of Anie’s things back into her cart and Grayson grabs his bags, they start to walk out to their cars. Anie tried to think of a moment to thank Grayson for all of his help, but the silence feels so much better. As they reach the point where Anie needs to go one way and Gray takes the other, they both start trying to speak. Secretly both of them were hoping the other would give a sign of wanting to continue their day together, but it never happened. When they both start speaking at the same time, neither one understands the other. Grayson motions to Anie that she can talk first. She blushes and says, “I forgot about renting the drill. I’ll just go back in after loading my car. But thank you so much again for literally saving me.” She smiles at him, hoping he will get what she is putting off.

“No problem whatsoever. But what if I can get your number, we can build it at my place. This way you know it will be done right and I have all of the tools needed.” Grayson is pulling out his phone so fast, Anie doesn’t can’t even remember where she put her phone.

“I mean I would love that, because you can tell I struggle in the whole building aspect of life. But seriously only if you have some time, it can wait a minute before I really need it,” Anie says the whole time she is typing in her number and checking to make sure she spelt and wrote everything completely right; because it would be her luck to give him the wrong number by accident.

Grayson looks at her and sees the way her blue eyes shimmer in the L.A. pink and purple sunset behind them. “Actually, I was just going to grab some dinner and then head home. My brother’s girlfriend is over, so I would be all alone for the rest of the night. Why don’t we load up your car, and you follow me over to my favorite restaurant and afterwards we build.” Anie had no idea what to say, she just nodded her head. Saying a prayer thanking God something finally worked out okay for her.

“Yeah. That sounds really fun and a good way to spend our time. I mean building my sign, cause you know that has been my priority today,” Anie wants to run and hide by her cringy comment, but Grayson just laughs and agrees with her. Together they load up Anie’s car with everything she just bought and drives over to Grayson’s car. Before Grayson pulls out, Anie knows tonight is only going to end one of two ways: the biggest regret and mistake of her 21 years of life or she may have just found her eternal soulmate. Considering her previous relationship, Anie is really hoping for the latter to happen tonight. She could use a good gentleman in her life; and the possibility of this god of a man as her husband, doesn’t sound too bad.

#grayson dolan #dolan twins #ganda4ever

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prussianvenom · 4 years

Text

Angels Mom

Rhys goes to her buddy Angels house for a college project Only to find out that her buddy's mom is not only a superstar But the superstar Rhys has been idolizing for years

(nsfw)

pls accept this hot garbage

“The teacher is such a dick!”

The brunette kicks over a small trash can in anger, 2 smaller figures following behind her in her warpath.

“Let's be fair Rhys, we do, do every other project or assignment together. It's reasonable for them to separate us.” Vana, bless her tiny heart, speaks sense.

Behind Vana was another smaller, mousier girl who followed with stacks of sketchbooks pressed to her chest.

“I’m sorry you can't work with your friend Rhys, but, I’m sure we can do alright on this project together.”

Rhys’ anger melts away. Now feeling like a complete jackass for being so unwelcoming to their other friend.

“Oh damn, no, sorry Angel, it's not that, I love hanging out with you, it's just. UGH, that guy is such a fucking dick.”

“It was pretty unnecessary to put you guys on the spot like that.”

“And make it seem like we don't have any other friends. What an ass!” Rhys stomps a little further ahead. “Anyways, no sense stewing about it. We should start planning out a schedule and stuff. Do you want to come to our dorm? Get a head start on everything?”

“Oh! Definitely, uh, but my mom is probably preparing dinner right now. If you'd like, I’m sure she’ll make enough for another person. If you don't mind coming over.”

Rhys’ face lit up at the promise of a home-cooked meal in lieu of whatever microwaveable shit she and Vana had in their dingy little dorm room.

“Oh hell yeah, are you on your way now?” Angel nods and Rhys turns to Vana. “Guess I’ll see you later tonite bro. Remember, Project Runways on tonite and I swear to God-”

“I won't tape over your stupid show again, it happened once ok!” Rhys chortles and waves her off and follows the other away.

“Ah, I don't have a car, we live pretty close by. That's ok?”

“Oh totally, good cardio or whatever. But like, wow? This neighborhood is like, ivy league houses. That must be like a small fortune, I didn't know you came from such rich blood.” Rhys jests.

Angel giggles. “I guess heh. Ma worked pretty hard to get where she is.”

“You don't say? Now that I think about it, this is the first I’ve heard you say anything about your family before.”

Angel stops and blinks owlishly at her friend.

“I haven't? Huh. I guess it never came up. I don't think I know much about your or Vanas family either.” Rhys nods in agreement. “In any case, since my mom is gonna be around I should let you know that she can be, a, well, a little eccentric.”

“Eccentric?”

“Bitchy.”

Rhys chokes on a sudden burst of laughter at her friend’s blatant rip on her own mom.

“It's true! I mean, according to a lot of guests we have had. She can be kind of abrasive, blunt. She has like no filter.”

Rhys smiles and turns to focus on the neighborhood. She holds back a gasp. They had wandered into the really, really nice part of town. Borderline mansions painted burgundy and trimmed with gold surrounded them. Bentley's and Mercedes parked delicately on gilded brick runways leading down to the road. Not only were these the people who went to their college, but these were also the people that could own the college if they pleased. The ones who did go to their college brown-nosed and bought their way in by the looks of it. Compared to Rhys and Vana who barely made it in by the skin of their teeth and several scholarships.

“Oh man, I was, I was kidding about the whole rich blood thing. You, you guys are like, loaded loaded.”

Angel deflates.

“I guess so, does that change things?”

“No no no! I didn't mean anything by it, it doesn't change anything at all. It's just, like, people that come from places like this aren't as humble and kind as you.”

Angel smiles wide and flushes under the compliment.

They stop at the biggest and gaudiest estate in the neighborhood. The mansion is hideous. It was yellow, trimmed with black, and topped off with both silver and gold accents. Even the gate to the driveway was overly ornate and encrusted with what Rhys hoped to god wasn't actual diamonds. The whole place exuded ‘fuck you’ money. Why else would go this much overboard unless you wanted people to know how much better they were than you? The disgusting palette tells you that they also didn't give a shit what you thought.

“Dear God,” She cocks her head, pleading with her eyes towards her friend. There's no way, there's no way she lives here. “This loaded?” Her voice strains in disbelief.

Angel grimaces and nods.

“It's bright yellow.”

“I know, as I said. She's eccentric.” She turns and pushes a button on a large porcelain keypad attached to the gate.

“Hello?” A burly deep voice answers.

“Wilhelm! Hi! It's Angel, we got out early today, I have a friend with me. Can you let us in?”

“A guest? Does your mom know?” Angel pouts and bristles.

“Well, no, but she's here to collaborate with me on a project for school, cmon.”

“Right, right. I'll be right out.”

“Your dad?” Angel cringes.

“Ew, no, Wilhelm is a family friend. He works as a sort of overall maintenance, security, assistant sort of guy.”

“Fancy.”

A moment later a big hulking statue of a man comes out from the garage on the far side of the house. Way taller than any dude Rhys had ever seen, covered in grease, and the bone structure that looked like it had been chiseled out of stone. He only appears more hulking as he approaches the gate. A shine catches her eye. They both were missing an arm. They share a small look of admiration towards each other's prosthetic, a silent camaraderie.

“Hey, Angel. How was class today?”

“It was alright, this is Rhys, the one I mentioned a while ago.” Wilhelm grunts in acknowledgment.

“Welcome to the Lawrence home, Rhys.” He greets as he opens the gate just enough to let the pair in.

“That guy is terrifying,” Rhys whispers as soon as they're out of earshot.

“Wilhelm? Oh, he’s a big ol sweetheart, once you get to know him. He’s not the one you need to worry about.” Angel carefully opens the door, closing it behind Rhys to make no sound.

“Angel?” A familiar-sounding husky woman voice calls out and Angel curses under her breath.

“Yeah, it's me Ma. I got a friend with me. Is that gonna be alright?”

“Of course baby,”

Then, sidling around the corner of the open dining room was the last person Rhys had ever expected to see in her lifetime. Hand on her hip, standing in the ray of sun, haloed like a golden goddess, was Rhys’ childhood-adulthood idol.

Jacqueline Lawrence.

An actress a long time in the making, recently made CEO some years ago of her own studio company. Not only that, but before her acting days she was a prodigy in the tech department, making her not only gorgeous but a genius beyond her years.

This woman bit and kicked her way to the top, embedded herself on the silver screen to be remembered and loved for generations to come. Adored and wanted by millions, billions even.

And she was Angel’s goddamn mother.

Rhys, knew, as a fan, that Jaq had a child, but it was always hush hush.

It was Angel.

Dear God

“Well, who’s this then?”

The silver fox approaches the duo, each move, each step, exuding confidence and power. Rhys nearly choked. She was floored, flabbergasted. This couldn't be real. She's never dreamed of being this close to this idol. Even at events she couldn't get this close, couldn't even get within arms reach. Yet here she was, even closer than arms reach. If Rhys reached out she could touch her. She briefly wonders if she’d recognize Rhys from all the events, and kind of hopes that she doesn't. She doesn't want to explain to her dear, dear friend that she's dreamed of meeting her mother since before she was even born.

“I’m, I’m, uh,” Rhys tries and fails to clear her throat. “R-Rhys, my name is Rhys. Ma’am”

Jacqueline bears her teeth in a wolfish grin.

“And what are you in school for huh, Rhysie?”

Rhys feels a cold sweat run down her spine.

“Coding and mechanical engineering ma’am.” Rhys mentally high fives herself for not stuttering, then again when she sees the appeased look on the actress’s face.

“Oh yeah? Did some coding myself back in the day. Little bit before I met Wilhelm. Kind of miss it. Maybe you can catch me up on all the new and improved bits, ey kiddo?” She winks and Rhys’ knees nearly crumple.

“I, I would be honored to miss.” Jaq chuckles and claps Rhys on the shoulder.

“Dear Christ this chick is more skittish than you are Angel!. It's freakin precious! Goodness, gracious. She's like a terrified mouse.”

“I'm just a big fan of your work.”

“Oh?” Jaq grins, and grips Rhys’ shoulder a smidge tighter which causes her to shiver, a reaction misinterpreted.

“Hey, kid, relax a little, I ain’t gonna hurt ya. You guys do whatever you need to do, lemme know if you need anything ok?” Jaq then turns to preen her daughter, pinching her cheeks comically before leaving.

The sharp turn throws long tufts of hair in their faces, and Rhys swears she could smell the overpriced conditioner she uses in her wake. She saunters, downright saunters off to where she emerged from and out of sight. The moment she's out of sight Rhys goes to throttle her small friend.

“Hey, Angel, quick question. Why. The. Fuck. Did you not tell me your mom is the goddamn Jacqueline Lawrence!?”

“I, I didn't think it was worth mentioning. I mean, she hasn't been on screen for a good while. Should I have said something?” Angel implores, looking up at Rhys with her big crystally eyes.

How she managed to elude Rhys’ obsession with her mother was astounding. At the same time, she's a bit glad though. There's a chance she wouldn't have invited her over otherwise.

“Just, surprised. Like, really surprised. She's famous, not to mention powerful. Like, make people disappear kind of powerful.”

“Oh, when you put it like that I can see why it could be a little alarming. She's just, never made it out to be a big thing, give me a sort of normal childhood and whatnot.”

“It's ok, crazy. You guys don't even look that much alike.” Angel giggles. “And I was honest back there, I am like a huge freaking fan. I kind of wished you invited me over sooner hehe.”

“Oh? So you can drool all over my mom?”

“No! No no no no, I wouldn't, I would never, I would still hang out with you! That wouldn’t change!”

Angel laughs loudly and gives Rhys a very incredulous look. For a second she could very much see the resemblance of her mother in her. She sets down her stuff and motions for Rhys to follow.

“I’m serious Angel, I do love hanging out with you. She's, she's just, she's my idol.” Angel gives her another dramatically tuned flat look.

“Mhhm, whatever you say, Rhys. You want to set up and get started, I’m going to go take a quick shower ok? Still got art 2’s lesson all over my skin and it's starting to get itchy.”

“Yeah, of course, I’ll sketch out some ideas and stuff.”

“Oh, also, don't be a spaz and weird my mom out.” Rhys mocks offense before flipping the bird at the giggling punk.

Rhys makes herself comfortable in the expansive living room. She makes a little setup, a little Rhys area for herself, to start working. She was so busy fucking around with various weird codes on her laptop that she didn’t notice the encroaching presence coming into her area.

“Quite the setup.” Rhys jumps a foot in the air from where she was sitting

Jacqueline laughs obnoxiously loud and plops across the other in a large lounge chair. She lazily swirls a glass of what Rhys assumes is whiskey in one hand, the other playing idly with the armchair. Rhys’s eyes bulge out of her eyes when she takes in Jacqueline's lounging attire. The shirt. The shirt was silk, buttoned-down to just above her navel, it was thin, white, and translucent. Quite translucent. It barely covered her breasts. She could see the caramel tan of her skin through the milky white. A living wet dream if Rhys ever saw one.

“Looking a little flustered there, kiddo. What’s wrong?~”

Jacqueline’s voice was dripping with accusation. It sent shivers racing up and down Rhys’ spine.

“It's, well, I’m a huge fan. And, it’s just, being near you, It’s crazy for me.” Rhys smiles weakly.

Jacqueline’s expression sours and her voice hardens.

“Is that the reason you hanging around my Angel?”

“Oh! Oh no no no no! Not at all. She, she never mentioned that you were her mother until today. We’re good friends. She just doesn’t talk that much about herself.”

Jacqueline smiles something bright and genuine. Though it’s their first meeting, Rhys feels like she’s seeing something rare and sacred.

“That’s good to hear.” She whispers to herself before chuckling low. The chuckles crescendo into full-blown laughter. “Oh man though, your face. Priceless. People, I’m used to them being antsy, but oh boy do you take the cake. Are you always such a spaztastic disaster?”

“No, well, it’s, you’re my idol. I know that must sound crazy. I’ve followed all your works since you’ve come onto the scene. For years I’ve tried my best to be as confident and stunning as you. I'm sorry. This sounds so cringy doesn't it?"

Already arched eyebrows arch higher.

“All my works huh?”

“Yeah?” Rhys swallows thickly. Jacqueline’s grin grows feral.

“Even the ones from my old coding days?”

Rhys’s eyes go saucer wide and her face drains of color.

So...so that’s why Wilhelm looked familiar to her.

“I..I don’t know wha-.” Jacqueline sits up straight, looking like the cat that got the canary.

“Oh my God! You have!” Jacqueline’s teeth exposed, looking Chesire-like, pure giddiness written all over her. “You’ve seen my pornos holy shit!”

“N-no, I, I mean, I-” Rhys wants to hide.

To run, to die, something to get away from this nightmare. Her first actual meeting with her idol AND her friend’s sister, for it to end up like this, there’s no coming back. She felt sick and buried her face into her hands for some solace.

“Aww, no need to be embarrassed. I was quite the bombshell back then, well, I mean, I still am now, you get what I mean. I’ve always been hot as hell. I’m impressed though. Thought I scrubbed every trace of those bad boys. Made sure none of them would see the light of day. You must have done some hard as hell digging to find those relics.

“They, uh, they were...I paid a lot to get some of them.” Rhys says meekly and confused.

“Holy shit, you serious?”

“To be fair, I didn’t know what was on the tapes when I bought them, I was under the impression they were old exclusives.”

“So what then? You only watched a bit?”

Rhys remains frozen and silent.

“Holy shit.” Jaq leans forward into Rhys space. “You watched all of them didn’t ya?” Rhys bites her lip nervously. Jaq gets even closer. “Did ya get off on them Rhysie?” When Rhys doesn’t answer Jaq continues. “Did you touch yourself?”

Jaq whispers it, with almost reverence. Joy in her voice, like a highschooler finding out her friend's crush. She’s not mad, not angry, not anything like Rhys imagined. She’s teasing her.

Rhys’ breath stills and clumps in her throat and chest. She’s on the border of panic and..arousal? She’s not quite sure. The cold sweat returns with a vengeance.

The silence drags on too long for Rhys’ liking, the way it lingers proving Jaq right about her assumptions.

“Ooo, Rhysie, Rhysie. Your silence speaks volumes.” She leans back, satisfied. Her legs spread wide, authority exudes from her broad form. Her aura reeks of smugness. “How would your friend react if she knew you got off to her mom, hm? That you beat off to videos of her mother getting pounded, huh?”

Panic

Jaq was mad. She deemed her an unfit friend. That or she was disgusted with her.

“God, you’re precious. I can smell your fear from over here. It's been a while since I found anyone this amusing.”

“W-...Really?” Confused again, Rhys chokes out a small reply.

Something flickers in Jaqs eyes, the tiniest bit. Something mischievous. She arches her back, shifts the smallest amount so her shirt falls a little more to the side. Rhys feels like her mind is melting. What the fuck is going on?

“Hm? Uh, yeah, you’re cute darling. Charming, in your own spazzy way. Own it. There’s nothing more dull and irritating than a dumb hot chick.”

“Huh? You, you think I’m cute?”

“Yeah I do, I don’t go around blowing smoke up people's asses unless they can back it up. You’re attractive. Hell, if you put some more work into it you could get heads spinning.”

“You think I’m hot?” Rhys is both stunned and highly incredulous.

“Not only am I saying you’re hot, but I’m also saying you’re sexy. Listen, Honey,” Jacqueline puts a foot on Rhys’s thigh, taking her by surprise. “I’m saying a whole lot more than that.” Jaq finally shrugs off the rest of the shirt, exposing herself to the other woman.

Rhys’s mouth is both dry and wet. If that’s even possible.

“So listen. Mama here hasn’t had any fun as of late. Would you like to change that for me Rhysie?~”

“But, but, what about Angel?” The protest felt weak even coming out of her mouth as she leaned against the foot and towards the woman.

“It’s pretty scummy of me ain’t it?” Jacqueline grins wickedly. “You can say no Cupcake...Just so you know, regardless of what she says, her showers always take half an hour or more. She wouldn’t catch us.”

“We...We shouldn’t.” Rhys has to force the words out.

“Ohhh, but when will you get the chance again?” She lazily draws a line across her chest down to the hem of her pants.

That was the straw to the camel's back for little ol Rhys. The brunette throws away the rest of her inhibitions and lurches at the woman. She shoves her face eagerly between the star’s breasts and grabs them by the handfuls. Jacqueline laughs at Rhys’s enthusiasm and tangles her hand in the silky brown hair. Rhys moans at the little tugs she's given as she sucks and licks the others tits.

“Ooh, hehehe. That didn’t take a lot of convincing did it, huh?”

Rhys doesn’t respond to the jab, just grunts as she licks a nipple into her mouth. Jacqueline purrs and tightens her grip in Rhys’s hair. Rhys whimpers and opens her mouth to moan, drooling onto Jaqs chest.

“You’re a sloppy little bitch yknow that?” Rhys whines against Jacqueline’s warm flesh. She rises on her knees to further bury her flushed face away. “Ohoho. Sounds like somebody enjoys a little demeaning.~”

Rhys looks up at the older woman with big glossy mismatched eyes. Embarrassment etched hard unto her young features.

“I-I-”

“Shh doll, I ain’t judgin.” Jaq waves dismissively and peers down at the other. “Besides, you’ve seen all the crazy shit I got into and got off to. No need to be coy.”

Her hand yanks Rhys head back with a jolt. Jacqueline leans in and kisses the center of Rhys’s throat and whispers. “Let go Babydoll. Go on and tell me what you want.

Rhys’s breath comes out in loud broken gasps.

“I wanna...I wanna taste you. Want to make you feel good.” Rhys manages to get through harsh staccato breaths.

“Oh? Fan of carpet munching are ya?”

Jaq leans back and spreads her thighs to accommodate the other. She waves her hand in a gesture to give Rhys the go-ahead. The brunette tentatively grasps powerful thighs. She takes a moment to savor the heat coming off her before going for the zipper. Jacqueline follows the movement with her eyes. Lifts her hips for the younger to peel off the jeans. Smiling, taunting, as Rhys’ pale hand snakes over her thighs, shaking and nervous. Yellow satin panties, expensive no doubt, was the last thing that stood in Rhys’s way. The last barrier to a fantasy she had been living out in her head for almost a decade now.

Jacqueline picks up on Rhys increasing tension and guides Rhys’s hands to the cloth.

“Don’t mean to be a bitch here cupcake, but huh,” Rhys’s hand is pushed against the crotch of the panties. “ Can we get on with it?”

Rhys nods her head frantically and pulls the golden fabric down toned legs. It was a lot for her to take in. Her idol, the centerpiece of her infatuation, was sitting naked in front of her, legs spread, wet cunt right there for the taking. Rhys had to take a moment to thank whatever God allowed this to happen.

Rhys carefully leans forward and licks between her lips. Jaq bucks up into the contact.

“Stop pussyfooting,” Jacqueline growls. “Get on with it.”

Jaq fists Rhys hair again in an attempt to bring the other in closer. A shame. Rhys wants to take her time though. Regardless of the sensitive time situation they’ve been handed. She wanted to live it out to the fullest, remember every little detail. The knuckles against her scalp insisted otherwise. The first real violent tug of hair had Rhys jaw unhinged and moaning loudly. The noise vibrated against the others clit, eliciting a delicious reaction. Jacqueline rolls towards the sensation and chirps.

“Oooh, there we go!~” Jaqs voice was dripping with sex and mirth. “You dirty masochistic bitch.”

Rhys whimpers, drags her tongue flat against her clit, closes her lips around the nub, and sucks hard. Jaq swears and grinds her pussy against the student’s face.

“Finally~ That’s a good girl.”

Rhys whimpers at the honeyed purr. Her hand itches to palm the seat of her pants. Something to ease her own need. Rhys decides against it, this was more about Jacqueline than anything else. The woman in question is humming languid moans while she continues to fiddle and thread Rhys’ mangled hair.

Jaq shifts her leg. Then again. Rhys doesn't pay attention. Figures she's trying to get comfortable and whatnot, that is, until she feels the heel of her foot press against her inner thigh. She detaches from Jaqs cunt when the pressure slides to her crotch. She gasps roughly when the older woman grinds her foot roughly against her. Rhys collapses unto Jacqueline's knee.

“You are a cute little thing Rhysie.” She jerks the young woman by her hair, pulling her back into a straight position.

“C’mon darling.”

Rhys feels tears building in the corner of her eyes. This was becoming increasingly too much for her. It was overwhelming. Rhys tries to yank herself out of her grip. She feels frantic, desperate to get back to what she was doing. Jaq lets her drop and Rhys eagerly pushes her face back in between the actress’s thighs. Tongue delving back in, this time straining to push it in as far as it goes.

“H, Hey Rhys,” Jaq breathes out hotly. “You gotta be dying down there. Go, go wild baby.” She slides her calves up in between Rhys’s thighs. Rhys catches on after a dull moment. She glances up at matching heterochromatic eyes, searching for any signs of deceit. Jaq sighs and rolls her eyes dramatically. She fists her hand against Rhys scalp, the tightest she's gripped this whole time, and pulls so violently that Rhys feels strands rip out.

“I want you to get off against my leg Rhys. I want you to rut against my leg like the little bitch in heat you are. Show me. Show me what a pathetic and desperate slut you are. I want you to do all that while eating me out. Do you understand me, you fucking whore? Show me how big of a fan you are.”

Rhys is frantic now. Her whole body feels like there's a live current going through her. Jacqueline's words have her reeling. Her throat was too dry and her mouth was too wet. She nods dumbly and quickly. Her technique is sloppier and quicker with the addition of her embarrassing humping. She clamps the calf in her thighs, one of her spare hands gripping the meat of her leg with an iron grasp. The contact is a wave of relief for the student. She's already keyed so far up to the edge she fears she won't be able to hold on for more than a couple of minutes of frotting.

The situation is beyond surreal.

Jaq laughs airily. Just as breathless as Rhys at this point.

“Fuc-Fucking disgusting. Like a goddamn d-fuck-dog. God.~ You love it don't you,” Jacqueline looks at her with almost reverence. “Love being a disgusting needy little girl huh?~ Love being treated like a worm? Like dirt?” Jacqueline's words were rough, barely there, overshadowed by gruesome thrusts against Rhys’s face.

Rhys whined. The words bounced around her skull like a malfunctioning pinball machine. It left her too hot, too wet, and too horny to think or care about anything else. The stimuli has tears near spilling down her ruddy cheeks.

“God, you even like being talked down to. That's so goddamn pathetic.” Jacqueline moans through a cruel laugh. “You’re even crying.” She titters with delight.

Rhys realizes she's right with a sob. The tears had started to stream down her hot, hot face. She could only imagine how she looked to her idol right now. Hair in disarray, face red and covered in tears and sweat, whining grossly, all while sloppily fellating her and humping her leg like a dog.

She couldn't deny any of it either. Every word, every hurtful syllable, was right. They were doing it for her. Doing it for her so deliciously. They only added to the hot pool in her belly threatening to spill. Through trial and error, inspiration drawn from Jaqs seedy movies, she had found she was indeed, a little more, if not completely into, being degraded and punished.

Rhys feels the time biting away at their heels, they need to finish this off, and soon.

Unfortunately.

She uses her robotic hand to thumb against the older woman's clit. The cold untouched metal makes the actress jump and gasp. She giggles in unfound glee, like she had just discovered something new about herself.

“That's it! That's a good girl~.”

Rhys didn't know if it was how she sounded or if she also responded well to praise, but she drooled more. She curls her tongue and speeds up her movements with her thumb. Jacqueline arches her back and throws her head into the plush cushions of the chair.

“F-fuck, faster. Faster, kid.” Jacqueline had abandoned her hair and was now pulling at her shoulders.

Rhys lets her grip with her flesh hand go and pushes 2 fingers in along with her tongue. She could feel now, how hot and wet the tan woman's pussy was. She could feel the fine ridges of muscle spasming and clenching deliciously around her fingers.

Jacqueline holds back a shout. She plants her feet on the ground and buck into the stimulus with wild abandon. Her hands hold Rhys’ head down as she finally and abruptly comes. Rhys makes a high pitch sound to accompany Jaq’s gleeful growl.

Once she goes slack into her armchair Rhys hastily shoves her hand into her pants to rub her need. She barely manages to get her hand into underwear in her rush. She was soaking through the cotton. She was wet, so very wet. She vaguely recalls hearing Jaq groan above her.

“Well, ain't that a pretty sight. You close cupcake?” Rhys nods, absentmindedly aware of the words coming out of her mouth. “You gonna come without even thanking me for all this?”

Rhys doesn't even pause her manic frotting when she lays her cheek on Jaqs bare leg. She rises to her knees, so she can slip a finger into her hot pussy.

“Y, yes, thank you. Thank you so, so much miss.” Jaq laughs.

“For what?”

“ Thank you, thank you for l-letting me eat you out, miss.” Jacqueline hums happily. Pleased.

She grabs Rhys by the short hairs on her neck to tear her off her knee. She knocks the younger woman to the floor, rises to tower over her. Before Rhys can react Jacqueline's hand comes to wrap around her throat. The sudden vice forces Rhys to stare into Jaqs predatory gaze. She looked even more feral than before. Running her tongue over her teeth and lips, she looks down on her like a hungry wolf.

“Come,” Rhys body jerks at the command. “Come for me, Rhys.” The fingers around her throat tighten ever so slightly.

The sudden cut off from air has Rhys’ eyes rolling into the back of her head and her body rippling with new sickening pleasure. Her body tightens up violently. Her hands stutter and shake as they try to keep up with the high that hits her like an off railed roller coaster.

When her body finally stops convulsing Jacqueline drops her like a sack of bricks. While she lay there, capturing her stolen breaths, the other straightens up and goes back to redressing. She does it slowly, contemplatively. Maybe it's because of the post-orgasmic hue, or the high from lack of air, or even because the dream-like state of it all, but Rhys found herself taking in the mundane movements with newfound reverence. The smooth calculated way she buttoned the silk shirt back up without fail. The modeled pose of her body as she leans down to retrieve her pants and underwear. The almost sinful way she pulls them back up smooth tan legs. It makes her want to undress all over again.

Jacqueline smiles when she turns back towards the puddle of woman that was Rhys. She sighs and straddles the destroyed woman. The expression almost looks like one of sympathy.

“Hey princess, you still there?” Rhys nods,” You should fix yourself up. Wouldn't want your friend to see you looking like a two-bit whore.”

She tries to smooth down the mess she had made of Rhys’s hair, to no avail. Rhys experiences the intimate touch through a fog, but she holds unto to it as much as she can before it's gone. Jaq frowns when the hair doesn't quite cooperate with her. It wasn't perfect but at least she didn't look like someone was trying to tear her hair out anymore. She grimaces again and wipes Rhys’s mouth and chin with her sleeve. A sleeve to a shirt that probably costs more than Rhys’s entire outfit. It was a very motherly touch, Rhys thinks warmly.

“God, you look like a dog. Do you always slobber so much?” Jacqueline stands back up and gestures Rhys to finish fixing herself up.

“N, no. I don't think so.” Rhys mumbles, finally coming back to reality.

“Like, for real. Do you give blowjobs like that? Or do you skip the middleman and spit on the guys' dick. Jee-”

While Jacqueline continues spouting some convoluted and insulting monologue Rhys carefully stands. She was still out of it. She felt like a newborn deer finding their footing. This had all happened and ended so quickly it feels as though it almost never happened at all. Why had it happened? Was something Jaq did often? Rhys feels as if she would know, given the tabloid’s involvement in the entertainers' life. Why Rhys of all people?

Rhys regards her mutely in the dim light coming through the windows. Her berating voice a smooth white noise.

She was beautiful.

Rhys had always thought so, long before any fragments of a crush began to form. She was an ideal. Even while she portrays herself as crude and unforgiving, an icy queen to be trifled with. Even now while she picks on the person she just accosted for sex.

But

She was never supposed to be attainable though. Nothing more than a perfected idol. Never more than a dream.

Rhys' heart twists uncomfortably in her chest.

“Ms. Lawrence?” Jaq turns, a cigarette loosely hanging from her lips, brows arched. “What…” Rhys fidgety plays with her sleeve. “What was this?”

Jacqueline's frowns and turns solemn. Quietly she lights it and takes a long thoughtful drag. She lets the silence grow and fester as she billows out smoke around her. With a cigarette between long fingers, she approaches Rhys. She gives Rhys an authentic smile and leans up to kiss the brunette softly. It felt out of character for the other. There was no heated fervor, no urgency. It was so delicate. Gentle. A kiss you give to a leaving lover.

It causes the uncomfortable feeling in Rhys’ chest to double. It makes her chest feel hot and sickeningly heavy.

“It can be what you need it to be.” Jacqueline delicately holds Rhys face in her hands. “A fling, a dumb wet dream, an anonymous letter to penthouse forums, whatever. But, above all, Rhys, it needs to be our secret.”

“Our secret?”

“Just for you.” A door shuts upstairs and both women startle. Jaq turns dead stoic and holds Rhys’ chin firmly.

“If she finds out, or if you hurt her, I’ll slit your goddamn throat, capiche?” Jaq winks playfully.

Footsteps approach down the stairs. Jacqueline moves to distance herself from Rhys, who hurriedly goes back to her spot.

“Mom! What did I say about smoking inside! You know how much it agitates Tammy’s asthma.” Angel chirps as she emerges back into the living room. Jaq rolls her eyes at the name.

“It's my own house,” Jaq mumbles. “But I guess I’ll go outside. Wouldn't want to upset Tamithas delicate lungs.” Jaq waves and leaves once again.

Angel shakes her head and plops down next to Rhys.

“She didn't bother you, did she? I told you she can be well, from what I’ve been told, a bitch.” Angel whispers and giggles.

Rhys still dumbfounded by what had taken place in the last hour and a half, shook her head no. Jacqueline's parting words between the two of them still echoed in her head.

A secret. Just for Rhys.

“Uh, no, she was giving me some insight into some code I was working on.”

“Oh yeah? That's great. She's usually not so nice to guests. It's good to see she hasn't run you off.” Angel laughs.

A secret.

yeehaw

#fanfiction #borderlands #rhack #genderbend

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idonthaveanydamnidea · 5 years

Text

assa, philippine, axel and david in the french show "quotidien" (13/06) even tho it's so long I don't even know if anyone's gonna read it

Journalist : Good evening to the four of you, welcome. Axel Auriant, we know each other, you already came.

Axel : Exactly.

J : Welcome back. Assa Sylla, welcome, and Philippine Stindel (he butchered her name a bit skdkdkdk), welcome. And, you're three of Skam's actors, David Hourregue you're the director of Skam, of the show airing on the platform France TV Slash, it's France TV's platform.

D : Exactly.

J : Is that it? Explain Skam to people who know nothing about it.

D : Skam tells the daily life of high schoolers. Of high schoolers in seconde (first year of high school) and première (second year of high school) during seasons 3 and 4, and has the particularity of airing in real time.

J : How is it airing?

D : So, there's clearly the episode, if you want to binge watch it there's the episode at the end of the week

J : If you want to... ? (poor old dude is so lost)

D : Binge watch it. Hi sir.

J : No but for people who don't know, I know.

D : You know.

J : Some people don't

D : There's the full episode airing at the end of the week like a classical TV show, on fridays at 6pm on Slash, but you can also decide to live another experience, that is to say to live each clip, each part, airing at the hour where it's supposed to happen in the week. An example-

J : Yes, for example, if.... A lunch on thursday is going to be at 1pm on thursday.

D : At 1pm, if they plan to meet on friday for a, for a party or a date, we can be sure that at 7 or 8 pm, all of the audience is online, hoping the meeting will happen and when is it going to drop, what is gonna go down, and how we're gonna- (they know we're clowns they really do)

Other journalist : Are they short clips? How long are the clips?

D : It's variable. Actually a clip can last 50 seconds or 8 minutes for example.

OJ : So you have to follow

D : You have to follow, knowing that it's never announced. You don't have any notification to tell you "it is now", you never know when it's gonna drop beforehand, and...

Third Journalist : And how is it going, how do you know?

J : On social media

D : Exactly

J : Makes us look young, to ask for this [laughs] . They all have their instagram accounts. They all have an account, the characters' account, and so there are two issues. One, addiction (i won't be attacked like that sir), we say that some young people are completely drugged on skam, and two, teachers can't anymore, especially when an episode is supposed to happen at uh... two to eight.

D : We got messages from teachers. Asking us, "please, next week there's an exam at x hour, try not to drop a clip at 7h56". So that's quite...

J : So you have your characters account, in fact. (he really is lost someone who has actually seen the show help him)

Assa : Exactly

J : But, are you the ones behing them? Or are there...

Axel : Not at all. No, no, there are community managers who are doing that way better than us, in my opinion. And especially, you have to be connected at the same time as the plot happens, at the same time as the episodes are airing, so sometimes you have to post at 11pm, etc, so we're not always on social media.

[they all laugh and i think they're teasing him cause 11pm is early for him?]

J : Are you gonna disspoint people or do the fans know? (dude we're not stupid) [Axel looking confused]

P : Ah no they know I think.

A : Yeah

P : Well yeah

J : Who has the most followers?

Assa : Axel I think

P : Yeah Axel yeah

Axel : I think it is- No it's Lucas, I think.

J : Yeah you have to différenciate. What does Skam mean?

D : Shame, in norwegian.

J : Why norwegian?

D : Uh... Cause it's the remake of a norwegian TV show, who was a true triumph there. It started slowly, nicely, before completely exploding at the end of season 2. And, basically, there, I think 2/3 of norwegian people have seen the show, that's absolutely huge.

J : So what are the themes? I can remember sexuality, want to be cool, desire to be integrated, what else?

Assa : Religion, for season 4.

Axel : Bullying- actually what's very strong and allows a lot of young people to relate is that Skam uses the codes of today's youth in that society, and for every problem we can... Well, being a teenager is a very carnal/pivotal (the two words are similar in french and he mixed up both) moment, where...

J : Carnal

Axel : Yeah, carnal too, exactly, as we can see in the paint, but uh... That's the strenght of Skam, it's that in one plot you can find, for example in Lucas' storyline - I'm talking about my character - we can find the discovery of his sexuality, at least at that very moment of his life, bullying, every societal norm he suddenly faces, and that's the strength of Skam, it's to see a bunch of teens revealing themselves and supporting each others during that carnal and pivotal period.

J : We have been talking about it for two minutes, but now we're gonna see an extract, with you [he points at Axel]

[it's the clip where Lucas leaves the church looking for Eliott with all the flashbacks]

J : So that's you Axel. Assa, your character, if you had to describe it in a few words?

Assa : So, Imane's character is a young woman - well young girl, black, Muslim, hijabi. She tries to live her youth while keeping her faith, her principles, her values. And she also embodies all possible forms of discrimination. Be it religious, physical discriminations...

P : About women

A : About women... And yeah.

J : We're watching an extract with you.

[last clip of s4 when she explains to Sofiane their relationship would be very difficult because religion is so important in her life, and her family, her muslim friends...]

J : Philippine that's your turn, your character?

P : We're gonna say... Uh, a bit wild. She enjoys a good time (literally "une bonne vivante" = "a good liver")

J : Wild, enjoying a good time.

P : That's it.

J : That's it? Can we watch an extract?

P : Yeah

[it's the "you look like a slut" part at the party with Ingrid]

J : Am I wrong or, when you talk about it or even when you look at the images we feel that you feel a certain pride about embodying these characters?

Assa : So much. Really, I'm so... I'm very very proud, really, extremely proud to be a part of this project, to...

J : And are you part of the writing of the script? For example?

[David nods]

A : For season 4?

J : He [David] is saying yes. He's nodding

[laughs]

Assa : Well for season 4-

J : Who got involved in the script writing?

D : From the start, we don't build the script opposed to our actors' energy.

J : Okay

D : Skam is of an appalling rhythm during the shooting, and I have to play a little with what they are. And the faster I'm getting closer to what they are and feel, the faster we're impactful and close to the truth. I think that's what the audience feels.

J : And did you take part in the script, Axel and Philippine?

P : Well, more or less yeah, while talking with David and all that, yeah we might have sometimes given him ideas.

J : Axel?

Axel : Me too, there's a piano scene, it's true that... I had just bought a piano and i told David-

J : I wanna play piano

Axel : Exactly, and he integrated...

J : And no drums?

Axel : No. So... Why no drums David?

D : Too simple

J : David, apparently sometimes you felt a bit overwhelmed by the width of the phenomenon.

D : Of course, cause you never prepare a TV show imagining the phenomenon it's going to produce. All that we tried to do, and I'm really including my cast in that, it's to answer it, not playing deaf about all of the messages that we received. It was, that was really impressive. We really felt from one day to another a sort of-

J : What are the fans telling you?

D : "We don't feel alone anymore".

J : Do they tell you that too? [to the actors i guess]

Axel : That's what's shattering/deeply moving, it's too see- Because when we're shooting, we're trying to live the closest we can to these characters, but it's to a fictional scale, and to see all of a sudden the impact that the story can have on people, it's true that we're very lucky. I counted 2800 letters at home, I'm trying to read and answer everything (and that's the boy that's recently been bashed so bad he had to leave twitter........ go off i guess). But it's deeply moving to see how much this story can help people to accept themselves, to accept who they are at that point of their lives, and not necessarily - Lucas' character for example discovers all of a sudden that he likes men, but it's beautiful to see friends that say "yes actually, I'm realizing that I may have judged my friend a bit fast, maybe I even throw insults at them", things you say to joke but hay can actually hurt and really do harm when you're trying to build yourself. So it's deeply moving for us and we- Well for me at least I'm becoming way less stupid with Skam, because I understood a lot of things and I met young people, I was able to understand what they're living today, it's deeply moving. I'm saying that as if I was 25, while I'm-

J : Assa, what kind of letters, of words, did you receive?

Assa : I'm getting a lot of messages from young girls thanking me. "Thank you to finally represent us on tv", "thank you cause I finally understand young muslim girls wearing the hijab", and that's very beautiful, that's really beautiful to get messages like this, to see that well, it touches a huge amount of girls and even boys! Which surprised me a lot. Yeah. And, not only black or muslim girls, just simply young girls relating to Imane's character.

J : Were there already hijabi fictional characters? Main characters in a TV show?

D : Well we searched a lot. And sadly we didn't find any. In France, she's the first one.

J : You're the first one Assa.

D : We had to work a lot too so she would understand, that despite all of the inevitable symbolic aspect, we were telling Imane's story. Because very clearly, there's such a huge expectation, we're talking about a phenomenon. There are no more TV shows dedicated to young people, currently. We went through 10 or 15 years with a terrible shortage of shows dedicated to young people that really speak to them. And that's true that very very fast, we had to make Assa understand - she didn't really need it - the importance of that moment, which was going to be season 4, while telling her "okay, you're telling the story of only one young woman. We can never make everyone happy, but let's tell it the closest of what you lived, and we should touch quite many hearts."

OJ : And, are there themes you refuse to deal with? Because we see religion, sexuality... There's everything but is there a theme where you told yourself "no, we're not going there"?

D : We're expected on this, and I'm including my authors of course, lead by Niels Rahou, the head writer. Actually, there's real expectations from our audience that precisely, we don't keep ourselves away from a lot of things. Of course, everyone warned us when we were about to start season 4, saying "are you really sure". I remember a talk in the bus in between Imane and Sofiane, where she talks about her love for Allah, about her religion and how it makes her feel like a better person, and she faces Lais, Sofiane played by Lais Salameh who's a believer in life, who explains her dogmes and everything, he thinks it breaks people apart, he doesn't believe in it, and i remember when we were filming that part, my perchman who was looking at this and telling me "are we really... shooting this right now?". There was a fear, but there's such a need that we feel through the messages we receive. If you knew the amount of messages, of topics that they hope we'll touch on through the show.

TJ : And what themes, precisely? What themes are coming back, are asked for?

D : Everything... Season 3 triggered a sort of earthquake, at least that's a bit how we lived it, of people who absolutely wanted us to talk about them and about their right not to know, at 17. We're at the time of Parcoursup (a french internet platform where you apply for uni after your last high school year), you're asked to know exactly what you want to do really fast. To say : "I have the right not to know if I'm straight, gay, bi, pan", well it's going everywhere, and it's true that now I face so many young people at screenings telling me "here, I'm trans, and I would love it if there was a trans character". And Skam only repeats a damned evidence that we had forgotten, it's the importance of representation. We're all very happy to see, me included, that 10 millions of people are watching girls play football, because we tell ourselves "that's it", now little girls are gonna tell themselves "I have the right to mark a goal. I have the right to. I'm gonna go for it.". We're maybe gonna see mixed plays in schools. The importance of representation in Skam, is exploding to out faces to each screening and each time a clip drops. They need it.

J : Did it change you? You personally. Philippine?

P : Oh la, uh... No?

J : No?

P : No not much no, I don't think so, but yeah it feels good to be part of a TV show like that, which yeah represents everyone first, and which allows- because it's true that teenage years are a period where you need to express yourself about a lot of things, you need to try a lot of things, and to see that well, even on tv there are people who try a lot of things that way, I think it feels good. For me at least, everyone I've met told me "with that I made myself a lot of friends" actually, cause that creates a lot of networks, and the fact it's on social media probably helps yeah.

J : So if you want to understand teens, or at least a small part of teenagers, watch Skam, and it's on the platform France TV Slash.

Game about their playlist :

J : So, what do I have... The most beautiful song of all history. Starting with you Assa. It's that.

[Nelly ft. Kelly Rowland - Dilemma]

J : The most beautiful song of all history for you Axel that's that.

[Barbara - L'Aigle Noir]

J : It's another genre, Barbara. The most beautiful song of all history for you Philippine, that's that

[Charles Aznavour - La Bohème]

J : not bad, not bad!

D : Brown noser (?? Is that a true word).

J : And finally the most beautiful song of all history for you David that's that.

[Dinah Washington & Max Richter - This Bitter Earth / On The Nature Of Daylight]

J : The song to dance, for you Assa

[Beyonce ft. Jay Z - Crazy In Love]

J : But what is that choice Axel? That's that

[Jermaine Jackson & Pia Zadora - When The Rain Begins To Fall]

J : The song to dance for you Philippine it's that

[The Black Eyed Peas - Hey Mama]

J : Black Eyed Peas. And for you David the dancing song is that

[Colouring - Time]

J : The song for a love night for you Assa, it's that

[Ciara - Body Party]

[Axel and Philippine being shook]

A : You didn't imagine uh? Well yeah

J : Axel it's that

[Louis Armstrong - What A Wonderful World] (boy is sophisticated)

A : I have a little turntable at home

J : And Philippine that's that

[Vegedream - Mama He] (......... deux salles deux ambiances)

[they all laugh, Assa is finished]

P : That's it

J : Why not, Vegedream. And finally David that's it

[Massive Attack - Unfinished Sympathy] (and now i feel like if I was at a family dinner with an oversharing uncle)

J : And finally, your guilty pleasure song - knowing that Axel you chose Pia Zadora earlier so I don't know what you chose worse. Guilty pleasure song is that one for you Assa

[Arne Vinzon - Les Otaries]

[they all laugh]

J : So Axel, what's your guilty pleasure song

[Cheb Rayan - Dana Dana]

OJ : It's great! It's good it's good

A : See? It passes guys

J : And Philippine that's this one

[Matrang - Medy3a] (sweetie I love you but this is less shameful than your previous song isn't it)

J : And the song... Oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah! I think no one had ever picked that one.

D : My pleasure

[Gold - Plus Près Des Étoiles]

J : Ah it's a Toulouse reference ?

D : Of course

J : Oh yeah okay. It was the playlist of your guests. Thanks to the four of you for coming on Quotidien, Skam France on France TV Slash, thanks a lot to the four of you, and uh, enjoy the next season!

#skam france

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szopenhauer · 4 years

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How are you today? not good :( What is your favorite medication that you take, and why? ... What color hair did your first crush have? my first irl (not celeb) female crush had dark brown hair similar to mine but much longer

Are you living in a dream or a nightmare? nightmare with love plot What’s something that most people don’t know about you? for example - that I might have DID? What’s one common assumption about you that isn’t true? for example - that I had to be a hoe to get STD? Would you rather do a craft project or a science experiment? depends Who was the last person who was rude to you? mom? Do you say garbage, trash, rubbish, or something else? śmieci/śmietnik Do you have any cousins who look like you? wouldn’t say so Do you have any haters who are jealous of you? jealous of what? Can you see the mountains from where you live? my house? noooo Did you ever play pranks on April Fool’s Day? nothing big because I hate pranks and still regret them tbh as most of them didn’t end well/go as planned or just made me feel uneasy in general What does your favorite pair of leggings look like? I have many leggings so hard to choose Does chronic illness keep you from doing the things you want to do? sadly Do you part your hair on the left side, right side, or in the middle? whatever Have you ever owned a succulent? sure Do you have a library card? I do Do you frequent the local library? not during covid What color is your bedroom door? white with glass, my mom painted a picture on it to cover our room from the hall light when my dad was going to work early or coming back late

Have you ever hurt yourself because of love? umm... Have you ever been in a hospital for more than 3 weeks? yes? Do you shave your arms? armpits sometimes only When is the next time you are going to take a shower/bath? tonight Do you like tap water? I boil it first Is there anything in your hair? there isn’t What’s the last game you played? Forge of Empires as there’s an event currently but also Chicken Smoothie Do you like animal print? *shrug* Have you ever cracked your head open? almost, bawiłam się z siostrą w ogrodzie i zrobiła ze mnie konia po czym pociągnęła mnie za “lejce” i upadłam do tyłu uderzając głową w kamień - nie pamiętam tego zupełnie co jest dziwne What was your last surgery for? - Do you like sea horses? but it’s gross how males give birth :x Where were you planning on going this summer? Ełk which didn’t happen, first time in ages Does anyone in your family have an alcohol problem? not close ones Are you waiting for someone to text you back? I always wait for my gf to text me :3 Are you wearing socks? warmer already, it’s autumn

Oh look , it’s snowing outside! Do you get excited? hell no

Is your room covered in posters, or pretty bare? it’s covered in smth else

What store makes the best sweaters? dunno, I buy second hand clothes

What sport do you completely fail at? most of them?

You’re favourite store at the mall closes down, now what do you do? not surprised, that was happening plenty of times before

Do you have a cool hat in the shape of an animal? yasss, several :D

Do you like watching the news, or do you find it too depressing? it is depressing indeed, I avoid majority of news

Insert cool song lyric here: If you can't handle a heart like mine Don't waste your time with me

Would you ever risk having a house party when you’re parents are gone? I’m not into parties and my mother never leaves the house

Are you a worrier, or more care-free? worrier

What’s one sport you really want to try at least once in your life? for example - tenis?

What are you plans for the future? I have no future...

What put you in the mood you are in today? shitload of stuff

Have you ever pretended to be someone’s friend? it’s complicated Have you ever been physically abused? a little Does it take a lot to make you feel guilty? it’s easy to make me feel guilty Have you ever made up a false rumor to get back at someone? nah Have you ever done something bad JUST because you knew you shouldn’t? wtf Have you ever purposely hurt yourself? I have Have you ever mooned/flashed someone? accidentally Have you ever pushed someone into a pool? don’t! :o Have you ever copied someone else’s homework? obvi Have you ever kissed someone the same day you met them? nope

Would you kiss the last person you kissed again? yup

Do you remember the show Bananas in Pajamas? I didn’t really watch it as a kid but I saw fragments later in life by accident here and there so... Would you rather have 1 best friend, or a large group of friends? bestie is enough Is the glass half full or half empty? half full... of shit If you could know how, when and where you’ll die, would you want to know? YES Have you completed high school? in 2011 Have you lived where you currently live all your life? yep

Do you love the last person you text? I do Is it windy outside? it isn’t for now

When’s the last time you took a bus somewhere? this week Do you think road kill is gross? sad Have you ever walked away from someone and they didn’t come after you? oh well... How many teeth do you have? I’m not missing any yet Have you ever watched someone die? just animal, not counting movies of course Who did you last dance with? my current partner Have you ever had a full body cast? luckily not Do piercings make people look ugly? might but it’s their life What do you think about age? what do you mean? Are you naked? why would I be while doing survey O.o Have you faced any of your fears lately? I face them everyday... Have you ever kissed under water? no thx Who was the last person to comfort you as you cried? no one Do a lot of people have your name? recently lots of kids get my name Do you have to plug your nose while swimming under water? I don’t swim under water Have you ever been so hungry you felt like you were going to throw up? that was happening but I’m glad I didn’t end up puking after all Have you ever choked on your own spit? who didn’t Who do you want to kiss? my fiancee How do you feel about grass? long is nice Do you live on a farm? I wanted to but it’s too hard What’s the last thing your parents bought you? food When was the last time you did laundry? recently Do you like playing poker? why not Do you like carrots better when they are cooked? that’s true Do you have any cartoon theme songs stuck in your head? not atm Do you know anyone who commited suicide? not personally Have you lost any close family member to cancer? I didn’t really know them Is it ever too late to apologize? it seems When was the last time you cried out in pain? I rarely cry out of pain, I’m used to it

Would you rather drink beer or whiskey? I’d rather not Would you rather be stabbed & die, or raped & live? if I was going to get pregnant then stabbed and die if not then dunno Which Spongebob character would you like to be? I’m Squidward lol Would you rather be hot or cold? hot Would you rather have your whole body tattooed or pierced? tattooed, I know that piercings you can easily take off and wait for your body to “grow back” but... still, too much piercings look disgusting to me Would you rather lose a foot or a hand? foot Do you think it’s wrong for people to get sex changes? no comment Would you rather win a million dollars or be truly happy? what if truly happy would include million dollars? hahaha Do you believe that you should really have no regrets? that’s irresponsible >.< Would you rather skydive or ride a bull? wait... real bull?

Do you watch That 70’s Show? no Is there anyone that you would take a bullet for? oh Nat definitely would lmfao

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ltjlily17 · 4 years

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The truth about vampires

Let’s start off with some basics. What’s your name? Rachel How old are you? 35 What’s your hair and eye color? Green eyes, brown to teal hair. How tall are you? 5′6″

What’s your relationship status? Married Alright, enough of that. Let’s move on to the random shit. What’s your favorite song? Mayonaise by the Smashing Pumpkins, Wonderful Tonight by Eric Clapton and In Your Atmosphere by John Mayer. What does that song mean? What is the message behind it? They are all pretty different theme wise, but all three really evoke a feeling. Is it your favorite because you relate to it, or do you just like the beat? They’re all more guitar heavy than having a beat, the lyrics and overall feeling the songs provide are what really get m, though. Have any pets? If so, what are they and what’s their names? I have a dog named Finn, and a cat named Mateo. Have you ever met your idol? If so, were they nice or were they kind of an ass? I don’t have an idol. What’s your favorite method of gaming? (PC, Xbox, Playstation, etc) Either the Switch or my laptop. Xbox is fine, but I guess I prefer a handheld type device. If you’re in college, what’s your major and why did you pick it? I am not in college. My major when I attended varied between visual communications, education and IT. I didn’t choose nor graduate. How’re you doing today? Meh, theres a lot going on around me with people I care about. I was talking to a friend earlier about how most people are stressed or unhapy this time of year, which is really not my experience. I love buying gifts for others, decorating and baking, so this is generally a good time for me. What color are your bedroom walls? Ugh, like a pastel yellow. I really dislike the color. I have painted some grey paint splotches on one wall to see which one I liked most, but I’ve never gotten around to actually painting. Describe your favorite shirt. I don’t know that I have a favorite. I typically wear a shirt I got from John Mayer’s last tour the most- its got a cool fish and cat graphic on it. Use this space to tell someone off. I’ve no one to tell off. What’s your view on smart watches? Cool or a waste of money? I have one. I like it. I really like watches in general, though and I feel a little sad I don’t wear the analog ones anymore, but I’d miss the functionality of the smartwatch. What is one poster that you have hanging on your bedroom wall of? I don’t have anything hanging on the walls in my room. We have slanted ceilings, so there isn’t even enough space for a poster. My room was covered in band posters as a teenager, though. How many times have you moved in your life? I lived at home til 20, lived with my first roommate til 25, a townhouse with a friend and my now husband for a year, an apt with my now husband for 4 years and now our house for 5 years. If you moved, do you like where you are now better than where you were? I’ve stayed in pretty much the same area, but living in our house is definitely better than the one bedroom apartment we were in. What’s your favorite color and why? Grey. Darker earthy tones. Do you have a calendar? If so, what’s the theme? Nope. Just use my watch/phone. Have any famous person’s autographs? I do on some concert tickets from when I was younger. Do you draw well? Depends on your perspective, to my non-artistic friends, they think I’m amazing. The artistic friends, probably just roll their eyes lol. What type of cell phone do you have? iPhone X. Should you be doing anything else right now or are you just bored? I finally finished the wedding I had been editing and the only other project I have right now is the paint by number of our dog I got for my husband as a gift, but he’s here, so it has to wait. Finishing that wedding was a huge weight off my shoulders.

If you’re in school/college, what’s your favorite subject and why? Not in school. Maybe now that I’m done with the wedding I’ll start exploring some learning opportunities. Are you a cat or a dog person? Why? I would’ve always said cat until I got a dog. There are a lot of things about dogs I was really not into, but I love my dog so much. Personality wise, I’m more of a cat person, but in practice I like dogs. Tell me about the plot of your favorite book. I have several. One has a ghost that rings a bell around a mounted moose’s head. Do you wear glasses or contacts? Glasses. What do you think about horror movies? I like them. I’ve seen a lot of old ones. Back in the day, my mom and I would go to Blockbuster and I’d get a different horror movie every week. If you love them (I do), what’s your favorite? Nightmare on Elm Stree is a classic for me. It Follows is probably the one that fucked me up the most. Got any cool Christmas presents picked out for family or friends yet? I’ve got all my gifts purchsed except for the hub. He sent me a ridiculous wish list that included a suit of armor and a castle and then decided he didn’t want any gifts this year. I’m running out of time to figure something out. Do you do Black Friday shopping or wait for Cyber Monday? Neither. I’m definitely not going to go out on Black Friday and deal with all those people for junk I don’t need. As for Cyber Monday, I don’t really pay much attention to any of the deals and don’t really buy more on that day than I would on any other. Have any mental illnesses? Not encompassing enough to get any kinda of diagnosis. What’s your favorite word and why? No idea. What is the most expensive thing you own, and what is it? My car? I mean, I don’t outright own it yet. Singular item, my MacBook or iMac, I guess. Did you buy that item yourself? Yes, I bought the macbook and iMac after I left my job at Cassano’s and needed a new laptop since my previous one was owned by the company. Where do you work and what is your position? *I am currently unemployed. How often do you cuss? A fair amount. Maybe just a little bit more than whomever I’m talking to. What type of car do you drive, if any? I have a 2012 Volvo s60. Are you happy with it? If no, what’s your dream car? I prefer to drive my car than my husbands, but I’m like 50/50 on liking it. Right now, my dream vehicles are the new Land Rover Defender or an Audi Q8. Do you have a lot of social media accounts? Which ones? I have Instagram, Facebook LinkedIn and Tumblr. I very rarely post on any of them. I use snapchat a lot, though, if that counts. What is your favorite genre of music? My Spotify year end review said I listen to Pop, Rock, Indie, Folk and Emo the most. In that order. Does your family have holiday traditions? If so, what are they? Nope. My fmaily just barely cobbles themselves together for major holidays. If you’re in a relationship, are you happy with it? Sure. People are breaking up around us, and it really makes me appreciate the relationship my husband and I have, even if it doesn’t always feel like its going as well as it is. How long have you been with your significant other? Just hit the 10 year mark. Do you like psychology? (It’s my college major). Nah. Never really been something I’m too interested in. What is something your state is popularly known for? College football I guess. Do you like to do craft projects? If so, what’s the coolest thing you made? I do. I recently drew a bunch of Dungeons and Dragons monsters to use as ornaments on a tree in my dining room where my husband and his friends play Dungeons and Dragons on Sundays. I’ve made some painting as house warming gifts or nursery art for friends children that they’ve hung up and thats nice to see. Do you watch sports or do you think they’re overrated? Nah. Not really a fan. What’s one occupation you think gets paid too much and doesn’t deserve to? Meh, I don’t know that I want to hate on any specific occupation. The extremely rich do bother me, however, with how much money they make, often at their employees detriment. Do you straigthen your hair? Not usually. I have more lately, since its getting long again. I’m more likely to do the loose waves thing, though. Ever dyed your hair a color that isn’t natural? (blue, pink, etc) Yes, it is currently teal. How’s your relationship with your parents? Relationship with my mom is okay, none with my dad. Do you still live with them or do you have your own house? I live in my own home. What’s something you are currently saving money for to buy? Hmm, nothing. The couple of items I want at the moment, I asked for on my Christmas list. Do you smoke/vape? If so, what brand do you smoke/what device do you use? Nope, I’ve never smoked. Ever done drugs? Nope. Tell me one of your worst habits. Picking at my cuticles? What’s a weird quirk you have that no one else you know does? No idea, I kind of doubt that theres something I do that no one else ever does. If you game, what type of headset do you use? I don’t ever need a headset. What type of computer do you own, and do you like it? I have a MacBook Pro. I used to have an Air and I loved it, but my husband talked me into getting the Pro instead and I regret it. What’s the thing that annoys you the most? When my husband asks google to make his cellphone ring at max volume without even trying to look for it. Today, it was in his pocket. What brand of TV do you have? Samsung. Are you excited for Christmas? (It’s December 1st today when I made this) Kind of? I love how cozy my house feels with all the decorations. Tell me about your favorite vacation you’ve taken. We went to New York for my birthday/anniversary/Halloween 2 years ago. Tell me something cool about yourself. I am not cool? Did/do you get good grades in school/college? Not in my middle school/high school years. What’s your ringtone on your phone? Vibrate. What’s your favorite store to shop in? The internet. If you won the lottery, what is the first thing you would buy and why? I have no idea. I’d probably sit on the money for a long time and then once I finally broke the seal, buy a bunch of stuff. How long have you had a Bzoink account? Don’t have one. Ever been to Field of Screams? If so, what’s your favorite attraction? Nope. Do you own a Polaroid camera? I have an Instax camera. Do you have hardwood floor in your room or carpet? The two bedrooms upstairs have carpet, but the rest of the house is hardwood. It’s a Saturday night, what are you typically doing? Relaxing at home, most likely. Doing a crossword puzzle, probably. Do you have a lot of friends or do you not have any at all? I have a couple. What’s your all time favorite movie and why? I don’t know, really. I watch the Iron Man movies and Thor Ragnarok the most these days. How many blankets do you sleep with at night? A sheet and comforter. What’s the last TV show you watched? Did you enjoy it? The Mandalorian. I do enjoy it. Do you prefer cable TV or do you use Netflix? We have cable, but never really watch it. Everything we want to watch is only Netflix or Disney+. What is your dream job and why? I have no idea. Need to get to thinking on that. Do you think you would be a good therapist? I do. I think I can listen to people and help them come to their own answers pretty well. What’s your favorite brand of clothing? I don’t know that I have a favorite. Anything that fits well and has a lot of sales lol.

#dontletthemgetyoudown #peopleinmotion #survey #songs #vampire #sweetness

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noro124 · 5 years

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hey everyone it’s my frog collection + other cool things i had on the shelf at the time! i have 57 frogs (counting the packaged ones as one unit), which is 45 more than the last time i took a picture of my frog collection. enjoy!

under here i will tell you where i got each frog & why i grouped them like that! the groups can also be read in the captions. all pics try to go from left to right, from the back row to the front.

i. frogs that are big

Summer relaxin’ - my dad got him for me at a yard sale a few years ago.

HAPPY FROG - my dad also got him for me at a yard sale, but closer to 6 months ago. He’s hanging over my bed right now on my Wall Of Stuff.

Paper frog - my sister ripped him off the bulletin board at the Starbucks where she works to give him to me

White frog - picked him up at TJ Max when my mom took me dress shopping.

Dark green frog - i don’t know...i think from a yard sale? he’s hollow & i keep a semicircle paperweight in the hole in his stomach.

ii. 8 frogs that will break if you drop them & 3 that won’t

Yoga frog - my dad got him for me, maybe from Goodwill?

Ol Chumbo - got him at the flea market for $8. He is solid iron.

Just Eat What Bugs You!! - got him from a thrift store in a small town in Colorado. he’s got beans in him! if you shake him he rattles

Blue glass - he’s a candle holder! I got him from an antique store in Tennessee & then saw another one of him at the flea market years later.

Bronze goofball - crooked eyes. very endearing. also very heavy. got him in a shop that sold lots of bronze things outside the Louvre.

Gold - a gift from my boyfriend!!!

Sassy Frog - i think my dad gave her to me? or maybe i bought her at the antique store.

Little brown frog - more fragile than he looks, missing his front right leg so i got him discounted from the antique store near school.

Glass frog king! - got him in prague! he was overpriced, but worth it

Teeny glass frog - also got him in prague for $3!

Another glass frog - got in the same store that I got tiny frog in.

iii. frogs that are minerals

Chunky brown frog - got him at the antique store near school. i think my boyfriend bought him for me on one of our first dates!

Black frog - $35 but worth every cent. smooth, elegant, made in Japan. gotten from the antique store near school.

Flat brown frog - got him from the flea market.

Malachite frog - bought him online from Bekkathyst! Expensive, but I took advantage of a sale.

Rose quartz frog - got from a really cool mineral shop in Prague! I did a project on that shop, about redesigning the storefront.

Pink frog - got from a yard sale a long time ago, only recently rediscovered in my room & added to the collection.

Little frog on a leaf - got from a gift shop at the end of a long 14k altitude hike in Colorado.

Frogs 8-12 were all given to me by my boyfriend after he came back from NY. They’re a big family!!!

13. Tiny frog bead - got from the flea market!

iv. frogs that are squishy

Mint green frog loaf - picked this up from a recent con!! my boyfriend paid for half of it because he said this was something i needed to have, & he was right!

Webkinz frog - my dad got him for me at a yard sale because he liked the mischievous look in his eyes.

Little frog orb - part of a set of 3 round squishy things my boyfriend’s parents gave me for easter.

TY Beanie Baby Frog - a beanie baby original my sister got from a yard sale. he might be worth a lot of money since he’s an original. i’m looking into it.

Dark blue sand frog - I’ve had this since I was a child. he’s got stitches in his armpit because he used to have a big hole that let all the sand out.

Stripey sand frog - got her at a yard sale when i was maybe 9 so the dark blue frog could have a friend!

Green and orange beanie frog - picked this up from a “Night Market” in Vienna. having seen real night markets in Taiwan, I was kind of disappointed, but the frog was a good purchase.

Green beanie frog - got in belfast from a cool museum. has a pink twin owned by one of my friends. all frogs have sweet dreams

v. frogs that are toys

Skeleton frog - one of my roommates got him for me from a halloween store.

Glowing frog - he changes rainbow colors! my sister gave him to me for my 20th birthday last year.

Slime frog - my boyfriend got him for me as a Welcome Back present after i returned from Prague! he’s nasty. he’s full of yellow goo & he has a cap on the bottom of his body that you can undo to take out the goo. it takes hours to put the goo back in.

Keychain frog - also a flashlight that croaks when you turn him on! I saw him in Milan & had to have him.

Lime green frog - my dad gave me 3 frog bath toys for Christmas. I have one in my collection (this one), one at his house, & one at my mom’s house.

Blue frog whistle - I think one of my friends gave this to me but I’m not sure.

Wooden frog - bought him from a nice lady at the night market in Taiwan in 2017.

Wooden frog 2 - he rolls! picked him up for $4 in one of the Golden Lane shops in Prague Castle.

Frog rubber band - got him as a reward for being good at the dentist in like 2007.

vi. frogs i have not unwrapped

boblende fro - a frog bath bomb with a toy frog inside that i got from a weird store called Flying Tiger in prague. i don’t want to open him because he’ll be crumbly & i like the packaging a lot, & also i don’t want to use him yet.

Grow Frogs - another gift from my boyfriend’s parents for easter. I haven’t used them yet because I’m lazy & I don’t know if they’d crumble & I don’t know where I’d put them if they were unwrapped.

Frog King stickers - got these in northern ireland as well! i haven’t used any yet because they have layers & the things I’d put them on (my phone case, sketchbook, my laptop) move around a lot & the stickers would get destroyed really fast.

vii. frogs with jobs

Candle holder - one of my friends gave it to me for my birthday.

Green frog - got him from the local crafts store my roommate used to work at. He can hold onto the outside of cups or flowerpots or my finger!

Frog thimble - a different roommate gave him to me after he got back from his trip to Spain.

Frog clip - one of my friends gave it to me for no reason! really nice of her!!!

Mosaic frog - the roommate that went to Spain got this for me there too! he doesn’t have a job, he just doesn’t fit into any of the other categories.

Keroppi pin - got this for 50 cents in Taiwan & then lost it for a year.

Tiny rubber frog - given to me by one of my roommates for Christmas. he got it in Florida. he doesn’t have a job either.

Milan eraser - picked this up in a stationary store in prague called McPen.

viii. miscellaneous items on the frog display shelf

Fat cat with big poofy cheeks - i went to the flea market with my dad & saw this funny man.

Round unicorn & pink fish - the other 2 round things that came with the frog my boyfriend’s parents gave me for easter this year.

Crab ornament - given to me alongside the tiny rubber frog. he’s missing a leg and is EXTREMELY fragile - pieces of his shell fall off all the time.

Red wooden painted egg - got from an easter market in Prague.

Eggplant container - I keep souvenir pressed pennies in here.

Stone egg with stand - I got this for my dad from an antique store, but my dad said I could keep it.

Golden pig - gotten somewhere in Prague. I was gonna give it to one of my roommates, but my mom said “You should keep it for good luck, it’s the year of the pig!” & so I did.

Snake carving - my grandma used to give me little carvings made of the same material all the time before she died. I don’t know where I got this.

Little glass crab - a gift alongside the crab ornament & tiny rubber frog!

White rock - looks very pretty in the right light. got it from a mineral store in Cesky Krumlov.

Smooth rock - smokey quartz I think? got it from the same mineral store.

Carnelian scarab - got this from a really cool mineral store outside the Louvre. I could have spent all day in here - they sold really expensive frogs too. I had my eye on one made from turquoise, but it was 160 euros. Maybe next time.

Labrodorite heart - my boyfriend paid for half of it when he came to visit me in Prague! it’s very blue & very gorgeous.

Labrodorite chunk - my boyfriend got this for me at a hippie music festival!

Chunk of limestone - got this in northern ireland where there was a cool bridge near an old limestone quarry. I thought this rock looked cool, like mochi. You can’t tell from the picture quality.

Glass lizard - part of the gift with the crab ornament & the other things.

Turtle - got him from the flea market. not sure what he’s made of, but he’s handcrafted!

Shiny turtle - this was on the ground at the flea market. it probably had fallen off a display & cost money, but i put it in my pocket. please don’t arrest me

Stone turtle - got this guy from an aquarium that’s 2 hours away from home! we went as a group over spring break to the beach, but half of us immediately went home & half of us went to the aquarium. i got to touch a shark there.

& that’s all, folks! thanks for reading my frog lore!

#noro.txt #all the money i make is spent on big stuffed animals or frogs #mostly the stuffed animals because i receive a lot of frogs as gifts

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oldhauntsforgottenghosts · 5 years

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Mega Project Pan 2019 Part 2

Tumblr wouldn’t let me upload everything at once, so here’s a round two!

Left to Right

104. Clinique lotion - Goal is to use out, it’s a sample size.

105.Garnier Honey Shampoo - It works, but I have other shampoos I enjoy more. Goal is to use out.

106. Milani coconut lip treatment - Goal is to see progress. I’ve had this for 3+ years.

107.Sally Hansen Set Sail - Goal is to use this out, I’ve got too many nailpolishes. Seems insane, but this polish dries fast BUT it seems to chip faster than the polishes that take forever to dry, so I usually have to do my nails 2x a week. That being said, the brush doesn’t always get down to the bottom of the bottle, so it’s basically only got a few uses in it.

108. Nyx Doll - Goal is to use more often.

109 Nyx Athens - No clue how much is left in here, but I want to see if I can use it out.

110.Jordana Matte Bare - Goal is just to use it more.

111.Nyx Matte lipstick - This is basically new, but I want to use it at least a little.

112-113. Clinique lipstick + mascara - The lipstick is almost done, so my goal is to use it out. The mascara is almost dried, so I’ll likely mark it complete when the lipstick is done.

114. LA Colors Sea Shells - There’s nothing wrong with this aside from it’s old. goal is to use more.

115.Nyx Arigato - Almost new, goal is to use a few times.

116. HoliPop cheek tint. - I bought this a few months ago and haven’t really used it aside from trying it out like once, so I want to use it a bit more. Goal is just to use.

117-118 LA Colors Nail Duet - Red + Glitter - These are mini polishes, so my goal is to use out the red one, and make significant progress on the white one.

119. Sally Hansen Re-Teal Therapy- Goal is just to see movement on it, since I’ve not worn it much recently.

120. Clinique Black Honey - This is SO old it’s not funny. I’ve had it in like 2? 3? Project pans before, and never do much with it. Goal for this one is to use it out.

121.Victoria’s Secret Lipstick - I actually enjoy the scent of this one, and the color isn’t half bad. I just want to use it more. No clue how full it is because the color is painted on the bottle...

122.Milani Naturally Chic - I’ve had this since highschool, and have only used it perhaps a handful of times. Goal is just to use.

123. LA Colors Lipstick - This one is basically new. Goal is to use.

124. Coca Cola Cherry lipbalm - Goal is to make progress on. I’ve had this since high school.

125. Butterfly mascara - This is the second time I’ve bought this product, but my goal is just to use it more since I’ve neglected an open tube of mascara.

126. Tarte mini lipgloss - goal is to use out. I’m not a fan of the minty tingle this has, and I’ve managed to yoink out the stopper somehow, so it’s definitely going to be annoying to use.

127. Wet n Wild Stoplight red - This was my favorite lipstick in highschool. Which makes it like 6 years old. Goal is to make progress on.

128.Nuance My Favorite - I love the color and texture of this, but the tube itself is a bit damaged. Goal is to use out.

129. Nivea Care + Color Lipbalm - I enjoy this when I need just a subtle tint of color, and it’s very nice to apply/wear. Goal is just to make progress.

130. Wet n Wild Cushion lipstick - Goal is just to use more often, since I don’t reach for this one much due to the funny applicator.

Left to Right, top to bottom.

131-138. Handaiyan Blue Ocean Palette - She Young, Cashmere, Honeymoon, Pumpkin Pie, Dusty Rose, Cocoa, vintage, and Unicorn Tears. The Blue eyeshadow here was damaged upon arrival, but otherwise, the palette is barely used. Goal is just to use these shadows a bit, especially when Autumn rolls around.

139. Laura Geller Blush n Brighten in Berry - This has damaged packaging, so no lid. It’s been chilling in my Z-Palette for the most part. It’s also VERY used, although it doesn’t look it since it’s a baked product. BUT, it’s gone from being domed to being flat on top. Goal here is to hit ‘pan’ (or the ‘tile’ they bake it on).

140-147. Fashion Nova Eyeshadow Palette - Top to bottom, pans 1, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10. These are rather small, so goal is just to use these a few times. I’ll especially look forward to using it when September-October rolls around!

148-149. ELF vampire palette - right row, pans 2 +3 - Goal is just to wear off the top pattern on these...

Top to bottom, left to right.

150. Mally blush - Goal - wear off the top pattern.

151. Victoria’s Secret Lip Scrub - Goal - Make obvious progress on.

152. Jordana Classic Bronze - Goal - use

153-155. Cream Blush Palette - pans 1, 3, and 4, top to bottom. Goal is to make progress on.

156. Urban Decay Primer Potion - goal is to use, I’ve had this forever.

157. Loreal Everlasting Rose - Goal is just to use and see progress on.

158. LA Colors Stardust - Goal is to use, see some progress.

159. NYX French Fries - Goal is just to use.

160. Wet n Wild Eyebrow Pencil - Goal is to use out, as it’s almost done and the actual product is so soft it runs out super easily.

161. ELF liquid eyeliner - Goal is just to use more often.

162. LA Colors Red lipliner - Goal is to use out.

I should note I managed to take pictures of the ELF Vampire Beauty book TWICE because I forgot to pick it up. LOL.

163. Nailtek Nail Treatment - I’ve had this for 2+ years. Goal is to use out.

164. Sinful Colors Nailpolish - Goal is to see progress on.

165. Covergirl Peacock Mascara - Goal is to use.

166. Wet n Wild Lipgloss - Goal is to use.

167. Kokie Rosewood - goal is to use more often.

168. Sleek Red liquid lipstick - goal is to use a few times, maybe see some movement.

169. Jordana Matte Lipstick - goal is to see some progress.

170. Burberry mini perfume - Goal is to use out - I’ve got too many tiny perfume samples!

171. Bareminerals Maverick - Goal is to use more often, maybe see some progress.

172. Sally Hansen pink nailpolish - goal is to use out.

173. Hemp Seed Lotion - Goal is to use out, it’s almost done, perhaps a few more uses in it.

174. Maybelline Fit Me - It’s mostly used up, goal is to finish it.

175. Ultra Repair cream - Goal is to use out.

176. Hask Hair treatment - Goal is to use out, it’s basically a single use vial.

177. Mini Purity cleanser - Goal is to use out, since it’s travel-sized.

178. Victoria’s Secret Heavenly Gel Perfume - Goal is to use out - I’m not a huge fan of the way this feels, and i’ve got other perfumes I love more.

179. Kleancolor Nailpolish - Goal is to see Progress

180. NYX French Maid - Goal is to use more, I’ve no idea how much is left since the tube is so damaged.

181. ELF Pink lipstick - Goal is just to use more.

182. Wet n Wild Frosted lipstick - goal is to use a few times.

183. Celavi Lipstick - goal is to use a few times, maybe round off the top.

And again, this is as much as Tumblr will let me put into one single post, so there’s going to be a part three, and maybe part four coming up soon(ish)

#project pan

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lisatelramor · 5 years

Text

To London, To London

This took a lot longer than I thought it was going to take to write--I kept wanting to do a proper casefic in the middle and getting stuck, but it wasn't to be. My brain does not like writing mystery no matter how much I try to force it. :/ BUT! This is finally done and hopefully is a satisfactory conclusion to the series. It's set a year from the start of Not Left To Stand Alone, so in March right before the new school year begins :) Appropriate that this story finishes here as well as surprisingly appropriate for me to end it the same time of year in real life. Here's to moving forward and new years and endings as beginnings of new things. Thank you everyone who's read along and all comments in the last year. It was one of the brighter things from last year. Hope to see you again with future writing projects ^_^

To London, To London

The walk up to the London flat was one Saguru could do in his sleep. He’d lived six years of his adult life in that flat, walking to a store down the road or driving to work down the crowded streets because the public transit was further than he wanted to walk with a bum leg. There was the coffee shop a block away that had a weekly music night he and Mel occasionally went to. There was the Indian restaurant that Saguru got takeaway at when neither of them felt like cooking. There was the neighbor who had a cat that liked sunning itself on Saguru’s balcony. The downstairs neighbor had plants on her balcony again this year, and window boxes just starting to have bits of green poking up.

The front door still had the ‘Welcome Holmes’ welcome mat in front that Mel got him as a joke. It was covered in a few months’ worth of dirt and debris, the person Mum had taking care of the apartment clearly not extending that to the outside very often. As he approached what had been his home, Saguru had to stop and take a moment to breathe past all the bittersweet memories around him.

A hand touched his elbow, and Saguru looked back at Kaito. Kaito who was out of place here, but also paradoxically fit in seamlessly. The touch helped, grounding him in the here and now instead of the past. “Nice welcome mat,” Kaito said lightly.

Saguru could kiss him. He didn’t since he didn’t feel inclined to public displays of affection at the moment. “It was a birthday gift. From Mel.”

“Impeccable taste,” Kaito said.

Saguru smiled. He wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for Kaito. He might have left this go indefinitely, paying for a flat he never used and storage for things he no longer needed but didn’t want to let go. Starting things anew with Kaito... that made him want to resolve everything. It still took more than a few seconds to muster the will to unlock the door and let them in. Saguru ushered Kaito in before him.

He didn’t know what Kaito saw in the apartment. Saguru stepped in and he saw the walls with faded squares where photos once hung, the missing clutter and covered up furniture. He saw the scruffs on the baseboard from years of hasty vacuuming, the faint difference in the wall where it had been plastered over after being dented moving a new couch in. He saw the lack of shoes by the door and the dust trapped in the corners. He smelled the stale air of a room shut up too long and the slightly off smell old wood got when it wasn’t aired out enough. There was the flecks of paint on the light switch cover from when Mel repainted the entryway. Divots in the wood floor where they dropped a heavy jar of tomato sauce that had exploded all over the floor and walls. The lack of soft music playing in the background. The blinds closed and the rooms dim. A box with all of Mel’s recent playbooks next to the empty bookshelf because Saguru had decided not to take them to Japan in his hasty flight from London. Left with the distant thought that maybe Mel’s parents would want them even though they’d only asked to have some photos and the set of dishes Mel’s grandmother gave them at their wedding.

Saguru didn’t move from the doorway for long enough that Kaito had to tug him forward and close the door behind them.

The bedroom door was shut to their right, the office and guest room open across from it, followed by the bathroom and the kitchen/living area at the end of the hall. Kaito glanced at the open office and walked past it toward the living area where the empty bookshelf and some stacked boxes were visible. Saguru swallowed hard, forcing the messy tangle of emotions rising in him down. It had been a bit over a year since he was here; he could handle walking in his old home.

“It’s nice,” Kaito said as he turned in the middle of Saguru’s old living room. There was the sofa with a dust cover. There, the kitchen table with the chairs upside down on top. There by the wall an antique side table with a marble top that used to house plants Mum gave them, by the balcony sliding glass door so they would get sunlight and could be moved outside in good weather.

Knowing what the room once was, and all the things it was missing, Saguru found he couldn’t share the sentiment. Stripped of the majority of its trappings, the room looked too bare; a shell of what it once was. Too big as well, compared to where he was living now. Too big for Saguru alone. “It used to be nicer,” Saguru said after a moment that went on a beat too long. Saguru’s mystery collection, Mel’s Shakespeare collection, and the handful of knickknacks they’d collected over the years were in Japan, most still in boxes in Saguru’s childhood bedroom. The plants Mum had given to a friend and her cousin. All the art from the walls had been carefully packed and shipped to the mansion in Japan along with Saguru’s clothing, case records, important paperwork, and an odd assortment of things that Mum had deemed important to bring since Saguru hadn’t been compelled to go through Mel’s things when he was trying to run from everything.

He realized he’d once again stood too long, lost in his thoughts. Saguru shook himself, ignoring Kaito’s worried look, and moved to the kitchen. Cutlery in the drawers—could be donated, not of immediate importance and no sentimental attachment. Same to the dishes in the cupboards; Mel’s parents took the only sentimental dishware. Well, minus Saguru’s old favorite teapot. He took it down. It was nothing special to look at, antique but not flashy, just a squat cream colored teapot with orange and black and gold flowers around the top that they’d bought on a whim and kept because it didn’t drip like half the teapots Mel’s mother collected. It went on the counter for things to take back with him.

“Didn’t clean out your cupboards,” Kaito commented when Saguru opened one of the food cupboards. It was still stocked with non-perishables; boxes of pasta and spices and tea that Saguru only ever drank once in a blue moon. Kaito picked up a tin of sardines. “The dates are still good on some of these.”

“I suppose that can be donated too.” He should start a list. Find a box or something to put things in and sort it out so that it could be donated, kept, or thrown away. He’d have to go get boxes because if he remembered correctly, they’d used all the empty ones lying around when he left.

“Please tell me you emptied the fridge.”

“I think Mum did.” A quick check confirmed it. Both the refrigerator and freezer were empty, the settings turned down low to conserve energy. Left like he might move back at any moment. Or so that it could be rented out should he ever want to, Saguru thought. “I don’t remember much about the packing,” Saguru admitted, closing the refrigerator. “Mum had some boxes and I know I threw clothing in them and put all my photos and keepsakes in another. Books. But Mum did most of it.”

Kaito nodded, understanding. “I did about the same when Aoko kicked me out. And when I moved into my apartment. Of course I went back and got more things from my mom’s house later and things add up, but at first I didn’t even have a bed or food, just a spare set of clothes and an electric kettle for instant noodles and tea until I pulled things together.”

Saguru nodded back. When life uprooted you, things got lost in the scramble or set aside, or forgotten. Now he was picking up where he left off now that he was at a better state of mind. “Three piles,” he murmured to himself. Boxes could be found later. The kitchen wasn’t really what he needed to go through though. There was the hall closet, the office, and lastly, the bedroom.

“It’s a lot bigger,” Kaito said, trailing after Saguru as Saguru wandered back toward the office, “than your apartment now. Or my apartment really. Easily half again as wide. And a balcony. Nice. I can picture you drinking tea out there and watching the sun rise.”

“Dinner sometimes,” Saguru said. “In the summer we’d get takeaway and eat outside.” The office had been left untouched beyond taking the paperwork from the filing cabinet. That left a collection of miscellaneous gifts given by his students on a shelf over the desk, Mel’s collection of musical posters—he’d had to pick and choose what to hang up after a few years of performing—on the far wall, held up with tacks instead of frames because they were kept for sentimentality, not value of the design that went into them. The framed photos were gone, but there was a lot of personal items scattered around. There were even tests he’d graded and never given back at the end of the school year sitting covered with a thin layer of dust. In short, the room was a mess, probably worse than the bedroom considering they’d stripped most of Saguru’s things from there already. Saguru knew he’d find a mess of Mel’s things if he opened the cupboard in the corner because he’d shoved most of them there when he got heartsick seeing them sitting untouched for months. “Kaito, this is going to take hours.” He wasn’t sure if the words were meant as a warning or an apology.

Kaito gave him an unimpressed look. “I figured it would. It’s not like I have other plans. Or anywhere else to go really. Unless you wanted privacy?”

“No.” Privacy would mean a better chance of getting lost in his head and memories. Kaito’s presence was helpful, grounding him to the here and now. “I appreciate you being here.”

Kaito smiled and clapped a hand on Saguru’s shoulder before wandering over to Saguru’s desk to look at the shelf of teacher gifts. Some of them, like the ‘element of surprise’ chemistry themed mug holding novelty pens, were amusing and thoughtful. The rock painted in an attempt of a molecular structure was well meant. The apple-themed paraphernalia was both tacky and honestly a bit of an eyesore. Saguru hadn’t thrown any of them away because they had been reminders of why he enjoyed teaching, proof that some of his students at least enjoyed his class. He had a file of letters somewhere too, along with a few news clippings of students he’d connected with and seen go on to success later in life. He thought Mum might have packed that with the rest of the files though.

“I suppose I don’t have room for most of that anymore.” He could get rid of the tacky things, and keep his favorites. He’d have to be choosy anyway; mailing things was expensive.

“You don’t have to stay in your matchbook apartment,” Kaito pointed out.

“Well, no, but I like being your neighbor.” Saguru started separating things on his desk into keep, toss, donate piles. “I intend to keep teaching, regardless of how detective work is infiltrating my free time, so I know I could afford to live somewhere larger, but really I would miss being able to walk around the corner to your home.”

Kaito handed him items from the shelf, idly juggling a growing assortment of odds and ends as he did so. “There is a solution to that you know.”

“Hm?” The ‘element of surprise’ mug went in the keep pile. “And what would that be?”

“There’s always the option of getting a place together.”

Saguru missed grabbing the next item handed toward him. The painted rock clattered its way to the discard pile. “Oh.”

“Too soon?” Kaito asked, a grimace on his face. He stilled his juggling.

“No. It’s not.” They all but lived together anyway, two apartments making up a home with how they left their doors open for each other. They ate most meals together and sometimes slept on Saguru’s futon together, and spent most evenings together... They practically co-parented Takumi when he was over. It wouldn’t be that big of a shift. “I hadn’t thought that far ahead yet is all.” Some days it still felt a little unreal where he’d ended up. Most days it felt right though, so he rolled with how his life had changed.

Kaito handed him the whole assortment of novelty pens. Saguru kept the one that gave you a shock, like the one he’d given Takumi, and tossed the rest.

“I know it would be a little weird,” Kaito said, handing more things over on autopilot. “And there would be the question of where, and how much space and the whole mess of moving... But I don’t technically need to stay at the apartment anymore for Kid reasons, and we practically live together with how your things keep ending up in my room and mine in your closet, and you did say you planned on staying...” He took a deep breath and Saguru listened, patient, for him to reach the end of his rambling. “So maybe we could find someplace nicer. Sort of like this kind of nicer. Room to live and work, and maybe allows pets.”

Saguru smiled picturing Kaito’s doves. They’d need a decent amount of space for keeping birds. And they’d need a room for Takumi, so that would mean at least two bedrooms and an office space. Perhaps two since both Saguru and Kaito had a tendency to take up a decent amount of space with projects. They both had lots of books to house as well. It would get expensive fast, let alone finding a place at a convenient distance from the school that met their desired criteria. Still... “That sounds nice.” He would love to wake up next to Kaito more often. And not have to decide which kitchen they were using that day. “We can think more on it when we get back to Japan, research for someplace we both like when the new semester starts.”

“Yeah?” Kaito smiled back. There was that bit of vulnerable hope in his expression, lacking in masks, and it never failed to make Saguru feel both sappy and a little heartsick when he saw that expression, because he knew how hard it could be for Kaito to hope with anything romantic. There would always be a little part of him that was waiting for a shoe to drop like it had with Aoko, just like a tiny part of Saguru would always be worried that this too would end in tragedy. Thankfully they were both people capable of facing their fears and strengthening trust.

“Of course. I did promise I was staying. The apartment I have now was never meant to be permanent anyway.”

“How do you feel about houses?”

“Depends on the location. I still have my leg to factor in.”

“Right. I’ll start looking for places. Do you think Takumi will be happy or upset if we move?”

“Both,” Saguru said. The piles in front of him grew fast. The desk was bare now, the shelf above it scattered into categories. “We should talk to him about it before we make any changes. It’s his home too.”

“True.” Kaito crouched down for a quick peck on the cheek before dragging open drawers. “Thanks, Saguru.”

No, thank you, Saguru thought as Kaito began pulling out papers, looking so much happier than a few moments ago. Kaito’d managed to cheer up both of them in the span of a few minutes, working his magic like always. Saguru returned to the task at hand feeling lighter. Not even going through Mel’s assorted belongings in the room brought him down, not with Kaito humming some pop song under his breath, or the random comments objects brought up. Saguru ended up with a large pile of trash—mostly paper—a much smaller pile of keepsakes and things like Mel’s laptop found dusty and forgotten under a pile of dog-eared screenplays for auditions he’d been looking through, and one full of things that could probably be donated along with his dishes and usable food items to some local charity group. There was always a need for school supplies.

He’d found at least two dozen note cards and bits of scrap paper with recipes scribbled on them in Mel’s cramped handwriting, some with notations about how to change the recipe for his tastes, and a slightly smushed packet of photographs from their last holiday trip together that Saguru must have stuffed in the cupboard during his quest to avoid reminders of Mel. Clearly he was keeping those.

“How is he not red as a lobster?” Kaito asked, peering at a beach photo over Saguru’s shoulder. Saguru was as topless as Mel in it, but of the two of them, Saguru clearly tanned while Mel didn’t.

“Sunblock. All over, every other hour. Otherwise he’d burn and be left with freckles everywhere after a week of peeling.”

“Ouch,” Kaito said. “I burn, but with a bit of sunblock I’ll tan instead.”

“Irish skin,” Saguru said, having met enough of Mel’s relatives that he could say that with some confidence. Mum wasn’t much better to be honest; somehow he’d lucked out in that genetic lottery.

“You both look happy.”

“We were.” That was a good memory. A day with both of them making fools of themselves in public, too much sand in awkward places, and not a hint of regret at any of it. “He tried to bury me in sand.”

“Please tell me there was a photo of that.”

Saguru flipped to it, the image a bit blurry because Mel had been laughing and that more than slowly being buried in sand had woken Saguru from a post-lunch nap.

“Perfect,” Kaito said.

They went through the rest of the photos together.

***

They took a break to eat some of the canned goods from Saguru’s cupboard before tackling the bedroom. It was pretty clear from the state of the room which was Saguru’s side and which had housed Mel’s things. Saguru’s things had largely been stripped from the room, but Mel’s side still had books stacked and objects poking from an overly-full closet.

“You were really neat and organized,” Kaito said as they opened up the closets, “back in high school. You still are, but with more clutter.”

“Mel’s influence.”

“I can see. How long did it take to reach an agreement about clutter?” There were only a few things left in Saguru’s closet, hung neatly. Mel’s closet was chaos, over-stuffed with things on hangars and odds and ends spilling all over the floor. Saguru knew that some of the things were left from stage productions where Mel had been required to get his own costume parts. Some things even Saguru wasn’t sure where they’d come from.

“It was a point of contention for the first few months. I relaxed my standards of cleanliness and he made more of an effort to reduce the worst of the clutter. Thankfully we both preferred clean common space and not having dishes piled in the sink for days.”

“Is that a sequin dress in there?”

“A Halloween costume. Although he did like to pull it out for laughs.”

“Wish I could have met him.”

“You’d have gotten along, I think. At the very least, I imagine he’d respect you as a fellow showman.”

Kaito took an armful of clothing hangers out and Saguru grabbed things from the pile in the bottom of the closet. A quarter of that mess was shoes for different situations and outfits. “It’s alarming how much a person can accumulate in the better part of a decade. And this is with considerably limited living space compared to what I grew up with. I don’t even want to think about going through my parents’ homes.”

“I thought they only had one home now?”

“There’s a summer cottage in England still. For when they want to visit England, but more affordable than the home Mum raised me in. It belonged to my mother’s father in his retirement and he left it to her in his will.” Saguru set the armload of things on the dusty, covered bed. Kaito was spreading clothing out across the floor. “It was actually a bit of a snub. Her siblings got the nicer property and the contents of most of the estate, but she was left with the summer home and the vastly smaller collection that went with it. Granmum and Mum had a wonderful relationship, but I don’t think Grandfather ever accepted that she married my father.”

“Well that sucks. At least you got along with your other grandfather, right?”

“Mm, he was less interested in propriety, and more in science. His wife was a bit the opposite though. It was a scandal on both sides that they got married honestly, but they did try to not let that affect me. Mum’s father did seem to approve of my detective work. He gave me my pocket watch.” Tap shoes from one of the musicals Mel was in. Jogging shoes. Sleek Oxfords that looked like they’d barely been worn. A shoebox full of—Saguru shut that quickly, mildly embarrassed because he thought that box had been under the bed, not in the closet. ...Not to keep, that would be too awkward in multiple ways.

Kaito glanced at him. “You found something naughty didn’t you.”

“Nothing I didn’t know we owned, just not where I expected to find it.”

Kaito laughed at him. “What do you want done with the clothes?”

“Well they won’t fit either of us,” Saguru said, eying them. Mel had been taller than Saguru and a bit slighter in the shoulders. Longer torso, longer legs, a size larger in general let alone anything that had been tailored. He’d taken good care of his clothing though. “The majority can be donated.” Although... He glanced through what Kaito had taken down before rummaging through the clothes hangers still in the closet. He pulled a T-shirt free. “I’m keeping this though.” It was a production shirt or the first play Mel had performed in professionally. The shirt was well-worn and soft, its screen printed lettering faded from dozens of washes.

“No judgement here. I still have some of Aoko’s stuff.”

“...Why would you have Aoko-san’s clothing?” Or how since Kaito was kicked out?

“Why do you think?”

Kaito should know better than to give an open-answered response because Saguru’s brain filled in a dozen possible reasons, half of them not fit to mention in polite company. “Actually I would rather not know.”

Kaito laughed at him again. “And people say I have the dirty mind.”

“You do.”

“That underrates your own brain, Saguru.”

Saguru ignored him and went back to digging through Mel’s things. Mel kept a lot of random thing that Saguru guessed were for sentimental reasons. Fake flowers squashed under a hat. A dozen belts fallen off their hanger. More scraps of paper, some with drawings, some with recipes, some of them just lists. Shopping lists, to-do lists, gift lists, dates to remember, a completely arbitrary list of ranking different flavors of pies versus cakes. It made Saguru feel nostalgic for Mel standing at the kitchen counter scribbling out one of those lists. Most of the to-do ones were only half checked off which explained why they’d never been thrown away, but Mel always got distracted and ended up writing new lists before the old ones were finished.

Most things didn’t have too much emotion attached. Clothing was clothing. But then there was the suit they’d been married in. There was a box containing the dried boutonnieres that Saguru hadn’t even realized Mel had kept all these years. There were letters back from when Mel was in college, some of them from Saguru before they started dating. Kaito gave Saguru space and kept making a clothing pile to donate. There was a professional stage makeup case Kaito could appreciate, clutter of lighthearted things like bottles of silly string that hadn’t been opened, a board game, handheld games from high school on the top closet shelf that hadn’t been touched in years, or a bent up hula hoop that Saguru didn’t know when it could have gotten in there.

Then there was the box. It was plain, just a white cardboard box with a sticky note on it with “Don’t Forget” written in black sharpie marker. On top was a silk scarf with “for Mum” pinned on it, a book on Spanish culture and cooking—Mel’s parents had been planning a trip to Spain—with a scribbled “for Christmas?” and below that... Tickets to the Body Works exhibit that had been showing. That had “surprise” written on the sticky note attached to that. The tickets were dated a few days before Mel was shot, for the week after. There was a list with ideas for Saguru’s birthday gift tucked next to it.

Kaito’s arms were around him before Saguru realized he was crying. “Damn it,” Saguru said, covering his face. “I thought I was going to be able to get through this without crying.”

“It’s fine. You’re going to be fine,” Kaito said.

“It’s really not.”

“Well, no, not right now it isn’t obviously.” Kaito rubbed circles on his back as Saguru tried to swallow his tears. “But I think we both know that these sort of things aren’t a ‘one-foot-after-another’ kind of path. Life has detours and backtracking and booby traps like boxes in closets to throw at you and it’s okay to feel shit when it happens.”

Saguru gave a watery laugh. “Hell of a booby trap.”

“At least it wasn’t a literal one. Imagine when I found Oyaji’s secret room.”

“Fair enough. That would be a pretty big shock.” This wasn’t a shock so much as an emotional sucker punch he hadn’t realized he’d needed to brace for. He should have realized; Mel was always good at keeping track of upcoming birthdays and holidays and had a habit of finding gifts throughout the year in advance. Saguru never went looking for where he kept them though, for obvious reasons. He closed his eyes and leaned into Kaito. Warm and soothing after their months together. He let go, and the tears stopped sooner by letting them happen.

“Need another break?” Kaito asked kindly.

“No.” Saguru didn’t move though, face still pressed against Kaito’s shoulder.

“So, who’s Anand?”

“Hm?”

“Box,” Kaito said, gesturing with his chin.

Saguru looked and it seemed there had been something else in the box because there was a gaudy-looking necklace with bright, multi-color prisms spilling from the bottom where Saguru had dropped the box. He snorted, amused and feeling lighter all at once. “Anand is one of Mel’s theatre friends. He likes things that glitter.”

“I’d say he has good taste, but that is a really bright necklace.”

“I am fairly sure there was a bet going on who could find the gaudiest piece of costume jewelry.”

“A good friend then.”

“Yeah. A good friend.” And one more person he hadn’t spoken to since Mel’s funeral. There was a twinge of old guilt. He was making more of an effort lately to restore some of the bridges he’d burned. Maybe that was another one he should attempt to fix even though Anand had been more Mel’s friend than Saguru’s. “Would it be kind or cruel to give these gifts to the people they were meant to go to?”

“Depends on the person.”

...Saguru might have a few more stops on his trip in that case. And a mother-in-law to possibly call, although he wasn’t sure that she would still view herself as such considering the circumstances. They’d never been close to begin with. “Maybe a break would be a good idea.”

***

Kaito convinced him to leave the apartment, and within half an hour of wandering London and stopping in at various places he used to frequent, Saguru was feeling closer to equilibrium. London would always be home in a way Tokyo wasn’t. His time in Japan had been vacations and trips, a place he was fond of and had a place in growing up, but not a place he knew in and out. Not where he spent most of his life or where most of his memories were centered in. Tokyo was a second home, but London would always be his first one, so it was nice to share it with Kaito.

“We should bring Takumi sometime,” Kaito said, as they sat at a café. Saguru had a cup of strong British black tea, yet another thing he’d missed. Kaito had gotten coffee as the time difference had him a bit jetlagged. “I always meant to take him abroad sometimes like Kaa-san and Oyaji did with me when I was little, but with everything going on it never happened.”

“Would Aoko let him out of the country?” Saguru asked. Takumi wasn’t grounded anymore, but considering he’d endured three months of restricted freedom and still had Aoko anxious if he was late checking in or somewhere other than he said he’d be, Saguru had to wonder if she’d let him go on a day trip let alone leave Japan.

“Maybe?” Kaito said, sipping at his coffee. He wiggled a hand in the air. “There’s a 50% chance she’d nix the idea outright just because it’s me—and you, actually, considering how trouble’s started following you around. She likes you, but that doesn’t really factor into keeping Takumi away from things that lead to police intervention. But I know she’d like Takumi to get to see more than just Tokyo and a trip here and there to Osaka. Paris is a higher chance of getting an okay than London just because it’s Paris.”

“While Paris is a nice city, I don’t see how France is a better choice than England. Especially considering that Takumi speaks English as a second language. I could swing it as a learning opportunity.”

“No, see it’s a nostalgia thing. We went to Paris once before Takumi was born sort of on our honeymoon. Very romantic. Couldn’t pass up the chance since that’s where Oyaji met Kaa-san.”

Saguru tried to picture Kaito and Aoko on a whirlwind romantic trip in Paris. It wasn’t terribly hard to do, but the image felt odd in his head. The idea of them performing typical romantic gestures just didn’t fit the image Saguru had of their relationship. Add Kaito producing roses from his sleeves every chance he could get and Aoko getting flustered until she tossed them back in his face maybe. Wining and dining under moonlight with the Eiffel Tower in the background? Not so much. He could see Kaito’s father sweeping Kuroba Chikage off her feet in a debonair manner though. He was the one that first established Kid as a charming gentleman thief after all.

“The angle of it being a learning opportunity is a good one though,” Kaito said. “I’ll be sure to use it when I ask next time we plan a visit.”

“Barely here a day and already planning the next trip?” Saguru said, amused.

“Of course. London is important to you. We’re obviously coming back.” Kaito smiled, his lips edging on Kid’s trademark smile. Saguru flushed, wondering if that was the same sort of smile he’d sent Aoko’s way on their honeymoon. “I’d like to get to know Saguru the Londoner a bit better too. You’re more confident here.”

“Between police work and my own exploration, I’ve been a little bit everywhere.”

“Exactly. And confidence is always a good look on you.”

Now Saguru was really blushing. Really, now, Kuroba, there was no reason to aim that smile his way in public! Saguru coughed into his fist. “I thought you found my confidence smug and grating.”

“Amazing how things change when it’s not aimed at me,” Kaito replied, grinning wickedly at flustering Saguru in a public space.

Two could play that game. “That’s odd, I seem to recall you enjoying it directed at you not too long ago.”

Kaito looked too happy at Saguru’s response for a split second before he faked scandalized. “Saguru, we’re in public! There’s a family right there!” He gestured to a woman with two small children sharing a crust-less sandwich.

“It’s a good thing we’re speaking Japanese, then, isn’t it?”

Kaito blinked. “You’re right. I didn’t even notice we swapped back.” He’d been trying to practice English since the plane took off. His accent still was fairly noticeable even if nowhere near so bad as in high school.

“I think we’ve been speaking Japanese since I found Mel’s box.” He hadn’t really registered the shift back either; funny how languages didn’t stand out. He was used to Japanese with Kaito though, so it wasn’t odd that he’d slid back into that language when distressed. It didn’t feel out of place to talk on about London in a language other than its native one either when it came down to Kaito.

“Switch back,” Kaito said in English. “I need more practice. I want to sound correct by the time this trip is over.”

“You’re still a ways off, but fine.”

“It’s annoying. American English is easier to copy.”

“You’re just more exposed to it.”

“True.” Kaito nodded and affected an American accent. It was a lot more passable than his British one. Saguru was willing to bet he’d modeled at least some of that British accent off Saguru. “Kudo speaks American English almost fluently. From all I’ve heard about Hawaii, you’d think it was a miracle place where you can learn anything, even some things questionably legal.”

“It’s America; I imagine there’s a lot of things that you could learn there that are of questionable legality elsewhere in the world.”

“Did you just diss America?” Kaito asked, laughing. He still had that awful American accent.

“I’ll take London and Japan over America. No offense to Americans of course.”

“Of course,” Kaito echoed in Saguru’s British accent. It was almost a spot on copy. Maybe Kaito would get that accent down after all. “Is there anything we need while we’re out?”

Saguru sipped the dregs of his tea. “Boxes,” he said after a moment of thought. “Lots of empty cardboard boxes.”

“Right-o. Let’s get on that after tea, yeah?”

“Please never say anything in that affectated accent again. It’s painful.”

“Aww, I thought I got pretty close that time,” Kaito said, grinning.

“My ears bleed at your butchery of British English.” Saguru smiled though. So easy to smile even when not long ago he was so sad. Kaito had his magic even when he wasn’t performing.

Out of the corner of his eye, Saguru caught the flicker of movement as a woman’s purse disappeared from beside her chair. “Purse snatcher,” Saguru said under his breath.

“I saw it. I’ll play distraction, you catch?” Kaito finished his coffee in one long swallow.

“Works for me.”

They got up at the same time, Kaito making a bee line for the cream and sugar counter as the purse snatcher made his way casually through the tables toward the exit. Saguru went the other way around the table making like he was going for the bathrooms near the door.

Kaito pretended to add sugar and cream into his empty coffee cup, before turning just at the right moment to make it seem accidental and bumping into the purse snatcher. Cream went all down the man’s front. “Oh! I’m so sorry!” Kaito said in American English. He grabbed a napkin and started trying to dab at the mess.

The man batted his hand away. “It’s fine,” he said, moving toward the door as eyes turned toward him.

Saguru, now near the door, caught the arm holding the purse before the man could get to there. “I don’t believe this belongs to you,” he said at a loud enough volume to draw further attention.

The purse’s rightful owner gasped. “That’s mine!”

The man in Saguru’s grasp took one look at Saguru’s cane and went for the obvious weak point. Thankfully, Saguru was expecting him to, so it wasn’t too difficult to shift his weight and use the man’s momentum against him to flip him flat on his back in front of the restrooms. As he wheezed on the ground, Saguru plucked the purse from his hand and tossed it to Kaito to return. “Could someone call the police?” Saguru asked. He jabbed his cane in the man’s face as he made to get up. “The whole café has seen your face, sir. It’s better to just give in to the inevitable.”

For a moment the man’s face contorted in an unpleasant snarl before he realized that half the patrons in the room were crowding around and it really would be nearly impossible to run. He held his hands up in defeat.

“Thank you.”

“Fuck you,” was the muttered reply, but it honestly was mild compared to some of the things criminals verbally hurled at him.

“The police are on their way,” the barista said.

“Well, there’s your crime for the day,” Kaito said, meandering over to lean on Saguru’s shoulder. “Think we’ll be good for a few days?”

“On a scale of shoplifting to grand larceny, this is the small end of the scale.”

“Hmm, true. Probably doesn’t net you much leeway then.”

They really had to figure out if there was some sort of balance to these things or if the universe saved up sometimes before throwing larger crimes Saguru’s way. It would save him a world of headaches if he could figure out how his price worked enough to work with it rather than having it acted upon him. “At least no one was injured this time.” He eyed the man still flat on his back. “Well, not too much.”

The officer that arrived to arrest the purse thief was one Saguru hadn’t worked with often, but she was familiar enough that they recognized each other on sight. Her partner, however, Saguru had never met before. He turned to the officer he knew.

“Officer Rostov,” Saguru said with a nod.

“Saguru Hakuba,” she said in return, neutral. “It’s been a while. You’re back in London then?”

“Just until I can clear out my old flat. I intend to stay in Japan.”

“Huh. Long way away to uproot yourself to, but if it works for you. You caught the suspect?”

“I was having tea with my companion and we noticed this man take that young woman’s purse. My companion distracted the thief and I caught him before he could leave out the front door.” The suspect and woman he’d stolen from and the barista were the only people hanging around the front of the shop; most of the people who’d been there for the theft attempt had moved on. The remaining people gawked like they were stocking up on gossip fodder. Kaito, leaning against the display counter, gave a little wave when Saguru referred to him.

The process of the arrest was quick, as were the statements. Saguru found himself under scrutiny from the unknown officer as Officer Rostov talked with the barista.

“You’re the freelance detective that used to live around here,” the man said, “aren’t you?”

“Yes, though technically I’m not sure if I can be considered a detective still.” He didn’t have a license for it in London anymore, and he was still jumping through hoops to get one in Japan since he wasn’t a citizen anymore.

“I’ve heard about you. Especially when things got shook up half a year ago. Colquhoun is still working with the rest of the British police force in finding rats in the system. He speaks highly of you.” The way it was said wasn’t the tone of a compliment. Saguru took that to mean other people had a lot less complimentary things to say. “You’re not here to cause more trouble?”

“Just passing through.” Saguru didn’t like the intent look on the man’s face. There was something in his stare that bordered aggressive, like he was waiting for Saguru to do something he could react negatively to. It had Saguru moving toward Kaito a few steps before he could even piece together what felt off.

“I lost a partner because of—”

“Burling,” Rostov said, cutting him off as she lifted a note pad in his direction. “It sounds like the suspect had a bike outside. Can you check the type and color? I have a feeling it might match up to some other purse snatchings in the area.”

Burling’s jaw tensed for a moment before he nodded. “I’ll do that.” He took the notebook and shot Saguru one last dark look before moving out the door.

Kaito let out a quiet whistle. “Wow. Someone doesn’t like you.”

“I lost a partner,” Saguru’s brain echoed. He supposed it didn’t matter if Burling’s partner had been crooked or if they’d been lost to injury or death; a loss was a loss. There would be those who hated him for stirring up the status quo even if it was the right thing to do. And there were still others who disliked him because of the fallout with Mel, and neither one was something he could control. “I’m sure there are a lot of people who don’t like me,” Saguru said.

“Not your fault though. You didn’t make people join crime organizations, and you didn’t lead the effort to uproot corruption here.”

“No, I just lifted the curtain enough to reveal all the problems.” People would always blame the messenger.

“Well I’m sure you have friends because of it too. Officer Rostov doesn’t seem to hate you.”

She didn’t seem to like him much either, Saguru didn’t point out, but she had never been one of the officers he was particularly friendly with.

Rostov, done with talking to the barista, wandered back over to them. “I think I have everything I need from you both, so you’re free to go if you’d like,” she said, still as neutral and professional as she’d been from the start.

“Thank you for your time,” Saguru said.

A small smile ticked up the corners of her mouth, the first positive emotion she’d shown so far. “If the guy you caught is who I think he is, you should be the one getting my thanks. I hope Burling didn’t bother you two. He is still learning to be professional sometimes.”

“I don’t take it personally.”

“Good.” She nodded to them. “If you’re in the area for a while, maybe stop by the precinct. Colquhoun would be happy to see you, and a few others.” She glanced at Kaito. “Introduce your friend.”

“We’ll do that,” Saguru said. They did plan to meet up with Millard at some point on this trip after all.

“Don’t get into too much trouble,” Rostov said, giving them a wave as she escorted Burling and the thief out the door.

Kaito sent Saguru a wry smile. “Do you think we should have mentioned that you’re a magnet for trouble these days?”

“Somehow I doubt that would endear me again to the police department,” Saguru returned, equally wry. Their tea was still at their table. Thankfully they’d mostly finished before the incident as it was undoubtedly stone cold by now. “Back to the apartment?”

“If you’re ready,” Kaito said, easily agreeable. The tension around his eyes belied his smile, worry that only Saguru knew to look for. He was right to worry but Saguru would have to go back eventually. There was no point in going to a hotel when he had a flat to return to.

“I’ll manage.” At the very least, there shouldn’t be too many other surprises like the box in Mel’s closet. The rest he could brace himself for.

Kaito bumped Saguru’s shoulder with his own. Saguru caught his hand and curled their fingers together.

“We’ll manage,” he corrected.

He wasn’t alone. If nothing else, he wasn’t alone.

***

It was like catching a glimpse of something through a curtain. Kaito wondered if this was what Saguru had felt back when he first stepped foot into Kaito’s apartment. Kaito wasn’t a detective, but he knew people and even though most of the objects in Saguru’s home were missing, there was more than enough left behind to give a picture of what Saguru’s life here had been like. Busy, full of work and casework and individual passions, but also shared interests. Little intimate overlaps in Saguru’s life and his husband’s seen in such simple things like a shared study and wall hangings or how the remaining books had been mingled subject matters. There were couples that kept their own interests distinct, but that hadn’t been Mel and Saguru. It must have been a healthy relationship and in its own way it felt funny because once Kaito would have said he wouldn’t be able to recognize healthy if it was staring him in the face.

Being here felt like trespassing just a little. They’d stopped to buy boxes and with each one they filled that feeling grew a little more. This was Saguru dismantling what remained of that past. Objectively, it was him moving on, but as someone who had always had trouble letting go of things he cared about no matter how broken, dead or gone they might be, it was hard to watch.

Kaito didn’t say a word though. The last thing Saguru needed was to know that Kaito wasn’t as comfortable here as he was pretending to be.

The English helped. The act of forming sentences and sorting through meaning served as a focus.

It was too quiet during most of the boxing up though. After the disaster in the bedroom, they’d taken the boxes to their piles sorted out in the office and just dealt with that. Manageable, slightly less personal, and held no surprises by that point.

Kaito stretched after putting one more awful teacher-themed mug into a donate box. Saguru was methodically fitting the recipe cards into tiny spaces they’d fit in the single keep box. He’d spent most of Kaito’s boxing up time shredding documents that were no longer relevant with a noisy old paper shredder in the corner. Kaito was just about to suggest calling it a night since it was getting dark out and they should at least get another snack as the tea was a long time ago when there was a knock on the door.

They both froze. “Expecting any visitors?” Kaito half joked.

“No. Perhaps it’s a concerned neighbor?” Saguru struggled to stand up and Kaito offered him a hand, ears straining for hints of sound. Voices, maybe, two of them. No, three, he corrected.

He followed Saguru to the door, for all appearances calm as could be, but familiar tension coiling in him. It had been half a year but there was some part of him that still waited for the other shoe to drop. That paranoid little part of his brain was convinced that it was a trap. It was truly ridiculous because what sort of assassin would knock on the door? That was trauma though; twisting perceptions of reality because sometimes anyone could be an enemy and he couldn’t let himself slip. Kaito plucked at a button on his shirt, fingers close to hidden pockets and smoke pellets he kept there. Old habits died hard.

Saguru was less cautious but that didn’t mean he was careless as he reached the door. He glanced around the barest crack of a gap before pulling the door open, interrupting what looked to be some sort of hushed argument on the doorstep. “Millard,” Saguru said, surprised. “And Jones and McLuhan. What are you doing here?”

“Ha!” one of the women said to the others. “Told you he’d be here! Where the hell else would he be? Hakuba you prat, you didn’t even call to say you’d be in the country. Had to hear it from Rostov as she’s leading in a bloody purse snatcher!”

The man, Millard, rolled his eyes. “What she means is, hullo! Great ta see you, we’ve come bearing gifts.” He held up a plastic bag.

“Is that...ice cream?” Saguru asked, squinting at its contents, blurrily visible through the translucent bag. “What would you have done if I wasn’t here? You didn’t call ahead to check.”

“We’d have had ourselves a bit of a party on the step,” the woman said. “And you’d be out some fuckin’ amazing caramel fudge gelato, mate.” She held up a bundle of metal spoons and disposable bowls.

“Did you steal those from the station?”

“Borrowed. I borrowed them from the station. No one’s going to miss a couple of spoons anyway.”

Despite still being keyed up for disaster, Kaito couldn’t help snorting at that. Three sets of eyes turned his way. He gave a little wave and put on a friendly face. “Your London friends, Saguru?” Kaito asked like he didn’t already know.

Saguru nodded and stepped back to let them in. “Millard Colquhoun, Inez Jones, and Carita McLuhan.” He nodded at each in turn—Millard, who looked like a Scottish stereotype minus a kilt, in his forties with a lot of stress lines in his face, currently counteracted with a smile; Jones a thirty-something woman, dark skinned, hesitant to be here; McLuhan a short, tan woman with a wild pixie cut and a wide smile with a bit too much teeth showing. Kaito filed the names and faces away, fitting them with times Saguru mentioned one or another. “Friends from the London Metropolitan Police, although I didn’t know Jones too well back when I was involved with them. And this is Kaito Kuroba,”—so odd to hear the Western name order—“my friend and boyfriend.”

There was no hesitation in addressing Kaito that way, even if he’d used companion earlier at the café. Kaito hid his surprise. They’d still never really talked about how they’d address their relationship with friends because most of the people who mattered already knew. Kaito didn’t miss the surprise on the Londoners’ faces before they covered it up. He also didn’t miss the flash of concern in Millard’s expression. Saguru, looking at Kaito in that moment, didn’t see it or he’d probably have added something else to that statement, Kaito thought wryly.

“We knew each other in high school for a year or so,” Kaito said, giving context they could build off of. “We weren’t close then, but he ended up my neighbor and, well, we clicked a lot better this time around.”

Saguru shot him a raised-eyebrow look that practically screamed understatement as he ushered guests toward the kitchen.

“Funny how things work out,” Saguru said. He didn’t seem bothered by the fact that no one took their shoes off. Kaito didn’t view himself as much of a neat freak, but it irritated him even though it wasn’t like it would harm anything. Not with how dusty the apartment was to begin with. “I was planning to stop by the precinct tomorrow. I came back to go through things before putting the flat back on the market.”

“So you are staying in Japan,” McLuhan said, eyes flicking to Kaito and away. “A hell of a far way to go.”

“But a second home,” Saguru said. The kitchen was a mess with the piles of things they’d pulled from the cupboards. Saguru moved to get tea things on automatic. Kaito pulled chairs from the kitchen table so they’d have a place to sit. “It is also where my parents are so I am closer to family than I was before.”

“But on the other side of the bleedin’ globe!” McLuhan complained. “And you only call for business.”

“Mostly my fault,” Millard said with a chuckle. “We catch up and that means he only needs to call to talk about the case.” There was a pause, a shadow of the still ongoing dismantling of the group that had haunted Kaito’s nightmares and waking moments hanging over all of them. “Which we’ll hopefully get over and done within the next few months.”

“Ugh, don’t talk about the fuckin’ case,” McLuhan said. “I’m seeing profiles in my sleep. Gimme the goods, Colquhoun. It’s gonna melt and that’d be a damn shame.” The ice cream was passed over and dug into and Saguru was clearly debating whether or not to make tea considering they’d be eating something cold, a container of tea in one hand and one of the ceramic mugs from the cupboard in his other hand. McLuhan solved the problem by pulling out several bottles of...Kaito squinted at the exaggerated font. Ginger beer?

Kaito shot Saguru a look and Saguru, seeing the label, said, “It’s not alcoholic.”

“Wasn’t sure if you were still avoiding the bottle,” McLuhan said, gruff and backhanded as she ripped into the package of disposable bowls—seemed silly when they had bowls. Four spoons and bottles and five of them, Kaito noted.

The mugs from the cupboard went on the table, solving one problem. Kaito leaned against the back of a chair, tuning out McLuhan complaining about how Saguru missed both her Christmas party and her party in May. McLuhan, Millard and Saguru had fallen right back into a familiar pattern of interaction, the odd ones out... were Kaito and Jones. Kaito glanced at the woman on his right and found her sneaking looks at him.

“So you knew each other in high school...?” Jones offered.

“Yeah. We butted heads a lot. I was always playing pranks and Saguru was—”

“Oh, you’re that guy!” McLuhan cut in. Kaito hadn’t realized she’d been paying attention. From the way Millard rolled his eyes, she tended to do that sort of thing often, not even finishing her previous thought. “The green hair and glitter bomb guy.”

“I take it Saguru mentioned me.”

Saguru looked embarrassed. “We were exchanging stories and your pranks...”

“My pranks are next level,” Kaito said with a smirk, just the right amount of smug and casual to come off as comfortably teasing. “Not that you ever appreciated their genius back then.”

“They were disruptive and frequently targeting my person,” Saguru said, though he was smiling a little.

“But they sure were fun. Green hair suited you.”

“Sometimes I wonder if you weren’t a little too fixated on making Aoko and I stressed.”

“You both had the best reactions. Ah, the expression of someone as they charge at you with a mop... Not that you ever swung a mop at me like Aoko. If looks could kill though...”

“You’re lucky you made it past twenty,” Saguru joked, then froze up a bit because it hit a bit too close to reality for a joke.

Kaito grinned and let it roll off him. “I’m always lucky.” True, except for when it wasn’t. The eyes of the others on him were just a bit too analytical. Surrounded by police, Kaito thought ruefully. Somehow he always ended up back in the same position.

A bowl of ice cream was shoved at his face. “Here,” McLuhan said. “Everybody eat before this melts into a puddle of chocolate goo.”

Kaito retrieved an extra spoon with an absentminded flourish. Their eyes followed that too. Keep smiling, he thought.

The ice cream was delicious, chocolatey enough to practically give him a buzz and smooth enough to make his inner child practically weep at how perfect it was. Saguru clearly also liked it; he did like darker chocolate and with the bitter-sweetness of the ice cream and the salted caramel bits it probably fit his preferred sweet profile. McLuhan had good taste. Kaito let them talk and catch up, anything but the case they’d been working on from the sound of it, just happy news and reconnecting over old memories.

Saguru looked Kaito’s way a few times, probably worried at his abnormal silence. It was fine. Kaito wanted to let them talk. Saguru, a year ago, had been sure that his friendships were broken beyond repair, but it was clear that this hadn’t been the case. The past, whatever had happened, was forgiven.

If only Kaito could get his own life to fall back into that kind of easy interaction. He and Aoko were trying, but... They had a long way to go.

Kaito was glad Saguru was happy to see his friends, really, he just also was jet-legged and had had too many emotions happening in a couple hours. He just...needed a minute. “Be right back,” he said, in Japanese. He flashed a smile when Saguru looked concerned and headed into the bathroom.

A splash of cold water on his face and the silence of being behind a closed door helped. “You’re out of practice,” Kaito said to his reflection. He usually was able to push emotions into their compact boxes and get on with life better. Not to mention be social even when he wasn’t feeling it. “They’re going to wonder what the hell Saguru sees in you.” He’d charmed Saguru’s parents and Japanese friends, his British friends couldn’t be that much harder. Kaito’s smile in the mirror turned wry. He always had that part of him that wanted to be liked.

Kaito made his way back, pulling on his friendly expression only to pause, some instinct telling him to wait before he just walked in. Kaito listened to his instincts.

“No, he seems nice!” Millard was saying to Saguru. “It just seems a bit quick, considering.”

“It’s been almost two years.”

“But you started dating him when exactly?” A beat. “No, never mind, it doesn’t matter. Shouldn’t have said anything.”

“It’s just a surprise,” McLuhan said, subdued. “We all saw how bad Mel’s passing tore you up. You went half a year on the edge of reason trying to find who did it and then you just broke, dammit. He makes you happy?”

“Yes,” Saguru said emphatically. Kaito leaned against the wall and tucked the warm feeling that gave him in close.

“Then good. Still a bit annoyed he’s keeping you in Japan, but hell, anywhere’s up from where you were.” McLuhan’s knuckles popped. “And if he hurts you he’ll bloody fuckin’ regret it.”

Kaito steadied himself and made a deliberate sound to let them know he was coming back. The conversation in the next room abruptly turned to Jones’s recent vacation. Kaito sent a grin Saguru’s way when he entered the room, a bit less of a mask than earlier at least, and brought a pack of cards to his hands. He was going to charm the hell out of these people and send them on their way confident that they didn’t need to worry about Saguru’s relationship. The cards bridged between his hands showily. “Anyone like card games?”

***

The door shut behind Saguru’s police friends and Kaito finally could take a moment to breathe. Saguru, for all that he’d been engaged and cheerful for their visit, let out a sigh at Kaito’s side.

“Thank you for being patient,” he said. “I’m jet-lagged and I’m used to world trips; you must be exhausted.”

“It’s not that bad.” Compared to being Kid, a bit of jet lag was barely an inconvenience. But Kaito could admit that he was out of practice, spoiled by a regular sleep pattern after years of doing without. “It’s good that you got to see your friends.”

“I should have expected something like this,” Saguru said, moving to put the mugs they’d used in the sink. “Really, I was intending to visit them at some point tomorrow, but I suppose it’s more personal this way instead of catching them on the job.”

Kaito hummed agreement, watching Saguru’s shoulders shift under his shirt as he scrubbed.

“I think they were a bit worried what they were going to find with me here. Honestly, without you here I’d probably be a mess.”

There was a little strip of skin between Saguru’s hairline and the collar of his shirt that got covered up every time Saguru lifted his shoulders. It was distracting. Kaito let it be distracting because if he was paying attention to it, to how Saguru’s body filled the space, he wasn’t thinking about the ghost that had filled the air between them since the plane set down.

“Well, more of a mess.” There was a self-deprecating chuckle that Kaito wanted to shake away. “So thank you for being here,” Saguru said, so sincere and heartfelt.

There was a twinge of guilt in Kaito’s gut because yes, he was here to support Saguru, but there was a part of him that wanted Saguru to look at him through all of this instead of thinking too hard about the man he’d lost for selfish reasons. Kaito spent a lot of his life measuring up to dead men. It wasn’t a contest or a replacement here, but there was still a measure, and every second with Saguru’s friends had made it apparent, even if Saguru and his family rarely made Kaito feel like he was standing in Mel’s absent shadow.

Saguru turned off the water, flicking it from his hands in an absentminded way that he’d picked up from Kaito in lieu of a dish towel. Kaito’s breath caught in his chest from that one, tiny motion, one little sign here in all of this that Kaito had left a mark in Saguru’s patterns.

Saguru turned. “Tomorrow we can take the boxes with donations to the—”

Kaito stole the tail end of his sentence in a kiss. Saguru caught himself on the counter, unresponsive for a moment in surprise before letting Kaito pull him into a passionate kiss. Kaito pressed into it, drawing a tiny sound from Saguru like a victory.

Saguru met that kiss for a moment before cupping Kaito’s cheek in one hand and taking control, slowing it down and turning the passion to something gentler, sweeter.

Kaito couldn’t even be upset when Saguru pulled back, pressing a chaste kiss to his lips, before studying Kaito’s expression. It was too gentle and caring to be upset about, or take as rejection.

“Talk to me,” Saguru said. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong.”

Saguru’s eyes narrowed. “You’re upset. You’ve been uncomfortable since Millard and the others showed up. No, maybe before that. Why didn’t you say anything?”

Kaito tried to keep his smile, but he didn’t really want to hide from Saguru. That was the whole point of what they had between the two of them after all. It didn’t make covering things up any less of a habit though. Kaito slumped forward a bit, leaning a bit more on Saguru. “It’s hard on you being back here and I don’t want to be another problem.”

“You’ve been nothing but supportive,” Saguru said. “But that doesn’t tell me what’s wrong.”

“I’m feeling a little insecure,” Kaito muttered, looking away. “It’s stupid.”

“Is it...because of Mel?” Saguru asked, clearly a little uncomfortable to ask.

“No. Yes, a little,” Kaito said, letting a bit of the self-directed frustration he felt show on his face. “Like I said, stupid. I know in my head just how much you care, and usually my heart gets that too, but being here...”

There was understanding in Saguru’s eyes when Kaito risked a glance. It wasn’t like Kaito’s situation with Aoko, but how did Saguru manage watching the two of them try to figure things out again with that past looming there? Aoko’d never died, but their relationship was as much a lingering ghost of memory in Japan as Hakuba’s husband was here.

“And I might want your friends to like me more than I’d usually care about random people’s opinions of me,” Kaito added.

“You overheard Millard,” Saguru said, a statement not a question.

Kaito shrugged. “I get it. Concerned friend making sure you’re not just diving into something you’re not ready for or being taken advantage of. It’s fine.”

“While I’m glad he cares, it really isn’t any of his business,” Saguru said. “That’s between you and me. And between you and me, I am glad I’m with you. Yes, I loved Mel. Yes, I still feel sad as today clearly demonstrated. But I love you as well and what we have is entirely separate from what I had with Mel and always will be. Just like how you feel toward Aoko,” Saguru said, echoing the parallel of Kaito’s thoughts. “I look at you and I will forever and always only see Kuroba Kaito, magician, thief, and keeper of obscure knowledge.”

Kaito surprised himself by laughing and Saguru smiled back. “I love you too, Saguru.” He leaned in and kissed him again, heart lighter.

Saguru pulled away before it could get any further than chaste. Kaito raised an eyebrow at him. Saguru’s cheeks went pink. “I love you, but we are not doing anything more than kissing in this apartment.”

“Nothing?” Kaito asked, thinking of that brief moment where Saguru matched the passion in his kiss.

“Nothing,” Saguru said firmly. “My emotions are all over as it is; I have too many memories here to add to them in that way.”

“...So does that mean nothing more than kissing the whole time we’re in London?” Kaito asked, feeling a bit disappointed. Sure, London wasn’t the romantic getaway city like Paris, but he was in a foreign country, alone with his lover for the rest of the week, no child to possibly interrupt them...

“Not in the apartment,” Saguru said.

That wording... “Does that mean out of the apartment is okay?” Kaito asked, a grin spreading across his face slowly. “Why Saguru, how daring. Were you thinking of a bathroom tryst? Do you have a kink for the danger of being exposed?”

Saguru went bright red. “Kuroba! No, I was not thinking about...about that! If either of us has an exhibitionist streak, it would definitively be you!”

“You got me,” Kaito sighed, playing it a bit dramatic because it was fun. “We both know I like to flirt with danger. Although I’d totally be up for a tryst if you were interested—”

“Stop.”

“Toilets are kind of cramped here, aren’t they? We could find one that’s meant for one, lock the door—”

Saguru’s hand covered Kaito’s mouth before he could get any further in that little fantasy scenario. The blush had spread to Saguru’s ears. It was cute, a reason that Kaito enjoyed riling him up. The interest buried under that embarrassment made it worth it too. “No borderline public sex. Or public,” Saguru added like he could read Kaito’s thoughts before Kaito even finished having them. “...We are getting a hotel the last day here when I turn over my apartment keys.”

Kaito grinned wider under Saguru’s palm. Then he licked it, snickering at how Saguru’s face twisted in disgust.

“I guess that will have to do,” he said, leaning all his weight on Saguru for a second, taking advantage of how close they were to give a tiny taste of intimacy. Platonic or sexual, at least Kaito didn’t have to worry that Saguru didn’t want that intimacy with him. It was gratifying hearing the tiny, unsteady breath Saguru took when Kaito pulled away. “Until then, I guess I’ll just have to make do.”

“What is that supposed to—”

“I’m going to take a shower and sleep,” Kaito continued, heading to fetch a towel from the linen closet. “We are using the bed, correct?”

“...Yes.” Saguru grimaced. Ah, more complicated emotions. Lovely.

“You could always join me in the shower,” Kaito said with a wink.

“You’re incorrigible,” Saguru complained.

He was smiling though. Win for Kaito.

“Kaito,” Saguru called before Kaito could get to the bathroom.

“Yeah?”

Saguru still leaned against the kitchen counter, something between fondness and concern on his face. “I love you.”

Kato smiled, true and relaxed. “I know. Love you too.” He let the smile tick up to a grin. “Offer’s still open~!”

“I’ll make the bed,” Saguru said with a roll of his eyes.

Everything would be fine.

***

It took about two days to properly go through everything and either donate or dispose of what Saguru wasn’t keeping. Saguru put the furniture up in an ad for a low price, and already had the couch, table and chairs, and two of the bookcases gone. There hadn’t been any more emotional breakdowns from either of them and Saguru was cautiously optimistic about how the rest of this trip would go. They’d made a short trip to the police station yesterday and they were planning on dinner with Saguru’s maternal aunt and cousin that evening.

With any luck, they’d get rid of the rest of the furniture and could turn over the keys by the end of the week with no extraneous items for the landlord to deal with. That just left mailing the items Saguru was keeping and taking the rest of the mess to donate. It would take a few trips, but it was wonderful to be through with the worst of it.

“So,” Kaito said sifting through his luggage, “how nice should I dress to meet your family?”

“You don’t have to dress up.” While it was nice that Kaito cared, Saguru had hoped he would be more comfortable meeting his family.

Kaito looked down at the old t-shirt and worn jeans he currently had on. “I don’t think what I have on will go over well. If your family is anything like you, I’ll be way underdressed.”

“Just put on something clean and respectable. You don’t have to wear a suit.”

“You’re putting on slacks and a dress shirt.”

“I wear slacks and a dress shirt on the regular.” The old and casual clothing he’d worn the past few days had been for cleaning and dealing with potentially unknown messes and objects while they sorted through things. “Just be yourself. They’re not stuck up. That’s my other aunt and uncle. Henrietta’s lovely, and so is Jean.”

“Remind me, how big is your mother’s family?”

“She’s the youngest of three, one older sister and a brother. Uncle Gregory is married with two children—we don’t talk much to Uncle Gregory.” Saguru fixed his cuffs while Kaito pulled out a shirt and slacks folded into what seemed to be impossibly small bundles. “Everything is cut-throat and backhanded around him and his wife and he’s a bit of a racist to boot. My cousins aren’t too bad, but sometimes they fall back on unfortunate behavior patterns they learned from their parents. Aunt Henrietta was married and divorced—a minor family scandal—and just has Jean. Jean’s married, but her husband travels.”

“Okay, so that makes three cousins, two aunts and an uncle. Your grandparents have passed on?”

“A few years back, yes. Well. Grandmum a few years ago. Grandfather passed closer to eight years now.” He would always have mixed feelings about his grandfather. His grandmother though, he did miss her. “Anyway, Aunt Henrietta and Jean aren’t anyone you need to worry about.”

“Good to know.” Kaito shook out his clothes and pulled out something that fit into the palm of his hand with a cord...

“Is that a tiny iron?”

“It’s useful,” Kaito said. “And takes up very little space. I’m surprised you don’t have one.”

“Most places have one you can borrow if you need it these days. Why do you have a tiny iron?”

Kaito held up his shirt which had dozens of square creases from being folded very tiny. “While I can fit just about anything I could possibly need by packing tight, it leaves a bit of a mess in presentation.”

“What on earth did you pack?” Saguru asked. He hadn’t paid much attention to Kaito’s luggage before since he’d only brought it out to dress when Saguru was coming or going from the bathroom, but it had dozens of tightly folded and packed clothing, all in neat segments with each type in its own place. It was far more organized than Saguru was expecting, more organized than Saguru’s own bag. It was also far more clothing than Kaito could possibly need for a week trip.

“I wasn’t sure what I’d need so I brought whatever I thought might be useful.”

“Is that a dress?” Saguru’s eyes caught on a floral print bundle he could swear he remembered seeing in Kaito’s closet once.

“Old habits die hard, ‘Kuba. What if I need to wear a dress?”

Meaning a disguise. Probably. And now Saguru had a picture of Kaito wearing said dress as himself in his head. Lovely. Not the time. “I should hope there isn’t any pressing reason to need a dress anytime soon, though if you ever feel like it for the hell of it, go right ahead.”

“Is that interest I hear?” Kaito teased, ironing his clothing right there on the bedspread with his impossibly tiny iron.

“Ask me when we’re in Japan again and find out.”

“You’re no fun.”

“I live to be a killjoy.”

Kaito laughed. “So your dad’s side of the family?” He moved on to ironing his slacks. Saguru finished straightening his own clothing to his preferred level of neatness.

“My grandfather had an older sister, and she had a son, who had a son and a daughter, and who I view as cousins. My grandfather technically adopted my one cousin back into the Hakuba name as heir to Hakuba laboratories. He was a researcher for a few years until Ojiisama passed on and he took over running the facility...” Saguru was almost ten years younger than his cousin though, so they’d never been close. “I have a more or less formal relationship with my cousin. Hirakichi-san is married, and I think he has a child in elementary school, but I am afraid I didn’t keep up with him since I was living in London for most of the last two decades. Most of the memories I have of him are from when I was younger and he was always a bit imposing. But I suppose most relatives would be when you’re a decade apart in age.” His sister, Rin, was less intimidating, but they’d both been serious people raised in a strict household with high expectations held in them. If Hakuba hadn’t grown up in London with Mum giving him significant free reign to pursue his interests, he could have ended up the same way. Many people would have said he was intimidating back then though so perhaps it had been a matter of perspective all along.

“I doubt you’ll be meeting them anytime in the near future,” Saguru continued. “We aren’t close.”

“Good to know though. It gives me a better picture of your life.” Kaito finished ironing his clothes and had them on in the blink of an eye. Saguru was a bit envious at how Kaito could manage to get everything to fit correctly in that amount of time.

“Do you have relatives I don’t know about?” Saguru asked because it was something he’d never considered beyond Kaito’s mother.

“All my grandparents died, and my parents were only children. Dunno about further back than that really—Kaa-san’s mother was French though.”

“Really? I thought she was more than half Japanese.”

“She inherited more of her dad’s looks. Genetics,” Kaito said with a shrug.

Which meant Kaito was a quarter French, which was baffling in a different way because genetically speaking, he was much closer to Saguru’s situation than expected, but culturally, he’d never been seen as anything but Japanese. Something to think about when they weren’t on their way out the door though. “Do you have everything you need?”

“Hmm,” Kaito said flicking his hands and making items appear and vanish off his person. “Wallet, passport, spare apartment key, phone, cards, emergency second phone, smoke pellets—”

“I’ll take that as yes, you have everything.”

“That’s only half the list.”

“When did you even manage to fill your pockets?”

Kaito gave him an innocent, wide eyed look that no one who had known him more than ten minutes would actually believe.

“Never mind, let’s go.” As always, it was better not to think too hard about where Kaito managed to hide half of the things he tended to carry. There were only so many places to hide extra pockets on the human body and Saguru didn’t need to start running a mental list when he was going to see relatives.

***

“Guru!” Jean said, pulling Saguru into a crushing hug the moment she opened the door. “It’s been ages!” Saguru patted her back as his aunt leaned in the doorway. To his right, Saguru could practically feel the suppressed laughter vibrating off Kaito.

“Jean, it’s good to see you.” His cousin had cut her hair since he last saw her, wavy brown hair a bit above her shoulders instead of down her back. She looked happy and healthy. “Aunt Henrietta,” Saguru said, giving her a hug as well. “You look well.”

She did, solid and warm. She was stockier than Mum and Saguru, round where Mum had inherited a more delicate structure, but it suited her. As a child, Saguru thought she had a face made for smiles with how her round cheeks had dimples and her eyes would turn into crescents. Both dimples were showing at the moment as she smiled widely.

“I’m glad you could make it,” she said. “I was starting to wonder if I should plan my next vacation to Japan. I think I might still. Can you believe your mother hasn’t visited since she came to help you move?”

“I have the impression that she and Father are rediscovering some of their old passions lately. They’ve been on trips often the last few months. If I remember correctly they went to relive some of their honeymoon stops.” He was glad his parents were still in love, but it was a bit baffling why they seemed to be rediscovering it now. He’d have expected this more when Mum retired and moved to Japan, not four years later.

“Well she should take a few of those trips out this way. Goodness knows they did some of their courting out here.”

“I’ll pass that along.” He stepped back and set a hand on Kaito’s shoulder. “Jean, Henrietta, this is Kaito Kuroba, my boyfriend. Kaito, this is my cousin and aunt.”

Kaito had a perfect charming smile on his face, accepting getting pulled into a hug by Jean with good humor. He was probably expecting it with how Mum was a hugger.

“Aunt Elaine’s told us all about you,” Jean said. “Which we should have been hearing from Guru, but he’s barely called.”

“I called you,” Saguru protested.

“Yes, and you talked about work, not a bit about how your life was going or how you’d started dating again. I had to hear it all second hand.”

Kaito was pulled into a gentler hug by Aunt Henrietta, and it was probably only Saguru who could tell he was a little uncomfortable with all the touching.

“It’s nice to meet you both,” Kaito said, his English copying Saguru’s accent as close as he could get it. “It’s a pleasure to meet more of Saguru’s family.”

“He’s even polite,” Henrietta said, eyes crinkling with good humor. That was in reference to how Mel had tripped and fell when Saguru went to introduce him the first time and their first impression had been of him swearing in panic, then in mortification. He was fortunate his aunt had a good sense of humor.

“Oh, he’s polite for the moment,” Saguru said.

“Saguru, I’m always a gentleman,” Kaito said.

“Of course you are. Except eighty percent of the time when you aren’t.”

“Maybe I’m just not a gentleman to you?”

Jean laughed. “Come in, come in, we shouldn’t keep standing on the front step.”

“Guru?” Kaito teased, under his breath as he leaned in close to Saguru’s side.

“That’s a nickname only Jean is allowed to use and if you use it, I’m going back to calling you Kuroba.” It wasn’t much of a threat and the sparkle in Kaito’s eye said he would use this new knowledge at some point. Saguru resigned himself for potential future embarrassment without much actual resignation.

“Don’t worry about your shoes,” Henrietta said when Kaito bent on reflex to take them off. “It’s perfectly acceptable to leave them on and we’re not staying in long anyway.”

“We’re eating out?” Saguru asked, surprised. He’d assumed they were eating in with the invitation.

“Our treat,” Jean said. She glanced at her phone as she led them to the lounge. “I’m waiting on a message from Donny. He got back in the country today and he wasn’t sure if he’d be free in time for our reservations.” With a quick smile in Kaito’s direction, she added, “Donny’s my husband. Gordon.”

“Are you sure we shouldn’t wait?” Saguru suggested.

Jean just waved a hand. “If he doesn’t make dinner, we can always stop back here after to talk. I’m sure he’ll be in before bed. I thought he wasn’t going to be back for a few days, but business finished early. He’s probably going to be exhausted though.”

“As someone still a bit jet lagged, I sympathize,” Kaito said, earning a smile from her.

“I think he’s always a little jet lagged, to be honest,” Jean said. “He showed up to our wedding half an hour late because he still had his watch set to another time zone.”

“And he’d forgotten to charge his cell phone so no one could even get in touch,” Saguru remembered. “You were close to having me call the police and stage a manhunt.”

“Well he wasn’t going to leave me at the altar. I didn’t think he had cold feet, but if he’d had them he’d have gotten a talking to. Thankfully that sorted itself out.”

“At least your in-laws didn’t try to talk your husband out of marrying you right before the ceremony.”

“Seriously?” Kaito said.

“I did say we didn’t get along,” Saguru said. “Mel’s grandmother ended up pulling his mother away and talking her down from trying to stop the ceremony. It was a bit of a mess.”

“Never could have noticed once it got started though,” Jean said.

“They do like their public faces.”

“Huh. The most exciting thing at my wedding was Nakamori-keibu crying and getting horribly drunk,” Kaito said. “Meanwhile Aoko and I were both sober and there were maybe ten other guests and it was a bit rushed and awkward even if we were really happy at the time. I’m divorced,” he added for Jean and Henrietta’s benefit.

“So am I,” Henrietta said. “There’s no judgment here, dear.”

They sat on comfortable couches in a room that looked like it came out of a designer’s portfolio—and likely was in some designer’s interior decorating portfolio. Henrietta liked having up to date décor though the private areas of the home were a less picture perfect. Kaito looked perfectly at ease, but Saguru was willing to bet he was at least a bit uncomfortable. Kaito’s mother’s house was well decorated, but unlike this, it was an unchanging finery—like a museum, or like time had stopped, no time or interest in decorating once she started traveling. Kaito’s own tastes were eclectic and full of little cluttered signs of his life and personality everywhere; picture-perfect lounges weren’t part of his daily life.

“Now, Saguru. You’re back to teaching I hear?” Henrietta said, initiating conversation as Jean tapped at her phone.

“Yes, actually back to teaching Chemistry once the semester starts up. I was teaching English for a while, but the teacher who was on maternity leave returned and so I ended up applying for a different job.”

“And you met Kaito here because of one of your students...” There was a bit of humor in his aunt’s eyes. Between having tutored Mel before they were dating and now dating the father of a student, Saguru supposed she would find humor in how awkward a situation that could be.

“Actually we knew each other in high school,” Kaito cut in. “And he’s not Takumi’s teacher at the moment.”

“But I was when I started dating you,” Saguru grumbled. “Yes, before you say anything that wasn’t exactly something that the board would have been happy with. Somehow that never reached them despite how widespread the rumor mill is.”

Jean glanced up from her phone. “High school. As in that boy you all but stalked? The one you kept notes on in your case diary along with the thief you were chasing? That guy?”

Saguru flushed and Kaito started laughing silently, struggling to conceal a grin.

“Ah, yes, Elaine did mention something about that,” Henrietta said, looking even more amused.

“Is that how all your family remembers me?” Kaito asked.

“No.”

“You turned his hair green!” Jean said suddenly, pointing at Kaito. “That was you, right? He hadn’t got all the dye out when he was visiting and it took ages to get the story out of him.”

“One, I had a casebook, not a diary, and two,” Saguru lost his train of thought as Kaito started laughing against his shoulder.

When Kaito sat up again he was genuinely relaxed. “Wow. I hadn’t realized it took that long to wash out.”

“You dyed it before a school break.”

“So I didn’t get to see how long the result lasted. For the record, I no longer dye people’s hair without warning.”

“And yet so many other habits are still there.”

“Hush,” Kaito said, patting him like he was placating a dog.

Jean’s phone trilled. “Oh, that’s Donny.” She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, scrolling through the message. “He says he can meet us at the restaurant, but he’s going to be a bit late—better than not at all I guess.”

“And that means we don’t need to wait for him here,” Henrietta said with a sigh. “Well, I guess we can continue catching up at the restaurant.”

“Are we dressed nice enough?” Kaito hissed in Saguru’s ear, lips not moving, for all appearances just taking a moment to lean on Saguru’s shoulder.

“We’re fine. They’re not dressed for somewhere fancy,” Saguru murmured under the guise of helping Kaito to his feet. Both his relatives were sharp dressers, but between Jean’s slacks and Henrietta’s comfortable sleeveless summer dress, they were in their version of casual wear. They’d likely be going somewhere nicer than Saguru normally frequented, but nowhere that required a dress code.

“I am so glad I decided on the button down shirt and slacks,” Kaito said through a relaxed-looking smile. “Bet you something goes wrong.”

“I’m not taking that bet.” They both knew that if something didn’t go wrong tonight, that probably meant something really big happening before the week was out. “Help me make sure they’ll be okay if something does happen?”

“Of course.”

“What are you whispering about?” Jean asked.

They’d dropped into Japanese without meaning to again. “Ah, just assuring Kaito that no matter where we end up, there will be something that isn’t sea food.”

“Not a fan?” Jean asked.

“Not a fan of fish,” Kaito said, managing to keep a straight face at the thought of his phobia.

“We’re getting Indian, so you should be able to find something.”

“Not going to take me somewhere with traditional fare?” Kaito joked.

Jean patted his arm. “Enjoying good Indian food is part of the British experience. And I know Guru likes curry.”

“I’ll admit, Indian food isn’t something I’ve had much of. Is the curry anything like Japanese curry?”

“Very different,” Saguru said. “Japanese curry isn’t as spicy and has a simpler savory taste. Indian curry builds off a variety of spices and a broader range of protein and vegetable combinations than the average Japanese curry. And more bread and less rice.”

“Huh.”

“It’s an adventure then,” Jean said, grinning.

Henrietta brought around a car and they piled in.

Saguru supposed that at least they would be having an interesting night out regardless of his karma.

***

The restaurant was very different from the place Saguru frequented with Mel over the years, dim lighting and mirrors instead of wide windows, and plush sand-colored chairs and booths instead of pale wooden chairs, but the scent of curry and spices was familiar and the dimmer lighting made the atmosphere more intimate than it otherwise would have been. There were only two tables with patrons at the moment, one toward the front door, the other close to the kitchen doors in the back. On the ride over, Saguru had been filled in on what had changed in his relatives’ lives over the last year or so, and some of the latest gossip on his uncle’s family. Apparently one of his cousins had gotten engaged to someone the family didn’t approve of and there was an ongoing argument that Henrietta kept getting pulled into whether she wanted to be or not. Saguru wished his cousin and her fiancé luck. Considering how Uncle Gregory never really warmed up to Saguru’s father though, it wasn’t likely that this would blow over.

“Well,” Kaito said when they were seated at a table in the far corner of the room, “so far it smells great so that’s off to a good start.”

“How are you with spice?” Henrietta asked, opening her menu.

Kaito wavered a hand in the air. “I can tolerate spice, but not too much. I like to taste my food, not get burned by it.”

“Burn is another flavor profile,” Jean said cheerfully. She would happily eat things that would make Saguru’s tongue burn for hours.

“Try the butter chicken, it’s not spicy,” Saguru suggested.

“What are you getting?”

“Lamb Roganjosh.”

“You’re eating baby sheep?” Kaito said, looking exaggeratedly sad. “How could you?” He squinted at the menu. “Yeah, I’m going to go with your suggestion, Saguru, I don’t know what half of this says. I know conversational English, but some of these words I’ve never seen before.”

“Well some of them aren’t English, so that covers some of what you don’t know.”

“Well that’s entirely not helpful.”

Saguru smiled. “Point something out if you want to know more or just ask when the waiter comes.”

“How about you teach me, I like to learn.” He said it with a smile that made Saguru pause and wonder if it was a serious request or an innuendo, which considering the company, Saguru would hope it wasn’t currently an innuendo. With Kaito it very well could be the case.

He was saved from answering that by the waiter, arriving to collect drink orders.

“Mango lassi all around,” Jean said, “and an order of mix pakora and a bread basket! Might as well take our time since Donny will be late.”

Kaito looked at Saguru. “You’ll like the lassi, it’s sweet,” Saguru said. “The rest is flatbreads and fried finger food; probably not very spicy but filling. Jean, we’re not going to want our meal if we fill up on all this.”

“The joy of leftovers is that you don’t have to cook for a day,” Jean said.

“We might not have a refrigerator by tomorrow.”

“Leftovers make a decent breakfast?” she said, smiling.

“Well, it allows for a full experience...”

“I have had Indian food before,” Kaito said, “it’s just been a long time and everything was written in katakana, so it doesn’t exactly translate to knowing the word in English lettering.”

“So you have an idea about what you’re getting,” Jean said. “Now, so long as we’re on the topic of spicy things...” She grinned at Saguru.

Kaito, clearly sensing an embarrassing story, leaned forward. “Oh?”

“Did Saguru ever tell you about the time with the peppers?”

“No, do tell.”

Jean’s grin had teeth.

“Must you?” Saguru sighed.

Both his cousin and boyfriend ignored him entirely. “So,” Jean said, “back when we were kids Aunt Elaine had this whim to do a vegetable garden. And she doesn’t do things by halves so she got a whole bunch of plants and put in raised beds and everything in the back yard and put in pretty much anything you can think of. There were so many plants. Anyway, Guru and I got a kick out of seeing them grow and picking the ripe things. We were what? Eight or nine?”

“You were seven, I was eight, almost nine,” Saguru said, resigned to let the story unfold.

“Right. Kids. So Aunt Elaine had more produce coming out of that garden than she knew what to do with, but her peppers were all a bit behind everything else—peppers can be slow I guess? And Guru and I kept watching and waiting for them to be ready. Only we got impatient and decided to snitch one. Just one to share between the two of us.”

“Oh no,” Kaito said, clearly seeing where this was going.

“Yes,” Jean said, telling the story with relish. “I chose the pepper—and mind you Aunt Elaine didn’t label the plants, just shunted like plants off in the beds—took a big bite, and handed it to Guru. Who also took a big bite. From the top. Now I realized my mistake about a half second after I handed the pepper over, but by then it was too late. My mouth was burning and Saguru took a bite and then both our mouths were burning. And this was when we had no spice tolerance to speak of, so we were both standing there with mouthfuls of hot pepper and burning mouth, caught completely off guard.”

“Oh no,” Kaito repeated, grin matching Jean’s. “You must have been upset.”

“That’s an understatement. We both spit the pepper out and ran to the house because Saguru remembered something about milk and bread making things less spicy. Only by that point we were crying and Guru had the worst of it since he ate from the top.” Jean wiped a mock-tear from her eye. “Our mouths were burning for hours and Aunt Elaine told us we should have just asked.”

“To be honest, we’re lucky we didn’t get anything in our eyes,” Saguru said.

“True.”

“They were over it by the end of the summer and entirely willing to try the spicy food Elaine made,” Henrietta cut in.

Kaito laughed. “You should hear about the time I first had mapo tofu—”

Toward the back of the restroom, a woman screamed. Saguru turned. One of the two women from the table near the kitchen stared in horror through the bathroom door. Saguru’s mood sunk like a lead weight. Just past the door, in the thin strip of tile floor he could see from this angle, was a woman’s hand, pale against dark green tiles.

Saguru, Kaito and Jean stood up at the same time.

“I’m a doctor!” Jean said, making her way to the bathroom. “And he’s a detective,” she added with a thumb in Saguru’s direction. “Everyone stay calm.”

Of course something would happen; he was overdue. Kaito and Saguru exchanged a look and got to work.

***

The woman in the bathroom was still alive—Saguru’s luck wasn’t Kudo’s level of bad yet thank goodness—but she had a concussion and had had her research stolen. Research that by all logic should have been safely in her lab instead of on her person, and definitely should have had more than one copy of it. Between the suspicious gap of people using the restroom outside of the woman’s group—with the exception of one woman from another party who had left the restaurant almost half an hour before Saguru’s group got there—and the abnormal lack of backing up important files, their handling aside, there was something fishy going on. Why would anyone take the research, research on the effect of a certain species of plant extracts on the metabolism at that? How would they have known she had it on her? And, if the rest of the woman’s party was to be believed, why would they steal research that hadn’t had breakthroughs in months and had had its funding cut to the point where the woman, Amelia, had been working on it out of her own home after hours in hopes of finding something she’d missed?

Nothing added up for a theft case, but it did point to potentially a fraud case—unless there was something else at play. Kaito had chatted up the members of Amelia’s party as Saguru and Jean took care of Amelia and examined the surroundings. He’d found grudges in some of her coworkers and a worry that her failing research would lead to funding cuts for the rest of them. Saguru had found minimal signs of a struggle.

He’d handed most of the case over to the police since he didn’t actually have his detective license in London anymore, but the questions ticked over in his brain as he watched paramedics carry Amelia out and police officers photograph the restaurant bathroom.

“There’s something that doesn’t quite add up,” Saguru murmured to himself.

“Besides how weird the timing is?” Kaito said at his side. “It sounds like one of the women in the group and the man both used the restroom at some point after Amelia went in there, but neither one says they noticed anything.”

“And none of the staff used it in the interim. That leaves either one of them lying or the person who left earlier.”

“Which isn’t likely based on when they used the bathroom,” Kaito said. He looked at Saguru, one brow raised. “They both have the motive. The woman was working with Amelia on her project, and the man was convinced budget cuts were coming to him next because her research was failing.”

“And the angle of the head wound...”

“Leaves only her female partner,” Kaito finished. “Did you check the bathroom trash?”

“No, but I’ll go do that. Do you think she would keep evidence on her?”

“It’s possible. What about the weapon?”

“...The doorstop,” Saguru said. “It wasn’t in use, but there was a stone doorstop in the shape of an elephant.”

“Yeah, that could cause blunt force trauma.” Kaito clapped him on the shoulder. “You check the trash and talk to investigators, I’ll point the officer in charge in the right direction to check the woman’s pockets.”

Saguru glanced at the investigator who he was acquaintances with. “If he gives you problems, use my name.”

“Got it.” Kaito grinned and Saguru was glad he was here. It was so much simpler working with someone that had his back.

He hurried back over to the officers documenting the crime scene. “There’s reason to believe the research might be somewhere in the room.”

An officer who knew him from his detective days tossed Saguru a pair of gloves. “You know procedure.”

“Thank you.”

The elephant doorstop was already being noted as evidence, so Saguru took his search to the rubbish bin. There were plenty of wadded paper towels, but no memory stick. Nothing in the stall rubbish either, but in the second stall in the water reservoir to the toilet he found what he was looking for; one memory stick carefully sealed in two separate plastic bags, submerged under the tank float. Saguru brought it to the officers.

“I think it’s safe to say this isn’t an ordinary mugging,” he said to them.

“No shit,” one officer said, shaking his head. “Who hides something electronic in a toilet tank?”

Someone desperate to keep suspicion off them. The plastic bags showed forethought though. This was definitely planned. “We should go ask the woman who did it,” Saguru said.

“Already have it figured out?”

“The exact motive, no, but there are a few too many coincidences.”

“I’ll take your word for it.”

Saguru returned to the main room to find their suspect getting a pat-down with a very uncomfortable expression on her face. Kaito and Jean stood a few meters away while Henrietta sat in a chair looking out of her depth. Jean still wore her crisis-response calm. “It was in a toilet tank,” Saguru said coming up to them.

“Hmm, then this is completely unnecessary,” Kaito said with a nod toward the suspect.

“I have to wonder how she intended to get the thing back. Return days later?” Saguru shook his head. Their suspect’s discomfort was edging toward anxiety; though the other members of their party were having similar pat-downs to cover up that she was the main suspect, she had a guilty conscience. She was the sort who would confess with a bit of pressure and Saguru intended to hand that last bit of leverage to the officer in charge.

“Maybe she didn’t think that far ahead,” Kaito offered. “Or maybe this was really badly planned all around.”

Saguru suspected the latter. “I’ll just be a moment.”

The officer in charge was listening to one of the officers who had been investigating the crime scene, but he gave Saguru his attention as he approached. “So the missing research hadn’t even left the building,” he said.

“The files would have to be checked to be sure, but it is rather suspicious to have a memory stick in a toilet conveniently when one was missing.”

The man snorted. “With how things have been of late, it’d be my luck if we found a smuggling drop instead. But thank you for finding it. You must have worse luck than my team though; this is your second crime scene this week if I remember right.”

“I have a poor track record of stumbling into things lately,” Saguru said. “The one who committed the assault here was clearly Amelia’s research partner,” he said watching her turn out her pockets. “Between the angle of the attack and the timing, she’s the only one who could have. She would have known Amelia had the research with her and have been able to surprise Amelia.” But. “Although I don’t think it was a surprise attack.”

“Your theory is that the victim’s in on it?” the officer said. He sounded surprised, but he didn’t seem disbelieving.

“There wasn’t a struggle. Amelia had the only copy of her research on her which is fairly ridiculous as a researcher would know to have backup of their work. It’s common sense because if a computer fails or something else goes wrong, you have to have some sort of failsafe or else months of work would be lost. It’s almost as if...”

“She wanted it to be lost or destroyed,” the officer finished, his mouth a grim line. “They did say the research hadn’t had results in months, didn’t they?”

“I’m not sure if she hoped to get an out to her situation by scrapping her project in a way she seemed less responsible for, or if there was some other goal here, but either way there is enough evidence to take her partner in.”

“There is,” the man said. “And I’ll get to the bottom of it.” He held out a hand for Saguru to shake. “James Yule, by the way. Already know you; you have a bit of a reputation.”

Saguru snorted, shaking his hand. “Of course I do. Best of luck with the rest of the investigation.”

“Not tempted to see it to the end?” Yule joked.

“Believe me I am,” Saguru said, watching an officer lead the suspect a bit away from the others to read her rights. They’d found something in their search of her person, though what, Saguru had missed it. “But I am pushing the legality of helping here as it is.”

“Best of luck to you then, Hakuba.”

“And to you.” Saguru returned to Kaito’s side as the suspect was escorted out.

“That was anticlimactic,” Kaito said. “Did you figure the motive?”

“Not really, though it’s probably an attempt at scrapping the project.” There was a tiny part of him that wondered if there had been a breakthrough after all, something that made the project worth stealing, but nothing pointed to that. It was a failing project with cut funding, a cloud hanging over both researchers that they hadn’t been able to fix, nor had they been able to just call off. Making it seemingly disappear was an understandable desire. With the research gone, the people funding them would have called it a loss and canceled it, probably in favor of some other more lucrative seeming project. Maybe a project that could have put Amelia back into a better standing in the research community.

“Are you okay?” Kaito asked too quiet for Saguru’s relatives to hear. “It’s stolen science research...”

And a similar situation to the case he’d investigated when Mel died. But unlike that case, this was a very sloppy job. It wasn’t so similar that it had him on edge. It was nice of Kaito to notice though. “I’m fine. I highly doubt this is anything darker than two people feeling trapped by a bit of bad luck.” He would privately admit that part of the reason he wanted to hand the case over stemmed from the similarity though.

“Good.” Kaito squeezed his hand before turning to Saguru’s family. “So, that sure was a way to start the evening.”

Jean laughed drily. “Yeah, nothing like finding someone with surprise head trauma in a bathroom. At least it doesn’t look like she’ll have lasting damage. It was a minor concussion from what I could tell.”

“I’m so sorry this had to happen when we were taking you to dinner,” Henrietta said, still a bit pale.

Saguru and Kaito glanced at each other—it was more Saguru’s fault than anyone’s with his luck pulling at the universe around them, but it wasn’t like he could explain that. “At least everyone will be alright,” he said neutrally.

“Do you think we could get our food boxed up to go?” Jean wondered. “At this point it’s a bit of a question whether we should even stay.”

“Nothing is wrong with the restaurant itself,” Saguru said.

“True.”

Of course it was then that her husband finally showed up. Gordon was wide eyed as he wandered over, pushing past the last officers as they left. “What on earth happened? Did someone hold up the restaurant?” he asked.

“Nah, just an assault in the ladies room,” Jean said with fake nonchalance.

“The hell?” Gordon glanced back at where the police had been. “Is everyone okay?”

“Oh, we’re fine, Donny,” Jean said. “The lady was hit in the head but she’ll be fine. You have terrible timing, darling.”

“You don’t say,” Gordon said, shaken. “I always have run late.” He hugged Jean on automatic, looking her over before looking at the rest of their group. “Oh. Hello, Saguru, it’s been a bit, yeah?”

Saguru smiled at his cousin’s husband. “Gordon. It’s good to see you.”

“Pity about the...” He waved a hand. “I was expecting to show up for dessert, not a crime scene. This is a bit more your speed though.”

Saguru snorted. “Unfortunately. Gordon, this is my boyfriend, Kaito Kuroba.”

Kaito gave a little wave. “Hi! How was the flight?”

“Long,” Gordon said. “Nice to meet you.”

“Guru, I’m going to see if I can get our food to go,” Jean said, patting Saguru on the arm. “I hope you don’t mind a bit more of a wait.”

“We’ll live,” Saguru said with good humor.

“So,” Kaito said as she wandered over to the woman at the register who had yet to stop looking alarmed since Amelia had been found unconscious. “How do you guys feel about card tricks?”

“I... Neutral?” Gordon said, bemused.

Kaito grinned. “I promise that by the time our food comes you’ll have a stronger opinion.”

Saguru laughed, sitting next to Henrietta as Kaito started in on an impromptu performance.

“I think I like him,” Henrietta whispered.

“I like him quite a bit,” Saguru said, not hiding his enamored smile in the slightest. His aunt patted his arm.

Kaito sent Saguru a wink and pulled them all into his performance.

***

The next morning found Saguru and Kaito sitting on the bed eating leftover curry for breakfast as Saguru went through his emails on his phone. “There’s one from work,” Saguru said to Kaito, who of course couldn’t eat normally, but was sprawled half off the bed doing what could be considered upper body exercises between bites of curry where it sat on a box on the floor. “It sounds like Kate is trying to get together a group of faculty to go to the beach in the name of work bonding.”

“Over summer break?” Kaito asked. He did a push up to take another bite of food. “Sounds a little optimistic to expect people to want to be around coworkers for the longest stretch they have an option of not being around them.”

“She does seem to like everyone getting along as much as possible.” Saguru eyed Kaito. “How are you able to eat like that and not get indigestion? Or fall off the bed?”

“Practice,” Kaito said with a sparkling grin. “So are you going to go?”

“She’s suggesting the second weekend in July, and if that’s the case, I was hoping to see if I could visit London again around then. If it gets moved to a later date, I’ll consider, but I don’t ordinarily enjoy beaches.”

“You showed me a picture of you and Mel on a beach just the other day,” Kaito pointed out.

“That was carefully planned with my disability in mind, not a trip with a dozen other people.” Saguru took a bite of curry, scrolling further in his messages, most of it advertisements and the occasional social media alert (he’d blame Kaito for convincing him to get some of those accounts, but admittedly several of them were Mel’s past influence despite Saguru’s habit of rarely using them). “There’s also one from the landlord. I sent him an estimate for when we’d be dropping off the keys, and he said not to worry about any leftover furniture as he’d take care of it.”

“That’s convenient.”

“He probably either intends to keep it as a perk for renting the flat or sell it himself, but I’m not going to complain.” If Saguru didn’t have to worry about the rest of the furniture, that just meant taking the donations away and mailing the rest of the boxes. Which actually meant they could take care of it today and have a day or so to relax at a hotel or something until their scheduled flight back. “What do you think of a trip to France?”

“What, like in the future?”

“I was thinking tomorrow. It’s not cheap, but we could take a train to Paris for the day if you wanted.”

Kaito gave a shove of his arms so he was upright to stare. “Seriously?”

Saguru rubbed the back of his head, feeling a little self-conscious at the sudden scrutiny. “Well, you did say that you found Paris romantic and I’m familiar enough with the city that an unplanned trip isn’t that big of a deal. We’d just have to be back in London in time for our flight...”

He found himself with a surprise lapful of grinning Kaito. “I love you,” Kaito said.

Saguru hugged him back, holding his takeaway container out of elbow range in one hand as he held Kaito with the other. “I love you too. I take it that’s a yes?”

“Saguru,” Kaito said, his eyes glinting the way they did when he was either very happy or plotting mischief, “I am one hundred percent onboard with romantic spontaneity.”

“Good,” Saguru said as words seemed to leave his brain in favor of all his mental capacity taking in Kaito’s happy face. Not for the first time, Saguru was struck by how attractive his boyfriend was.

“So. Would France be a good place to seduce you?”

Saguru blushed to the tips of his ears. “Kaito.”

“Mm, that’s a yes, right?”

If Kaito kept looking at him like that, Saguru was going to break his own rule about not getting up to anything in the apartment. Regretfully, he pushed Kaito back so he could get a bit of breathing room and perspective as to why now was not the time or place. ...Mostly just the wrong place. “Save it until we’re in Paris.”

“One kiss?”

“...one kiss.”

“Mwah!” Kaito gave him an over-exaggerated kiss on the lips before sliding out of his lap. He dropped back down to eat half off the bed again.

“You know you could eat up here.”

“I could,” Kaito said. “Actually, if you sat on my feet, I could do sit-ups and eat whenever I was upright.”

“That sounds even more uncomfortable.”

“I have to get exercise in some way. I’m getting out of shape,” Kaito lamented. “It’s awful. I spent so much time keeping in shape before, but there’s nothing challenging anymore. So I just have to fit exercise in where I can.”

“During breakfast?” Saguru asked. He was more or less used to the fact that Kaito had trouble keeping still without something holding a good portion of his attention, but this was both a bit ridiculous, and a relatively new development of the past two weeks.

“Wherever I can fit it in.”

He handed Saguru his food and Saguru took it, giving Kaito counterweight on his legs so he could do crunches that should honestly make him not want to eat with how he kept using muscles around his stomach.

Kaito, of course, didn’t seem bothered at all. “I should take up parkour.”

The image of Kaito throwing himself off buildings in civilian wear had Saguru wincing. “Wouldn’t that draw attention?”

“So I’ll find a group to do it with. But really, it would satisfy my inner adrenaline junkie and keep me in shape.” Kaito did a few sit-ups, taking a bite of his leftovers. “It wouldn’t be all the time, but it seems fun.”

“You’re thirty-five.”

“So I have a few good years of it before I’ve pushed my body too far. I’ve been thinking it over and parkour seemed the better idea than going hang-gliding every other weekend. Cheaper too. I tried sports the last few months but...”

But none of them had kept Kaito’s interest, Saguru knew, though doing some gymnastics workouts every now and then had helped. “Please don’t do anything that could get you killed.”

“I wouldn’t. I know my limits. And the limits of an average person, so I won’t push too much.” Kaito did a few more sit-ups before pausing. “I bet I could take some pretty cool footage doing it though. Think Takumi or Shiemi would be interested?”

“If Takumi thought it would help him with his lacrosse, maybe. I think Shiemi is more interested in your sleight of hand than the athletic side of your tricks.”

“I’m a little sad that I probably won’t get to pass on some of my harder tricks...” Kaito sighed and apparently decided he’d done enough exercise for one morning because he wiggled his feet free to sit cross-legged. “I’m definitely going to have to write a book with how I did all my tricks and have that be a legacy.”

“Inside the family of course.”

“Of course.”

“I’m sure Takumi will appreciate that even if he never learns to do all of your tricks.” Like Kaito had appreciated his own father’s notes.

They finished their breakfast in companionable silence, Saguru’s mind half on plans to get to Paris and half on what was left to do. Besides the boxes, he still needed to get Mel’s forgotten gift to Mel’s mother...

It was a bit of a coward’s way out, but Saguru thought Mel would forgive him if he mailed it instead of meeting his mother-in-law face to face. He wanted to end this trip on a high note, not have old problems weighing him down. And this way she could be honest in her emotions instead of hiding them in front of Saguru.

“You alright?” Kaito asked, nudging Saguru with his elbow.

“Mm.” He shook off his discomfort, instead turning his mind toward perhaps visiting one of his favorite cafés in Paris. They had pastries Kaito would love. “I’m fine. I just remembered Mel’s box of gifts that needs taken care of.”

“Ah.” Kaito gathered up their empty containers. “Are we taking a side trip after the post office or...?”

“No, I will be mailing what I’m sending along... It’s probably for the best that way.”

“Okay,” Kaito said. He gave Saguru a kiss on the cheek. “You know them best. I’m going to shower real quick then we can start in on taking those boxes where they need to go.”

“Thank you, Kaito.”

“Anytime,” Kaito said with a wink and a parting wave.

***

There was a time, Saguru reflected as he followed Kaito aimlessly along Paris streets, when Saguru had been in Paris, contemplating Kid and feeling possessive of the thief. He’d called Kaito, been smug about it too like his emotions weren’t transparent, and gave him a warning about the French thief, Chat Noir. He’d never asked Kaito what he’d thought about that call, though perhaps the irritated tone one the other end of the phone line and repeated assertion that Kaito wasn’t Kid was answer enough for what Kaito felt back then. Here and now, the person Saguru had been wouldn’t have recognized the person he was now. But he’d probably understand how Saguru’s eyes were drawn more toward his boyfriend than the city streets around them.

Kaito, of course, didn’t seem able to keep still, flitting back and forth between street stalls and up to shop fronts with enthusiasm, occasionally practicing rusty French on the vendors. He always bounced back to Saguru’s side with an interesting thing he’d learned or to point out something of interest and frankly it was refreshing to see Kaito so enthusiastic. It had Saguru taking interest in things he wouldn’t have thought to notice let alone appreciate too.

“You know,” Kaito said, their hands linked together and swinging as they walked alongside the Seine, “when I was here with Aoko, we didn’t do anything like this, just walking around. We went to a bunch of tourist spots and looked up high rated restaurants and had most of the trip carefully planned out. Aoko likes structure like that, and me being, well, me, I provided any spontaneity on the trip by interacting with our surroundings. But it was still controlled. I think I like this more.” He grinned at Saguru, sidelong. “Not that there’s anything wrong with carefully planned trips or tourist attractions. I just like seeing how people live. Of course I’m enjoying the company too.”

“Of course,” Saguru said, mock serious.

“If there’s any place you like here, we should go,” Kaito said, a bounce in his step.

Saguru thought about that long-ago phone call. “If it still exists, there’s a café I used to frequent in high school.”

“You came to France a lot as a teen?” Kaito asked.

“Often enough.” Saguru shrugged. “Mum has friends in Paris, and I’ve had quite a few cases that led me out of England over the years. A few of the times I left Japan was actually to come here because I was asked to look into some things. During one of those times I happened to hear about Chat Noir.”

“Huh.” Kaito stared off into the distance for a moment, thinking back. “Wait, that phone call where you gave some cryptic warning and got weirdly possessive about Kid.”

Saguru rolled his eyes. “Of course that’s what you remember of it.”

“Well what impression did you expect me to have back then?” Kaito said, amused. “I mean I hadn’t ever given you my phone number either, so you were kind of having a stalker moment, Saguru.”

“I took the time to warn you!” Saguru protested. “You would have gone in blind!”

“I’d have been fine,” Kaito said, confident in his skills as ever. Or maybe he was remembering with the same arrogance he’d had back then, thinking he could pull off anything with enough bravado and sleight of hand. “Chat Noir didn’t actually want to hurt anyone. She was just trying to right a wrong.”

Saguru paused. “You know I don’t think anyone ever figured out what happened with Chat Noir.”

“No, they didn’t.” Kaito grinned.

Saguru narrowed his eyes as Kaito’s seemed to sparkle with mischief. “You’re going to make me work for that story aren’t you?”

“Maybe,” Kaito said, sing-song. “Either way, Chat Noir is a nice lady. We still send each other letters sometimes.”

“Of course you keep in touch.” What was Saguru expecting really?

“It pays to keep connections,” Kaito said. “So this café is someplace you went to when all that was going on?”

“It’s where I called you from,” Saguru said.

“Sap,” Kaito teased. “You want to visit there because it’s connected to a memory of me, don’t you.”

The blush on Saguru’s cheeks gave him away despite ignoring Kaito’s words.

“You do,” Kaito said, draping himself on Saguru’s shoulder. “Aww, you love me.”

“I’m dating you, so I would think it was obvious at this point,” Saguru said. Kaito just grinned wider and Saguru cracked, laughed. “Fine. Yes, I love you and want to go see if that café still exists because I’m feeling sentimental. Anything you wanted to see?”

“The Louvre,” Kaito said immediately. “I know it’s a tourist spot but one, it is one of the most famous museums of the world, and two, I now have a professional interest in it outside of my old night job. I didn’t have near the appreciation of museum work the last time I was here.”

“Done,” Saguru said. “We’ll grab something to eat at the café, or someplace close if it no longer exists, then head to the museum.”

“Are the two even close to each other?” Kaito asked curiously.

“No,” Saguru smiled, “but that’s part of the fun, getting from A to B, right?”

“We’re ducking into any store that looks fun and taking pictures to send to Takumi.”

***

“You know,” Kaito said later, “I always forget how small the Mona Lisa is. Like it’s built up so much but when you actually see the painting? Tiny compared to most famous portraits. I would not want to be in charge of the preservation for that either. Da Vinci was not the best with ensuring his works would actually be well preserved for the long run. Genius technique and skill or not, that’s really something that bothers me about his work.”

Saguru laughed. “That would bother you.”

“Hey, as a museum worker I totally feel sorry for the conservator that has to deal with things like that. That said, I have a much higher appreciation for their ceramics and pottery collections than I did the last time I was here.”

“Professional appreciation,” Saguru said with a nod. He gave Kaito a sidelong grin. “Although I noticed you eying the eagle brooch.”

“What can I say, old habits die hard.” The brooch had a nice sized garnet in it. Kaito had eyed several other gems in other exhibits too, but since he was retired, Saguru didn’t dwell on it. Kaito wasn’t going to be stealing anything these days. “Their security is pretty tight though. I am more than happy that I’m never going to try and take anything from there.” Kaito hummed as they meandered back toward their hotel. “We should come back sometime. There wasn’t nearly enough time to look at everything.”

“Of course. Perhaps a trip to London, then here, with Takumi along?” Takumi would like London, but he could appreciate Paris’s streets the same as Kaito did, taking in their unique storefronts and anything that caught the eye.

Kaito squeezed Saguru’s hand where their fingers were laced together. “Sounds fun. Ooh.” He stopped walking so fast that Saguru kept going a step or two past him until he was stopped by the tug of his wrist. Kaito’s eyes were riveted on a park across the street where a magician was doing tricks. “...Would it be rude to join in? It would probably be rude to join in.”

There were only a few people stopped to watch. Saguru saw Kaito’s hand twitch toward his pockets that he kept full of tricks even now. “How well could you incorporate yourself into his act without taking it over completely?”

“Mm...” Kaito tilted his head. “Depends on if he played along. My French probably isn’t good enough to get a conversation across...”

He fidgeted and Saguru gave him a little push. “Oh, go on. If you’re so worried about it, leave him any tips people hand out.”

“You’re the best,” Kaito said in a rush, untangling their hands to head directly over.

Saguru took his time following. The distance let him appreciate how Kaito seamlessly integrated himself into the group of watchers and waited just the right moment to add a complementary trick to the one the magician was already performing. The man, to his credit, paused for only a split second of surprise before rolling with it like it was all part of the original show.

In a matter of minutes it was much more spectacular than anything the original magician could have pulled off. And yet Kaito somehow managed to make it look like it was the street magician’s skill coming to the forefront. Saguru shook his head fondly as people started to gather, pulling out cell phones to watch Kaito got a juggling arc started between him and the magician. Only the objects being juggled kept mysteriously changing.

The street magician started laughing with the edge of incredulity when objects started changing color too, but he had a remarkably good stage presence in keeping himself together while being blindsided by so many surprises. The tricks escalated until Kaito dropped a smoke bomb and used the distraction to reappear at Saguru’s side.

When the smoke cleared, the other magician had his hat in his hands, quickly turning surprise into a theatrical bow. The crowd—because there was a crowd now—clapped and tossed money his way. A few tried to give some to Kaito too when the noticed where he’d vanished to, but he waved them off. Showing his skill in escaping and working crowds, he whisked him and Saguru away before anyone could pin them down to ask questions about the performance.

Two blocks later and Kaito broke down giggling into Saguru’s shoulder. “I shouldn’t have done that!” he said after a moment. “But that was so much fun!”

“I think the crowd agreed with that,” Saguru said. “And I don’t think the magician was complaining with the results.”

“He was pretty skilled,” Kaito said cheerfully. “Not just anyone could keep a performance going like that. That’s probably the most fun I’ve had doing that kind of thing in a while.”

“Good.” Saguru looped an arm around Kaito’s waist, pleased when Kaito leaned into the touch as easy as breathing. “Dinner before heading back to the hotel?”

“Something romantic and French?” Kaito suggested with a waggle of his eyebrows.

Saguru rolled his eyes but squeezed Kaito’s waist a bit tighter. “I’m sure we can manage that.”

“Because this is Paris.”

“Right.”

It wasn’t terribly funny, but they both laughed anyway. Everything was a little bit funny and great at the moment. Saguru was thirty-five and in love all over again and very glad in that moment to be alive.

***

Kaito stepped onto the balcony. Saguru was showering in the little hotel room he’d rented for them, and Kaito couldn’t stop smiling because it had been a fantastic day. His arm muscles were pleasantly stretched from his juggling show and his heart was light. They’d had a whirlwind, impulsive vacation day in France and it had honestly been everything Kaito could have hoped for, including getting to indulge in simple public affection like hand holding and flirting and even a few over-dramatic kisses that had Kaito blushing almost as much as Saguru. He just couldn’t do things like that in public in Japan and while it normally didn’t bother him too much, it was so nice to just... be for a bit here.

He held up his phone to snap a photo from the balcony; not a super photogenic location like some of the places they wandered today, but it was still France and that alone added to the interest of the shot. He’d send it to Takumi over the internet later. For now he took a moment to close his eyes and exist and feel happy.

Something landed next to him.

Kaito jumped half a meter to the left and banged his elbow into the railing. “Shit, ow, what?”

Ruby Jones crouched on the balcony railing looking way too amused. “I see retirement is treating you well,” she said in English, the shared language they both spoke best.

“Retirement is great,” Kaito said fervently, rubbing at his elbow. “Where the hell did you come from? I thought you lived in America.”

“I’m visiting relatives,” Jones said.

“Yes, but how the heck did you end up here?”

She grinned. “Someone saw your little show earlier and recorded it. Did you know you’re currently trending?”

Kaito blinked. That still didn’t really explain how she’d found his balcony when they could have been staying pretty much anywhere in Paris—or not at all—but okay. “Okay. Hi. How’s life been?”

“Pretty good. I have my routine and a good enough paycheck to take trips like this once a year. Can’t complain. Although it’s hell to keep in shape these days.”

“Ah, yeah, retirement and aging are hell on the body.”

Jones gave him a cool look. “Are you calling me old?”

Kaito put a hand on his heart. “Of course not, I’m talking about myself. You, a lady, are ageless.”

She laughed. “You’re just about as much of a flirt as I remember. Speaking of flirting...” She grinned. “How long have you been interested in men?”

“Almost as long as I’ve been interested in women,” Kaito said with a mirrored grin.

“Boyfriend or husband?”

“Boyfriend, but in a way that isn’t like I’m a teenager for goodness sake. We’re both serious about it, but marriage is a... complicated issue with us.” They hadn’t talked about marriage. It was too soon really. But also... well, between Mel’s memory and Kaito’s failed marriage, the topic was a bit of a loaded subject to touch upon. Kaito didn’t care one way or another, but maybe someday he’d bring the topic up to gauge how Saguru felt about it. Granted, they couldn’t marry in Japan anyway, even if it was a possibility in the UK.

“He’s cute. I take it it’s a romantic getaway?”

Kaito snorted. “The trip? Not really. Being here in Paris, yes.” And if she was here too long he’d make it clear that she was intruding on said romantic trip, but he could talk a little bit. Saguru liked long showers when he was relaxed enough to enjoy them. “Now that I’m retired, I have both the funds and time to actually take vacations. Shocking. I’m not even injured this time.”

Jones snickered. She had to know how much it cost to upkeep phantom thief gear and how easy it was to get hurt in the process. “I can’t say I ever regretted the thief life, but it is nice to come out the other side. And civilian life is treating you well?”

“I work in a museum, ironically enough. It’s quiet, I like my coworkers, and the job is fulfilling. What more do you need?” It would never be how he’d expected himself to end up but... “Okay, I admit I miss having an audience sometimes.”

“So you pull stuff like you did in that video to fulfill the need.”

“Exactly. It’s like you understand too well.” They shared a look. One ex-phantom-thief to another. “Not to be rude, it’s lovely to see you face to face after such a long time and such a scattered acquaintance, but I have a boyfriend to return to and a romantic evening to indulge in.”

“Of course, Kid.” Jones smirked. “You have fun.”

“Oh, believe me I plan to.” Kaito matched her smirk right back.

Jones stood up on the railing, reaching up toward the balcony above her. “To answer your earlier question,” she said positioning herself, “I saw you by chance from my window. I’m staying in a room two floors up and a bit over.”

“So entirely by luck.”

“Luck, fate, casual whims of the universe...” She shrugged and gave a hop to catch onto the balcony above them. “You take care.”

“Enjoy your visit with family,” Kaito said, giving a little wave.

Jones was up and climbing almost as fast as Kaito could have. Not bad for a lady almost two decades in retirement. Maybe it was just second nature for people like them to want to keep hard earned skills sharp and muscles strong. Behind him, the balcony door opened.

“Were you talking to someone?” Saguru asked, looking soft and rumpled in a robe with a towel draped over his shoulders. His hair was still dripping a bit. “I thought I heard voices.”

“An old kind of friend popped in for a visit, but she’s already gone.”

“Old friend?” Saguru frowned. “Do you have friends in Paris?”

Kaito smiled and tugged at a lock of Saguru’s wet hair. “Sometimes. I think she mostly wanted to congratulate me on my retirement. Well, that and be nosy, but that’s to be expected.”

Saguru nodded like of course any friend of Kaito’s would have a tendency to not mind their own business and have boundary issues as a given. “Wait, were they on the balcony?”

“My turn in the shower,” Kaito deflected.

“Kaito—was that one of your underground connections?”

“If I don’t say, you can’t feel conflicted over it!” Kaito said. He pressed a quick kiss to Saguru’s jaw as he danced past him into the hotel room. “I’ll be out in a tick and we can order in for dinner and make out like we’re sixteen again.”

“I wasn’t making out with people at sixteen.”

“Like we’re twenty then.”

Saguru snickered and Kaito slipped into the bathroom to take a very fast shower—he had all the time in the world to indulge in hygiene on some day he wasn’t in Paris with his boyfriend.

***

Later, much much later to Kaito’s immense satisfaction, he curled up under the sheets with Saguru by his side, already halfway to sleep with his face mushed against Kaito’s collarbone. It was adorable. Kaito took a picture with his cell phone, one for his private photo collection. A lot of those photos were candid ones with Saguru missing most of his clothes, asleep, or otherwise unaware and open. He’d gotten a few of them this trip, like one of Saguru talking to his aunt and cousin and grinning openly at whatever they were talking about. Saguru looking at a street sign. Saguru ordering lunch. ...Saguru changing, from multiple angles... Kaito was glad that he had his phone locked or there could possibly be some potential issues if someone got ahold of it. Still. He took another with himself in the photo too, grinning at the camera honestly. He wanted proof of these little happy moments. Needed them for when his head wasn’t in the right place to help get him back to normal.

He flipped back to the other folders with photos from the trip and started attaching his favorites to an email to send to people back home. “Paris is looking pretty nice this time of year” was all he wrote for a caption. He... wasn’t going to include Aoko for this particular photo collection. There was starting to rebuild their friendship by sharing parts of their lives, and there was blatantly poking at old bruises, and that would be a bit too close to the latter.

The message sent and Kaito felt warm inside. He’d gotten a message from Jones with a photo of him kissing Saguru on the balcony. He’d saved that photo too. He sent back one of a stray cat he’d found when they were eating lunch. There were a few other emails on his phone, from his mother and one from Kudo that sounded like another of the puzzles they’d been sending back and forth from the subject line.

Saguru patted his arm rubbing his nose into Kaito’s shoulder. “You should sleep,” he mumbled.

“Just sending a few emails.”

“Kaito,” Saguru grumbled, curling around him. He was a bit bigger and heavier than Kaito and it was definitely noticeable when he did things like that. Saguru rested his chin on Kaito’s chest where he was currently squishing most of the air from him. “I know you act like you still never sleep, but we have an early trip back to London to catch our flight home and it is very late.”

Kaito flushed; he hoped he’d never stop reacting like this to having Saguru holding him down and being bossy. Granted his brain tended to skew it more toward much less platonic moments of this sort of thing. Gah. Bad brain.

Saguru snorted. “Your brain is still in the gutter isn’t it?”

“Okay, I’m still recovering from years of repressing and you are still naked and less than an hour ago you were—”

Saguru cut him off with a kiss. “Shush. Sleep. Or I will take your phone and toss it wherever you threw my shirt.”

Kaito pouted, but Saguru merely raised one eyebrow at him, eyelids still droopy with sleep. He was annoyingly good at ignoring Kaito’s pouts. But that was something Kaito liked about him whether he’d admit it or not. Kaito liked people who didn’t let themselves be pushed around and stood by lines that they drew. And at the moment it seemed that getting rest was one of those lines. “Oh, fine,” he said with a sigh. He set his phone back on the charger, having to stretch and twist to get it with Saguru weighing him down. “Better?”

“Yes.” He got another kiss as a reward.

Kaito wound his fingers in Saguru’s hair and kept the kiss going. “Mm, sleep now?” he said after he’d kissed Saguru thoroughly.

“...sleep. Right.” Saguru stared at his lips. Kaito grinned and got a light smack on the arm for it. “Stop being distracting.”

“Stop letting yourself get distracted,” Kaito said in return. Saguru rolled off him and Kaito curled around his back, happy enough to be the big spoon this time. “Okay, now we can sleep.”

“Goodnight, Kaito.”

“Night. ....Guru.”

“Okay, that’s it, I’m smothering you with a pillow,” Saguru said, grabbing one of the extra ones to hold over his shoulder in a very pathetic attempt at suffocation. “How many times do I have to say that only my cousin is allowed to call me that!”

Kaito laughed, warding off the pillow with one hand.

“I’m sleeping on the floor,” Saguru threatened.

Kaito wrapped around him with arms and legs. “No, you’re trapped.”

“We are grown adults, this is ridiculous!” Saguru said, squirming, but he was laughing too. Kaito squeezed him tight until they were both breathless from laughter and exhaustion.

“Goodnight for real?” Kaito whispered against Saguru’s neck, arms and legs going loose into a cuddle.

Saguru’s hand found his by their hips and pulled it across his chest, fingers linked. “Goodnight. Love you.”

“Love you too.”

***

Morning was a rush of early alarms and hastily gathered clothing. Saguru wanted to laugh at Kaito’s caffeine-deprived pinched expression when the alarm went off, but he wasn’t much more awake. And he definitely empathized with the desire to stay up later last night. Regardless, it was morning and it was time to go.

“Can we get coffee on the way? Or tea?” Kaito asked, barely bothering to look presentable though it would take him a few seconds to do so if he wanted to.

Saguru made a point to straighten Kaito’s shirt for him before he finished buttoning his own. “Something quick, yes. Nothing so nice as sitting at a café.”

“Ugh.” Kaito rubbed at his eyes. “Pity they don’t have hot tea in vending machines here.”

“There’s still convenience store coffee.”

“Saguru, we’re in France, I’m not getting shitty coffee from a convenience store in France.”

“No? It has all the caffeine you require.”

“And none of the taste. I can have bad coffee any day.”

Saguru snorted. “Come on. If we’re quick we should be able to get drinks and something to eat on the way.”

“Thank you.” Kaito gathered their bags in a quick sweep of the room, catching anything they’d missed in their scramble to get ready to go. “Caffeinate, eat, catch our train to London, get to the airport, take a horrifying amount of time to get home.”

“At least there’s plenty of time to nap during the flight and layovers?” Saguru offered.

“Very true. C’mon, I want a croissant. I should have a proper French croissant. You should have one too.”

“And if I don’t want a croissant?” Saguru asked, following Kaito out of the hotel room.

“Well it’s not like you’re short on other options, but why wouldn’t you want a croissant?” Kaito tossed a hand up, compensating lack of energy with dramatics.

“I have nothing against croissants, I just wondered what you would suggest otherwise.”

“Haven’t the foggiest. Right now my brain’s stuck on croissants and all other French baked goods have fled out of my vocabulary.”

“You’re ridiculous.”

“Thank you. Now come on, we’re wasting time we could be caffeinating.”

***

They were almost to the station back to London when Kaito stopped, croissant and coffee in one hand and bag in the other. “Saguru, we forgot something.”

“What?” Saguru glanced at their bags and all they’d packed, mind coming up blank for what might be missing.

“Omiyage.”

“What?” It took a second for Saguru’s brain to switch back to Japanese since they’d been using English almost the whole trip. “Wait, shit, you’re right. Souvenirs.”

“They’ll expect something from France since I took pictures here.”

“And we never got anything in London.”

“Yeah, but we can get something at the airport, but we have....” He glanced at his watch. “Twenty minutes to get something and get on the train to London.”

They looked around but most businesses weren’t open just yet unless they dealt with morning crowds like cafés. “So long as it’s something from France, it doesn’t have to be a nice something,” Saguru said.

“Convenience store snacks and candy?” Kaito said.

Saguru pulled out his phone and typed rapidly. “There’s one a block out of our way.”

“Thank goodness for technology.”

***

Stepping off the plane into Japan again was a moment of déjà vu. He’d done the same thing so many times in his life, stepping into Narita airport with its familiar architecture and Japanese signs. The annoying process of walking through quarantine and immigration checks. And he could walk to the baggage claim in his sleep regardless of which gate he came in at by this point. Thankfully he’d actually managed to get some rest on the last flight so he didn’t have to do that.

What set this time apart from the others was Kaito at his side, yawning and just inside Saguru’s personal bubble enough that their shoulders brushed, though not enough to draw attention. It was a world of difference to how they’d started out the first flight from London. Saguru decided the world could just learn to live with a bit of impropriety.

Kaito blinked at him when Saguru caught his hand and tugged him to get their bags, but he linked their fingers like he’d only been waiting for Saguru to reach out. Like he didn’t mind how it could draw stares or displeasure.

For the first time, Saguru wondered if the lack of obvious affection in public in Japan had been for his sake, not because Kaito didn’t want it.

“At least your bags aren’t hard to spot,” Saguru said.

Kaito’s bright blue bags were practically lit up against the myriad of nondescript black, brown, and navy travel cases. Saguru’s merely had green ribbons tied to the handles to make them stand out.

“I should text Mum,” Saguru said while Kaito retrieved their luggage. “She’s probably already seen the notice on the travel board that we arrived but—”

“I think she definitely has,” Kaito said nodding in the direction of the arrival lobby. Just past the customs inspection counters was Mum, a sparkly ‘Welcome Home’ sign made out of poster board and what had to be an entire container of glitter held up in the air. Surprisingly, Takumi was at her side. Unsurprisingly, he wasn’t holding a sign and was a few steps away from Mum like he was worried he’d catch the glittery mess. Knowing glitter, it was unavoidable.

They made their way through customs as quickly as they were able, and as soon as they were clear, Takumi was at Kaito’s side. “Okay, so I saw the pictures you sent but you have to tell me everything and what you did and if you ate anything cool and Shiemi wants to know how you ended up in France.”

Kaito snickered and pulled Takumi into a hug. Takumi flailed with all the embarrassment of a teenager having affection poured on him in public.

“Tou-san!” Takumi complained. He was smiling though.

“Not even a welcome back?” Kaito asked, ruffling Takumi’s hair until it was a mess.

“Ugh, hi, glad your plane didn’t crash into the ocean. How was your trip?”

Saguru left them to it and gave Mum a hug, careful not to brush up against the glitter monstrosity. “Did you make that intending to shed glitter everywhere or...?”

“Actually, Takumi and Shiemi made it,” Mum said, eyes sparkling with humor. “I, of course, was willing to track glitter everywhere to use it. Flight in okay?”

“It went fine except for the layover in Hong Kong. We almost missed our connection.”

“Because of your bad luck,” Kaito said. “A child went missing and we ended up walking almost the whole airport looking for them. Thankfully it was not a kidnapping but that was a mess. We only made our flight because they held the plane an extra ten minutes for us to get there from the other end of the airport.”

“But the child was reunited with their family and no one was harmed so it’s all well,” Saguru said. “I slept the whole last part of the trip from the moment we took off until we landed though.”

“Anything we missed while we were gone?” Kaito asked Takumi.

Takumi shrugged. “Nothing big. Had lacrosse practice. Babysat the Kudo girls. Aaaand maybe kind of set up a date for Shiemi.” He grinned. “It went okay so she didn’t kill me.”

“Ooh, spill! Blind date or what?” Kaito leaned on Takumi’s shoulder. “Because she didn’t mention this at all in her emails.”

“They’d met a few times but didn’t realize they both liked girls. Only Amari-chan mentioned she thought Shiemi was cute—wait, uh, Amari-chan is on the girl’s lacrosse team for clarification—and I know Shiemi has checked out the girl’s team practice before so...”

“So you played matchmaker,” Kaito finished.

“Yup. They’re going on their second date on Tuesday. Either this will go great or I will have to apologize to both of them when it erupts in flames, but either way it’s nice to see Shiemi be happy.” Takumi smiled softly, affection for Shiemi shining through.

“I think it’s cute,” Mum whispered to Saguru. “Though if anyone set you up at that age you would have been mortified.”

“I was just settling into the realization I was gay at that age so, yes, mortified would be about what I would feel. Along with horror and probably fear,” Saguru said drily. Thankfully Shiemi wasn’t the type to let public opinion shame her; if she ever did get outed before she was ready, she wouldn’t let it upset her life.

“Oh yeah,” Kaito said as they all meandered toward the exit in their huddle of baggage and people. “Takumi, what would you feel about moving?”

“You’re asking now at the airport?” Saguru said with a sigh. “We haven’t even started looking at anything. We’ve only just brought it up.”

“No time like the present to introduce the idea,” Kaito said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “So?”

“Wait, like moving out of the apartment?” Takumi glanced at Saguru. “And moving into someplace with Hakuba-sensei?”

Mum smacked Saguru’s arm with so much giddy enthusiasm one would think Kaito had just proposed he marry Saguru in front of her. Saguru rolled his eyes. “Yes, move in together. Honestly, we’re just talking about the possibility at the moment and if it would be uncomfortable to you, we don’t have to. The arrangement we have now has been fine.”

“But you’d like to,” Takumi said, seeing through to the heart of the matter.

“Well we’re practically cohabiting right now already,” Kaito offered. “Just with a few extra doors between us. You’d get your own room of course.”

“If I didn’t I’d be pretty annoyed,” Takumi said, “since I live with you a third of the time.” He was silent for a while as they passed a group of tourists trying to find somewhere, a map tugged back and forth between hands as they argued in what Saguru thought was some Slavic language, though he didn’t have the ear for what. “It is a little weird,” Takumi said finally just when Saguru was starting to worry that he really did hate the idea. “But that doesn’t make it a bad weird. All of this last year has been a little weird, but in a good way. Mostly. Like I wouldn’t want to be around you guys being super romantic or anything because that would be weird in a bad way, but I don’t mind how you usually are and it wouldn’t be too different from how things are now. Just a new space. The new space part would be weird though.”

“You know I never thought I’d spend almost a decade living in that shoe-box apartment,” Kaito mused. “It’s home. But honestly I would not mind something bigger. With thicker walls. Takumi, we’d both get bigger bedrooms.”

“That is a selling point,” Takumi said. “Are you thinking house big or larger apartment big?”

“We are not doing logistics in an airport,” Saguru said.

“I’ll have to think on that,” Kaito said, ignoring him completely. “It depends on whether I want a workroom space or not and how much room Saguru needs. Or if I want to move my doves from Kaa-san’s place. Hmm. Two adult incomes leave more possibilities, but honestly despite living in a cheap apartment for years, I’m not all that rich. Committing crime out of your own pocket and not keeping the spoils is actually a really expensive hobby. Don’t recommend that.”

Saguru sighed. Mum giggled at him.

“It has to be close enough to school,” Takumi said. “And I want proper furniture in my room.”

“Yeah, location is probably going to narrow things down a lot. And might be what takes the longest finding someplace.” Kaito’s hands moved like they wanted something to fiddle with, but he’d taken his magic props off his person for the plane ride. “Preferably ground floor or no higher than one set of stairs...”

“It has to be a good neighborhood or Kaa-san won’t let me visit.”

“Well obviously.”

“I take it we’ve decided that this is happening instead of hypothetically happening,” Saguru said.

“Duh,” Kaito and Takumi said in stereo. Kaito turned to him. “We have Takumi’s blessing and we definitely have your Mum’s with how she’s smiling. And we want to be domestic with each other, so yep, it’s happening. But,” Kaito added holding up a finger, “probably not for a while yet. Logistics.”

“And I have to be there picking the place since I’m going to live there too,” Takumi said. “I call veto rights if it’s awful.”

“We all get a say,” Kaito said.

Saguru looked between their equally serious expressions and had to laugh. “Okay, yes, we’re going to make this happen then.”

“Wonderful,” Mum cut in. “And now that that’s decided, I’m taking you out to lunch to celebrate and you can tell us all about your trip. How exactly did you end up in Paris anyway?”

Saguru followed them out the building as Kaito enthusiastically started up a story about the various mishaps with theft-related crimes they’d brushed into and how everyone on the police force still seemed to know Saguru’s face and name, chiming in when the moment called for it. In front of him Mum still had the glittery sign shedding all over Kaito’s bright blue luggage as they walked shoulder to shoulder, Takumi tagging along a step behind. He had his phone out, texting Shiemi from the look of it, and listening with the rest of his attention. The air was heavy with the threat of spring rain, as familiar as the muggy springs in London. London had been home, but this... This was home too, as much for the people as the place.

Ahead, Kaito tipped his head to the side to include Saguru, holding out his free hand.

Saguru took it. Home.

#detective conan #magic kaito #not left to stand alone #not left to stand alone extra #saguru/kaito #this is the epilogue to the epilogue #THE END #:')

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all-hail-the-witcher · 6 years

Note

Story time?

okay so

this was in June right

so I had to make a video for history about the progression of music and fashion or something and I dont know anything about making videos but my sister does so I was like “hey if I make the whole script find all the audio and the pictures can you put it together for me?” and she was like lol sure and my mom didnt really care cause it was the end of the year and like there was no way I could have done it but in exchange I had to do her science project for her which was building a bottle rocket

now I had done w=this project when I was her age, literally within 48 hours before it was due with one of my friends in her basement. the rocket itself was terrible and only went 29 feet in the air cause we didnt put the fins on right or give it a point at the nose cause we couldn't figure it out (we were in honors science and were graded on how high it went and everyone else went like 80+ feet) but it looked amazing cause it was painted as starry night. so im like alright this is my chance to redeem myself.

so I ask her what she wants it to look like and like the mean girls soundtrack had just recently come out and we were both obsessed (her more than me) so she says “mean girls” and im like cool okay I got this. so I painstakingly glue the bottles together perfectly straight (and I got a nice hot glue gun burn from that on my forearm cause I cant use a hot glue gun, its a perfect circle and looks like a cigarette burn) and then I sand them and mix the paint together to achieve Mean Girls Pink and paint “on Wednesdays we wear pink” in the lettering on the side, glue on pink glitter, make a pointy piece for the top, measure the fins to the perfect proportions and slap em on there like I spent a good 5 hours on this thing. so they launch the rocket at school right and guess how many feet it goes? 534 now im no math expert but thats way higher than 29, so I redeemed myself.

anyway though my sister is still editing my video and it ends up taking 20 hours, she was up until like 2 am on several school nights finishing it and im like hmmm this isnt exactly a fair deal here cause shes like hecking pissed at me for making her do this even though I made a fantastic rocket but whatever

so im like wellll see she wanted to see mean girls and I did too kinda (although mainly cause ben Iain and denarius but thats cause I saw all of them in newsies) and im like alright its coming up on summer I got some cash saved up for my laptop fund lets see if I can find some cheap ones

so I search and find some cheapish like 70 dollar ones for some Wednesday in the end of august that were way back in the mezzanine and im like cool okay yeah I can pay for this

so im like “yo dad my sister put way more work into my video than I did into her rocket and I wanna buy her mean girls tickets as a thank you” and hes like “...... okay ill look into it”

keep in mind at this point the video isnt even being done edited.

so my dad has given me approval for this even after a few days and hes kinda talked with my mom about it so im like “hey cool” and the video gets done being edited and its great I got an 88 on it, didnt have to take the final, everyones happy

and so im like “dad mean girls tickets I wanna buy them soon before the prices go up” cause the Tony awards were like that weekend and if they won anything they were gonna be more expensive

and hes like “yeah so we've been thinking it would be way easier for you to go see it that weekend where were already in the city”

so I thi k at this point it was like idk, June 13 maybe ?? and I was gonna be in the city the 23, 24, and 25 cause I had a show and we were gonna be staying overnight

and im like “dad, thats gonna be expensive”

and hes like “yeah I know but it makes more sense this way cause then we dont have to pay to get into the city and parking and all that stuff and me and mom decoded that we can pay for it” which, for all you who dont know, its a 25 dollar toll to get into ny plus like 30 to 50 dollars parking plus food and all that other stuff and its just kinda a hassle

so im like “alright cool” and so literally the night before the Tony awards me and my dad are sitting picking out tickets. they were in the mezzanine, left side, 4 rows from the bak on the aisle, but its a small theater so like dossent matter.

so we got the tickets and the next night me and my sister watch the Tonys and shes like freaking out cause “oh my god mean girls is amazing I wish we could see it” and im like “holy shit were going to see this” cause it was a surprise for her

and so for the next week or so I have to keep this a secret from my sister which was so damn hard cause it was all she would ever talk about

and so then its time to tell her

and its the last day of her school (mine got out 2 days before) and my mom knew I was gonna tell her that night so we got to target and I pick her out this cool outfit it was like flowy pants and a shirt and a necklace and I think we got her a bag and I had bought this cool jumpsuit a few weeks ago and im like getting excited cause its Wednesday and were going Saturday

so shes in the shower and I cut out all these letters in various shades of pink that say “I see stars, so many stars Saturday night” cause like we were going Saturday night and like stars like broadway stars get it and I hang them up in the kitchen with the tickets and the outfit and surprise her and she was essntially like “oh my god whats happening”

and then

the day

so I had a show that weekend with my company in the city thats why I was there and on Saturday we had to take a class from 5;30 to 7 and then there was going to be a show that night that we were going to so I get special permission to miss the show and go to mean girls cause like d u h and so it was literally so insane I got out of my class, grabbed food, me and my sister and my dad ran up 11 city blocks to out hotel quick ate showered got changed and made it to the theater literally at 7:56

and then the show started and I cried and it was so amazing and just me and myself sister went so like we were squeezing each others hands really tight the whole time and Iain young was swinging and our dad let us stage door and just holy hell it was amazing

and the next day I had a rehearsal at 8 am

and that is the story of how I saw mean girls

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imaginesfordayss · 6 years

Photo

What are the odds (x)

Summary: Teacher!Clarke + Singer!Bellamy + Soulmate au Word count: 2.2k Warning(s): None, just fluff and tiny bit of angst if you squint

Find it here on Ao3

Clarke looked down at her hand, the beginnings of a scribbled note appearing below her wrist, “Drop ship, 8pm, tuesday’. She almost spilled her coffee. It just so happened that the drop ship was a local lounge in her town and that her soulmate would be making an appearance there this tuesday night.

Now Clarke didn’t necessarily believe in the idea of soulmates, obviously she knew they were out there but of all the stories she’d heard growing up, she’s learned that soulmates were complicated. There was no guarantee that you’d meet them or even like them; her parents hadn’t been soulmates and they’d ended up just fine. Clarke pulled up her sleeve and turned back to her students, “Now I know the deadline is nearing so I hope you’ve all at least started your projects, remember oil or acrylic paint only for full credit, see you wednesday!” The aforementioned students filed out one by one except a brown haired girl sitting in the back. Clarke looked up at her as she neared, Octavia Blake, she was a recent transfer from somewhere upstate. “What can I do for you Miss Blake?” The young girl smiled shyly.

“I know i’m pretty late into the semester, I was wondering if there’s any make-up work you’d like me to do since I won’t be able to participate in the final project?” Clarke smiled at the girl before rummaging through her desk for an empty sheet of paper.

“Of course, how about this, I want you to find a piece of art, or anything really that you think is art and write a paper on it, let’s say two pages. Analyze this art, why it interests you and all that. I’ll give you an extension since it’s pretty short notice and if you have any questions, go ahead and give me a call.” Octavia took the slip of paper smiling at the bright haired woman before hurrying to her next class.

Clarke sighed, again staring at the crooked handwriting on her arm and wondering what she’d do about it. Officially, she was off the clock so she grabbed her laptop and bag and headed to the one person who’d help her figure this out.

“Raven, I’m having a crisis.” She yelled upon entering the auto shop. Raven slid out from under a car near Clarke’s feet giving her the smug look she always gave her.

“Accidentally slept with a cheater again?” Clarke kicked her foot and then pulled up her sleeve for the girl to see. Raven immediately straightened grabbing Clarke’s arm for a closer look. “Is this what I think it is?”

“Unfortunately.”

“You have to go!”

“What? No, I don’t even know them, they could be a terrible person or an alcoholic or something.”

“True, but it’s your soulmate, Griffin. So many people would kill for an opportunity like this. Plus, you need to get out anyway, this whole teaching thing is turning you into a hermit” Clarke glared.

“There’s nothing wrong with marathoning shows in my apartment.”

“We all need a breath of fresh air sometimes..and a few shots of tequila.”

“I mean, I guess. At least come with me.”

“No can do, Shaw’s taking me out tomorrow, real fancy place, I have to shave my legs and everything.” Raven laughed.

“What if they’re a total creep and they kidnap me and chop me up into little pieces?”

“First of all, your imagination is running a little wild and second of all, we both know you can hold down your own, need I remind you of the night you broke Cage Wallace’s nose after he groped you at a PTA meeting? You’ll be fine, and just incase put me on speed dial, problem solved.” Clarke shrugged, she did have a point.

“Fine. See you at home?”

“Pick up wine and ice cream on your way home?” Clarke nodded heading back towards her car with thoughts swirling through her head.

Clarke laid in bed that night tracing over the words, the sounds of some documentary playing in the background. She knew so many things could go wrong, she’d heard the stories of matches that just didn’t work and yet something in her told her that this was a good thing. She hoped her instincts were right, for once.

The start of her tuesday morning was anything but smooth. Raven had used up all the hot water so she hurried through her morning routine while shivering. Then before even leaving the house, she managed to spill coffee all over her only white blouse. Somehow it all managed to go further downhill after that. The traffic made her almost an hour late to class, a student spilled paint on her laptop, and to top it all off a parent felt the need to yell at her because her son was failing the course. It took her several attempts to explain that attendance and actually turning in assignments were necessary for passing. By the end of her last class she was ready to go home and lay under the covers forever.

She did just that, throwing off her heels, her pants, and her bra before sliding under the covers and closing her eyes. Clarke woke several hours later feeling slightly more refreshed, she pulled her phone from the nightstand checking the time, 5:47pm. She still had time, time to make a decision.

And perhaps that was her biggest dilemma of the day, making a decision. For years she’d thought about reaching out to her soulmate, if she even had one. Finally, in the tenth grade she started writing on her hands hoping for a reply, instead she’d wake up with the same faded marks of her own handwriting and nothing else. She figured she probably didn’t have one or if she did, they just didn’t care so eventually the writing stopped and she moved on to other potential relationships; those didn’t work out so much either. She was sure Finn was the one but then she found him kissing another girl who as it turned out, was his girlfriend of 3 years. When she opened herself up again, it was to Lexa. Clarke’s affection to the broody and blunt girl had caught her by surprise but she felt herself hoping that maybe this time she’d gotten it right. But months later, Lexa had run into Costia; Clarke noticed their matching tattoos almost immediately and ended the relationship to save them both the heartache.

Clarke pulled herself out of her thoughts and stared at the ceiling. Go or not go? Screw it, she thought, She’d give love one last chance. She threw on something casual that still held a semblance of cute and available and made her way out the door. Parking was always a hassle around the drop ship so she opted for taking a bus. The drop ship looked the same as it always did, old, worn, with just a hint of modern touch courtesy of the new owners. She’d always wondered how they managed to open a place that worked as a bookstore, a bar, and a local hangout for teens.

The place seemed to be unusually crowded today as she walked in, noticing chairs lining the main stage and a line at the bar. She’d been here for open mic night a few months back when Raven talked her into having a girl’s night and it hadn’t been nearly as crowded as this so she figured something big was going on and found a seat near the back. She sat around for ten minutes or so wondering how the hell she was gonna be able to even find her soulmate in here but before she could think of a solution, the lights dimmed and her attention was brought back to the stage.

“I see familiar faces in the crowd, and a few newbies too. Anyway, for those of you who’ve never been, welcome to the Dropship, I’m Miller. My best friend and I bought this place a while back so let me just say we are grateful to you for your support and continued help in transforming this place into a spot for people to have fun. So anyway let’s get this thing started, here’s Skaikru!” The crowd cheered as Clarke watched a group of people walk onto the stage. The sounds of guitars and drums vibrated through the room as a melodic voice filled her ears. She vaguely recognized their faces from a local band poster she’d seen around the high school, her eyes narrowed on the drummer recognizing the girl instantly as Octavia Blake. Clarke found herself smiling and then nodding along to the beat, the vocalist’s voice was mesmerizing and soon she’d forgotten what she came to the lounge for in the first place. He had what looked like a permanent smirk etched onto his face, his sweat drenched curls sticking to his forehead as he sang to the crowd.

She wasn’t sure how long their set lasted but as they left the stage she felt herself wanting more, she was sure she’d listen to the guy’s voice even if he was just reading off a grocery list; it didn’t hurt that he was nice to look at either.

“Miss Griffin?” She turned at the sound of her name finding Octavia staring at her.

“Oh Hi, Miss Blake, I didn’t know you were in a band? You guys were really good.” The girl brightened immediately.

“It’s my brother’s band, Bellamy, he’s letting me fill in on drums while Roan’s on holiday. Oh there he is, Bell!” Clarke turned to find the girl waving over the vocalist from before, she blushed, realizing she’d been mooning over her student’s brother. “Bell, this is Miss Griffin she’s my painting teacher.” Bellamy reached a hand out to the blonde giving her a once over.

“Call me Clarke, you guys were, uh, really good up there.” Bellamy smiled involuntarily instantly finding himself attracted to her, though he felt a little guilty considering she taught his sister.

“I’m Bellamy...thanks. You, uh wanna grab a drink or something, you can tell me all about how much a mess I’m sure my sister has made in your class.” Octavia punched his shoulder in retaliation. “Go help Murphy pack up the equipment O.” Octavia rolled her eyes as her brother’s obvious attempt to make her leave so he could flirt with Clarke.

“It was good to see you, Miss Griffin, I already have some ideas for my essay that I wanna run by you on friday.”

“Sounds good.” And with that the girl was off, sprinting to the stage to help Murphy load up the remaining mics.

“So what brings you here?” Bellamy asked casually, signalling for Miller to slide him a beer.

“Kind of a weird story actually.”

“I’ve got time.”

“Uhm, well…” what harm could it do? “Well actually I’m supposed to meet my soulmate. Okay, no, not exactly meet, but, okay so they’re supposed to be here but, oh my god, okay just look.” Clarke stopped babbling and pulled up her sleeve to show him in the low light. Bellamy grabbed her arm to examine it closer, his face growing pale for half a second and then he just stared at her in a way that completely unnerved her, so of course, she kept talking, “I know it’s kind of weird or whatever but this is the first time they’ve ever written anything and I thought it was worth a shot but I guess it doesn’t really matter now anyway,” She looked around at the nearly empty room; they’d probably left already. She looked back to Bellamy who still hadn’t said anything.

“Clarke.” He spoke suddenly.

“Sorry, too personal?” Bellamy laughed shaking his head in disbelief as he pulled up the sleeve of his jacket to show Clarke the matching handwriting on his wrist. Clarke nearly choked on her drink, putting it down she hesitantly traced her fingers over his arm. “Oh.” She whispered, so quietly she wasn’t sure if he’d heard.

“What are the odds?”

“So you’re not a serial killer or anything right? Because that was like like half of my consideration for not showing up tonight.” Bellamy laughed again and she found herself loving the sound more than she’d like to admit.

“No, I’m not a serial killer. Do you wanna get some coffee or something, I’m not exactly sure how this whole thing works.”

“Yeah, coffee sounds great and don’t worry. I’m sure we can figure it out together.”

Years later Clarke would stare at Bellamy with a smile gracing her face and think of how she almost didn’t show up to the Drop ship, how she almost gave up the chance to meet him. She never would have had the chance to fall in love with him and every little thing about him. She was almost surprised by the force at which her love for him sprouted. She was meant to be taking it slow, trying not to ruin another relationship by going in blindly but then Bellamy would laugh or look at her and she couldn’t stop herself from being so irrevocably drawn to him.

She kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, for something to show her that this relationship would fail, and yet, year after year they remained together, always the couple everyone hated because they were so annoyingly into each other. It was around the sixth year that she realized she could just let herself be happy with him, she didn’t have to worry about every little argument or the chance that he’d fall in love with someone else. Bellamy wasn’t going anywhere, he never would.

#the 100 #t100 #the 100 imagine #bellarke #bellamy blake x clarke griffin #bellarke fic #imagine #drabble challenge

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hotarutranslations · 6 years

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Juice=Juice’s Takagi Sayuki “20 Questions 20 Answers” Haro Puro Love Talk!

In 2018, we’re having a celebration of the Hello! Project 20th Anniversary (Hello Love). For the members who belong to Hello! Project, their thoughts on the 20thanniversary activities and enthusiasm for 2018, thoughts of an everyday idol, we had a passionate “20 questions 20 answers” talk~ This time its Juice=Juice’s Takagi Sayuki!!

Takagi Sayuki = Born April 21st 1998, 21 years old. From Chiba. Blood type A.

Q1: Tell us the meaning of your name!

The stroke count was good, wanting me to be blessed with friends and aspirations. That was the kind of meaning they attached.

Q2: What senior do you admire?

There are a lot! I love Tanaka Reina-san (Former Morning Musume). She feels like she is fully herself, she looks strong but thinks of the fans, I respect her for that. It’s like I can’t count how many performances of the seniors I respect but, also Yajima Maimi-san’s (former C-ute) personality. Even when becoming a veteran, I watched her properly stretch and use her voice like no one was around but we were near. In that, I want to become the kind of senior where juniors will think “I want to be reliable like that too” when they think of me.

Q3: Who would you want to be reborn as?

Makino Maria-chan (Morning Musume ’18). Her back is slender and she is cute, when I look at her she has the ideal body type look. It’s like she came out of the world of anime, since she is a really pretty girl that you don’t see, she’s really good.

Q4: What are you the best at in Hello! Project?

I’m really sensitive to heat. Even midwinter I’m hot. In the summer if the air conditioning is working I’m fine but, in winter there’s indoor heating. With that I won’t stay in the dressing room, I’ll go outside where its cold. I really don’t think I can lose in being sensitive to heat.

Q5: Tell us something amazing about Hello! Project!

Continuing for 20 years, is something amazing I think. I think that there are fans that have been supporting since Goto-san was in Morning Musume; if we say Juice=Juice “is doing a Budokan live’, fans of other groups will come to support us. It’s something really encouraging! Therefore I think that Hello! Project is strong, thinking how we’ve continued, it’s kind of mysterious. Our history is one point I’m happy about.

Q6: Who would you want to be in a special Hello! Project unit with?

I want to sing with Yaguchi Mari-san (former Morning Musume). We get along, and she is affectionate. I always say “I want to sing (together)” to Yaguchi-san, but Yaguchi-san isn’t really into it. But, it’d be nice to be able to. In order to have us put out that we get along, I’d want to sing a song with a chattering feeling.

Q7: Tell us a Juice=Juice song you like!

“Magic of Love (J=J 2015ver.). I wasn’t originally the type to be praised for singing but, the praise I receive for doing that songs fake has increased. After a live at handshakes, what I’m told a whole lot is “Today’s Magic of Love was good!” and “It had a lasting impression”. It makes me happy, since I gained confidence because of this song. I’m really grateful for it.

Q8: What is a Hello! Project song you like?

I’ve listened to “Happy Summer Wedding” a ton, I sing it from memory at karaoke. I’d like to see the OG-san’s sing it once again!

Q9: What is the difference between current and previous Hello! Project?

The previous Hello! Project has a tough image. Now we of course have a proper seniority relationship but, for me I was in Hello! Project Egg (Hello! Project Kenshuusei), and I thought that I would be talked down to and be bullied (laughs). But everyone is like “its fine to speak casually”. Everyone really gets along, I was surprised like, “Ah, so it’s like this,”. This isn’t only in Hello! Project Eggs, the seniors are also nice. Its misleading in saying it changed from the past, but you can see Yaguchi (Mari)-san and Yoshizawa Hitomi-san getting along on television, I’m happy that it’s not a thing of the past.

Q10: Other than yourself, who do you recommend as an oshi?

Sasaki Rikako-chan (Angerme). I’ve really like Sasaki Rikako-chan from long ago. Her character and face of course, her style is also good; I think she is really cute. She does modeling work; recently she has become really expressive. I can gradually see her evolving at a Harocon! In between that I went to the Angerme Budokan live, at that time Rikako was really sparkling when you looked at her, she really has the feeling of not getting tired from watching her. I also must practice that sort of thing since I’ve recently been trying to put out sex appeal, so I think also must do my best.

Q11: What do you want us to see most from you?

I really like singing but, I have a really extreme personality so I’ll think “I’ll do my best with singing!”, and that’s all I’ll do. It’s not like I can’t see my surroundings but, I have no plans to put my hand in other things, I guess I looked like that? It was my atmosphere when I was in high school. Recently, it’s of course singing but, perhaps there is something that is my specialty, I’ve thought that I could grow challenging various things. Therefore, like “I suddenly grew here”, I want to work to find those things! I thought I would do my best with drawing; I’ve been doing it carefully. I’ve drawn pictures of the members, I could sell them at live venues attached to the live photos. I get great joy from the drawings, it makes me happy to be told “it looks alike!”. Now I don’t feel like I have to do my best and I’m enjoying drawing, so I also want to try painting.

Q12: What is work you would like to challenge?

A Juice=Juice play has been decided and, I’m really interested in plays since I like them. It was in nursery school when I was originally in a play. I was also praised from the staff-san during the drama “Budokan”. Since it felt like “Eh? Have you done this?”, I thought “I did perform in something like this” (laughs). I want to challenge it with confidence.

Q13: What do you want us to see most in Juice=Juice?

Thankfully Juice=Juice is praised for their singing often. So, Ruru-chan (Danbara Ruru) and Yana-chan (Yanagawa Nanami), also (Inaba) Manaka-chan have joined, it feels like we’ve leveled up from the original 5 members. From the heart, the performance side has grown; it feels like this when we’re looking at each other, so I want you to see that growth. Also Manaka-chan’s dancing is really cool. Up until now Juice=Juice’s halls and concert have had dance tracks and, we’ve been having a bit of fun with them. Up until now a big thing was “Will it be ok?” but, Manaka-chan has taught us various things and it’s been nice as we’ve been able to level up.

Q14: What will you be doing in 20 years?

Raising children? Probably raising children. But, I want to sing songs. That’s what I’d want to do for work probably. Maybe. (Laughs)

Q15: Since it’s the 20th anniversary, tell us a secret!

While I was talking to my doctor in the examination room, coming out of the room with a rattle was Dave Spector-san! I sent a happy text to my mom.

Q16: What do you want to be able to do after the 20th anniversary?

Recently I’ve begun playing the guitar. Normally I’ll play it and sing at home but, now I’m practicing arpeggios. I want to become really good at it! I want do it like tiroliroliroli~!

Q17: What would you do if you weren’t an idol?

My mom’s a nursery school teacher, and I’ve loved babies and kids from since I was small. In elementary school, I often went to the nursery school wanting to help my mom. I had the dream of “When I’m a grown up I want to be a nursery school teacher”. Since I had a lot of dreams as a kid, I think perhaps I would have become a nursery school teacher; there is a possibility I wouldn’t have studied or anything and would just be fluttering around (laughs).

Q18: What are you most into right now?

I bought a guitar, I’m really having fun playing it at home. It’s not like I’m that good at it though. I was influenced when I went and saw a Kobakuro-san live, I came to want to play more. I’m practicing a lot! Now while playing the guitar, I’ll sing with a super loud voice as stress relief.

Q19: Who do you get along with in Hello! Project? Tell us a recent episode!

There isn’t anyone I really get along with but, since I was in Hello! Project Eggs, I’ve gotten along with and like Nomura Minami-chan (Kobushi Factory). Every time we meet at a Harocon she’ll be like “Takagi-saaann” and she’ll come over for no reason. We’ve talked about wanting to hang out but, it’s been quite inconvenient so we haven’t. Also, the other day went out to eat with Takeuchi Akari-chan and Nakanishi Kana-chan! We talked about each other’s groups, since it was before Angerme went on their world tour, I gave advice likes it’s better to bring your own miso soup. Also I lent Take-chan (Takeuchi Akari) my overseas conversion plug (laughs).

Q20: What is an idol to you?

They’re not idols but from when I was small I liked Kobakuro, I would become energetic going to their lives, whatever bad things there were before I’d say “From tomorrow I’ll do my best!” from seeing the live. Therefore, I also want to have lives like that. It’d be nice if I could convey my feelings of being grateful towards the fans at lives and handshakes. I think there are various adults but, it’d be nice if we could make a space where you can have fun without thinking anything, I’d like to have that kind of presence, that’s what I aim for. Also with blogs as well, if I take care with each one I can properly reply.