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ruershrimo · 2 months

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take me back (take me with you) | f. megumi x fem! reader | chapter 2: stasis

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chapter synopsis:

'So let’s just talk again, I guess. Let’s just exchange contacts and chat on the phone and talk about books. I’ve been reading a lot of books about dogs and I’ve so much to tell you. Nothing else has to happen or change; we can act like there was never a barrier between the two of us in the first place. I really miss you.

Let’s just be friends again.

Please?'

---

You're growing, your parents are getting older, and you and Megumi are drifting apart like old seams of clothes being torn the more they're used.

You also discover something new about yourself— leave it to your parents to explain it.

word count: ~8k; tws: mild “gore” that may not even count as gore (a really tiny wound)

2-4-2010

It’s 2010 and your teacher introduces you in front of a previously bustling class turned silent by her (and your) arrival. There’s the chill of spring entering from the slightly opened windows and into your nose and, as desks flank either of your sides before you scrounge for and reach an empty seat. When you sit down you can sense the light graze of spring wind settling itself on your tiny trembling lips and you feel like hiding under the table while your teacher erases your name, written in cloudy white chalk, from the blackboard.

When lunchtime barges in and your classmates sit on each others’ tables or excitedly rummage through their backpacks, you mumble out unnoticed greetings, invitations for connection falling on deaf little ears. There are so many people here, too many for your liking, with voices that accumulate until they make a cacophony reaching the highest heights a tiny, packed classroom of kids can. Of course, they’d start the year with their own friends— there wasn’t much you could do to introduce yourself, anyway, when all of them were off to their own devices in friend groups they were in before the third grade.

In front of you: a girl with brown twintails and a flower hair clip sits on another girl’s dress, while another girl stands there with a cartoon-themed t-shirt layered over long sleeves; on your left: a boy flipping one of those flat, white erasers and playing them with his friends (you wonder if in terms of quality those erasers are actually good for school); on your right: a boy sitting with his head resting against his palms, sitting as if his chair is a hammock, and he’s talking to two other boys about something indiscernible that you probably know less than nothing about. All the way from across the classroom: a boy with the longest black eyelashes you’ve seen, hunched over and engrossed in a book with a title that you don’t know how to read the kanji of yet.

It’s so loud and your senses feel inundated suddenly, like a tiny glass cup about to overflow— so much to hear, so much to see. Your head and the way you think turns their laughter into wails drowning your ears in an inescapable ocean with the most torrential of currents. But you want to go home. You want to be with both your mum and dad again.

You eat from the bento your mother made for you, your hand holding the container up and drenched in cold sweat as you compress and close in on yourself. This new school and classroom is so very, very loud, relentlessly so, and Tokyo is not a pleasant place at all. You’re sure you don’t like it, that you want every chance to leave.

After school your mother takes you to the playground nearby, probably to placate you and shush your cries as you ramble on and on about how much you want to go back to your old school. You have her hand in a vice grip (or at least, you try to, but the strength of an eight-year-old who struggles on the monkey bars doesn’t account for much) as she repeats that it’ll just be for a year, and that if you really wanted to she would let you call them on the telephone later or give you a handphone of your own to talk to them once you’d got older. You wonder why she wouldn’t just give you one now, though.

When the two of you reach the playground she says, no doubt exasperated but still enduring it at all from how the tone of her voice is, “See, darling? Look at the slide! You love slides, don’t you? See? They’ve got swings too, even!” And with a face blotched with tears and hiccups rapidly spilling out of you, you waddle over to the park.

There’s a girl over there, by the swings, long brown hair pulled back into a pretty high ponytail, with an equally pretty white-collared navy blue dress. Probably around your age, or slightly older— she seems quite tall, too; has the friendliest-looking brown eyes you’ve ever seen, those types of brown eyes a person has that make their eyes shine like gold when they smile or when the sunlight hits them; a red ribbon on her hair tie that matches the strawberry hue of her backpack.

Then a boy next to her, and this one you know: long, raven eyelashes that look even longer up-close; spiky hair sprouting out in all directions; green, green eyes that take you by force and bring you into reminisces of fields of grassy gardens in the summertime, pure viridian in his irises as they stare back at you, quiet and observant. The same boy hunching into his book earlier, probably a really smart kid, probably someone you want to make a new friend of if you ever knew just how to.

Were they siblings? Friends? You weren’t sure, but tears were still running down your cheeks as you processed all that information and silently thought to yourself about them, these two strangers, these two kids who could be friends if not for your touch-me-not-plant-like shyness.

“Hey, hey! Why’re you crying? Are you okay?” the girl asks.

(And the rest was history, but you’d still like to tell it anyway.)

She heads over to you, her pleasant expression contorted into one rife with worry, and your mother smiles, letting out a relieved sigh. The girl pats your back and it’s the warmest touch you’ve felt since you arrived in Tokyo, her hand feeling like home or your old bed from before you moved; you almost melt in it the same way ice cubes do in hot chocolate. “Aw, it’s okay,” she coos, awfully gentle, managing this strangely comforting tone for a child your age or maybe just a year older, “You’ll be okay.”

You start bawling again when she says that for a reason you can’t tell yet; it’s just so comforting, the way she rubs strokes across your back with her palm and tells you it’s okay. It feels like a promise. It feels like she’ll keep it.

When everything’s calmed down and you feel a bit light-headed from crying so much, and the hiccups have been smoothed over by longer, calmer and steadier breaths, she guides you to sit down on one of the swings, your hand in hers. “Are you okay now?” she questions. The boy seems slightly concerned, but perhaps too hesitant to communicate with you, instead seeming perfectly comfortable with watching you and following behind her, becoming the girl’s shadow.

“Uh huh,” you sniffle. You still want to go home, though.

“That’s good,” she smiles, and it really is pretty and pleasant. Her smile isn’t just an ordinary one: it’s one of those smiles that gleam like the sun or candles flickering at midnight; it’s the type to have that glimmer in it, that twinkle in her brown, almond-hued eyes that solidifies itself in some comfortable nook or cranny in a person’s memories forever, the type that you can just think of when things aren’t going well and suddenly you can tell yourself you’ll be alright because somehow you now know you can. Because somehow that kind of smile grants people the ability to keep going.

“I’m Tsumiki,” she introduces herself, “And this is my little brother Megumi. What’s yours?”

Tsumiki, you think to yourself, Tsumiki and Megumi. Tsumiki and Megumi. They’re nice names. First Tsumiki, with the ‘tsu–’ produced by back of the teeth and the tip of the tongue, the ‘–mi–’ carrying the voice over to the lips, the ‘–ki–’ light and brisk with the back of the tongue and the roof of the mouth; second Megumi, ‘–me–’, ‘–gu–’ and ‘–mi–’ a quick ride from the lips to the tongue against the roof of the mouth and back, something soft and sweet and quick and quiet about the name.

“[Name],” you mumble, eyes moving all over the two of them indecisively— maybe your mother was right when she tried to force the impeccably useful skill of using eye contact onto you for situations just like these, “Tsumiki, Megumi, can… can we be friends?”

“Sure!”

Tsumiki and Megumi, you think again, Friends.

8-4-2010

It seems that, at his sister’s behest, Megumi makes an effort to interact with you more or at least look out for you in school— reluctantly, though, and that’s how you know this must be Tsumiki’s doing. He doesn’t talk to you between lessons, uttering not one word to you in class, but he does direct you to different places at school if you seem like you want to go somewhere, but are too scared to ask, leaving your anxious face as the only clue for others who take notice of you.

There was one time, before meeting Tsumiki and walking to the playground together with Megumi in tow and after a particularly riveting lesson from one of your favourite teachers— a young woman with glasses and silky brown hair in a bob— when you’d wanted to go to the library, yet didn’t know how. In your mind you merely contemplated whether you should ask anyone you saw, or whether you should wait for the sake of keeping your mind at rest.

Once Megumi saw you, eyes wandering aimlessly outside an empty classroom as you tapped your foot louder than you thought you were, merely scowled.

“Hey.”

“Huh? O-oh, hello.”

He sighed exasperatedly, almost too grumpy for an eight year old— “What is it? What do you need to find?”

“T-the library,” you stammered, hands pulling the fabric of your clothes into tight fists, “It’s okay! I’ll find it myself—”

Suddenly something pulled you forward, like a still-damp shirt on a clothing line, and he dragged you along. Your footsteps stumbled behind him until you matched his pace, his hand lightly squeezing your wrist as he continued to walk.

“Wha—?”

“I’m taking you there,” he said, “Just pay attention to the route.”

“T-thank you,” you stuttered, unsure of what to say.

So you saw the way your footsteps echoed behind his, his right followed by your right and his left followed by your left. You followed him through the hallway, then down the stairs until it was you and him on the ground floor, and the cherry blossoms were raining down like snowflakes. You didn’t see his face and he didn’t turn back to face you until you arrived.

Back then you didn’t know why that made you feel a little sad.

“We’re here,” he signified with a finger pointed to the library door. You thanked him again and promptly entered through the large glass door, using all the force your limbs could muster, only to find out that the door being opened was a feat only accomplished by the force of your arms combined with his own, too. “What?” he asked pointedly after noticing your glances at him, “I’ve to come along too.”

And soon it became just that. In your own silly little tradition, you’d stand outside the classroom and wait for him at the end of the day, and the two of you would walk with zero words exchanged until you got to the library and picked out a book each. You’ve found that Megumi likes to read long-winded books about anything and everything— especially about animals; you’ve learned that there exists no one who adores dogs and animals related to them except for him— besides the same fantastical creatures and adventures that you enjoy reading about, with kanji on their covers that you can’t read.

But he’s always the same every day: frowning and rolling his eyes at your anxiety-induced antics or your curiosity over what he reads. You don’t think he actually means it— he still does the same for you, spending time with you in the library every day, and even though he seems to huff whenever you peek at what he’s reading and ask him how to read the kanji in his books, he’ll still teach you anyway. It’s not like Tsumiki seems to know either. She still encourages the two of you to get along as if you don’t know each other at all.

9-6-2010

The first and only time you see Megumi smile, you know it isn’t intentional. As if it just slipped out of him on accident without him realising, because you know hundred per-cent, even at your age, that someone like Megumi would never smile on purpose.

It goes like this: the day before Tsumiki’s ninth birthday, Megumi approaches you after class before you go outside to wait for him.

These days you feel like you’re opening up so quickly, it makes you feel giddy at times. You stutter less, you can speak a little louder, and you can even read through texts in class when you’re called to without stumbling through and accidentally blabbering about whatever you’d read before.

“I don’t think we should go to the library today,” he says.

“Huh— why? I don’t want to walk home on my own…”

“Just because we aren’t going to the library doesn’t mean that you’ve to walk home alone,” he sighs, “I need you to come to our house. We’ve to prepare for Tsumiki’s birthday since she’ll be coming back later today.”

“...”

“You never asked when her birthday was?” he asks, his tone the embodiment of an audible facepalm.

You suppose you didn’t, because you don’t know, or perhaps you’ve asked, been so absent-minded you’d forgotten what she’d told you, and eventually forgot you’d even asked her in the first place.

“...oh, no!” you shudder, “Today’s her birthday?!”

He rolls his eyes. “It’s tomorrow. It’s just that we should start preparing early if we want to keep it as a surprise for her.”

“Ohh…”

“...so? Can you come along today and tomorrow?”

You pause. Your mother would be fine, right? She’d probably ask how many adults there were, but then again, even if their benefactor wasn’t there, she’d met Tsumiki and Megumi at least once or twice. Even for children your age she’d know that they were trustworthy enough, so it should be fine. You’ll just ask her the next day anyway. She’d probably let you be there.

“Of course!” you tell him.

The path to his house stretches over concrete sidewalks and compact alleys filled to the brim with storefront signs. Temperatures have started to rise, and your switching from knee-high socks and cardigans to t-shirts and socks that only reach your ankles have been an indicator of that. Summer has started to bring in its breezes which blow like whispers against your ear, leaving warmth crawling and blooming across your skin.

When you reach the crossing, your legs continue to carry you forward before you stop to check the traffic light, you crash against Megumi’s back.

“—gah!”

“Hey!” he goes, “It hasn’t turned green yet! Be careful!”

He pulls you forward by the hand until you’re by his right, and squeezes your hand. “...you should stay next to me instead of staying behind so that you can still see.”

“You’re not blocking me, though?”

“...but it’s still better if you’re walking next to me instead.” He turns his head away from where you can still see his face. He looks like a sea urchin.

“Okay.”

Hand in hand, the two of you cross the road right when the light changes from red to green. You don’t let go of his hand, even when you’re turning to the left, or on a crossing again, or when you’re standing right in front of the door.

You’re sure that if you would ask him why he hasn’t let go of it, he would say that he was doing so deliberately just so you wouldn’t get run over or lost, but you’re also worried that if you did, he would somehow realise that he hadn’t let go of his hand all this time on accident. And you like holding his hand— it’s not like when you’re holding your mother’s, when suddenly her hand grows dead on you and you have to hold her sleeve or her arm instead, or when you used to hold your father’s and it would get unpleasantly sweaty. It’s warm, and even if your palms must be balmy at this point you don’t think either of you mind that in particular.

A part of you thinks it must be embarrassing for him to be holding a girl’s hand, especially with how being teased for being friends with boys is all too familiar for you. You were your father’s daughter, after all, and at times your father could be insufferable in that way, even over the phone calls you and your mother had recently had over him. For some reason, he’d be fine if you mentioned Tsumiki, but as soon as it was Megumi he’d giggle and talk about you being “so young and already having a boyfriend!” That saddened you more than it was supposed to, sometimes; it was as if he thought you couldn’t have a boy as a friend without wanting to marry him when you were older.

But you’ll be selfish. You don’t really want to let go, because it’s not like you’ve held a friend since more than a year ago, anyway. You keep his hand in yours and squeeze it every once in a while, feeling the warmth spread across the back of your hand and your fingertips.

He only lets go of your hand when you begin to bake the cake, and he flips the cookbook to a recipe for strawberry cake. Whenever you come across something in the recipe that you don’t understand, he’s reading it for you straight away. He even knows how to decrease the amount of each ingredient that you use so the cake can come out to be just enough for everyone, and when you’re in awe of how smart he is, he just turns his head away somewhat bashfully and says he’s doing it according to the ratio. You don’t even know what that is.

At the same time you make your own additions to the recipe based on what you know from your mother— a little more vanilla extract, slightly less icing sugar so that it doesn’t end up too sweet when paired with the cake. There isn’t any strawberry extract in their house so you make do with just strawberry puree alone.

The sight of him wearing oven mitts and holding the cake mould as you’re opening an oven about the size of his torso must almost be comical. You should’ve got parental supervision, but he seems fine, and you are too. Initially you’d offered to be the one placing the cake in the oven, but Megumi insisted on doing it when you tried to open it and immediately turned away after the heat of it rushed right before your face like a cat dumped in water.

For two eight year olds with limited baking experience, you’d say the cake turned out well, and that it’s amazing how none of you have any burns or have caused any accidents. It’s warm when he takes it out and you leave it out to chill by the time Tsumiki is supposed to be coming back. You feel a bit guilty over leaving her alone, but you try to reign it in and tell yourself that this is a surprise for her, and that it’ll only last for two days: this one and the next.

When it’s laid out on the table and the scent of it wafts through the air, there’s a satisfied grin on his face. You’re supposed to be taking the icing out of the fridge, know it must have been one that he’d shown on accident, because it’s there for just that one second, but the fact that it was there at all, even if he thinks that you probably won’t be able to see it, is something you’d never imagine.

And his smile, that grin— it looked like one of those smiles that spread to the people around them like the scent of fresh flowers in a new vase. That smile was a bouquet of flowers

With a spatula, the two of you take turns slathering the icing around the now less warm cake. It smells so sweet and tasty that you feel you won’t be able to sleep tonight from how excited you are for the celebration tomorrow.

“Yay!” you say, clapping your hands when it’s all done, “We’re done!”

“Now we can just put it in a container in the fridge so that she won’t find it,” he says, “We should put the tray back, though. We usually don’t keep ours in the oven.”

Maybe it’s because you’re sleepy from how much time you’ve spent solely on baking in the last two hours, or maybe it’s because you’re absent-minded as usual, but your first response is to grab the still scalding hot tray from the oven.

You burn the tip of your finger before he can react and stop you.

“Ow!” you wince.

“You burned your hand?” he rushes to pull you— he pulls you a lot, it seems- to the sink and runs your finger through lukewarm water before blowing it and chiding you. “Be careful!” he scolds, “Even if you can’t help it sometimes you need to think before you do things. Don’t act recklessly like that!”

“Sorry,” you say. It didn’t hurt that bad, though. What feels worse is how worried he is about this despite how aloof he typically seems. “I’m okay, though. It’s just a small burn.”

“It’s still a burn,” he shoots back.

“…sorry.”

He keeps the oven open to release the heat from it, and places the cake in the container.

“You know, Megumi,” you start, “You’re really amazing.”

He pauses for a while, but continues to place it in the container. You make a mental note to buy candles or get any leftovers from home if your mother allows it.

“At first I thought you were scary, but after getting to know you for a while you’re a really nice person. You teach me even if I’m probably really annoying or a bother sometimes, and on the street just now you let me hold your hand even if it must have been really embarrassing for you. And even when we were baking, when you did that number to number thing to tell how much of everything you needed— you’re really smart, you know! And every time you’re with me, and even with other people, you’re really caring without saying it. So even if you seem scary or bad-tempered you’re actually really nice,” you smile, “You’re really good! Every time you’re there I think: ‘Megumi’s really cool!’ So I hope you can be my friend forever!”

“…thanks.”

He whispers something else that fails to fall on your ears.

“Hm? What’d you say?”

“Nothing.”

After Tsumiki arrives back, the three of you spend the evening watching TV together. Fortunately, summer’s waves of rain haven’t started coming in yet, so the satellite wasn’t messed up and the three of you got to watch them interrupted, huddled together on the sofa.

Your mother smiles that night when you tell her you were spending time with your friends, but grimaces once you tell her that it was just you and Megumi for a while. When she and you are on the phone with your father, she frowns even more.

You recount the details to him: the strawberry cake, the cartoons on the TV, the cosy compact couch they have in their house.

“So it was just you and Megumi alone? Aw, you’re too young for dating, sweetie, you should be doing those things your daddy before you go around doing them boys! And with just him, too!” you think that’s supposed to be a joke, but you feel offended regardless despite not knowing why. It could be because you don’t like his teasing, or because you can make friends without the intent of marrying them, or because he’s insinuating that you’d rather watch TV and bake cakes with some boyfriend than with your own flesh and blood— you probably would prefer doing that with Megumi instead of him, though. Less annoying and way more fun.

“No, no, no! We were just baking a cake for Tsumiki!”

“Oh, leave her alone, darling,” your mother says as if sighing knowingly, but the frown on her face indicates otherwise, “She’s just a child, still, nothing will happen. Let our baby make some friends, won’t you?”

You don’t understand why they’re saying anything they’re saying, but you shrug it off and continue to talk to your father anyway.

Thankfully, the burn on your hand has disappeared, though. You’re surprised it went away so speedily.

10-6-2010

Her birthday goes like this: there are decorations dangling from the ceiling of their house and a party hat on her head (courtesy of their benefactor and his “work friends”), while their benefactor has a party horn squeezed tightly between his lips and a digital camera in his hands. He’s invited some of his friends, too: a lady with brown hair, concerningly dark eyebrows and a mole by her right eye, and a tall, muscular man with blonde hair and a white suit donned who seems just as annoyed with the white-haired man as Megumi always is.

They’re singing her happy birthday, and she’s over the moon. When they get to “...happy birthday, dear Tsumiki…—” the grin she has on her face is something for the ages: you’ve never seen anyone look happier than she is right now. The candles flicker as she claps their hands, dancing along to the cacophony of voices singing even one of the simplest songs unsynchronised and out of tune, dancing along with it just because she seems to be on cloud nine.

It’s dark outside, the yawn you let out gets you bleary-eyed and you’re quite sure all six of your voices combined sounds awful, but everything feels so unimaginably warm.

It’s beautiful. The sight in front of you is pure joy.

“Make a wish, Tsumiki!” you tell her before she blows out the candles, and a faint line of smoke dissipates through the air right after the candles go out and everyone’s clapping.

The tenth of June, 2010, Tsumiki’s ninth birthday is a great day, and one of the happiest days of your life. It stays that way forever.

30-6-2015

Your phone whines in your pocket like a crying baby. There’s a book shop you want to head to, and you’ve decided that after that you’re going to let the bed mattress cradle you to sleep as you’ll flip through some pages of that new shoujo manga you bought the other day. You’ve decided that’s a swell plan for the day: you’ll mostly be free today, after all. But you rush to pick up the phone, even though the ring had made your nerves spin giddily and switch courses from calmness to anticipation.

The screen displays an unknown contact.

Although your mother was always adamant on her stance on what you should do with unknown contacts buzzing your phone, you pick it up. You can only hope, yet the mere image of that “unknown contact” icon on the screen fills you with joy.

“Hello?” a voice calls from the line. Despite everything, these things will always belong to her and her only— that voice, that smile, that beautiful kindness.

“Tsumiki!”

“[Name]!”

Missing loved ones from far away works in mysterious ways— people know they miss them, but often people haven’t a clue about what of them they missed or why they would have missed them so much for those things. And you were no exception to this, because you never realised how lovely her voice was or just how much you missed it.

You miss Megumi’s voice, too— or perhaps his tone when he spoke to you. Even if it sounded rough around the edges sometimes, really it was as gentle as he was. You’re not sure if it’s changed, though, or if he’s grown a foot or two (though the latter would make him out to be really tall). The last time you saw him in person, he was slightly scrawny and around the same height you were, and that was four years ago when you were nine. Now he’s thirteen, and you’ve seen the thirteen-year-olds in your school and on the island. Everyone’s growing in one way or another. Even you.

Would he be taller now, towering over you, perhaps? Would he have grown out of how he was before, a body composed of long, skinny joints and bones? You think he’d be tall. You think he’d have a nice voice. And maybe, just maybe, if he was a little softer now, you’d have a crush on someone you thought you’d long got over.

“Oh my god— I haven’t heard your voice in ages!”

“Me neither! Never realised how much I missed talking to you in person. Well, I guess this brings us one step closer.”

You nod over the phone. The line seems to be lagging behind a little. “Mhm”

“—Oh, it’s [Name]! Want to talk to her—?”

“Ah! Is… is Megumi there, too?” You hope he is, you genuinely do.”

“I’m sorry, but he isn’t…”

You guess it must have been someone else talking to her, then.

But— if it weren’t someone else, why would he not want to talk to you? Of course, you have to believe that he wouldn’t, but what if he wanted to avoid you?

Had you done anything wrong, said anything wrong in your letters and emails?

If you’d seen him again, would you do the same? Because it’s silly, really, how he was technically your ‘first love’ before you realised it, but you admitted nothing, acted on nothing, trying to make fragile proof or something to stick it to your father in the way eight-year-old you thought you could. You’d probably do the same now. Perhaps because of your age or your immaturity, you’re overly prideful in that sense, because telling people you love them is like cutting the skin off an onion— it’s okay, though, you’re only thirteen. That happened years ago and you should probably just move on; you know you can. You don’t have to act on anything and you’ll keep things that way.

(You should probably stop being over in your head like this.)

At least now you know he isn’t a bad father, never was; he was just a man in a world where they don’t know girls can live without a constant desire for marriage or romance encroaching upon their conscience. And even for a man, he isn’t so bad to his daughter, you think. Now, you know how to draw conclusions like that.

You don’t really know anything. You don’t really know anything at all. So you shove it aside, that overthinking, and talk to your friend like a normal thirteen-year-old.

And he probably doesn’t care about you anymore, either. (But if he did, what caused him to stop? He was so caring so was it just you?—)

It’s okay, you can live without him anyway.

“That aside, how is everything?”

23-11-2010

“Megumi, I think we should exchange books,” you suggest as the two of you make the daily walk to the classroom. You catch up to him now, legs meeting his pace, not something he has to stop and turn behind to glance at before turning his head forward again. “My mummy said it could help. She said it’s good if we read more books from other genres.” (You feel like patting yourself on the back for knowing how to use a word like ‘genres’.)

“We like completely different books,” he says, “You’d get bored really quickly with mine.”

“I mean, if it’s something interesting, I won’t.” And even if you didn’t know the kanji in them, you’d just ask him. “...when have I ever found the stuff you read boring?” you add, to prove a point.

“Yesterday,” he states, “You picked my book up, flipped one page over, then slid it to me over the table surface.”

“But that was because I couldn’t read it!” you retort childishly, “If I can’t read it now, I’ll search it up, or I’ll ask you. If you don’t mind.”

“Fine,” he acquiesces.

“And just so you know, the teacher said I was getting better at reading kanji, and I do think that the stuff you read is nice sometimes.”

“So, what book are you giving me?” he asks, trying to force the library door open on his own. You add your own weight to it as usual and soon the two of you are walking to the same corner you always do. In spite of the school library’s relatively small size, it was a treasure trove of fantasy and reality alike. Students at the high school nearby would go there just to study, and the sight of them hunched over the tables while snoring was one you witnessed every day.

“The same one I finished reading yesterday,” you reply. That book became a favourite of yours. It entailed a young girl learning that she was actually a witch, and one of the adventures that followed that, namely one with a wizard who she’d fallen in love with. Fortunately, your mother didn’t know of the story— if your father was in the house and saw you reading it, he’d tease you endlessly. “I’ll return it first, though. Then you can borrow it again. What about you? What’ll you give me?”

“A book about dogs.”

“I should have expected that.”

12-12-2015

“Are you that excited for Christmas, sweetie?” your father asks as you hang ornaments on the tree. He’d assigned that task to you this year, saying neither he or your mother could bend their backs and legs so much anymore. And he was correct: they seemed to become weaker and more brittle with each year. Eye bags and wrinkles piled under his eyes like stacks of paper to the point that he had to quit doing work so often, and the number of times your mother had to go to the hospital in six months had gone from one to five. They’d started to talk about dying even if they were far from it in your eyes. They’d just need some medicine and a trip to the doctor— they’d be alright in the end like always. Right?

“Mhm!” you answer jubilantly, “I think talking to Tsumiki again did me good, heh.”

“I’m glad,” he smiles, walking over to you, “Need any help?”

“No, I’ll be okay— you should go and rest,” you advise him.

He shakes his head, “I’ll be okay if it’s just for a while, you know that for me it usually isn’t that bad. I can still do things like this as long as I’m not tired.”

“Daddy, your eye bags make you look like a panda.”

“Wow, okay,” he says, sarcastically, “Can’t believe my baby girl doesn’t love me anymore.”

You drop one of them by accident and it falls pathetically, the glitter on it spreading across the floor. “Wait, sorry, let me get that real quick—”

Although you rush to tell him not to, he bends down to retrieve it, and as he gets up he winces and has to support his back with once-strong hands. He’s withering away, slipping like dust blown away from his old table back in your grandparents’ house.

You’re scrambling to help him up, to scrunch your brows in worry and ask if he’s okay, but because you forget to move your hand away, your elbow smacks against his head.

“—Ow!”

“Ack! Daddy, sorry, Daddy, are you okay?”

“I’m fine. Are you okay, sweetie?”

You feel yourself twist in guilt. How could you have ever felt annoyed by this man in the past?

22-12-2015

You don’t know what brings you to do it. Maybe it’s the fact that it’s his birthday and you’ve only been able to wish him via asking Tsumiki to send him your regards, or because you’re feeling sentimental and remembering Christmas five years ago in Tokyo, but you write a letter addressed to Fushiguro Megumi on a chilly Tuesday that you don’t have the intent to send. Or maybe you just don’t want to yet.

Dear Fushiguro Megumi,

I don’t really know why I’m writing this to you. Maybe I’m desperate for some kind of romance so I’m writing this to turn my thirteen year old self into a shoujo manga protagonist (I feel like you’d cringe at that, sorry).

But I’ll write it anyway. I really liked you but I didn’t really notice it— well, more like I didn’t want to admit it. My dad was being a little annoying about it and that was probably young me’s way of giving him this big middle finger but I won’t really go into it. He’s pretty okay about all of this now, and these days I can bear with him a little better too. (Hopefully that’s how things are for you and your benefactor, too— he always seemed more like a father anyway, even if he was always there. Would that be too presumptuous of me to say?)

Still. I used to really, really like you. I don’t know if I still would if I met you again, but hey. We should try it, meeting each other another time. I really want to see you again.

I still think you were really cool. I bet you’d still be so now. Taller, too. (More handsome if you’re fine with me saying that, but maybe that could just be attributed to being part and parcel of one’s physical growth? Truly, I don’t quite know.)

I know you probably never felt the same, but I thought I should just let you know. YOLO, am I right? I’m, like, living life to the fullest with no regrets right now.

I know how much of a burden I was, how annoying I must have been. But I guess because of that I know how caring you can be. So I’ll always be thinking, ‘Megumi is really, really cool!’ when I’m reminded of you.

I don’t know why you don’t want to talk to me anymore— maybe you’ve given up on me, and I get that. Whatever it is, though, I know it would be valid, even if sometimes the fact we stopped talking in the first place makes me feel a little hurt. Because I know it’s my fault too, since I was too scared then to talk to you.

So let’s just talk again, I guess. Let’s just exchange contacts and chat on the phone and talk about books. I’ve been reading a lot of books about dogs and I’ve so much to tell you. Nothing else has to happen or change; we can act like there was never a barrier between the two of us in the first place. I really miss you.

Let’s just be friends again.

Please?

28-12-2015

“We’re not going to be here forever, you know,” your mother says as if she’s about to drop dead at any moment. She’s not and you can’t bring yourself to fathom it. So you won’t.

Your mother is amazing— she cooked for you, comforted you, tried her best to raise you properly and lovingly even if she hadn’t been herself. She made sure you never slept hungry and tried her best to make you think you were the most beautiful girl in the world no matter what others said, even if in the end she couldn’t. She held your hand even if in the end you stopped clinging to hers as you grew. She did the chores even if her body was falling apart and deteriorating like yellow paper.

You don’t think you could ever handle having to do that even if it was for your own children. You don’t think you could ever be her.

It had always been a bit of a curse that your mother had you a little late. She said you were supposed to have an older sibling once, one that she couldn’t carry to term. So that’s why you were born, and born a bit later in their lives; that’s why you were their cherished baby girl.

So you try, you’ve been trying, to be of use. To be the medicine that ameliorates their headaches and backaches and joint pains. You help out with the chores even if you seldom talk to your mother these days; you listen as your father regales you about (mostly fake) stories from his youth if it helps him feel better. Because if not for you, your mother would have less wrinkles on her face; if not for you, your father would be less hellbent on working to provide for his family.

“…mhm.”

“I think that you should know something, though. I just… I don’t want to die, darling, but I think I will. So I feel like I should tell you this,” your mother begins, “Honey, let’s… let’s tell her about it.”

There’s something eerily calm in the depressing air your father casts over himself as your mother says this.

“Okay,” your father agrees.

Your mother starts first, “Do you remember seeing that weird sunglasses-wearing, white-haired man?”

“Oh. The… the benefactor? What about him?”

“Well, for starters, he’s not just some weird guy. That man’s name is Gojo Satoru,” she states, “He’s a jujutsu sorcerer, like me.”

“Oh… okay, but… um. What? I thought you were a doctor. Are you two like Harry Potter…?”

“No, we’re— um, do you remember seeing that dog?”

“The one with the red markings?”

“Yes. The thing is, normal people can’t see things like that dog. But people like you, your mother and I can,” your father explains.

“So we have superpowers, or something?”

Your mother smiles and she looks younger, happier. “Something like that. There’s something called cursed energy and most people have it. It’s formed from negative emotions, and the people who have more than the average person can see cursed spirits— the creatures manifested from leaked out and fermented cursed energy, who jujutsu sorcerers basically try to get rid of before they cause normal people who can’t see them any harm. —Oh, goodness, I feel like an encyclopaedia.”

“So the dog was a… ‘cursed spirit’?” you wonder, “It sounds like we’re in a shounen manga.”

“No, the dog was a shikigami.”

“Wait— those things are real?”

“But it was your friend Megumi's shikigami, specifically. Some jujutsu sorcerers can summon simple shikigami. Those were ones generated from his cursed technique, though,” your father clarifies, “Most jujutsu sorcerers have cursed techniques, which is when they channel cursed energy into their own ‘powers’. People who don’t have cursed techniques like your mother—”

“You’re going like a bullet train. My brain’s getting pulverised. Please slow down,” you say, “So he has a cursed technique, and mummy doesn’t have one. Do I have one?”

“That’s what we were worried about,” he starts, “When you were born, neither of us wanted you to get into that life. So we moved to the countryside, specifically places with little to no cursed spirits. Then when you got older we figured we should just check if you could see them in general, but nothing happened except for when you saw that dog. We think you’re a window, though. Someone who isn’t a jujutsu sorcerer, with no technique but the ability to see curses anyway.”

“But you think I do, now?”

“No. We just wanted you to know about all this. I’m sorry we didn’t tell you.”

“No, no, it’s fine— nothing happened because of it. I just never knew, but I guess I do now. So you were a jujutsu sorcerer?”

“He was,” your mother answers, “Technically, he’s already quit due to health complications. But your father’s been saving a lot, and it’s not like jujutsu sorcerers have a meagre pay…”

“We’re rich?”

“I mean… the stronger ones are loaded, but we still have enough money to last us for a while without working,” your father says, “But I have a cursed technique and so I was a sorcerer last time, so I’d always be working away from home before I took the shinkansen back. The year you were in Tokyo, I was working with a team of other sorcerers to eliminate groups of curses spread all over Japan. Then when we found out you could see them, we just decided to go back to the countryside. But now we know we can’t keep you out of the city forever— we know how much you love it, and we love our girl. So we needed to tell you about this.”

Your mother sighs, “We’re sorry again that we never told you any of this. We just wanted to keep you safe.”

“Okay. It’s okay, you don’t have to apologise. I mean, I don’t really want to die either, even if it means saving people and things like that. There’s probably other ways to save people. Plus I’m probably a window like what you and daddy said.”

“Thank goodness,” your father smiles, “I’ve lived through it and… well, Daddy doesn’t want that either.”

“Neither do I,” your mother says.

You don’t want to be a jujutsu sorcerer. The thought of people walking into that world, of children being born into it, of people like your father, kind people walking to death every day.

You think it must be the ones in power— they don’t seem to care; how could they if they’d just let fates like that befall your father?

And Megumi, Megumi— Megumi, the guy you haven’t talked to in years, walked into it. He sought to protect you first; told you there were monsters and warned you to be careful.

Just how much of a burden were you then?

That’s the first thought that crosses your mind. Because there’s never been a time you weren’t a burden, not to your friends and never to your family, and thinking that Fushiguro Megumi would care anymore, for you, was beyond reality.

20-12-2015

Your father’s cursed technique is called cell manipulation.

“It’s a pain to use, but I’d say it’s always been quite powerful,” he explains on one of the days he’s teaching you about the jujutsu world, “Like the name says, I can control cells. But I have to imagine things really vividly, down to a cellular level, and put lots of cursed energy into picturing how exactly you want the cells to shift and change.”

“So… just the cells? Can you do anything more than that?”

“Just the cells,” he says, “At least, that’s what I think. But I suppose that makes it liable to entities who have cells that can go against my cursed technique, or can control their own bodies at a subcellular level. Who knows, really…” There’s a hint of sadness underneath his tone.

“D’you think you’ll ever use it again, then?”

“Maybe. But I’m definitely not planning to,” he tells you, saying it with conviction that’s stark against that soft, weary voice he has so often nowadays, “I don’t want you to use it either. I’ve never wanted you to have it. If you did, everyone would be telling you to walk into death willingly, every single day. Everyone would ask you to be useful. I’ve already told you so many times that I don’t want that for you. I can still do some simple things with minimal effort, though. Want me to show you?”

You don’t understand why he’d have make himself “useful”— he’s always been, he’s your father after all. He doesn’t have to do anything else, doesn’t have to prove anything to add meaning or worth to his existence. Truthfully the one who has to be useful is you; you have to be a better daughter, a more helpful one; you have to be a better friend and a better person.

You smile, “Okay. But just a little.”

He holds out his hand, displaying his palm. It’s slightly wrinkled, littered with old calluses like mildew on leaves that you never knew the true stories behind. Sights such as these remind you of his age, who he’s speeding to fifty before he may even see you reach your twenties. “You see how my hand’s like this, right?”

You nod your head.

“So, what I can do is imagine—” he starts, closing his eyes, “And this happens.” There’s a rift that’s forming slowly in his hands like the land giving way to sprouting volcanoes, before scarlet blood is pouring out of his hand.

“Gah! No, no, it’s okay, you don’t have to show me any more—!”

The wound closes up and he opens his eyes once more. “See? Good as new,” he grins, “It’s much harder when it’s not used against humans, though. You don’t always know the cell structure of other cursed spirits, so they have to be studied like Pokemon. And if those cursed spirits aren’t the same,” he goes, immediately turning grim again, “You’ll have to use it on yourself. That means that every time you use it, one mistake could cost your entire life.”

You can’t imagine it: that for years when you were living carefreely, thinking your father was off at a hospital or a clinic, spending his time examining tongues with popsicles or holding stethoscopes to chests and stomachs— he was, in truth, risking his life; about to be the cause of his death at any moment. And for what? For money? To save others’ lives? For you?

The notion itself is terrifying.

“Then I think we’re the same,” you say, “Because I don’t want you using that either.”

1-4-2016

The last time you and Megumi uttered a single word to each other was five years ago.

You haven’t talked to Megumi in a long time, but you call Tsumiki whenever either of you are available. That about sums things up. But every once in a while you and Tsumiki— just Tsumiki— hold your phones next to your heads as you chat and gossip about your days and the people and events in them, crossing your legs as you’re sitting on the bed or doing chores as you secure the phone between your shoulder and ear.

Last year you’d learned a few things: school eats away at your life like a parasitic fungus, you’re someone who can see monsters that rarely even live where you do anyway, and that even if you’ve finally the maturity to admit that you may have loved someone, you won’t act on anything if you’re sure what you’ll face is either rejection or anything but reciprocation.

At least you can still live your life. At least your parents are still here, thank goodness.

“Tsumiki, I’m serious. ”

“But I really think you should! You can’t just tell me that and expect me not to react like this!”

“Honestly, Tsumiki…” you start, “I haven’t talked to Megumi in years. I can’t just. Ask him to talk to me again, you know.”

“Still, you said you liked him! Megumi! My little brother! And he said he wouldn’t mind seeing you again, too!”

“I don’t know, I just. I felt silly so I thought of telling you. If you told him now it wouldn’t change anything. And I think he’s avoiding me. I think he’s been avoiding me for a while.”

“I know, but… sometimes when he does this to other people, it doesn’t mean he doesn’t want to talk to them. He’s just… what’s the word, emotionally constipated? He’s like that.”

She sounds so excited over the phone.

“I’ll just pass that old letter to him and nothing will happen. Then I’ll live my life peacefully and I probably won’t ever see him again.”

“...I honestly think that if you did that he’d just try to find you again.”

Yeah, right, you think to yourself.

taglist:

@bakananya, @sindulgent666, @shartnart1, @lolmais, @mechalily, @pweewee, @notsaelty, @nattisbored

(please send an ask/state in the notes if you’d like to join! if I can't tag your username properly, I've written it in italics. so sorry for any trouble!)

#sorry for the long wait :)#for the ao3 readers chapter four is coming soon!! I’ll try my best to finish it by tomorrow #take me back (take me with you)#jjk megumi #jjk x reader #jujutsu kaisen x reader #jujutsu kaisen #jjk #megumi fushiguro #megumi #fushiguro megumi #megumi fluff #megumi angst #fushiguro megumi x reader #megumi fushiguro x reader #jjk x fem!reader #fem!reader #ruer writes #megumi x reader

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sacchiri · 2 months

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[Hellsing] Female Fans' Round-Table Discussion

A 6-page interview from the 2012 Hellsing Official Guidebook, featuring five grown-ass women chatting about Hellsing in a casual discussion format and translated into English for the first time ever by yours truly.

Honestly this was way more entertaining to read than I thought it would be. It’s also really funny seeing this super-casual discussion printed in the book right alongside Hirano's—-oh who am i kidding, this is 10x more professional and less deranged than whatever goes on in Hirano’s interviews.

Anyway, without further ado...

Does Hellsing have little to no female fans? Nay! Assembled before you are five women with an undying love for the series. Let’s see their passion for this work show itself as they butt heads!

Is the female fanbase just hiding itself or what?

Moderator: Now then, everyone, let’s start off with introductions.

Ms. T: I am Ms. T. I’ve been walking the path of an otaku since middle school, and it’s already been ● years since then. How do I put this, all of you seem like fairly normal people…

Everyone: Oh no--rest assured we are all otaku as well. (laughter)

Ms T: Oh, really? (laughs) Anyway, I’ve continued to love manga for all this time. Thank you for having me.

Ms J: I’m Ms J. I was already at a decent age when Hellsing began serialization, but to create something so enticing-- as expected of Hirano-sensei! (laughs). This is the kind of manga I’d better buy and collect, I thought.

Ms A: Out of today’s gathering, I’m probably the one who became an otaku at the oldest age. (laughs) My friend told me, “Hellsing is a manga that really crazy people read”, so at first I couldn’t get around to starting it. But around the time volume 8 came out, I binge-read it, and it was so interesting that I couldn’t help but get obsessed.

Ms R: I’m probably the youngster in this group. By the time Hellsing started serialization, I was just entering middle school. [T/N: That makes her 27 at the time of this interview.]

Of course we didn’t really have the term "edgy-teen syndrome" back then, but around me the manga was definitely gaining popularity in that edgy teen fashion. One of my best friends was obsessed with Hellsing and I’d borrow it after they finished reading it, and I got addicted too.

Moderator: I’m under the impression that the female readership for Hellsing is overwhelmingly small, but…

Ms J: Nah, I think they’re just hiding. I mean, it’s not like you’d talk about Hellsing to someone in passing. You wouldn’t suddenly say, “Y’know, Alucard is…”

Everyone: True. (laughs)

Ms J: There isn’t much opportunity to bring it up, or perhaps you could say it’s a hard topic to bring up to the general public.

Ms A: Like how you can’t have a pork-and-rice bowl first thing in the morning or something.

Ms J: Yeah, like that. Actually, among my circle of female otaku friends, everyone has read Hellsing.

Ms T: Among manga fans, Kouta Hirano is well-understood.

Ms J: Any fan of manga who doesn’t know Kouta Hirano is a faker!

Ms T: Disregarding whether you’ve properly sat down and read his works or not, I feel like it’s impossible for a manga enthusiast to not have at least heard of Hirano-sensei. But we are talking about manga fans in general, and the range of tastes is so broad. If someone were to say to me “I’m a fan of Kouta Hirano”, only then I would be like, “Oh, so I can talk comfortably with this person”.

Moderator: It’s a good litmus test to use. (laughs)

Ms A: It’s only when you broach the topic of Kouta Hirano that you can finally talk about Hellsing. You can’t go straight from “So I hear you like manga” to “So, about Hellsing…”, lol.

Ms J: If you met someone for the first time and you go “So I heard you like manga? What about Hellsing?” that’s like coming straight for their throat with a knife. (laughs)

Moderator: Even as a gauge to see how much of an otaku your opponent is, it’s a bit too much to try and break the ice with Hellsing.

The wonders of dialogue

Ms J: Speaking of the good points of Hellsing, I think it’s that it doesn’t get overly preachy. You can see this starting from Cross Fire, but you really get the sense that everyone’s equally crazy here.

Ms A: I can see that. No one is on the side of justice. Like the Major, he’s a nasty little guy. The type of guy who would casually twist off an ant’s legs or something like that.

Ms J: That Major, his beta male levels are literally off the charts.

Everyone: (bursts into laughter)

Ms J: Actually, something that caught my interest about the setting is that only virgins can become vampires. In the first place, I don’t think European vampire lore makes that kind of distinction.

Ms T: Father Anderson is probably a virgin, since he has religious reasons for celibacy. Though it might depend on religious sect. I wonder if there’s a meaning behind this concept of chastity?

Ms J: The idea of chastity is valued in the Hellsing universe as well.

Ms A: Right, since if you aren’t a virgin you become a ghoul, and then it’s game over and there’s nothing you can do about it.

Ms R: Speaking of which, Integra’s a virgin, too.

Ms T: Integra being a virgin is an important part of the story.

Ms J: In my personal opinion, the best couple is definitely Alucard and Integra.

Ms R and Ms A: I was going to say the same!

Ms T: Integra and Alucard call each other “Count”, don’t they? You know, in a previous life it’s possible that Integra was a man. Perhaps Alucard is seeing the Count Hellsing of the past through Integra. Thinking about that possibility makes a girl’s heart flutter. Not to mention Integra’s appearance leans towards that of a man— Ah, it’s just so peak! [T/N: I'm not being facetious, 盛り literally means peak]

Ms A: Those who want to read a male/female romance can enjoy doing so, and for people who like BL, there are plenty of elements that can be enjoyed as BL also. I feel like the reason you can enjoy both things is because the relationships that are depicted are not constrained purely to sexual love.

Ms J: For those who like to read into the BL aspect, there are lots of fight scenes that can’t be ignored, can they? Particularly in the endgame. Like Girlycard and Young Walter, that was...really something.

Moderator: That part was just unfair! I mean, after getting captured by Millennium and going M.I.A., all that anticipation was building and building, and for Walter to be reintroduced like that!

Ms J: When I got to that part I was like, “Man, Hirano-sensei really did his best to keep all that stuff pent-up for so long". For both Walter and Girlycard, I mean.

Moderator: Speaking of Girlycard, I get the feeling that the idea for her was in place since the early stages of story development.

Ms J: I wonder about that… on the other hand it seems like it was a very spontaneous decision. (laughs)

Ms A: Even if the story developments feel spontaneous, I feel like the characters' settings are polished to a high degree from the beginning. Even though a new character suddenly appears out of nowhere, you end up following along without feeling a sense of discomfort. In Hirano-sensei's mind, I'm sure that each character is cultivated with an equal amount of attention. After that it's just a matter of deciding what situations the character will appear in.

Ms J: Each character is excellently molded to their place in the story. Even though normally it should be very challenging to create characters that would fit in this sort of world. (laughs) From the moment of their introduction, they are already dyed in Hirano's unique brand, and you can tell that Hirano understands them well.

Ms R: After all, characters from his past works before Hellsing make appearances in the manga, so you get the feeling that these are ideas that have been stewing in his head for a long time.

Moderator: And within Hellsing too, these characters grow and develop. Like Maxwell--he started out as a mere brat, but then he went full tryhard mode and developed that cunning and pretentious side to him.

Everyone: (leans forward) Yeah, that's right!!

Ms J: --And he had that past with Anderson, didn't he? I was like "Hold on a sec, a flashback scene now, are you kidding me"? Even though I knew that a flashback is basically a death flag, I couldn't help but love it. (laughs)

Ms A: At the final moment, Maxwell called Anderson "Sensei", a reversal of their dynamic thus far. Up until then there were hints of foreshadowing, but nothing definite. But with that single word you could feel the adoration Maxwell had felt for Anderson when he was a child... It's amazing how potent that line was. The timing of delivery was excellent, too.

Ms R: Up until that point Maxwell was portrayed as nothing more than a snob, but the truth is there were reasons why he became that way.

Ms T: Hirano-sensei is very skilled at depicting relationships between men.

The beauty of composition

Ms A: In Hellsing, there aren't any characters that go too far beyond the range of normal anatomy.

Even with regards to enemies and such, there aren't any massively gargantuan or bulky characters. Everyone is more or less normal. And yet, there is so much impact in the poses that it leaves you with a strong impression. Those standout panels just radiate style-- so much so that anyone with an eye for art will be impressed by them, I think.

Ms T: The paneling is relatively simple, but the composition sense of each panel is amazing.

Ms R: I love the stuff like Rip Van's silhouette. The balance between her and the musket is super cool. Even though something that size in real life would be impractical to shoot, it looks so cool that it's like, "Who cares!"

Ms A: Fight scenes that should have a lot of movement are instead surprisingly depicted with still frame shots, and they have a beauty to them reminiscent of paintings. It makes me want to stare at the same handful of panels for a long time. Calling it aesthetic beauty might be a bit of an exaggeration, but...

Ms T: Not an exaggeration at all, I think there is a lot of aesthetic beauty. For me, when I look at Hirano-sensei's artwork, I'm reminded of ukiyo-e paintings. And in the movement, I sense a bit of kabuki theater.

Moderator: Each panel is created with beauty in every nook and cranny, so as to work as a standalone illustration.

Ms R: The way shadow and blood is depicted is so good, isn't it? It really makes full use of the monochrome medium.

Ms A: When I was reading the scene in volume 8 when Cromwell Level 0 is released and soldiers are unleashed in hordes, it reminded me of a medieval copperplate engraving. The plot developments in that moment were so interesting, and the density of the illustrations so rich, that simply staring at them was enjoyable.

Ms T: It really draws you in, doesn't it? In other manga that have very detailed art styles, the realism makes it feel similar to a liveaction movie. But Hirano's works are 100% "manga", I would say. In that sense, none of it is realistic at all. But that's why it's possible to achieve poses and compositions that are impossible with photography, and that's why he can portray things I didn't even know I would want to see.

The position of women in Hellsing

Moderator: To all of you, was there a scene where you were like, "This scene right here is where I became obsessed"?

Ms J: So this is my personal taste, but I liked the setup of the handsome lady Master and the handsome male Servant. I like butlers, too. So once those three conditions were satisfied, I was like, "This is a good manga". The part where I was like "This is a really good manga" was when Anderson was introduced. At first, I was thinking this would be a story where Alucard dotes upon Seras and raises her up as a vampire, but then we were introduced to a Catholic priest from the same religion, yet who aims to defeat the protagonists...

Ms A: You can't deny the impact of Anderson. The only thing he wants to do is "exterminate vampires". While characters in Hellsing may undergo sudden changes, they never waver. They race from their introduction to their final chapter with just as much momentum as when they were first introduced. Not only is it satisfying to read, you won't be disappointed. As long as your favorite character appears, you can focus all your attentions on them, and before you know it you'll have binge-read to the last chapter. (laughs)

Ms T: For me, the scene when Integra discovers Alucard in the basement, and Alucard was revived with her blood is when I became hooked. While it is an expected development for vampire stories, that part of the story was very beautiful. And afterwards, I loved the tender portrayal of Seras's growth. Among ero-guro media, there are many works that portray women in a demeaning manner, but Hellsing is not one of them.

Ms A: In Hellsing, there is no distinction in the roles that are assigned to men and women.

Ms J: Indeed, women fight and stand on the front lines. And it feels natural.

Ms R: To tell the truth, when I first started reading Hellsing, I thought Integra was a man. And, for some reason it felt overly pandering [T/N: I assume she means pandering to fujoshi] and I just couldn't get into it. But then I realized Integra was a woman, and I was like "Oh, so it's a female/male master-servant relationship! I'm sorry for making such a weird assumption!" (laughs) I feel like it's important that Integra is a woman.

Ms T: In volume 1 there were moments where Integra was told incredulously, "You're a woman?", but in those moments I always felt that, ironically, being called a "woman" was what made her so much more cool. In Hellsing, you get the feeling that all characters are loved by the creator regardless of being male or female, enemy or ally. There are many standout characters among the villains, for example.

Ms J: Each character showcases their individuality in their fighting style as well.

Ms A: I love that Rip Van is this scrawny girl with long limbs, who wields an old-fashioned musket-- it gives off a really fantastic impression. The fact that a girl is given that kind of position, without it feeling offensive. When men draw female characters there tends to be a bit of double standards going on, or it can feel cloying or annoying depending on the scenario, but I don't feel that in Hellsing.

Ms J: Far from being annoying, the depictions of women feel unique and cool in their own way.

Ms A: You're right. Traditionally, female characters are accompaniments to the hero, aren't they? But Integra takes the lead, and while Seras is supported by those around her, she moves according to her own choices. Even among the female villains, they are given important roles that they carry out to the end, so you can read while feeling a sense of satisfaction.

Points you would recommend to other women

Ms T: Doesn't the series in general have a sort of sensuality?

Ms J: It does. As it gets nearer and nearer to the endgame, even the fight scenes show more tenderness. It's like a "They love each other, therefore they trade blows" vibe that feels erotic.

Ms R: When Alucard returned to London in volume 8, it felt pretty romantic.

Ms T: On the other hand, the explanations about weapon specs that pop up everywhere seem very male-oriented. I guess this is what you call the author's hobby.

Ms J: Speaking of the author's hobby, I feel like the fact that Walter is an old man is one of them. If you think about it purely in terms of reader appeal, there should have been no problem if Walter was young from the beginning. I get the impression that he was like, "If you're going to add a butler, it better be an old geezer". Ahh-- the more I reread, the more I feel like I discover new things.

Moderator: There is plenty more we weren't able to talk about, but to close us off, please appeal to the women who haven't read Hellsing yet as to why they should read the series.

Ms A: The female characters are so full of life, so why not give it a try mainly for the female characters?

Ms T: You can read it together with your boyfriend! There are lots of battles and weapons that guys would like, and there's no nasty relationship drama, so it might actually be a big hit among couples.

Ms J: "Look at Integra and Alucard, honey, they're just like us!" or something? (laughs)

Ms R: When you think of vampire media, you might be inclined to imagine something campy and whimsical. But even though there's a lot of absurdism at play, the world is based on real historical facts. So I want to recommend it broadly, even to those that don't normally enjoy fantasy.

Ms T: I feel like Hellsing is like a very strong liquor. At first you might feel that the taste is overwhelming, but once you get used to it, it becomes delicious.

Ms J: Please go in with zero expectations and give it a read.

Moderator: Thank you all for your time today!

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Link to the raw scans (which are not mine). Feel free to spread and repost my translation to other sites.

#hellsing #kouta hirano #integra hellsing #seras victoria #alucard #i’ve seen the “AxI as yuri” interpretation before but “AxI as yaoi” is new to me… anon is doing some 10000 iq 4d chess maneuver there #I was debating whether to use Girlycard or “Lolicard” like in the original jp but the former is more popular in the eng speaking fandom #it makes sense but Girlycard/Walter being classified as BL is hilarious to me #j anon is a real mood #my translation

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yamayuandadu · 6 months

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Demon king, demigod, drunkard, dōji: exploring the archetypal oni, from Ōeyama to Lotus Eaters

By popular demand, I wrote an article covering the background of Shuten Dōji and his underlings, and how it influenced Suika’s character and the idea of the Four Devas of the Mountain in Touhou. It was initially scheduled for last month, but I’ve experienced unplanned delays. Read on to learn if you want to learn what Suika has to do with Yamata no Orochi and Mara, if it’s true that oni never lie, and more. I will also explain why making your own fourth Deva of the Mountain is entirely fair game and anyone telling you otherwise is wrong about the source material which inspired ZUN. The article contains some spoilers for WaHH and a number of other Touhou installments, so proceed with caution if that might be an issue for you.

Ōeyama, or Shuten Dōji: origins

Shuten Dōji, as depicted by Sekien Toriyama in Konjaku Gazu Zoku Hyakki (wikimedia commons)

It perhaps seems a bit silly to start this article with an inquiry into the identity of Shuten Dōji (酒呑童子, “wine-loving youth” or something along these lines). After all, while Touhou characters are often based on obscure figures, Suika is hardly an example of that category. Shuten Dōji is arguably THE archetypal oni, known even to people with limited familiarity with Japanese mythology and folklore. And yet, the matter is nowhere near as clear cut as it might seem at first glance. From a certain point of view, Shuten Dōji might not even exactly be an oni, strictly speaking. A book from Nara simply titled Ōeyama ("Mt. Ōe") offers a detailed account of Shuten Dōji’s origin. His father was not a man or a demon, but rather a mountain god, Ibuki Daimyōjin (伊吹大明神). That’s not all, though - according to a local belief, Ibuki Daimyōjin was actually Yamata no Orochi. How does that even work? Contrary to the more widespread tradition, the inhabitants of the area around Mt. Ibuki from the Muromachi period onward believed that Orochi survived his confrontation with Susanoo and hid in the mountains. That’s actually not even the most unusual variant tradition about Orochi. A widespread belief through the middle ages was that he eventually managed to redeem himself, becoming a divine dragon (shinryū, 神龍) residing in the dragon palace under the sea. In that capacity, he was sometimes associated with emperor Antoku, with the latter even claimed to be his reincarnation, for example in a local legend associated with the Atsuta Shrine, preserved in the noh play Kusanagi. In esoteric Buddhist doctrine Orochi was sometimes perceived as a local manifestation (suijaku) of the buddha Yakushi - much like Susanoo was. Ichijō Kaneyoshi in his Nihon shoki sanso (1455–1457) went into yet another direction, presenting the snake as identical with the naga girl from the Lotus Sutra. Apparently, he specifically means the version of her from Shaku Nihongi… who is identified there as Susanoo’s wife, down to being equated with Kushinadahime (this was not unusual in itself - Susanoo was equated with Gozu Tennō based on similar character, so it was sensible for their wives to be seen as analogous). This effectively created a scenario where Susanoo married his nemesis.

A Japanese depiction of the naga girl offering a jewel to the Buddha, as described in the Lotus Sutra (wikimedia commons)

Anyway, back to Shuten Dōji. According to Ōeyama, Ibuki Daimyōjin, before he even came to be known under this name, fell in love with the daughter of a local feudal lord, Sugawa. He started visiting her at night and she as a result eventually became pregnant. The identity of the visitor was unknown to her father, and out of frustration and fear that nefarious supernatural forces might be involved he eventually contacted various religious officials to perform exorcisms. Needless to say, Ibuki Daimyōjin was less than thrilled, and decided to display his divine wrath through rather conventional means: Sugawa was struck by illness. He once again summoned various Buddhist monks and onmyoji, this time to attempt to heal him. They concluded that the disease will disappear if the deity who caused it is properly honored, and established formal worship of Ibuki Daimyōjin, which apparently did indeed help. Sugawa’s daughter eventually gave birth to Ibuki Daimyōjin’s child. The child started to cause problems at the age of three: his love of alcohol manifested for the first time, earning him the moniker of Shuten Dōji. By the time he was ten, his misdeeds were too much for his family to bear with and his grandfather decided to send him to Mt. Hiei to become a novice (chigo). The monastic lifestyle didn’t really change much though, and Shuten Dōji continued to drink. Eventually he managed to convince three thousand monks (sic) to drink with him and to join him in an “oni dance” during which everyone put on masks representing demons. The festivities lasted seven days. When Shuten Dōji woke up afterwards, he realized his mask had fused with his face, and he was no longer able to take it off. The other participants fled out of fear of his new form.

Shuten Dōji’s Mt. Hiei career was subsequently cut short by Saichō, the founder of the Tendai school of Buddhism. After learning what happened, he prayed to the buddha Yakushi and to Mt. Hiei’s protective deity Sannō Gongen to banish Shuten Dōji. It's worth pointing out that presenting young Shuten Dōji and Saichō as contemporaries is basically standard, and pops up in multiple legends. There are variants where Kūkai, the founder of Shingon, plays a similar role instead, to. They actually lived some 200 years before the other historical figures who appear in Shuten Dōji narratives, but this is not an oversight. It is a given that a partially divine being would live for much longer than a human.

A Heian period portrait of Saichō (wikimedia commons) As a result of Saichō’s success, Shuten Dōji had to flee. He tried to return to his grandfather’s residence, but this was no longer an option for him. He temporarily hid on Mt. Ibuki, but eventually left for Mt. Ōe, where he finally became a veritable "demon king".

The reason why Shuten Dōji was rejected by his family is that he was recognized as an “oni child” (鬼子, onigo). In the folkloric sense, this term refers to supernatural beings which are nonetheless partially human by birth. Not necessarily part oni, though. Another well known onigo, Sakata no Kintoki, was the son of a yamauba, for instance. However, Yanagita Kunio noted that this term also referred to children born with teeth (a real, though very uncommon phenomenon), who were believed to turn into oni - much like how Shuten Dōji did. He states that especially before the Edo period this lead to cases of child abuse or outright murder. In some cases sending the child to become a member of Buddhist clergy was seen as a remedy. For example, a twelfth century monk named Jōjin in a letter relays that he suggested this to the mother of such a newborn. It is not hard to see that Ōeyama likely consciously references this custom.

The other origin of Shuten Dōji

Yet another tradition is preserved in a variant of the standard Shuten Dōji tale which switches the location of his demise from Mt. Ōe to Mt. Ibuki: here Shuten Dōji is not just any demon, but a manifestation of Mara. As in, the opponent of the Buddha and demon king of the sixth heaven, not some other accidentally similarly named figure.

Mara, as depicted by Hokusai in Shaka-goichidai-zue (wikimedia commons)

It is presumed that this portrayal of Shuten Dōji might be tied to medieval Japanese traditions pertaining to Mara. They might sound unusual today: he was both a “demon king” (魔王) obstructing enlightenment, as expected, but also a jinushi (地主), or “landholder deity”. From the Buddhist point of view, jinushi were ambivalent figures: on one hand, their presence was responsible for bestowing specific locations with holiness. On the other hand, they could resist Buddhism as demonic forces, and had to be subjugated or converted to prevent that. Mara was the ultimate jinushi, the king of the world as a whole. A role already attributed to him in earlier Buddhist sources was basically adjusted for this framework. The jinushi version of Mara originated among proponents of the imperial court and mainstream Buddhist institutions, but it curiously also gained traction among the opponents of these structures. Mara became somewhat of an anti-establishment icon more than once, essentially. A legend links him with (in)famous rebel Taira no Masakado (who you may know from SMT) for this reason.

Masakado, as depicted by Kunichika Toyohara in Sen Taiheiki Gigokuden (wikimedia commons)

Other similar examples are also known. A local legendary figure from the Tsugaru peninsula in modern Aomori prefecture, Tsugaru Andō (津軽安藤), who after a failed rebellion fled to Hokkaido, was proudly described as a vassal of Mara by local officials who claimed descent from him. Prince Sutoku, a banished opponent of emperor Go-Shirakawa, swore a vow to become like Mara. Oda Nobunaga famously referring to himself as the “demon king of the sixth heaven” in a letter to Takeda Shingen is likely another example. Reportedly a related belief that praying to the jinushi version of Mara can spare one from conscription persisted as late as the early 20th century, though generally he belongs to the realm of “medieval myths” which faded with the ascent of a new system of values in the Meiji period, in which the early imperial chronicles were favored. Even though it is largely forgotten today outside of specialized scholarship, there is much more to this Mara tradition. It led to the development of one of my favorite Japanese myths with no popcultural reception, but you will have no wait a few more weeks to learn more. It has been argued that behind the identification of Shuten Dōji and Mara might reflect a historical event of the sort which led to associating the latter with figures such as Masakado. In other words, that Shuten Dōji in this case might be less a demon and more a demonized form of some opponent of imperial or religious authorities.

It has been argued that the Ibuki version was the result of combining an original oral narrative, a precursor of the textual versions we are familiar with today, with the memory of the death of a certain Kashiwabara Yasaburō, a bandit leader, in 1201. It has in fact been argued that even the mt. Ōe version might simply be a particularly fabulous reinterpretation of a punitive mission against bandits robbing and murdering travelers. Such rationalist explanations are not exactly new - Ekken Kaibara already argued in the Edo period that the legend of Shuten Dōji must have been the reflection of the downfall of a real bandit who perhaps wore the mask of an oni while committing robberies.

It’s important to bear in mind to not go overboard with this speculation, though. Ultimately the Mt. Ibuki version has a more pronounced religious character than other variants in general: Shuten Dōji’s nemesis Raikō’s is identified as a manifestation Bishamonten or Daiitoku Myōō (in the latter case, Bishamonten and the three other heavenly kings correspond to his four retainers), emperor Ichijō with Miroku (Maitreya), and Abe no Seimei, who plays a minor role in vanquishing the demon, with Kannon. These equations reflect the idea of honji, or “true nature” of Buddhist figures, who were believed to take various guises through history to help people reach nirvana, for example these of local deities or historical figures. The best known example of application of this doctrine in Japanese Buddhism is obviously the historical phenomenon of honji suijaku, which was focused specifically on kami.

A Kasuga mandala representing the correspondences between Buddhist figures and local kami (source; reproduced here for educational purposes only)

The legend of Shuten Dōji

Regardless of which mountain is identified as the residence of oni, and of whether the dramatis personae are identified with Buddhist figures or not, the plot of the various versions of the legend of Shuten Dōji surprisingly does not vary all that much. While it is reasonably well known, I figured it won’t hurt to summarize it here anyway, especially since the information above should make it possible to view it from many new angles.

The oldest surviving version, Ōeyama Ekotoba (“Illustrations and Writing of Mt. Ōe”), presumably based on preexisting oral sources, comes from the fourteenth century, specifically from the Nanbokuchō period. However, the story only reached the peak of its popularity a few centuries later, in the Edo period. This was a part of a broader phenomenon: preexisting tales about warriors matched the sensibilities of the new ruling classes and were kept in circulation by them, but eventually they also became a part of urban popular culture. Many adaptations were produced, including noh plays and ukiyo-e. To put it very colloquially, the heroic warriors and demon quellers from the previous periods became the Edo period counterpart of contemporary superhero media. This is a genuine comparison employed in scholars, for clarity, not a joke. As remarked by Bernard Faure, the most widespread version is basically framed as if it was a tabloid story from the Heian period. In 995, young women (and in some versions men too) disappear whenever a particularly violent storm occurs, and nobody knows how to stop it. Not even the power of Buddhist exorcisms is enough. Seeing as in the portrayed time period that was pretty much the universal solution to supernatural problems, this is a big deal.

Abe no Seimei (right) in the Fudo Rieki Engi (wikimedia commons) This is a source of distress for a certain official, Ikeda Kunikata (or, in some version, Kunitaka), whose only daughter is among the kidnapped women. He decides to seek the help of the Heian period superstar Abe no Seimei, arguably the most famous onmyoji in history. Alternatively, the expert contacted is a certain Muraoka no Masatoki, who to my best knowledge is a fictional character and doesn’t appear anywhere outside of some variants of this tale. Either way, thanks to this intervention it is possible to identify the culprit as a demonic being residing on Mt. Ōe (or alternatively on Mt. Ibuki). In one of the versions featuring Seimei he specifically identifies him as a tenma (天魔), “heavenly demon” - a term commonly used to refer to tengu (as ZUN does in Touhou) and to servants of Mara (overlapping if not identical categories, really; stay tuned for a future article exploring this). However, onmyoji arts are not enough to stop the crisis; all Seimei can guarantee is that Kunikata’s daughter will survive, but he has no way to confront the demon directly. Kunikata therefore decides to bring the case to the attention of the emperor, Ichijō. He holds a meeting with various ministers, who note that in the past a similar case was solved by Kūkai (recall his already mentioned association with Shuten Dōji). However, there are no monks of equal skill left, so his feat cannot be repeated.

It is then concluded that the only way to end the demon’s reign of terror it is to send the strongest warrior they were aware of, Minamoto no Yorimitsu (Raikō) and his four retainers, Watanabe no Tsuna, Sakata no Kintoki, Taira no Suetake, and Tairi no Sadamitsu, on a mission to kill him. Raikō is also assisted by Fujiwara no Yasumasa (Hōshō) and his anonymous attendant, but these two never gained much prominence as characters in this narrative. Additionally, in some versions other figures from the same period - Taira no Muneyori, Minamoto no Yorinobu (Raikō’s younger brother) and Taira no Korehira - are namedropped as potential candidates considered by the emperor, but they all reportedly decline to partake out of fear.

Raikō and Kintoki, as depicted by Yoshitoshi Tsukioka (wikimedia commons)

Preparations started with prayers in Sumiyoshi, Kumano, Kasuga and, in some versions, Hie shrines. They did not go unanswered. Raikō and his retainers subsequently encounter a group of shugenja (mountain ascetics) who turn out to be the manifestations of the deities they paid honor to: Sumiyoshi Myōjin, Kumano Nachi Gongen, Hachiman (here addressed as a bodhisattva) and, if the Hie shrine is included in a given version, Sannō Gongen. They explained that to safely enter the fortress of Shuten Dōji, Raikō and his men must disguise themselves as shugenja (that’s because the legendary first shugenja, En no Gyōja, famously had an entourage of demons). They also provide him with supernatural wine. They state the oni will inevitably drink it due to their fondness of alcohol, only to end up poisoned as a result. In some versions they vanish afterwards, but in others they continue to accompany Raikō. The protagonists then encounter a woman washing blood stained clothes. In some versions she is described as elderly, and states she has lived for 200 years as a servant of Shuten Dōji. In the most widespread Edo period version, she is young and says she was only kidnapped a year earlier, though.

Encounter with the woman washing bloody clothes (NYPL Digital Collections) Regardless of her age, she reveals some additional information about Shuten Dōji, though that also varies depending on the version. In some, she explains that he looks like a human during the day, but takes the form of an oni at night. His human form is specifically that of a dōji, literally “child”, but we’ll get back to the full context of this term later. In any case, I think it's safe to say the shape and size changing is where Suika'a ability came from. In another variant, the woman warns the heroes that Shuten Dōji is enraged by Abe no Seimei’s actions, as the onymoji apparently figured out in the meanwhile how to keep the people of Kyoto safe by employing a number of shikigami (a standard part of his repertoire). There are no further stops on the journey, and shortly after the encounter with the woman of variable age Raikō and his men enter the mountainous land of the oni. Especially in the older versions, it’s a place completely out of this world, with all four seasons occurring at once. Once they enter the fortress located there, they instantly encounter Shuten Dōji… and ask him for a place to stay for the night.

Distinctly human-like Shuten Dōji, as depicted by Yoshitoshi Tsukioka in One Hundred Ghost Stories from China and Japan (LACMA; reproduced here for educational purposes only)

Rather unexpectedly, he instantly agrees. He then tells them about his past; this largely a shorter version of the legend already discussed earlier, though with nothing predating the Mt. Hiei section mentioned. We also get a specific date for his arrival on Mt. Ōe, 849. This doesn’t last long, though, and soon he invites the protagonists to partake in a feast with him. This is obviously not a regular party, and while the individual versions can be more or less graphic, it is clear that the oni are consuing the flesh and blood of their captives. Despite various horrific sights, Raikō maintains composure. He uses the opportunity the feast presents him with to offer Shuten Dōji the sake he received from the three (or four) deities earlier. As expected, Shuten Dōji gets drunk, and leaves to rest in his chamber.

The other oni continue to party. In some versions, some of them try to approach the protagonists by disguising themselves either as a group of courtly ladies or as a dengaku troupe, but Raikō’s glare is so intense they quickly relent. Eventually all of the oni give up on attempting to engage with the alleged ascetics and end up drunk. That’s when the heroes decide to free their captives. These obviously include the women from Kyoto. However, as it turns out, Shuten Dōji’s rampages actually extended beyond Japan, to India and China, though only captives from the latter area actually appear. Multiple versions additionally mention that one of the prisoners was a young acolyte of the Tendai abbot Ryōgen, who was protected by assorted deities. This doesn’t really come into play in any meaningful way, though. Once everyone is freed, the heroes draw their weapons and enter Shuten Dōji’s chamber.

Sleeping Shuten Dōji (National Museum of Asian Art; reproduced here for educational purposes only)

The protagonists finally witness Shuten Dōji's oni form. He is five jō (around fifteen meters) tall, has fifteen eyes and five horns. His head and torso are red, his right arm is yellow, his left arm is blue, his right leg is white and his left leg is black. This might be a reference to the five elements. Alternatively, he could be described as entirely red, which might either be yet another way to reference his love of alcohol, as in the case of the shōjō, or an indication he was comparable to a “plague deity” (疫神, ekijin). The manifestations of the deities from earlier show up again, this time to hold Shuten Dōji in place so that Raikō can strike. He cuts off his head, but to his shock it rises into the air and starts talking.

Confrontation between the heroes and the floating head of , as depicted by Yoshitsuya Utagawa (wikimedia commons)

Shuten Dōji actually mocks the heroes: “How sad, you priests! You said you do not lie. There is nothing false in the words of demons.” Needless to say, his final words are pretty directly referenced in Touhou. Oni, at the very least, claim they do not lie. Mileage of course varies, though. ZUN is not the only author drawn to this element of the legend. It would appear that even the Japan Oni Cultural Museum has advertised itself with the words “there is nothing false in the words of demons” in the past. As noted by Noriko T. Reider, emphasizing this apparent honesty (or naivete) sometimes serves as a way to make oni sympathetic or even relatable for modern audiences. However, it's worth noting that in the noh version, Raikō pushes back against Shuten Dōji’s words, and points out even the claim oni do not lie is a lie. He has a point, considering some versions outright establish oni capture their victims by disguising themselves as people close to them, imitating their voices. It probably also should be pointed out that in Konjaku Monogatari, oni are said to be scary precisely because they can tell apart right and wrong.

Anyway, oni ethics aside, it turns out that to kill Shuten Dōji for good, one has to gouge out his eyes. Once that is accomplished, Raikō's mission is finally complete. After killing the other oni, the protagonists take the head with them to Kyoto. Obviously, they also take the freed captives with them. The young women return to their families, and the Chinese men head for the coast to find a ship which could take them home. They promise to let the emperor (the Chinese one, for clarity; that would be Zhenzong of Song in 995) about Raikō's heroism. In the versions where the woman washing clothes was elderly, rather than simply one of the young captives, on the way back the protagonists learn that she has passed away in the meanwhile, since her lifespan was unnaturally extended by Shuten Dōji. Once he died, so did she.

Transport of Shuten Dōji's head to Kyoto (NYPL Digital Collections)

Before the head can enter the capital, a purification ritual has been performed. Abe no Seimei thankfully knows how to do that. Thanks to him, all the relevant authorities can examine it. The emperor decides it will be best to store it in the treasure house of Uji. This location pops up in multiple legends. The severed heads of the two other equally famous malign entities, Ōtakemaru and Tamamo no Mae, were also stored there according to legends focused on them, in addition to various Buddhist relics and mundane treasures. In an alternate version, the head never reaches the imperial court. Raikō and his retainers encounter the bodhisattva Jizou, who tells them it is too impure to be shown to the emperor, and suggests burying it. The location selected, a hill on the northwestern limits of the city, came to be known as Kubizuka (首塚), literally “head tumulus”. Shuten Dōji actually came to be enshrined there as Kubizuka Daimyōjin (首塚大明神), and in this divine guise developed an association with learning and ailments of the head.

The Kubizuka shrine in 2019 (wikimedia commons)

There is yet another variant tradition about the final fate of Shuten Dōji: after his death he became a vengeful spirit, and then turned into a tsuchigumo, just to be defeated by Raikō and his retainer Tsuna for a second time.

Raikō and Tsuna battling tsuchigumo, as depicted in Tsuchigumo no Sōshi Emaki (wikimedia commons)

Interestingly, it has been argued the tale of Shuten Dōji was at least in part based on that of the tsuchigumo Kugamimi no Mikasa (陸耳御笠), who resided on Mt. Ōe according to Tango Fudoki Zanketsu (丹後風土記残欠). The tale is not preserved fully, though, so all we know for sure other than the location is that the hero opposing him was Hikoimasu no Miko (日子坐王), a stepbrother of emperor Sujin (he is also attested in other sources). A second tsuchigumo, Hikime (匹女) is successfully defeated, but the fate of Mikasa is left unspecified in the surviving sections. This obviously makes further comparisons difficult. The topic of tsuchigumo cannot be dealt with here due to space constraints, but I promise I will return to it in a future article.

The supporting cast of Shuten Dōji

Shuten Dōji in his human form and his oni henchmen (NYPL Digital Collections)

Something that requires further discussion is the matter of the underlings of Shuten Dōji, since it is a topic directly relevant to Touhou. You might have noticed I actually avoided referencing them in any meaningful capacity in the summary of the legend. That’s because they actually do not play a major role. There also wasn’t any consistent view regarding their number or names. However, the version which came to be standard in the Edo period lists four of them - an obvious mirror of Raikō and his entourage. As a matter of fact, both groups even share the same moniker, Four Heavenly Kings.

This idea predates the Edo period, though. An earlier variant based on picture scrolls created by Kanō Motonobu already lists four servants of Shuten Dōji: Gogō, Kiriō, Ahō, and Rasetsu (yes, an oni named Rakshasa). However, two additional oni at his service are also listed, Kanakuma Dōji and Ishikuma Dōji. They are described as his personal guards, and as, well, dōji. It is clear the term is used in a literal sense here - they are said to look like “overgrown adolescents”. Two different subordinates are mentioned in another picture scroll: Kirinmugoku (麒麟無極) and Jakengokudai (邪見極大). However, they do not receive any characterization, or even physically appear in the narrative. Shuten Dōji shouts their names when he is about to die, and the very assumption that he’s referring to his oni subordinates is conjectural. The same version states that there were at least ten oni in the fortress so it’s not like it’s an implausible assumption.

The group of four oni returns in the standard Edo period version, where their names are Hoshikuma (“Star-bear”) Dōji, Kuma (“Bear”) Dōji, Torakuma (“Tiger-bear”) Dōji and Kane (“Iron”) Dōji. There’s also a fifth oni who is not a member of the group of 4, but shares the same naming pattern, Ishikuma Dōji. He actually gets a handful of lines, though they do not really provide him with much of a character beyond establishing he likes sake, that he eats humans, and that he is loyal to Shuten Dōji. Kane Dōji also gets a single line… explicitly alongside Ishikuma and multiple other nameless oni, though, and it boils down to announcing they will go down fighting because without their leader they no longer have a place to go.

Defeat of the oni (NYPL Digital Collections)

Ibaraki Dōji: Shuten Dōji’s only equal?

Watanabe no Tsuna battling Ibaraki Dōji (wikimedia commons)

A further unique case is that of Ibaraki Dōji, who actually acquired some fame as an individual character, and today is sometimes cited as an example of an oni equally archetypal as Shuten Dōji. Despite being portrayed as a close associate of Shuten Dōji, Ibaraki Dōji to my best knowledge isn’t counted among the Four Heavenly Kings in any version. The character of the connection is evidently more nebulous. I know an assertion that a tradition presenting Ibaraki Dōji as Shuten Dōji’s wife is attested is repeated as fact on wikipedia and various at least semi-credible websites, but there is never a citation provided, and no version of the narrative covered in articles and monographs I have access to includes such an element. I am not claiming it is impossible, though I do feel the fact it doesn’t come up in any paper or monograph discussing either figure I have access to doesn’t mention to might indicate it’s either a recent reinterpretation or a very obscure local variant. Note this is not meant to be an argument against any Touhou ships. What I can say with certainty is that Ibaraki Dōji’s gender is actually a matter of occasional academic dispute. In the versions of the basic Shuten Dōji narrative which mention this oni, he is pretty firmly male. However, he is said to be capable of taking the form of a woman. Noriko T. Reider argues that on this basis it can be effectively assumed that at the very least this specific oni can be considered genderless or capable of freely changing their gender, though she tentatively extrapolates this ability to oni in general. While Ibaraki Dōji’s gender changing adventure is technically its own legend, a reference to it was incorporated into the basic Edo period version of the Shuten Dōji narrative. During the feast, the latter mentions in passing that the former, his trusted ally, lost his arm in a fight with Watanabe no Tsuna during one of their Kyoto raids, after failing to abduct him while disguised as a woman. He clarifies that the arm was later recovered, but not particularly many details are provided. The rivalry between Tsuna and Ibaraki Dōji subsequently comes into play after Shuten Dōji’s death, when the protagonists are about to exterminate the other oni. Ibaraki charges him and they two fight without a clear winner for a while, until Raikō intervenes and kills the oni. I would argue that despite him being responsible for dealing the killing blow, it is Tsuna who should be considered Ibaraki’s nemesis, though. Interestingly, at some point ZUN considered featuring a character based on him in Wild and Horned Hermit (source). That obviously did not come to pass, though. Tsuna already fights an oni in Heike Tsuruginomaki, and many other variants of the story were written subsequently, with the noh play Rashōmon being the most famous. Curiously, the oldest version makes no reference to Shuten Dōji, and the oni actually resides on Mt. Atago, but by the Edo period the two were regarded as allies operating from Mt. Ōe. The details are otherwise generally similar across all of the sources. Raikō sends Tsuna on an errand. He encounters a woman on the Modoribashi Bridge in Kyoto, but as soon as he offers to take her with him she turns into an oni. Thinking quickly, he cuts off the creature’s arm, which is enough to make them flee. He keeps the severed limb as a trophy. Some time later, he is visited by an old woman who he assumes is his aunt... but who turns out to be the same oni, who uses a brief moment of confusion to recover the arm and fly away.

Transformed Ibaraki Dōji, as depicted by Tsukioka Yoshitoshi (wikimedia commons)

The legend of Ibaraki Dōji was evidently reasonably popular in the Edo period, and could even be utilized to comedic ends. One example is an Edo period satirical pamphlet, Thousand Arms of Goddess, Julienned: The Secret Recipe of Our Handmade Soup Stock, written by Shiba Zenkō and illustrated by Kitao Masanobu. Here the one-armed Ibaraki Dōji is one of the figures interested in leasing one of the now detached additional arms of the Thousand-Armed Kannon, who has apparently fallen in dire straits (“business slumps are inevitable, even for a Buddha”, comments the narrator, alluding to the financial conditions of the 1780s). As we learn, after making a purchase Ibaraki is disappointed by the lack of hair, and promptly hires a craftsman to add it:

Original translation by Adam L. Kern; reproduced here for educational purposes only. I am not responsible for the typesetting.

In my recent Ten Desires article I’ve already discussed the oni of Rashomon as a character in legends about Yoshika no Miyako, which I won’t repeat here. It will suffice to say that this conflation effectively made Ibaraki a penchant for poetry and fine arts, and that it indirectly put him in the proximity of the pursuit of immortality. Whether this is why ZUN made Ibaraki’s counterpart a wannabe immortal (“hermit”) is difficult to ascertain, but it does not strike me as impossible. The oni of Rashomon actually appears in at least one more legend which similarly portrays him as an enthusiast of the arts, though to my best knowledge this one never came to be reassigned to Ibaraki Dōji. It is centered on a famous biwa player, Minamoto no Hiromasa, who has to resolve the case of mysterious theft of an instrument from the imperial palace. As you can expect, it is revealed to specifically be an exceptional biwa, which bears the name Genjō. Hiromasa surveys the city in hopes of finding it, and eventually hears its distinct tones while passing near the Rashomon gate. He quickly realizes an oni is playing it. He politely asks if he can have it back, since it’s a treasure of the imperial court… and the oni eagerly obeys, thus bringing the story to a happy end. However, we are told Genjō acquired supernatural qualities in the aftermath of the theft, and only played when it felt like it, as if it was a living being. There is a variant which reveals that the oni of Rashomon was in fact the ghost of Genjō’s original maker, a craftsman from India. In this version, Abe no Seimei has to intervene to recover it, and the oni only agrees to return it after being promised a night with a woman he fell in love with who resembles his deceased wife. There is no happy ending here, though, as the woman’s brother convinces her she needs to kill the oni. She fails, and meets such a fate herself instead. It seems that the reader’s sympathy is actually supposed to be with the oni in this case.

Conclusions, or why you should make your own Deva of the Mountain

Obviously, there is nothing novel or clever about stating that the two figures this article is focused on, Shuten Dōji and Ibaraki Dōji, correspond to Suika and Kasen respectively. You can learn that from the official media itself, after all. Funnily enough, it seems this might have been even more blunt, judging from unused ideas for referencing the legend to an even greater degree in WaHH, with the defeat at Mt. Ōe as the explanation why oni reside… well, elsewhere (source). Granted, it would also be a disservice to ZUN to say he only created anime girl versions of the classic oni. He effectively created his own versions of both Shuten and Ibaraki - for every similarity between the irl background I’ve described and Touhou, there is also something brand new. That is part of what makes Touhou compelling, I would argue. Naturally, the fact that the group Kasen and Suika belong to is referred to as the Four Devas of the Mountain shows clear inspiration from the Edo period version of the original legends. However, Suika and Kasen are counted among the four, which is obviously an innovation. Additionally, while Yuugi is naturally named after Hoshikuma Dōji, who you were able to meet earlier, save for the name she is effectively a fully original character. Her ability references the Analects of Confucius, rather than anything directly tied to Shuten Dōji. And, on top of that in all honesty, she has more character than any of the additional oni appearing in the real legends. ZUN, as far as I am concerned, created a more than worthy addition to the classics. What about the much discussed fourth deva? I think it’s safe to say that in the light of the discussed material there simply isn’t a single most plausible option. As I stressed already, there’s no consistent group of oni appearing alongside Shuten Dōji, and it cannot be said that the Edo period version is clearly what should be treated as true in Touhou. ZUN picked what he liked from many versions. For what it’s worth, so far all of the oni forming the Four Devas are based on those who share the moniker of dōji, so that’s the closest we have to a theme. As I already said earlier, this term can be simply translated as “child” (or “lad”, though I think a gender neutral option is more apt since we are talking about Touhou here, ultimately). However, it has a more specific meaning when applied to supernatural beings. In this context it refers to a category of ambiguous figures characterized by “vitality, (...) hubris, and (...) unpredictability”, as well as fondness of violence, as summarized by Bernard Faure. Shuten Dōji, and by extension his underlings, are obviously the dōji par excellence. However, the term could also be applied to benevolent, or outright divine beings. That, however, goes beyond the scope of this article. I personally think despite the possible dōji theme the fourth slot will never be filled, ultimately. ZUN likes leaving gaps in established groups - there are types of tengu which were a part of the background for well over a decade, for instance. I think these are left as paths to make ocs with an instant excuse to interact with canon characters. Despite ZUN’s generally pro-fanwork stance I do not think I’ve ever seen anyone make this point. As far as I am concerned, the conclusion is clear: it’s entirely fair game to invent characters to fill the empty spot. There’s even a solid case to be made for reinventing oni from other legends as members of the Four Devas - remember that much of Ibaraki Dōji’s character was borrowed from a nameless oni from a legend about the Rashomon gate, as I discussed last month.

Bibliography

Bernard Faure, Rage and Ravage (Gods of Medieval Japan vol. 3)

Michael Daniel Foster, The Book of Yokai. Mysterious Creatures of Japanese Folklore

Adam L. Kern, Thousand Arms of Goddess, Julienned: The Secret Recipe of Our Handmade Soup Stock, written by Shiba Zenkō and illustrated by Kitao Masanobu (translation and commentary), in: An Edo Anthology: Literature from Japan’s Mega-City, 1750–1850

Keller Kimbrough and Haruo Shirane (eds.), Monsters, Animals, and Other Worlds. A Collection of Short Medieval Japanese Tales

Irene H. Lin, The Ideology of Imagination: The Tale of Shuten Dōji as a Kenmon Discourse

Michelle Osterfeld Li, Human of the Heart: Pitiful Oni in Medieval Japan in: The Ashgate Research Companion to Monsters and the Monstrous

Noriko T. Reider, Shuten Dōji: "Drunken Demon"

Idem, Japanese Demon Lore

Idem, Seven Demon Stories from Medieval Japan

also check out the scans of an amazing Shuten Dōji picture scroll from the NYPL collection here!

#touhou #suika ibuki #kasen ibaraki #shuten douji #ibaraki douji

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neil-gaiman · 2 years

Note

Dear Mr Neil Gaiman,

This is less of a question, and more of a thank you letter.

I read Good Omens for the first time when I was 16 year old autistic kid who didn’t understand who she was. Now I’m a slightly larger kid at 19 who still doesn’t understand, but is getting there.

As a young autistic person, everything in the world seems like it’s designed against you. School, work, social life, are all made harder—not because of my autism—but because of the environment that has been tailored to neurotypical people. It doesn’t help that there is so much blatant hatred for autistic people online, and I’ve found even making a comment mentioning I’m autistic almost always receives some sort of backlash.

This ends up feeling isolated and lonely most of the time. A lot of the time, I still feel that way. I spent my otherwise privileged childhood full to the brim with depression, anxiety, confusion, and desperation to understand others.

When I read Good Omens, I saw myself for one of the very few times I’ve ever really seen myself in anything. To me, Crowley and Aziraphale represented a dilemma I was familiar with—just not fitting in where they’re supposed to.

But Good Omens has a happy ending (at least…the book. And the show thus far) and that part made it that much more meaningful to me. To me, Good Omens is about everything from the nature of humanity to the power of creativity and love. But it was also about a bunch of weirdos, none of them nearly fitting the bill for normal, all ending up working together and even becoming friends.

And then I saw what happened when the show premiered.

Other people obviously loved the characters, and have since the book came out, but when the show came out and I was reminded of that—I felt a little less lonely. No one found their oddities anything but charming, or at least dimensional, it seemed. I was also brought into a community which is very accepting and largely neurodivergent in and of itself.

I still reread Good Omens when the real world is too much. Right now, I’m in the trunk of my car, and the world is too much. I’m about to turn on my Good Omens audiobook, but I thought before I did, I’d say thanks. ln a single book you co-wrote, you impacted my life for the better, and continue to during these times.

So thank you.

I'm so glad it helped.

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literary-illuminati · 6 months

Text

Book Review 65 – System Collapse by Martha Wells

I’ve had this on preorder long enough to have entirely forgotten about it by the time I got the email that it’s available for pickup – but thanks to the magic of an extremely obliging local book store, I was still able to pick up and read the entire thing before it’s technically released. So score one for buying indie, I guess.

The book is set directly after Network Effect – directly directly, to the point where I needed to look up a plot summary to remind myself what the situation was – following our beloved rogue and rampant SecUnit, ART, and their assorted humans as they try to convince an abandoned and alien-contaminated colony’s inhabitants to trust them and accept evacuation with them (and also go along with the colonial charter they’re forging) rather than the indenture offers the corporate mission also on site are offering. Along the way there’s hacking, shuttle chases, gunfights, and plot-critical media curation.

Mostly though it’s about Murderbot having PTSD (on account of all the horrible trauma in Network Effect specifically, and also just its life generally) and absolutely zero idea how to cope. After a false memory/panic attack makes it crash out of nowhere it spends the majority of the book terrified that it’s going to crash or freeze up at some vital moment and get everyone killed, dealing with constant alien-related paranoia, and generally second-guessing itself and feeling useless and depressed. Absolutely no one around it has any idea how to deal with this, and their awkward attempts to be supporting are both endearing and entirely unhelpful.

Anyway, this is a Murderbot novel. Do you like Murderbot? Then you will like this. Do you not know the series? Then by god start with All Systems Red none of this will make any sense at all without context. Do you dislike murderbot? I mean hateread as you like but it is largely more of the same, don’t expect any series-saving twists for you.

It’s kind of absurd to call the series ‘cozy fantasy’ – by the end of the book SecUnit is down several extremities and bleeding out on the floor (as is traditional by this point) – but I feel like the series fills about the same emotional niche for me as like say Becky Chambers does for people with normal tolerances for low-tension sentimentality. The setting is a horrible dystopia and the plots are full of violence and trauma, but all that is more or less set dressing to stories that are actually about SecUnit making connections and deciding at a tortuously slow pace what sort of life it wants to have (usually several hours after commuting itself without thinking) while consistently running into the best possible friends and forming mutually affectionate relationships it absolutely did not want. It’s a story about fun, low-tension character dynamics, corporate kill teams aside.

I am being entirely sincere when I say the fact that SecUnit has no idea what it wants or what its doing is a selling point. In the same way, the fact that there’s never any real ~breakthrough~ or moment of sudden recovery is absolutely key to the book working. The story closes with it being hopeful and doing better but from any remotely reasonable baseline still being pretty far from ‘okay’ (in much the same way, it is utterly vital to the whole series that it has absolutely zero angst over ‘not being human’ or pinochle syndrome and only cares about ‘not being normal’ insofar as its had to work really hard on some automated scripts for walking and idle motions to pass as human while doing infiltration work).

Anyway, speaking of character dynamics – look, I’ve always been the first to roll my eyes when people complain about not being able to keep tracks or large casts. But every time I open one of these books, I realize I have only the vaguest idea who the vast majority of the (human) supporting cast is. Not really an issue with actually following the story, but I’m absolutely certain I’m missing out on some things.

The non-human supporting cast are great though. ART best spaceship, and I cared significantly more about the colony’s central control computer than any of the actual colonists. I’m like 70% sure this is intentional.

Stepping back, it’s interesting how the series’ setting has evolved over time. In All Systems Red the universe around SecUnit was incredibly broadly sketched, generic sci f playing with space opera and cyberpunk tropes it pretty much relied upon readers already being familiar with. This never exactly stops – especially for the aesthetics and technology, the book has a profound lack of interest in the specifics of what ‘projectile weapons’ look like or how spaceships work beyond the convenience of plot – but as the books go on the world definitely gets more specific and also broader. You can mostly blame ART for this, I think – there’s a definite shift in the tone of the setting when you introduce an institution like the University with power like it can throw around, and more generally make active resistance to and subversion to the corporate status quo a plausible and fruitful endeavour.

All this to say that there’s an offhand mention at one point about ‘intracorporate violence’ increasing and the system being increasingly unstable, and I’m curious what Wells is going to do with that going forward. Especially with the book’s final resolution and the status quo it sets up going forward.

Anyway like I said, it’s murderbot. This is the 7th book in the series. If you’re considering reading it you’ll probably love it.

#book review #system collapse #murderbot #martha wells #sff

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skemford · 7 months

Text

I like talking about bendy characters so it’s time to touch up topic of… Joey Drew himself

Doing it before fade to black release on purpose :)

Here’s my analysis of his behaviour and on the illusion of living philosophy

It’s a huge read and I’ve enjoyed writing it!

(Continuation under the cut)

1. Joey’s family situation was hard on it’s own

Joey doesn’t talk about his parents way too much and mostly focuses on story elements (his father being a shoe maker and how his parents affected his childhood) rather than on his parents as their own people.

They weren’t rich and Joey talks about their family earning a “honest living” but at the same time, he describes how hard it was for his father.

“We weren’t rich. There was an honest living to be earned and Father did that with Mother keeping the books” (TIOL, page 18)

“I definitely saw her (mother) more than I saw Father, who sometimes would only appear briefly at the dinner table, hunched, brow furrowed, silently eating his meal. He’d disappear downstairs right after, and I’d help Mother with the washing up. (TIOL,page 18)

He comments on his father creating fake scenarios (elves helping him to work) to distract from hardship of needing to work a lot to be able to feed their family.

Joey has hard time of understanding ‘why’ he does that and how fantasy can help to work but he wants to believe. He tries to prove to himself that magic can be real.

"I didn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe it” (TIOL, page 19)

“I couldn’t see the elves. They must have been sitting on the table itself, hidden behind Father. I pushed the door open just a little bit and stood taller on my tiptoes.” (TIOL, page 21)

Joey switches between wanting to believe in illusions and not wanting to. He’s scared of not being perceived as normal by others.

He says that it’s not okay to be deep into the fantasy but notes on the fact that he can grasp the concept.

“I knew about make-believe. Played it all the time with my friends. But I didn’t know that adults knew about make-believe too. I nodded. (TIOL, page 23)

After he asks his father directly, he explains his reasoning and says that make-believe helps to feel less lonely (I’ll note on this part, it’ll come in handy later) which changes Joey’s perspective greatly:

"But the make-believe, the little characters, the songs, that changed his reality. What was reality except what we perceive it to be? Elves and magic? Well, why not? (TIOL, page 24)

It’s everything we’ve got to know about his family.

Hard working to earn money for living, using escapism to cope and distant from each other because of their struggles.

This distance likely has continued to grow with years, since for some reason he escaped his home when he was 15 y.o (+ signed up to army); no one seems to actually care and he was left on his own.

1.1 Stage name

Talking about Joey’s distance from his family, he doesn’t use his real family surname or full form of his name.

It’s not something that was explored a lot in Bendy (among all of its content) but we know that he doesn’t like to be referred this way.

'Joey’ was a nickname that he picked up for himself when he was 19 y.o.

"I’m Detective Adam Sinclair. You’re Joseph Drew.” “Joey,” I said. It was a new nickname I was trying out, ever since I moved to the Village. (TIOL, page 88)

Usually he’s referred as 'Joseph’ by his family members or people who are distant to him/don’t know him well.

But "Joey” is not the only one name he gave to himself.

'Drew’ doesn’t look like a real surname. He likely picked it up after getting close with Henry.

Imo Drew is a fun pun name that’s related to Joey owning the studio (and “Joey drew Studios” (literally) in the case of the cycle)

It has never sounded real.

Employees handbook mentions some “Dempsey” person who invests their own costs into the studio:

(Receipts: Investor Deposit, J. Dempsey)

Their initials are “J.D.” which makes it’s obvious who they are.

Joey’s house also doesn’t look rich which would make sense if he put all his earnings into the studio itself.

Bendy devs like to pick names that fit characters & “Dempsey” means “arrogant person” which does fit Joey perfectly.

1.2 Joey is deeply ashamed of the way his family lived.

Everytime someone mentions anything he associates with his past (shoes, for example) he overthinks and creates imaginary conflicts with these people.

His negative thoughts about them take whole paragraphs of text; he tries to make himself believe that he doesn’t care about looking “less” in someone’s eyes. He looks for reasons why they're worse than him constantly.

"Probably trying to figure out my past, and that was none of his business. Then I told myself it didn’t matter because I didn’t care what he thought. I didn’t care much for him in general. He might have been richer than me at the time, but that’s where his superiority ended." ( TIOL, page 26)

He often downplays people because he's deeply insecure and is scared of being outcasted, especially by rich successful guys.

After doing so,he switches toward praising himself and names reasons for why he's better (classic Joey Drew behaviour)

He was a year younger than me, hadn’t fought, hadn’t signed up like I had, hadn’t lied about his age to fight for his country like I had. What could he say to an answer like that?Nothing. Absolutely nothing (TIOL, page 26)

Не believes that they need to feel sorry for this because they have no idea how much he struggled in the past.

2. He's insecure & scared of things he can't control

I could've continues this in previous paragraph but it's a bit different.

You see, while Joey was insecure of his past (things he associated with it acted as "triggers") he still was full of himself.

It was an act but it looked convincing enough; with time it became harder for him to keep it up.

It easily explains his behaviour in batim tapes.

When Joey tries to reassure everyone that he knows what's going on, he actually doesn't. He's as lost as everyone else, he tries to act only when he's forced to do so.

He lies to people and runs away from responsibility because he's scared of abruptness, something out of his control.

Joey shows fear of everything that's unknown to him but he tries to play it off somehow: he tries to be on top and be unpredictable to others.

He treats himself as a human that lives around unpredictable fictional characters that he can't control or read intentions of.

"My father though was a real person. I knew that deep down. But in this moment I saw him not as a son looking at his father but as a viewer looking at a fictional character." (TIOL, page 50)

It's mentioned in the novels that Joey likes theatre and he expresses his thoughts about it to Buddy in dctl.

Theatre operates in "cycles":

Actors play their parts→ the audience applaud→ actors bow→ performance ends→ performance begins and so on.

It's has a pattern and won't introduce anything that will caught you off guard. It's "safe" and as a part of audience,you don't need to perform, you only watch.

Does it remind you of batim's cycle? Outside of holding grudges toward Henry and wanting to run away from everything Joey has performed with GENT, he also searches for control while not being included directly.

HE decides what will happen to the cycle residents. HE writes the story that other people can barely affect. HE blames other people for studio's downfall and makes them suffer for his wrongdoings.

Joey knows that he has failed but he can't process it. He doesn't know what will happen and he's scared of being put into situations he can't predict.

It's really shows how insecure he became with years.

3. Why Henry is important?

Why exactly Joey couldn't replace one man he didn't knew for a really long time? What made Henry so special to him?

We don't get a big insist on their friendship but it can be said that their short-lived bond was strong or at least Joey believed that it was.

Henry seems to be Joey's role model of sort even if Joey doesn't want to acknowledge it.

Joey notes on how Henry changed the course of his life without knowing about this

Henry is a determinated man who went for a career in art because he knew what he wanted & he stayed on this path no matter how hard it was to get any recognition.

Henry's the man who makes decisions and acts when he needs to.

Meanwhile, Joey feels lost his whole life. He searches for answers,purpose or a place with a "soul".

Henry gave him new meaning for life. Creative path with endless possibilities that Joey could build from scratch.

Joey was heartbroken when Henry left, doesn't matter for hard he tries to act like he wasn't.

"His presence was helpful, I can happily admit, but his absence was even more so. Not having him at the studio ended up being one of the best things that could have happened to it" (TIOL, page 138)

For some time his life was revolving around Henry. He knew what to do and what will happen, Henry always pushed him to the right decisions.

He says so directly in batim chapter 5:

"The truth is, you were always so good at pushing, old friend... pushing me to do the right thing"

With loosing Henry, Joey lost his newly gained purpose in life. It wasn't something that he was able to figure out by himself & it made him blind to the road that lies ahead.

He's angry at Henry for being like "other people" that he hates. For leaving him behind when he's scared of being alone.

We don't know about Henry's perspective much but he strikes me as someone who would be supportive of Joey at first.

He made some of Joey's ideas real and left only after a breaking point.

3.1 "Cartoon family"

Joey is deeply attached to main JDS toons that he "mutually" owns with Henry.

Especially, it's noteciable with toon Bendy who was called his child on a couple of occasions:

"Bendy was Joey’s child, and he felt just as strongly about Bendy as I feel about my flesh-and-blood son" © Nathan Arch (TIOL, page 5)

"He was my very first creation—one could even call him my firstborn." (TIOL, page 12)

Joey not only sees Bendy as his child but he also relates to him.

He draws parallels between them both, calls bendy manifestation of "the illusion of living" and shows some of his mannerisms (as he says)

Joey wants to see himself as Bendy.

A character who's loved by kids and adults alike and who always has friends around.

"I tell people that Bendy is the perfect example of my philosophy." (TIOL, page 12)

"To know that I needed a creation so perfect, so accessible to so many people, that it would help me change the way the world saw itself." (TIOL, page 13)

In Joey's apartment the only one picture in frame that he owns is illustration/animation cell of toons drawn by 'Henry Stein':

They're depicted holding hands with Bendy being in the middle of both; it's portrays closeness between them and Bendy's importance in the picture

But was it's actually signed up by Henry or Joey is the one who did it for himself?

We know from batim (and batdr notes) that Joey's signature is "your best pal" which makes this case...a bit complicated

Joey could've wanted to pretend that Henry is still close to him and decided to sign up drawing with his name

Or possibly it was signed up by Henry somewhere in the past. In this case, Joey could've adopted Henry's signature as his own.

Both speculations have place to be real and we can't prove any of them.

Joey's known for pretending (which would fit with the 1st possibility) but he's also stuck in the past and stole a lot of ideas that belong to other people.

Imo it can be interpreted based on the way you see him.

4. Why was Susie fired?

Joey's obsessed with everything that is related to Bendy which can be seen with him being angry about "crooked bendy dolls" or bendy expression sheet in batim ch 2.

We can speculate that Susie Campbell wasn't fired from the role of Alice's voice actress for any valid reason BUT because Joey felt personally offended.

As Norman says in dctl, Alice Angel was really popular for a bit, which possibly could have been unacceptable for Joey.

Bendy is the main character Joey relates to and he wouldn't have wanted to be overshadowed in any way.

Susie being fired and humiliated (for not knowing that she was in fact fired) is the consequence of Joey's insecurity.

Susie claims that "she was absolutely perfect for the role" at first so at some point Joey completely changed his perspective.

Any character getting attention would be good for the studio. Firing a voice actress that helps to get this attention lacks logical reasoning.

After Joey "calms down" he has a conversation with Susie about 'an opportunity' he has for her. This opportunity is Susie being the first (speculated to) human sacrifice. He believed that she'd have been a perfect Alice.

Joey puts Bendy above Boris and Alice (like he does with himself & other people) so him acting pitiful about any other character getting popular does makes sense.

But he still cares about them...to some degree.

"Boris was special, Alice was complicated." (TIOL, page 154)

Joey having complicated feelings with Alice as character is really interesting and it's perfectly reflects what he was thinking about Susie.

She was a perfect voice actress to others but wasn't to him. He thought that she'll be a perfect Alice (after the ink machine was created) but she failed to be.

"She was beautiful. And loved by all. She was perfect...No matter what Joey says." (batim chapter 3, Susie talking about herself in 3rd person)

In dctl he claims that he relates failed experiments to "people not being real enough" or says that they weren't pure.

At the end, Joey basically has decided to pretend that she never was real

Susie is never mentioned in his memoir and she's almost fully erased from studio's history.

In Batdr's studio tour (music department part) "Susie Campbell" was replaced with "Allison Pendle"; meaning that Allison is officially the only one Alice Angel voice actress according to him.

5. The ink demon

It's one of the most interesting parts here and I'm sure that a lot of people have talked about him better that I'll.

The ink demon is a "product" of mistreatment, Joey's unhealthy projecting and capitalism (duh)

Joey saw Bendy as his son

He wanted to be like Bendy, someone who's loved and can always escape from troubles

One of reasons to bring Bendy to life is his marketability. Joey wanted "alive attractions" he can get money from.

The ink demon wasn't able to fullfil any expectations that Joey had.

He was passive and harmless (at first) but to Joey, he's not a cheerful toon that he has always dreamed about.

One of main issues that Joey has with him is that he's off-model:

"Listen Tommy, i know you boys over at Gent are doing your best but I'm paying for living attractions,not walking abominations. Whatever that grinning thing was i saw walking around your office,you better keep it up locked tight! Might scare off investors!..." (batim chapter 5)

"Grinning thing" and "walking abomination." The ink demon is completely dehumanised because he's not marketable.

As it was mentioned earlier, Joey sees Bendy as a perfect being and relates to him

He doesn't want to relate to the ink demon; for this reason, he separates them both.

Joey has hard time with accepting "failures". They either get forgotten, dumped or he tries to change them somehow.

The ink demon is a mistake that Joey and GENT have tried to "fix" for years. "A monster" that has shattered Joey's dreams.

5.1 The ink demon's sense of self

It's Joey character analysis so this point won't be too big.

The ink demon was treated like a mistake for being different:

Closed off, isolated, put in the cycle,tortured.

He was in the place where no one would care because he's not "a perfect bendy". Most of it comes from Joey or is related to him in some way.

Everyone saw him as a monster and he has accepted this role.

We know how it went in batim/batdr.

Worth to mention that unlike Joey, he has never lied in batdr. It's either harsh truth or projecting.

6. Ink Children

Allison was close to Joey and had a good impact on him,as he claims.

Indirectly, she made him want to have a family with the help of the ink machine.

I doubt that this decision has come from the place of jealousy toward Henry (who has a family) unless future content will somehow prove that I'm wrong. Joey can have one good intention while failing everywhere else.

Joey could've wanted to have a family to prove that there's still something good in him.

He was scared of dying alone and being forgotten.

"I hadn’t known that at the time. It gave me chills. The thought of success only after death, now that terrified me. That was not the plan and would never be the plan" (TIOL, page 122)

We don't know how many children have perished until the final, perfect one. And we can't claim what exactly has happened to them.

We don't get much details about the creation process of artificial "almost humans".

The only one we heard (outside of Audrey) is "AD" (name of the file) from batim chapter 5

"Tell me another one,uncle Joey..." ("AD" in batim post credits)

And sadly,you can't say much based on this.

They could've been physically unstable and die on their own terms

(milk packages from Joey's kitchen table in batim chapter 5. All of them were stained with ink)

If they stained object with ink by interacting with them, it could've become worse with time.

Again,with lack of context,it's almost impossible to debate for or against this idea. Was that's a thing for other ink creatures?

Susie does brings up in batim that she was "a shapeless slug" at first.

Joey didn't changed much and dumped imperfect ones

Honestly this part depends on how much you believe that he could grow as a character.

(memo from batdr, GENT building)

The way Joey talks about "other versions" sounds... indifferent.

Which is weird, because he did spend time with "AD" from batim by entertaining her with stories when she has asked him to

Does he tries to justify them being dumped OR he's distracting from the fact that they didn't had a chance to properly exist?

It feels like it was left for interpretation on purpose.

6.1 Audrey Drew

Second and last artificial child after "AD" that we canonically know about.

For Joey, creating something perfect that will outlive him could've been a key to his definition of immortality. He wanted to leave something after his death that people could know about. A piece of "perfect art"

"...Of course, I intend to live forever, so that will never happen! Ha, a joke indeed, but in a way not a joke, for what is art but a doorway into immortality? The greatest Illusion of Living then, living on after we are no longer alive. What is more of an illusion than that?" (TIOL, page 219)

Joey makes jokes about living eternally even before the ink machine's existence.

After it's creation, it's wasn't something that he has planned but he was ready for this fate (for one reason or another)

At the end of his life, Audrey has became a thing he'll live through eternally. And Memory!Joey is here ig

Memory!Joey basically calls Audrey his magnum opus:

"...My Greatest creation" (batdr, final Memory!Joey custscene)

Which further established that Joey is more proud of Audrey than he ever was on the Bendy franshise (it's hard to be proud of the stolen ideas, peoples deaths or the cycle,eh?)

Audrey seems to share adventurous spirit of young Joey (in his early 20s) & determination

They both got dragged into events they didn't asked for:

Joey (when he was 19 y.o) by detective Sinclair who has blamed him for a murder.

Audrey by Wilson Arch who has wanted to murder her.

6.2 Audrey and the ink demon

Similar trauma, different outcomes and treatment.

How present Joey was in Audrey's life? Why did they got separated at one point even before he has died?

Is there's something Memory!Joey hides from Audrey on purpose?

Batdr archives mention that Audrey has repressed her memories but what and why exactly?

In batdr the ink demon interacts a lot with Audrey which holds huge significance on the story.

In his first interaction with her he says "ink speaks to me and whispers your secrets" so the ink machine (who seems to hold some sense of identity) does know too.

The ink demon heavily relates to Audrey through the game. They were both left alone (in different ways) and they share one creator.

"You are without the purpose. Your very existence.. was a terrible lie...you're a mistake. A monster. Just like me." (batdr, the ink demon, last playable segment)

He heavily projects on her through this last interaction. Audrey does has a purpose,she was created to be a daughter Joey did wanted and loved. As much as Joey Drew could love at least, if you see this part as debatable.

But there's one thing he's right about, her existence is a lie.

Joey put burden of "protecting the cycle" on her while she thought that she's an orphan.

Batdr archives also question how much agency she has, which i find interesting.

7. "The illusion of living" (or TL;DR for this analysis)

The art of lying masterfully and manual on how to justice God complex.

Joey describes his life from early childhood (when he was 5 y.o.) and to the point of him being 42-43 y.o., a bit before the ink machine was created.

This book is about a man who couldn't find his purpose in life even with the help of other people and decided to blame everyone for this.

Lies, accusations, insults, distorted information, searching for "a soul" (literally and figuratively) and never ending hidden sadness after he lost Henry.

He tries to replace this empty gap with letting their creations become his whole life but it doesn't end well... (the ink demon,dead employees and the cycle)

He tries to separate himself from this and focused on creating a family.

Artificial daughters are electric boogalo №2 (unexpected direct sequel) which has ended working somehow.

But still,i wouldn't trust this man even a pet rock and the ink demon & Audrey are a proof on 'why.'

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Trivial facts (bendy employees handbook/the illusion of living):

>He loves mac n cheese

>Joey meet Sammy at a theatre when they were teens

>Joey loves throwing peanuts at theatre actors

>In Joey Drew studios you can celebrate only main toons birthday or Joey's birthday. Other birthdays are prohibited.

>Joey stole award that Sammy has earned

> Joey officially is an employee of the month eternally...

> Joey stoles ideas for cartoons from employees and they don't get even a couple of cents for this (woah! How surprising /j)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Special thanks to everyone who interacted with my Audrey analysis earlier!

#batim #bendy and the ink machine #batdr #bendy and the dark revival #joey drew #bendy #ink demon #audrey drew #henry stein #susie campbell #I won't tag everyone who was mentioned #bendy the illusion of living #bendy tiol #my post

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leahsfavefics · 5 months

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All I Want for Christmas is Joon (Teaser)

Title: All I Want for Christmas is Joon

Banner: the incredible @kithtaehyung

Pairing: art historian!Namjoon x art historian!reader (f)

Rating/genre: m (18+) angst, fluff, smut, second chance au

Estimated WC: 20k - this teaser is 792 words!

Posting Date: Dec 21st

Summary: You have had a rough year following the mutual break up with your grad school sweetheart. On a whim, you book a spontaneous trip to Europe for the holidays to help get you out of the funk you’re in and assert your independence. It would be great, if it weren’t for the fact that you keep bumping into your ex boyfriend.

Part of the Jingle All the Way collab!

BEFORE:

Your fingers itched over your computer mouse, hesitating on the ‘click’ you so ardently wanted to make. Anxiety held you back.

“Just do it,” Melissa hollered from your kitchen. You smiled, impressed at how she sensed your hesitation somehow. Outside of your family, she’s one of only two people that could ever read you that well. Though you guess that now she’s the only person that can, since the other is your ex-boyfriend that you haven’t seen in over a year.

You took her encouragement with a grain of salt. She was always egging on whatever hair brained idea you had, ever since elementary school. This time, though, maybe she was right.

“It’s expensive. And I’d be all by myself. I’ve never traveled all by myself,” you whined in response.

“Bitch, it’s literally cheaper than it’s ever going to be,” she shot back, strolling into the living room and leaning against the couch where you sat. You couldn’t argue. The Travel Tuesday flight deals this year were insane. You’ve never seen a round trip flight to Europe be less than $500, and somehow the itinerary you’ve secured rang in at $386.00 round trip, taxes and fees included. It was probably a bulk fair with a million restrictions and you’d be fucked if you wanted to change it, but the flight left in 3 weeks. If you booked this, you were going no matter what.

“And traveling by yourself is not bad,” Melissa continued. “Obviously I’d rather be on a girls’ trip with you or on a trip with Taehyung, but it’s also really nice to not have to worry about anyone but yourself. Sure, there’s no one to take cute pictures of you unless you want to ask a stranger, but you can do whatever you want without consulting with anyone or taking their feelings into account. Craving sushi? Go get sushi! Want a nap? Go take a nap! Want to check out an obscure museum no one would be interested in but you? Do it! You only have yourself to worry about.”

You sighed. “You’re right, I know you’re right. But you’re so much more adventurous than I am.” Mel and her husband, Taehyung, were always going off and doing the wildest of things. Going on amazing trips around the world, skydiving, scuba diving, the list goes on. Whether they were a match made in heaven or hell, you weren’t sure- they rarely said no to each other’s schemes. They were happy though, and beyond in love, and that’s all you could ever want for your best friend.

“That’s not true.” Melissa said. “You’re adventurous, you’re just also nervous. Ever since…. You know what. You’ve been complaining that you want to get better at doing things on your own. This is your chance. And you’ve wanted to go to Norway for ages. You can’t achieve your dreams if you’re afraid to pull the trigger when the opportunity presents itself.” You winced, but it was the truth. The hard truth, but the truth nonetheless. And you trusted Melissa to give it to you straight when you needed it. Since the breakup with Namjoon over a year ago, you’d been wallowing. The two of you did everything together, attached at the hip since you met in your grad school apartment building the weekend you both moved in. You’d made it all through college, moving in together the second year of school into a nice apartment off campus that you still occupied. The study abroad semester Namjoon spent in Paris had been tough, especially because you’d only had enough time and money for one brief visit, but it wasn’t until college was over that things fell apart. Art History is a tough field to get a job in. You were both insanely lucky to land jobs fresh out of college. Grades and letters of recommendation helped, but still. It was unfortunate that they were across the country. You’d barely made it through one bout of long distance. You thought it better to end things rather than face that again, and with no end date in sight.

“You’re right. I know how to travel. Namjoon and I took a few trips together. And you and I have gone on trips together. I need to learn how to be comfortable doing things on my own. I’m 25 years old. I can’t wait around forever.” You nodded as you spoke, convincing yourself. Taking a shaking breath, you squeezed your eyes shut and made that final click.

Melissa squealed in excitement and pulled you in for a constricting hug that pulled a laugh from you despite your nerves about your newly booked solo adventure. “I’m so proud of you! And excited! You’re going to fucking Norway!!”

#bts fanfic #namjoon fanfic #bts fanfiction #namjoon fanfiction #namjoon x reader #namjoon au

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pumpkzsafeplace · 9 months

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baby pumpkin tips: going on a big appointment.

appointments can be scary, believe me i understand <3. so hopefully some of pumpkin’s top tips can help you feel a little bit more confident the next time you have to go to any sort of appointment <3.

-> knowing what is happening.

now a lot of people tend to forget this easy step, but havingthe knowledge of why you’re at the appointment and what is about to happen can help so so so much with your anxiety. you see, anxiety feeds off the unknown.

it likes to make up hypothetical scenarios about things you’re fearful off to get that panicked reaction out of you. so, if you were to know what was going on- it blocks their chance of being able to frighten you, giving you a winning start to this long battle <3.

-> getting a good night’s sleep.

sleep is super duper important, especially before an appointment. your body needs to be at its best, so it can not only protect you but itself <3.

but, I understand how hard it to sleep when you’re scared of an upcoming task so my advice would be to do your best to distract yourself: watch some comedy movies, drink some tea, read a good book, bake some cookies- anything to keep your mind distracted a little. <3

-> be comfortable.

this is another big one for me, if I’m uncomfortable or insecure in anyway then I’d be a mess outside. so, when I know I have an appointment coming up, I’ll make sure the clothes I think are the comfiest and make me feel less insecure are available to wear. I’ll also add a touch of makeup too to make myself feel comfortable and confident leaving the house. honestly, it helps so so much and puts you in a braver mindset <3.

-> distractions.

distractions are another big one for me, for after and before the appointment. before the appointment things like music and fidget toys are really good at helping you keep a balanced and grounded headspace. cool phone games are also a good help as the flashing lights keep your mind distracted.

I mention after an appointment because sometimes the wait for results can be more daunting than the appointment, so just make sure you’re keeping yourself distracted and thinking as positive as you can <3.

-> support.

is also a major thing! if you can, try to take someone with you to the appointment to make it feel a little less scary. if not, then that’s okay! you can have the support of friends (in life or online) or even me and the little community, we’re always here to help and support people who need it! <3. you’re important, remember that <3.

-> treat yourself n be proud of yourself too!

remember that you’ve done a brave thing and you should be proud of yourself for accomplishing it! the amount of times I’ve cried after an appointments because i’ve been so scared is too many to count- but you know what, we’re human and we’re allowed to be scared of things <3

just know that whatever baby steps you take, we are so so proud of you! and you’ll always have a place to brag and get told you’re doing a super duper good job <3

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heavcnslyre · 10 months

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back at camp — leo valdez x reader

( a cheesy story of your trip back to camp after a year. does not correlate with the canon timeline. made up monsters, made up storyline. )

warnings: swearing

— it’s been a while since i’ve written. please bear with me if this is terrible <3

somehow, after a whole year away, the sole trip back to new york felt like the longest time you spent away from camp. the trip itself was around three days long, coming from california. ever since you started going to camp at thirteen, your parents sent you by train by yourself across the country. you didn’t mind the trip usually, with plenty of time to catch up on sleep, see the passing sights, read new books, or work on any other projects you had. really, it was just a chance for you to soak in the quiet before rejoining the hustle of camp half-blood.

this year, you were too antsy to return to camp that you couldn’t focus on anything on the train ride, just the destination you had ahead of you. and the people you were going to see. specifically your best friend leo valdez, who ever since the end of last summer, was definitely more than your best friend.

you had spent the entire summer together, training, hanging out at the lake, or working on little projects together, and on the last day of the summer, he finally, finally kissed you. everyone had been predicting all summer that the two of you would get together (and you thought the same thing, but your hopes were shrinking as the summer went on and he still hadn’t made a move). there had been tension between you since the day you met, and after over two years of knowing each other, it finally became something more.

he had yet to ask you to be his girlfriend, though. he kissed you, then you left the next day to go back across the country and he stayed there, since he was a year-round camper, and you had to go home to finish your last year of high school. you stayed in touch all summer, sending letters back and forth and the rare phone calls when he could find a phone to use. he always told you that the only phone number he had memorized was your home phone. you were the only one he ever wanted to call. it was sweet, really. you spent the whole year looking forward to talking to him whenever you could, and when you weren’t thinking about that, you were thinking about how it would feel to be on this very trip back to camp. to finally be on your way home.

“your stop is next, ma’am,” the train attendant said, suddenly standing in the doorway of your train compartment. “if you need any help with your luggage, let me know. we’ll be stopped for about thirty minutes.”

you smiled at her and nodded, “i should be okay, but thank you!”

“no worries, i know it must be nice to get off this train after how long you’ve been here!” you laughed in agreement and she left your compartment, leaving you back in your silence. but now, you were finally one step closer to camp.

you left the train a few minutes later with nothing more than your bag on your back and knife in your waistband. you carried it with you when you were alone in public like this, but always hidden to make you seem like less of a criminal. although, you figured that the mist would help you if it wasn’t.

your next step was a bus, which would take you from new jersey where the train left you, closer to long island, and from the bus you would take a cab to camp.

you took a seat in the way back of the bus, but it was completely empty, so it didn’t matter anyways. you made yourself comfortable in the seat and looked around, and suddenly locked eyes with the bus driver, who stared right at you through his rearview mirror. you jumped at the eye contact and looked away quickly, but when you glanced back, he was still staring at you. your skin started to crawl as you kept eye contact with him and his stare deepened as the bus continued to move down the street, fast. there was no way that this was a safe place for you to be, and you had to find a way out as soon as you could.

you desperately looked around, trying to form an escape plan. the door was in the front by the driver, who’s eyes seemed less and less like human eyes the more you looked at him. there were emergency windows scattered throughout the bus, but there was no way you could jump out of one without him noticing, and without major injury at the speed you were going. suddenly, when you looked back towards the driver, there were two other things with him.

things was the only way to describe them— they weren’t inanimate, they were definitely alive, but they weren’t quite human or even animal. they were almost see-through, ghostly, with a human build but a furry, wolf-like face. their fingers stretched into talons and toes into what looked like actual knives, and they stared at you with hungry looks on their faces. the driver suddenly had this appearance as well, and somehow he was still driving the bus, but completely turned around in his seat staring at you.

“a powerful demigod like you all alone?” the creature furthest on the right said, it’s voice deep and scratchy like a damaged vinyl record. “a prize for us, huh?”

you tried to speak, but no words came from your mouth. your brain was moving a million miles a minute, trying to decide what to do and where to go. do you fight? do you try to leave? and what about the bus you were on, which was easily approaching ninety miles per hour on the road? launching into battle would surely kill you, whether it be from the disgusting creatures in front of you or the bus crashing. “no words, young one? you will just accept your defeat?”

you stood up, slowly. “what are you?”

the three creatures laugh simultaneously, their eyes narrowed and mouths wide. “dawfiens, child. you’ve never heard of us? we’ve succeeded, then. we keep our covers until we know its time to eliminate. it’s time for you to go.”

“why now?” you ask, inching towards the dawfiens slowly. “why now, when i’m just traveling home, and not, say, last summer? when i went on the quest to save my brother from the giants holding him hostage? or this past school year, when i fought off a dragon in my hometown? why now?”

“this summer you’re destined to do great things. you’re destined to go far, quest after quest to save the gods from the shit show they put the world in. you don’t know it yet, but they chose you. you, small, random child. ridiculous, but easy enough for us. we get you first. they got themselves in this mess, we’ll help them go deeper,” at this, the dawfien on the right lunged at you, moving fluidly through the air as if he were made of water. you dodged the initial attack and he disappeared through the floor of the bus, but appeared behind you a minute later, his talons slashing at you. your knife in hand, you swing back, making a solid cut through his abdomen, which causes his bottom half to detach from his top, both still moving around on their own. as his top half lunged at your face, his bottom half slashed at your ankles, and his brother moved in, his hands spread as he moved towards your abdomen. you stabbed at his face and when you made contact, twisted your knife and his head disintegrated into gold powder, yet the rest of his body remained intact.

“what the fuck?” you yelled, “it shouldn’t work like that!”

your ankles were being slashed and face was being grabbed at by the separated parts of the original dawfien, and the second one was still moving in on the rest of your body. you looked down at your ankles, taking in the blood that was pouring out of them, and suddenly the reality of the situation got to you. you were dizzy. and stuck.

you whipped around, attempting to grab at the disheveled monsters around you, but your hands went through them like they weren’t even there. only your knife was able to make contact, but in order for them to disintegrate, you had to hit them in the right spot.

before the creature could grab you, you ducked down, rolling away from the attackers. your ankles and feet were going numb and your whole face and neck stung, but you stumbled away from them quickly. you stabbed each foot of the original dawfien and they crumbled, the legs following shortly after. you then twisted around and did the same on the other dawfien, who kicked at you continuously as you stabbed him. his legs crumbled, and as each part of his body fell, the part above it fell immediately after. soon, you were left with the middle section of the first dawfien, continuously batting at you blindly with its long talons. you reached up from your spot on the ground and sliced each of its arms off and it crumbled, leaving you covered in its gold powder. engulfed in the sudden silence, you stayed on the ground, breathing heavily. your entire legs at this point were numb and your head was throbbing, but you didn’t know the extent of your injuries. you didn’t feel much during the fight, truthfully. the cuts just felt cold as they slashed your skin, and your head dropped over to look to the floor of the bus, and you realized you were laying in a small pool of your own blood. as your eyes moved around the bus, you were suddenly faced with the furry face of the driver. the driver. you had completely forgotten he was one of those, too.

the bus was still moving recklessly as the driver stood over you, his knee on your chest. “that was a good show, child of war. you put up a good fight for my siblings. they’ll be in tartaurus a week, maybe two. it’ll be a good break for me from them while i cherish how it feels to be the one to kill you.”

summoning all the strength you possibly could (and, somehow, even more), you stabbed the dawfien in the throat with your knife and flipped him over, so that he was laying on the floor next to you. he stared at you with a blank expression, seemingly unfazed by the knife in his neck. you were about to pull the knife out when you were thrown forward in the bus, slamming into the broken windshield after the bus crashed into a hill. on impact, you lost consciousness, your body crumbling on the floor by the drivers seat.

- • - • - • - • - • -

you woke to a bright light.

your brain immediately went to the thought that maybe this was it. maybe this was the end. those dawfiens had killed you.

then the light dimmed and you heard voices and laughter around you, and suddenly smelled the outside air and felt a breeze on your face. you realized that you had been squinting the whole time, so as you slowly opened your eyes, trying to ignore your pounding headache, you took in your surroundings. you were in the infirmary at camp. the last thing you remembered was the crash so you definitely had questions, but now, you were just relieved that you had somehow made it to camp. you attempted to move your body, but you realized that you were so heavily bandaged and sore that you couldn’t even stretch a muscle. the most you could do was move your eyes and slightly move your neck, to which you saw the apollo campers busily moving around the infirmary, and a head of curly hair laying on the side of your bed, sat in a chair next to it.

leo.

you slowly dragged your hand towards him, without moving it too aggressively, and softly ran your fingers down his face. you knew the touch was soft, because all he did was flinch and slightly smile, but he didn’t wake up. you smiled at this, then regretted it after the immense pain that smiling put you in. not risking the pain, you kept your position of facing leo and your hand near his face, and looked around the room the best you could, trying to figure out how to alert someone that you were awake.

finally, after what felt like forever, will spotted your open eyes and flashed you a bright smile, immediately rushing to your bedside. “(y/n)! i’m happy to see you awake. how are you feeling?”

“hurts,” you say, getting used to speaking again. “bad.”

will nods, “i can help with that.” he disappears for a moment then returns with a block of ambrosia. “we gave you a lot of ambrosia when we first found you. but since you were knocked out, we didn’t wanna risk giving you anymore until we knew how you would react to it when you were awake.”

he fed you the ambrosia and you immediately felt stronger, some of the pain you felt subsiding. you were able to comfortably move your neck so you were facing will on the other side of your bed. “how long ago did you guys find me?”

“just three days,” will said as he became to check your stats. “we were considering putting you into a medically induced coma but uh, honestly, we weren’t sure if you’d make it out if we did. like i said, wanted to see how you woke up on your own first.”

you nodded, then directed your attention back to the sleeping leo on your left side. “and how long has he been like that?”

“three days.”

“figures,” you managed a smile. “is there anything else i can have for the pain? i’m really sore all over.”

will nodded. “i can go grab you something else to help the pain subside for a while. you’re going to be stuck here with us for a couple of more days, though. to let you heal. those dawfiens got you pretty good, your entire body was covered in deep cuts. you’ll probably have a few scars, i’m sorry.”

“it’s okay,” you said sincerely. “makes me look cool.”

he laughed. “definitely. i’ll be back.”

with wills retreating footsteps, leo stirred and stretched, his eyes opening slowly. as he sat up and blinked a few times, his attention focused on you, and his eyes widened. a dopey, affectionate smile appeared on his face. “there you are.”

the best you can, you return the smile and study him closely. “here i am. missed you, valdez.”

he shakes his head. “i missed you more. especially with this stunt you pulled. missing for a day then passed out for three. had me worried sick.”

“worried about me, huh?” you teased weakly. “couldn’t imagine why.”

he shakes his head again incredulously, a big smile on his face. “oh (y/n). you’re going to drive me crazy, i think,” he gently laced his fingers through yours and you were instantly comforted by the warmth of his touch. “hey (y/n)?” he asked softly.

“yeah?”

“can i ask what exactly happened?” his voice was quiet, as if he was afraid to know the answer. you studied his face closely. he didn’t give much away, but you could see the worry in his eyes, embedded in the deep eye bags that he had. you felt a twinge of guilt. he hadn’t been sleeping.

“i was, uh, on the bus,” you started, “alone on it. and the driver was kinda weirdly looking at me, but i tried to ignore it because like, men are weird i guess,” he let out a soft chuckle at this, “but then eventually two dawfiens appeared and he became one too and they attacked me. i fought them off but it took a lot of work, they didn’t crumble completely when stabbed it was like…they were separate pieces, i guess? their legs stayed if their chest was stabbed, you know? and throughout all of this the bus was still moving at like hundreds of miles per hour and eventually it just crashed. that’s uh, all i know.”

leo didn’t speak for a while, but he didn’t take his eyes off of you. he looked sad, or, scared even. his grip on your hand stayed tight as he stared at you. you were the one who eventually broke the silence. but, your voice came out a whisper.

“can you tell me what happened after that?”

he sighed. “well when you didn’t show up on the day you promised you’d be there, i went straight to chiron. i uh, told him that you wouldn’t be late without proper reason, and he agreed. so we went out looking. me, jason, and piper went, annabeth and percy, we even had frank and hazel volunteering to do some searching.

“it was more than a day later that we finally found you. it was me, who did, we saw the bus crashed in this valley near the woods somewhere. we took festus, so we had a better eye on things. well, uh, the bus was pretty destroyed so we had to kinda fight to get in there, but when we did…” he trailed off, breaking the eye contact for the first time since you started talking. you squeezed his hand gently. “you looked dead, (y/n). i thought you were dead. it was like, my worst fears come to life. you laying dead at my feet. i was frozen there while piper and jason launched into like, medic mode, and they fed you some nectar and checked on your stats, whatever. i just couldn’t move.”

you took a deep breath and took your eyes away from him, studying the bandages and cuts on your body. you couldn’t even imagine the bloody mess he had to walk into. your heart ached for him and you wished you had never put him into this situation. he noticed your change in energy and squeezed your hand. “but it’s okay, right? you’re here now, and you’re okay. and we have the whole summer ahead of us.”

you nodded, blinking back the tears in your eyes. “yeah. we’re okay.”

leo stayed with you for the rest of the day, but when bedtime rolled around, you had to convince him that you’d be okay on your own and that he could go get some sleep in his own bed. he tried to fight you, but you wouldn’t let him, telling him he could come back to you first thing in the morning. you promised you’d be okay for the night. he sighed, almost as if he didn’t believe you, kissed you on the forehead, and left. you missed him as soon as he was gone, but you knew it was best for him to get some sleep in a real bed and to not worry about you for a while.

once he was gone, and the infirmary was quiet, you couldn’t stop yourself from crying. the pain was worse than you had let on, but there was so much stinging and burning that you just couldn’t put it into words. the weight of this past day and the fight you endured a few days ago crashed down on you, and you were somehow just exhausted.

you had a long night, drifting in and out of sleep, finding it impossible to find a comfortable position to sleep in due to the bandages you were covered in. the next morning, you were greeted early by your best friend, piper mclean. she walked in your room quietly, almost sneaking in, and when you made eye contact with her, her face broke out into a huge grin. “hi (y/n)!”

you smiled back at her. “oh piper, i’ve missed you!”

she shook her head, a smile on her face. “you don’t even know how much i’ve missed you. i would’ve come to see you last night but we all agreed to give you and leo space,” she grinned at you. “how was your year? before…all of this.”

“it was really good!” you said truthfully, “school was actually good this year, i did really well. obviously looked forward to coming back here all year.”

piper giggled and sat in the chair next to your bed. “good, i’m happy to hear it. how are you feeling?”

“i’m okay,” you lied, “been getting better since i woke up yesterday.”

she studied your face intently, as if she could tell you were lying, but if she could, she didn’t say anything. “good. if you need anything, you let me know, okay? we gotta nurse you back to health so that you can actually spend the summer with us.”

you sighed. “i know. the last thing i wanna do is let this ruin my summer,” you paused, “do you know if those dawfiens escaped? or like…why they were looking for me?”

“no,” she admitted, deflating slightly. “we’ve all been uh, trying to figure that out. they’re not a monster that we have much experience with. they only appear when they fear that a demigod has too much potential, or like, something big is about to happen. but i don’t wanna put everyone in that mindset, that something bad is happening. it could just be a fluke, they just found you and wanted to kill you.”

“yay,” you said sarcastically, “no real answer except i’m definitely wanted dead by them.”

“we’re all wanted dead by everyone, (y/n),” piper smiled. “we gotta get used to it sooner or later.”

you both laughed, then the horn blew, signaling that it was time for breakfast. “i’ll see you later, okay?” piper said.

you nodded. “thanks for stopping, pipes. i love you!”

“i love you more!” she replied, gave you a wide smile, then left. only a few minutes past before leo was at your bedside again.

“well hello,” you said, grinning up at him. he grinned back and tucked a strand of your hair behind your ear, rubbing his thumb on your cheek afterwards.

“good morning. how you feeling?”

“i’m okay,” you said. he sighed.

“are you?” you leaned your face into his warm hand and nodded.

“i will be.”

a few weeks past, your days blending together, each one just as repetitive as the day before. you were confined to the infirmary, and while your friends all visited often (leo rarely ever left your side), it was lonely there. you missed being in your cabin with your siblings, or out at meals with your friends. the infirmary was too dark, quiet, and cold. you wanted nothing more than to be able to leave, but there were little improvements in your condition. more than a month past before you were able to leave the infirmary, and the day you stood up on your own and walked out of there felt like the best day of your life. a month of your summer, wasted, alone in bed. but now, you approached the mess hall, walking on your own. you had a limp, and some scars across your body, but you were okay. finally.

“(y/n)!” you heard someone yell from the hall. it was annabeth, your half sister. you giggled as she ran up to you and embraced you in a careful hug. “i’m so glad you’re doing better! and you’re here!”

“me too,” you smiled into her shoulder, then let her lead you to your table with the rest of your siblings, who all greeted you with wide eyes and grins. you told a few of them the same story you had told a million times by now, how you fought off the dawfiens then the bus crashed, and how you were unconscious for three days before being in the infirmary for a month after that. you explained the physical therapy that you went through and how it hurt to move for a while due to the severity of the cuts, but you were okay. a couple of your younger siblings had tears in their eyes by the end of your story, but you gave them a reassuring smile. it wasn’t as bad as it seemed, you promised. there were plenty of other hero’s who had been through much worse, plenty of times. you could deal with a few scratches. eventually, everyone moved past it, as if the attack was old news. you were glad that they did that. you didn’t want it to look like you were too dramatic over one small attack. suddenly, there were warm hands over your eyes. “guess who!”

you giggled and shook your head. “oh i have no idea!” you spun around in your seat and leo was there, grinning his dopey grin at you.

“i didn’t know you were cleared to leave today! i would’ve met you there this morning, walked you out,” he said. you shrugged.

“i didn’t know either. was just finally feeling well enough to get up, so i did,” you smiled, and so did he.

“good. meet me by the lake after breakfast? there’s some stuff i gotta talk to you about.” he shared a look with annabeth, who sat to your right. you immediately felt a pang in your chest that something was wrong, but leo looked back at you with a reassuring smile. “nothing too bad, i promise.”

you nodded. “i’ll meet you there.”

- • - • - • - • - • -

he was waiting for you when you limped over to the lake. he was staring at the water, seemingly deep in thought, and you sat down next to him, resting your head on his shoulder. he immediately shifted to make you more comfortable, as he did the hundreds of times you’d done this before. “hey.”

he looked at you, breaking out of the trance the water seemed to put him in. “hi (y/n).”

“are you okay?” you asked. “you seemed deep in thought there.”

leo sighed. “no,” he answered truthfully. “been kinda all over the place lately. i…i don’t know. i’m worried about you, (y/n).”

“i’m okay, leo. i promise. i barely even feel any pain anymore,” you said. he shook his head.

“that’s not it. well, it kinda is. but i can see you’re physically better and that’s good. it’s just, uh. rachel gave us a prophecy. a few days ago. it’s had me thinking a lot.”

you move away from him enough where you can look him in the eyes, but he won’t meet your gaze. “what was it, leo?”

“i don’t remember it word for word,” he admitted. “but uh, the way we all understood it… you have a quest to go on. it had to do with the dawfiens, and who they work for. one of the giants who’s supposedly been defeated already. he’s sending them after you, but we don’t know why, or how to stop him, other than the fact that you’re the key to all of it. sorry, i uh,” he sighed. “i wish i had better details to give you. i can’t remember small things like that sometimes and i’ve just been stressing over the fact that i just got you back and might have to lose you again and i just—“

you cut him off. “whoa. leo. you’re not losing me. i promise. maybe this prophecy wasn’t even for me. or you’ll be able to come with me. we’ll be okay, we’ll figure it out.”

“but what if we can’t?” he asked desperately, “what if you have to go and i have to stay and we can never have our happy ending?”

you looked between both of his eyes as tears welled in them. it hurt you, so bad, that he was hurting like this. that your happy, playful leo was so bogged down with the stress of your future on his mind. you took his face in your hands and shook his head. “i have always, always believed that we would have a happy ending. whether we’re together or not, we will have a happy ending. you are the most important person in my life and there’s no way i won’t work my ass off to make sure we can stay together for as long as possible.”

as soon as you finished speaking, leo kissed you. he kissed you deeply, passionately, with a desperation to keep you close. his hands were on your cheeks and yours wrapped around his waist, pushing the two of you close. when he pulled away, he rested your foreheads together. he had tears on his face. “i love you, (y/n). i always have and i don’t think i can keep living without telling you that. there’s no one else i can imagine spending my life with and as terrifying a thought as that is i just can’t imagine it any other way.”

you pulled away at this, wiping your own tears off of your cheek, then his. “i love you too, leo. you don’t know how long i’ve been waiting to hear you say those words. i promise you, no matter what happens, we’re in it together, okay?”

he nodded. “okay. i trust you.”

“good,” you wiped another tear off of his cheek, “now, no more crying. this is happy shit. should be the best damn day of your life, right?”

he laughed, then kissed you again. “you have no idea.”

#leo valdez #leo valdez x you #leo valdez x reader #percy jackson x readers #percy jackson and the heroes of olympus #percy jackson #percy jackson and the olympians #piper mclean #annabeth chase #hero’s of olympus #heroes of olympus #heroes of olympus x reader

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in-class-daydreams · 11 months

Text

King of My Heart (Sebastian Sallow x Reader)

Pairing: Sebastian Sallow x Fem!Reader Chapter 1: ...Ready for It? Synopsis: Hogwarts Legacy if Sebastian's Relationship Quest was the main quest. A telling of the in-between, the late nights sneaking around the castle after curfew, sitting on the second floor of the library listening to Sebastian ramble about a book he read, stealing cubes of melon off his plate during breakfast. How we got from "not bad for a beginner" to "there was nobody else, I came alone" to "no matter what happens, I'm glad we met." Alternatively: How your love could pull Sebastian Sallow back from the brink. Told in the style of Percy Jackson, in first-person and with sarcasm. A/N: Starting a new project without finishing the old ones, are we, Aya? Yes. Yes, we are. TW: A lil swearing

Listen, I never wanted to be a witch.

I apologize to all of you romantics who think that the whole thing - Hogwarts, ancient magic, regular magic, being British, fantastic beasts - is all about feeding puffskeins and brewing amortentia. Might I add that the love potion is a bastard to brew, because if it was that easy, it wouldn’t be the most powerful love potion in existence, would it? That, and it’s somewhat unsettling. I, for one, do not always smell like jasmine and citrus. And during my fifth year at Hogwarts especially, I was constantly running through spider-infested caves and fighting dugbogs, and if my soulmate or whoever caught a whiff of that smell, they just might retch.

Speaking of my fifth year, I started off that year like any other new student entering a boarding school where everyone else already knew each other: terrified beyond measure. Of course, I made sure to never let Professor Fig see that. Not that I didn’t trust him, but I was determined to never let him see me slip. Not when he was the only person who ever believed in me.

After everything that happened on the way to Hogwarts from dragons to goblins (I’m sure you’ve heard the rumors about that, right? ) I expected a bit… more? For lack of a better term. I arrived at the Sorting Ceremony late, nearly had an aneurysm on that stool with all those eyes on me, nervously chattered with the magic hat, and sat there, willing myself not to fidget too much.

I sat there feeling like I was somehow sitting incorrectly when the Hat hummed to himself (itself?) and made general thoughtful sounds. He spoke of how I arrived with expectations and preconceptions, and perhaps he was right, though I cared less about the house I’d be put in and more about not standing out too much.

“Ah, a difficult decision, indeed. It is quite different, sorting a fifth-year. You know more about the world and less about yourself than a first-year. And yet, you have a certain sense of – hmm – what is it?”

“Is it ambition?” I offered quietly. “I may seem single-minded, but it is important to go after what you want from life.”

The Sorting Hat made another indecipherable grunting sound.

“Is that how you see yourself, child? Not my first impression, to be frank, but other factors considered, I’ve made my choice. Between the two of us… You would have done well in Gryffindor.”

Would have?

I might have dwelled on the passing statement further had the Sorting Hat not interrupted my thoughts.

“SLYTHERIN!”

Slytherin in all caps! Honestly, I understand that he shouts for the benefit of the enormous room, but the ringing in my ears lingered long after I got it off my head.

I expected a sleepless night after that. I lay in an unfamiliar bed and my mind kept replaying the day’s events like a moving picture show. Behind my eyelids, I kept seeing the carriage crack in half, the swift appearance of the thestrals soon after. My first thought was that they allowed themselves to be seen until I realized they appeared to people who had seen death. I may not have seen the blood and limbs disappear down the dragon’s throat, but I had seen death that day. Looked it in the eye. Watched it wink at me and stick its tongue out as if to say, “If I wanted you, I’d have you.”

I don’t know when I slipped into a dreamless sleep, but before I knew it, it was morning. I blinked my dry eyes and sat up to take in the large, circular room around me. It was neat, thankfully. I didn’t know much about wizard boarding schools, but they sure took color-coding very seriously. From green tapestries to green four-poster beds, at least I would never stumble into the wrong dorm.

I quickly noticed I was alone and, not wanting to be the odd one out even more than I already was, I put on my school uniform. Not to sound uncultured, but I had never had such fine clothing before. Not new, anyway. It took me a while to figure out how to layer everything to sit just right. Placing a hand on my trunk, I took a last look at the ugly yellow coat I wore exactly once. I would never touch it again. Not because it was ugly, but because it was Professor Fig’s present to me. The school had provided school supplies and the like, but Fig took it upon himself to give me something just for me. Color be damned, it was the most beautiful thing I owned.

I stood up from the bed and smooth out my new robes, not a patch or stain to be seen. Taking a deep breath, I made myself a set of goals for the day. Step 1, have your uniform on correctly. From what I could tell, my vest wasn’t on backwards and my skirt wasn’t tucked into my waistband, so I could reasonably consider my first task a success. Step 2, introduce myself to someone. No, Slytherins were ambitious, I would introduce myself to three people minimum. I grimaced at the prospect. But no matter, I had already thought the new number into existence, so three it would be.

Even the hallway was fancy. It had elaborate metal railings on the way to the common room. Crossing the threshold, I reminded myself not to pull a face at the much more crowded than anticipated common room.

Back straight, chin up, shoulders relaxed. Play mysterious, but approachable, I told myself. Starting at that moment, I would begin building my reputation however I pleased. I was a blank slate and I’d be damned if I let such an opportunity go to waste.

“Is that the new fifth year?” someone essentially stage whispered.

“The one that came in late with Professor Fig?” another said.

I resisted the urge to turn and run back into my room. Gossip was apparently popular anywhere. I didn’t know how I could ever have thought otherwise.

“Wow, she’s–” A boy to my right cut himself off when his friend nudged him with his elbow. A moment later, a girl chastised everyone and suggested they give me space. Of course, all this happened as if I couldn’t hear them, but I appreciated the bossy girl immensely.

It was time for me to get on with my self-imposed to-do list and introduce myself to some people. I gave myself some leeway by excluding the rumor-mongers from my list of candidates. There was a boy with a book by the fire, whom I made a beeline for.

Damn, I thought to myself, he’s reading. Why would you walk up to one of the only actively occupied people in the room? To my further dismay, as I got closer I heard the boy muttering to his book, annoyed. Actively occupied and agitated. Excellent choice, I thought. While I racked my brains for an excuse to abruptly change course this close, the boy looked up and snapped his book shut, placing it on the couch beside him. The fireplace to my left did nothing to keep my hands from getting clammy.

“Can I help you?” the boy asks testily.

Here we go.

On the bright side, he didn’t have to put down his book just to talk to me, so that was a good sign. Maybe he was just one of those people that sounded annoyed all the time. Yeah. That.

“Ah!” he said, the furrow in his brow and frosty tone dissipating immediately. “You’re the new fifth-year! I’m Sebastian Sallow. Welcome to Slytherin.”

Interesting shift in demeanor, I remember thinking.

“Thank you,” I said as cooly as I could muster before introducing myself.

I won’t lie, I blacked out for a lot of that conversation. I could still hear my housemates muttering behind my back and this Sebastian fellow was being very friendly - complimenting my bravery, saying he’s glad I’m alright. He also asked how Professor Fig and I escaped the dragon, to which I replied that it was all a blur, which was a half-truth, and therefore acceptable. I didn’t know how much time I’d be spending with Sebastian Sallow then, and I’d like to say I was enraptured by him since Day 1, but truthfully, as I walked away, I forgot all about him.

Despite having a raging pureblood fanatic and probable woman-hater (he just seems that way, you know?) as a house founder, the Slytherins put me at immediate ease. My next introduction was to a bossy, outspoken girl named Imelda Reyes, a girl with a thick Scottish accent who insisted that she knew more about flying than our professor. From anyone else, it might’ve seemed like lame adolescent bravado, but based on her confidence, I was inclined to believe her. Unlike with Sebastian, I made a conscious effort to memorize Imelda’s name and face. At my ripe age of fifteen going on sixteen, I’d come to find that people that are a pain in the ass make the greatest friends.

After Imelda, I was drawn to the back wall of the common room by a floor-to-ceiling window that gave us a glorious view underwater. A few of my housemates that looked younger than me were pressed up against the glass, excitedly chattering among themselves about mermaids and such.

“Doubt mermaids find us that interesting.” To my left, a posh British accent broke me out of my infatuation with the view. I turned and was immediately struck by how pretty this boy was. He had a soft air about him. Something gentle. Maybe it was the bluish light from the window casting down on him, illuminating his beauty marks and long lashes, but I’d never found anyone of any gender so beautiful before. He had high cheekbones and perhaps most striking were his cloudy gray-blue eyes that did not move like anyone else’s. Framed by lush, light lashes, his demeanor made it seem like his clear blindness made him more perceptive than the rest of us, not less.

His eyebrows raised. “Ah, based on all the chatter when you entered the common room, you’re the new fifth-year. I’m Ominis. Ominis Gaunt.”

I thought that his parents must’ve been quite vindictive to name their child something like that. As my friendship with Ominis progressed, I’d come to regret how right I was.

“Well, you certainly had a memorable arrival,” Ominis said in a conspiratorial tone. I smiled despite my original nervousness. Then he asked me the generic questions about my trip to Hogwarts. Maybe it was because he was blind, but Ominis had a way of making you feel like you had 100% of his focus. Like nothing else mattered to him while he was talking to you. Something about that, along with the soothing cadence of his voice, set me at ease. I never forgot what it was like talking to Ominis Gaunt for the first time. Eager as I was to finish my third introduction to cross it off my list, I found myself asking him questions about himself. Not because I didn’t want our introduction to be awkwardly brief, like I did with the other two, but because I wanted to know more about him. I didn’t have much to go off of, so I asked the first coherent question I could think of.

“Were you expecting to be sorted into Slytherin?” I asked. Hopefully originality wasn’t a graded subject at wizard school.

“Most certainly,” Ominis replied, sounding amused. “My family on my father’s side are direct descendants of Salazar Slytherin - one of the four founders of Hogwarts.” That last bit was common knowledge for most. Not for me, of course, but it didn’t feel condescending coming from Ominis. When he told you things, it was like the information levitated in the air for you to take for yourself, should you want it, rather than him forcing the information on you because he thought you were ignorant.

I figured he was rich. He looked rich, from his aristocratic face and expensive pomade in his hair. And, of course, the posh accent. My past experiences with people from families like his - that is, powerful old money families - were either neutral or bad, usually leaning towards the latter. Never anything traumatizing enough for me to hate the accent, but enough to make me notice how nice it sounded coming from him. I had to remind myself to focus on what the boy was saying, rather than how well words fit in his mouth.

“Not something I’m proud of, mind you. He was obsessed with blood status. A pure-blood maniac.” His tone turned self-deprecating, as if the bigotry of his ancestor was his cross to bear.

I allowed myself to linger on ‘blood stay-tus’ for a single, indulgent moment, before pursing my lips to keep from smiling too hard. I only allowed that one moment, considering how inappropriate it would be to smile at something so personal to Ominis. Not that he could see it, but I decided then that I would never hide behind his blindness for anything.

“Unfortunately, most of his descendants do not fall that far from that tree,” he said softly.

This time, I let the small smile I was holding escape.

“It must’ve been hard growing up like that, but,” the words had burst out of me before I could stop them, but now that I’d said them, it was time to follow through, as I always have. “I’m glad to hear you’re different.”

His eyes widened. “You are?”

I shrugged, not because I felt casual or because I forgot he couldn’t see it, but to keep myself from getting too intense about the family matters of a boy I’d just met.

“I grew up in--” I pursed my lips, but was determined to pay back the personal snippet he’d given me “--less than comfortable circumstances, so I’ve never cared about bloodlines and all that. I think the choices we make are what make us, wouldn’t you say?”

Ominis smiled boyishly. Soft, tentative. “I completely agree.”

I flushed, suddenly shy under his grateful expression. “Yeah, I’m big into the whole ‘free will’ thing. I think we always have a choice.” I did my best to sound more casual as to not let on just how strongly I believed in the power of autonomy, but felt like I failed.

Ominis looked like he wanted to say something else, but I’d already been too intense for one day, and was worried I’d put my foot in my mouth eventually, so I changed the subject.

“Did that student say he thought he heard a mermaid?”

To his credit, Ominis took the subject change in stride. He laughed, sounding just the slightest bit embarrassed and I quashed the stream of funny things my brain dug up just to hear that laugh again.

“Yes. But I’ve never heard of a mermaid showing up outside our common room window,” he replies. I look out the window. “It is fun to play along, though. Been known to keep some of the first-years on the lookout for hours.”

So the rich boy had a mischievous streak. I smiled. He had a gentle, serene aura, and yet was already one of the most vibrant people I had ever met.

I then realized how fast I was being dragged into his orbit. To keep from rendering myself useless for the rest of the day, I thanked Ominis and said, “Very nice to meet you.”

I’ve heard worse understatements. The ocean has a lot of water in it. People breathe air sometimes. My first day at Hogwarts was somewhat eventful. See? Worse.

~~~

While I was grateful to Professor Weasley for introducing the Floo to me, it made me super dizzy for the first several months. Travel magic was not for the tin tummied, to be sure. Not to mention Ignatia Wildsmith hollering a foot away from me every time I used it. She was a happy, friendly woman who made my life easier, so I was grateful to her, but every day I prayed that she would be just a bit quieter.

The Field Guide was useful and prevented me from wandering around the castle with my nose buried in a map like a lost tourist, but even with the guide, Hogwarts was a labyrinth. By the time I reached the Defense Against the Dark Arts Tower, I was breathing deeply through my nose so no one could hear how hard those stairs made me fight for my life.

When I entered the classroom, everyone seemed to already be present. The first thing that caught my eye was an enormous winged skeleton suspended from the ceiling. A bit of a safety hazard if you asked me, but I figured wizard school must’ve had some pretty good safeguards for these kinds of things.

“Stupefy!”

The second thing I noticed was a lanky redheaded boy wearing the Gryffindor colors having a duel of sorts with someone from my house. Someone broader, looking much more relaxed than his opponent. The brunette closer to me deflected the spell easily.

“Is that all you’ve got?” he taunted before whipping his arm around and shooting a bombarda spell at the Gryffindor, who got his shield up in time, but, in my opinion, really should have been able to counter such an obvious move much sooner.

Don’t start, I told myself. Being judgemental was not a good way to make friends. Until you find equally judgemental friends, which is infinitely better, but I didn’t want to show my cards too soon.

The spell was deflected upwards, knocking the large skull loose onto the redheaded boy. Part of me was worried for him, but the other part of me said, “See? Safety hazard.”

Instead of, you know, using magic or moving two steps in literally any direction, the Gryffindor opted to squat down on the floor at the sight of the oncoming skull. For some reason.

“Levioso!”

At the top of the stairs stood an old woman with short white hair, holding her wand out, having caught the skull like it was nothing.

“Professor Hecat!” a girl cried from somewhere in the throng of students.

“Perhaps you’d be good enough to blast each other to pieces on your own time,” she said matter-of-factly. “I get new students every year, but I only have one Hebridium Black skull. It was a token from the Great Poacher Raid of 1878. No doubt you’ve heard of it. Now, you may be asking yourself how an old woman like me single-handedly took out the largest poacher ring in Eastern Wales and lived to boast about it.”

Absolutely, I thought. I want to be like you when I grow up.

“Knowledge,” Professor Hecat supplied.

Was that like a potion or a mutation or the answer to her question? Are all spells in Latin?

Professor Hecat informed us that age mattered very little in the face of knowledge. I was inclined to agree, and my professor seemed to imply that while being old didn’t equate to being feeble, being young also didn’t equate to being ignorant. She lectured about an important spell that she used during her time against dark wizards, and I took a step forward so I could cling to her every word.

“Levioso?” the redhead whined. “A levitation charm?”

You mean the one you weren’t able to use? The one that the Professor just used to save your bony self from getting crushed by actual bones?

“Levioso!” The boy levitated several feet in the air. “A surprised opponent is a weak one. Care to defend yourself, Master Prewett?”

Ha, eat a dick, Prewett. Then I told myself to be nice, even if the guy seemed like the type to run home to mommy if he could.

From the movement in the corner of my eye, I could’ve sworn that the brunette that had been dueling looked back at me, but I assumed it was a trick of the light.

Professor Hecat let us break off to practice levioso. Professor Fig had taught me the basic spells, and obviously I’d already had my fair share of practice with them. My first spell at Hogwarts was bound to be harder, right?

I mimed the wand movement once. Twice. It was oddly simple. I gestured one more time and said in a clear voice, “Levioso.”

And the feather obeyed without protest. I stared at the floating feather, baffled. There was no way. Basic cast, protego, those were simple, natural spells. They felt like breathing. Other spells had to be more complicated, right? At least, hard enough where it took me more than one try to get it right. Maybe the ancient magic was helping me?

I lowered my wand. Professor Hecat approached on my left and had a whisper of an approving smile on her face.

“Now, let’s try something a little larger.” She summoned a practice dummy over and cleared all the desks. Then she gestured for me to face the dummy. Not one to argue, I stood in line with it and saw a shimmering yellow haze around it. Professor Hecat bid me to strike it with a basic cast.

Okay, but. There’s a forcefield around it. I– You know what, never mind.

I did as she asked and, sure enough, my spell bounced right off.

“See how the dummy deflected your cast?” Professor Hecat asked and I nodded. “This time, cast levioso first, then the basic cast.”

Easy enough. I imagined the end result and let my wand and body guide me through. It moved through me like water, the levioso followed through straight into my basic cast. With the spare energy I had, I whipped my hand back and forth for two more strikes. The dummy flipped in the air before flopping back down with a thud.

“Well done!” Professor Hecat said. “Very good. But!” Because there’s always a ‘but.’ “The best way to practice is by dueling. Well start with you two.”

I looked over to where she was pointing and I finally put two and two together. The tall, broad Slytherin boy that was dueling earlier. Sebastian, I recalled. In my defense, I couldn’t be expected to recognize him from behind after only meeting him once. I fought the savage grin that threatened to rear its head. My blood thrummed in my veins at the prospect of a fight. Something awoke inside me at Gringotts. The surge of power in my veins, the feeling of that final finishing blow, how each movement flowed into each other one after the next. The experience was addicting. For a time, I was worried that I wouldn’t get to feel that surge again.

Sebastian smirked at me. I took note of the freckles scattered across his face. His brown hair was mussed, probably from his duel, but the slightly unkempt look suited him.

“Time for a proper Hogwarts welcome,” he said and took his place across from me.

Oh, it was on.

“Now,” the floor raised below me as Professor Hecat spoke, “I want a fair duel using levioso, basic cast, and protego.”

Damn. I was hoping for a free for all. I wanted to see how my defenses held up against that bombarda spell he used. No matter. With a level playing field, I had the ‘fought for my life less than 24 hours ago’ advantage.

That was the dilemma. I had a reputation to build. Would I absolutely own this boy, bruise his ego, probably make an enemy of him because of it? I would gain the respect of the rest of the class and the professor if I did. Or I could let him win so as to not make waves? I’d have to be careful, as I suspected our wise professor would see through poor acting if I threw the match too hard.

“You may begin.”

I spread my feet in a defensive stance. Sebastian, on the other hand, looked completely relaxed. Waiting for me to make the first strike. Was he being a gentleman or underestimating me? Either way, I’d make sure he never did it again.

I got him up off the ground. He didn’t even have time to try to block it. I hit him with a chain of basic casts before he dropped back down to his feet. Sebastian launched his counter attack. Quick, precise, forceful. Prewett deserved more credit for lasting as long as he did. Sebastian’s arm reared back and time slowed. I interrupted him with a cast of my own, then levitated him off the ground only to blast him off the back of the strip with a dull thud, papers flying around everywhere. The class went up in cheers and I hopped down to weave through the crowd.

Whoops.

Sebastian was still flat on his ass. Any number of reactions were possible. A scowl, a glare. Maybe even tears of embarrassment. Instead, I was met with a wide grin and eyes sparkling with interest. Before I could approach him, he dusted himself off and approached.

“Not bad for a beginner,” he teased. He was trying to seem aloof, but the smile twitching at the corners of his mouth said otherwise. “You give as good as you get.” Then he hummed and walked past me.

Professor Hecat called me over to praise me for a job well done. I stood in front of her, pleased to have her approval.

“I demand excellence from my students. They are capable of achieving it, and they must achieve it,” she said with passion. I had the feeling that Defense Against the Dark Arts would be one of my favorite classes. With the thrill of the fight and an invested instructor, it was everything I could have asked for in an education. She gave me more words of praise and I thanked her before she informed me that she would reach out soon with additional assignments. I couldn’t wait to absorb the vast pool of knowledge she had to offer.

As I made my way to the door, I found Sebastian standing there alone. I suspected that he had matters to discuss with the professor and nearly walked past him.

“Nice work,” he said.

I stopped and turned, surprised.

“I enjoyed that,” I told him.

“That duel was quite something!” he said. “Everyone will be talking about it.”

Why did he look so happy about it? So far, I’d been reading Sebastian Sallow wrong at every turn.

He put up a good fight. It wasn’t his fault he hadn’t had a trial by fire practice. Opting to remain humble, I replied, “It was certainly good practice.”

Sebastian leaned in. “Practice?” he exclaimed. “Felt more like I was dueling an expert!”

My face warmed at the enthusiasm behind his praise.

“Didn’t expect a new student to be so deft with a wand.” He gave me an appraising look, his tone turning conspiratory. “Then again, perhaps this wasn’t your first duel.”

“I’ve dueled enough. Consider yourself lucky I held back.” Something about Sebastian made me want to push his buttons. My track record for getting him all wrong continued, however.

“Fair enough,” he matched my tone. “You owe me an honest duel when you’re not.”

My blood pulsed once more at the idea of another fight.

“You know. You might be a perfect fit for a certain exclusive, unsanctioned dueling organization,” Sebastian said.

Getting into trouble was the last thing I wanted to do, lest everything snowball and I find myself expelled from Hogwarts and back to where I was. Anything was better than that, but I suspected, though, that Sebastian knew exactly what button of mine to push. He had me pegged before I did him, and I found myself almost frustrated at the prospect.

“Exclusive and unsanctioned?” I said. “Count me in.”

Sebastian looked pleased with himself. “Excellent. Knew I was right about you.”

That made me frown. He was indeed. Yet, I’d been wrong about him since the moment I approached him in the common room.

“If you want to get the most out of your time at Hogwarts, you’re going to need to break the rules now and then,” he continued. “Whether it’s joining a secret dueling club or sneaking into the Restricted Section of the library.”

Damn that look he gave me at that last bit. He wasn’t saying it to brag. He’d already figured out what made me tick.

“You just have to be clever enough not to get caught.”

“Thank you, Sebastian.” I said coolly, having had enough of his watchful eye for the moment. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

He gave me that knowing smile again. “Good. Pleasure chatting with you. I’m sure I’ll see you soon. Perhaps somewhere unsanctioned?” The emphasis on the last word told me he was sure I was on board. “We’ll see if your performance today was sheer luck or actual skill. Look for Lucan Brattleby by the clock tower entrance. If you’re interested.”

I tried not to scowl too hard. Of course he’d act like he was letting me think about it, knowing damn well what I was going to do. What a cheeky bastard.

A/N: "Hey, this very much looks like a Sebastian fic!" Yes, reader, it does! And this first part is very much yours and Sebastian's love story. But! (Because there's always a but) I make no promises for the endgame. Maybe the fact that Sebastian needs you doesn't mean he deserves you. We'll have to see.

A good chunk of this will follow canon, but I change some scenarios and conversations entirely, and after a point, it'll diverge from canon completely.

#hogwarts legacy #sebastian sallow #sebastian sallow x mc #sebastian sallow x reader #hogwarts legacy imagines #ominis gaunt #sebastian x mc #komh #a lil ominis gaunt x reader #for flavor #and possible foreshadowing #but this first part is def yours and seb's love story don't worry

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goldrushenthusiast · 6 months

Note

Which The Hunger Games characters :

1. Do you relate the most?

2. Do you think missunderstood by people?

3. Do you want to know better?

Please give reasons for your answers. And you can pick more than one character for each question.

Thank you :)

@curiousnonny

1. Honestly probably Peeta

I’ve grown up with a lot of privilege, same with MOST (but not all) of my friends. Whenever I love someone I have the tendency to hold onto it no matter what. I have a great view of the world, and no matter how much I think I can I can’t really hold a grudge for the life of me. I take pictures of everything naturey, if I could paint I’d be doing it all the time, and in general I think we have very similar senses of humor and outlooks on life in general. Peeta and James Potter have been my top fictional character relations since probably early 2022 tbh.

2. Sejanus & Lucy Gray (this is influenced by Coriolanus HEAVILY)

One thing that’s interesting about these is that while people call Katniss an unreliable narrator (she really isn’t tbh, you get that with a lot of first person POVS), Coriolanus is really the one not to be trusted. Every word in that book, even thought it’s from a third person POV, is stained by his mind. It makes it hard separating characters true personalities in it because they’re so diluted by what Coriolanus wants them to be. Dialogue is the most important part of it, but just the dialogue itself. I don’t think we can trust Coriolanus much after.

For one- Coriolanus sees Sejanus as a bit dumb, like he doesn’t know everything he does but it’s not ignorant, just dumb and not smart enough to realize it. This is because of Coriolanus’ idea that he’s smarter than everyone, so he automatically thinks people who don’t think the same as he does are dumb. It’s condescending and even if he doesn’t notice it, it’s still there. When he’s confronted with the idea it might not be true (Lucy Gray winning, all of her deep discussions) his mind goes through hoops trying to explain it. His bigoted attitude towards district people is HUGE. He automatically thinks that they’re (including Sejanus and Lucy Gray) are less smart than him.

This leads to him treating them as such and seeing through that veil. There are a couple of times where we see Sejanus has a personality beyond pity and self wallowing, where he makes sarcastic remarks & acts like a complicated person. I’ll try not to let my own interpretation of Sejanus reflect too much here because I don’t have much to support it.

As a reader, naturally, we see characters how we remember them, and we remember them based on what’s memorable ABOUT them. You remember Sejanus for what Coriolanus calls “outbursts” or tantrums, so you begin to associate him with those childlike emotions and the idea that he doesn’t really understand what he’s getting into.

It’s why I see this idea - that he’s just a poor baby, who just wants to help - so much from people who’ve only read the books <3 times or so. They don’t remember his under the breath comments and things like that, or the way Coriolanus describes him. IMO, for the most part, Sejanus DOES know what he’s doing (most of the time), just doesn’t think it through entirely. I’ve seen too many people portray him like a himbo, or an idiot, which ISNT TRUE. At all. They only do it because Coriolanus still associates Sejanus with his 8 year old child self and because Coriolanus sees him as lesser, and dumber, which go hand in hand for him.

That was way more than I was planning to write- oops! But the physiological aspects of how we see characters and what affects that is fascinating.

Now, Lucy Gray. Because we see her in a more romantic way, because Coriolanus does, we see her differently, because Coriolanus sees all forms of love (minus obligatory things, like family) the same (I could talk about this FOREVER).

Coriolanus sees Lucy Gray as something he can control and own. Obviously, she isn’t. He also sees her as a bit helpless and needy, which again, she isn’t. She’s been providing for her family since she was 12 (approx). It’s easy to assume she’s very strong, and she handles things well.

Now, the thing with Lucy Gray is that a lot of people think that she never loved Coriolanus, she was just using him, and I get where that comes in. However, I disagree. I think that’s the MAIN off characterization. She was not stone cold and unfeeling, nor was she some badass.

Lucy Gray’s character I actually change my mind about a LOT, because that’s exactly what she does to people. That’s what she’s SUPPOSED to do. It was how she written. She’s an amazing actor, and everything she does (although not on the first read), we start to question. This goes back into our view as a reader & how we characterize characters. She’s memorable because we saw her as Coriolanus did (someone to be helped, with a sad past, and someone attractive), then that view switched. During the first half of part 2, we started to see her come out of her shell and be more fun & rebellious. She still was in part 1, don’t get me wrong, but because Coriolanus didn’t seem to register that as much neither do we, or at least we don’t get the full extent of it until part 2.

In the first half of part 2, because of the shows and the hanging tree, we get more clues as to who she actually is. I think that part 2 is where we really have to consider her personality because it’s 10x as likely she isn’t acting anymore. We also see her past with Billy Taupe, which provides just the right opportunity for Coriolanus (and therefore us) to continue seeing her as someone who needs protection and has ownership.

This is good (ofc not really GOOD, but you get the point), because it really lets us experience the full extent of the SHOCK (the first time reading it) when Lucy Gray betrays him. I’ve already talked lots about why they betrayed each OTHER, and how it made perfect sense for each character, so if you’re interested it’s somewhere on @balladofmyramblings. It’s the one about people getting wrong why the ending was perfect.

As I’ve said before, Lucy Gray values TRUST. It’s why she does go to Coriolanus for comfort after he shoots Mayfair, and why she turns to him. It’s not about needing him, it’s about the fact that now that she’s out of the arena and can trust him & she doesn’t think he’ll hurt her, she can actually trust him. It’s why I think that she truly loved him. Remember, Coriolanus is also affected by his view of himself. We’re annoyed with him and know he doesn’t view Lucy Gray well because we know him. But he’s a good actor, and it’s vibes that Lucy Gray must go off of. Their purest stage of their relationship was during the first half of part 2 for sure.

I’d also like to mention Lucy Gray just got out of a toxic, probably abusive, heart wrenching relationship so it makes sense she’s LOOKING for more protection in a partner, even if she doesn’t exactly need to be protected (or owned especially).

Anywho, TLDR, people think that Lucy Gray was more cold and calculated than she was or (but I didn’t touch on this because I haven’t seen it much) not at all. Truth is, she’s a mix of both, and does find comfort in Coriolanus & eventually betrays him in a cold and calculated way.

3. Tigris!

I’d love to see Coriolanus’ rise to power through HER eyes, and know her story, and all that she did. She’s a very interesting character and I’m glad Suzanne made her Coriolanus’ cousin instead of some stranger- it was genius.

Thank you for the question, @curiousnonny, and as always feel free to debate but not argue with me in the reblogs/replies!

#thg #the hunger games #the hunger games analysis #ballad #ballad of songbirds and snakes #the ballad of songbirds and snakes #bosas #tbosas #lucy gray baird #sejanus plinth #coriolanus snow #ballad of my ramblings #Tigris #peeta mellark #katniss everdeen

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ladythornofrivia · 1 year

Text

bane in my bones

Pair: Toji x Reader

Warnings: Mature Content, Inappropriate Moments and Adult Language. (if you’re under 18, you can’t read this). Spice. (Spice is nice 😏😎😉)

Author’s Note: I’m sorry for taking so long. It’s been a mess. I’ve been playing Resident Evil 4 Remake, and it’s my third time playing the game, I’m still addicted to it. Enjoy this chapter.🥹

(Please report if someone decides to steal/plagiarize my story. And notify me. Thank you.)

chapter one

road to hot hell

“Class hasn’t started, (y/n),” your fellow college classmate said to you. “And you’re studying.”

“That’s what college is for, doofus,” you said.

“Ugh, harsh words,” she said. “Classes haven’t started and you’re already cranky.”

“Well, what can I say, I love being cranky in the mornings. I should’ve taken classes at night. The only problem is, once it’s nighttime, either I’m sleeping in or being awake until the next day.”

While your fellow energetic classmate is talkative with vigor tone, you, on the other hand, is ready to go to sleep at any minute from every noise, even her loud talking. The class you took was unexpectedly large—filled with not ten, but twenty extra ladies, and less men, around eleven count, flooding into the empty seats.

All energetic as your fellow college classmate. This year, you wanted to major English. You dreamt of going to Europe one day. You hoped that English class will set a solid guide for you to speak a foreign language fluently. Moreover, having literature lessons and annotations and notes.

More knowledge means more dignified and independence and confidence individual.

“Here,” your fellow classmate said, handing you coffee—caramel fudge flavor with swirled whip cream and cinnamon-powdered sprinkles.

A faint scent of cinnamon rushed through your numbing nose.

“Thanks,” you said.

“Yeah, that was supposed to be my second cup, because I was up all night yesterday, because some people are being rowdy as fuck in the dorms while I was studying and annotating the stuff regarding to the lesson this professor taught—more like scolded. Have you done it?”

“Done what?”

Her eyes squinted. “The assignment?”

“Oh—uh, I was working late last night. You know, money does go into the wallet by itself.”

“That’s too bad,” she said. “But I heard that sometimes the professor forgets the assignment—that’s the best part.”

“Unless someone reminds her.”

With a certain sharp gaze, she said, “Who said that the professor is a she?”

“So it isn’t a girl?”

“No,” she said, turning her head over shoulder as she pointed towards the girls. “See those girls over there? Ones who are wearing annoying sticky lip gloss and those fake nails?”

“What about them?” you said, not looking, though knowing who she’s referring to.

“They’re here for a particular reason, (y/n),” she said. “To top if off, they aren’t here for an English lecture.”

“Gee,” is all you said, yawning. “I don’t care what they do and how they do with their lives. If they like to mess around, that’s not my issue. I’m not the police patrol.”

“While yes, we shouldn’t give a crap about them, maybe, pay attention closely to who I was referring to at the moment.”

At once, you shut the book of the college assignment. “Alright. Who are you talking about?”

Her finger lay atop of her lips, giving you a signal to lower your voice down.

“Those girls may act innocent and shit, but I’ve seen those people, and you haven’t.”

“Get straight to the point,” you said.

“Fine. They’re here for the professor.”

“So, is this teacher the best at giving the girls education.”

“That’s not it, (y/n). Rumor has it that this professor in English literature class isn’t the only thing he’s good at.”

“Then what’s he good at?”

The class boomed from the other side—the door came with a huge bang.

The group of girls talking at the very top of classroom stadium, and stalked back into their seats, where they could still gossip the drama and love lives.

Once the doors have been shut, heavy footsteps sank each time he walk. His hand clenched on a leathered folder, as his long legs strolled to the podium.

Behind you, you hear awes and ooohs, filled with fancy adoration and girlish giggles.

Furrowing your brows, you eyes studied him. Tall and grumpy.

Looks like someone’s having a bad day, too. Hooray for being cranky.

You sipped some sweetened coffee as you kept examining his features. Dark glossy hair, grey eyes, and his suit is professional. Almost.

He looked a bit messed up in the morning—probably in a rush.

His one button was a dead giveaway.

What could be the cause of that?

“Oh god, I saw the glimpse of his chest,” one girl behind you said.

“Yeah, I did the deed this morning just to get a good grade. But boy that man is fucking gorgeous in bed.”

Figures.

You didn’t pay much attention because while the professor is doing a lecture, you were studying for another class session. A bad idea. But, your way is important. At least for now.

“Miss (L/n),” his voice hardened.

A hand slapped you on the back, which ultimately made you jump and grouched at the person beside you before looking at the professor with close inspection.

His black mane frame his face, looking youngish as if he’s in the mid-twenties, but his tall and beefy stature underneath his suit made it all more manly and sophisticated, but sophistication wasn’t his nature. You figure he’s rather a casual-looking guy looking awkwardly trying to fit in with the professors in college. Rules are rules. Maintaining professionalism through appearance is important. If he’s wearing jeans at work, people would think he’s an unsuccessful guy.

But no one paid mind.

After all, according to the scar on his cornered lip, and his narrow eyes and fit body and deep voice, he’s the chick magnet.

“Are you paying attention to the question?”

Your mouth opened, then closed, given no proper answer to his grouchy mood.

“Does anyone know the answer?” The professor asked.

The girls behind you raised their hands, as one of the girls said, “Can’t believe that bitch is acting so stupid to the professor. Studying another subject while he’s teaching. Unbelievable.”

“Right? She should be ashamed of herself.”

“What a narcissist.”

You ignored their biased comments and went back to studying.

Lecture went on as the professor said, “the assignment is due until next week. In the meantime, use your time wisely on doing research and find more sources before typing an essay.”

The class dispersed and exited. Everyone was fast at going to an exit, discounting the countless admirers the professor has, you are packing it in a meticulous way—mainly because your eyes are glued to the page you were trying to study for the next class’s pop quiz.

The girls cooing and praising the professor.

What’s so special about him other than having a GQ model appearance?

You thought of calling the professor “Him” instead of his surname; you didn’t know what his surname is.

By the time you reached at the exit, you shortly looked back at him, where the girls bombarded him with multiple questions and conversations all at once.

Thank god this class hour is over.

And so you left.

🔥🔥🔥

“How did it go?” your friend asked.

You shut the door. “My love life or my college life?”

“Come on, you know what I mean.”

You shrugged. “I’m doing just fine.” Then you perched over the dining chair with a sloppy form.

“Tiring, huh?”

“Yeah. I couldn’t find a job for this week because I have to make an assignment for this stupid professor.”

“Professor?”

“You know, the one where the ladies are talking about.”

“The only ones I know is that either everyone loves Leonardo DiCaprio, or one of those new actors in this new film, or in a Korean drama.”

Sighing, your palm smacked over to the center of your face. “I was talking about the English lecture I have today. Mr. Uppity gets all mean when I wasn’t paying attention to him.”

“Do you recall his name?”

You waved it off. “Nah. Too busy studying for my own sake…my future.”

Your friend set the bowl full of soup in front of you. “Good thing you’re home now.”

“Yeah.”

Your friend beckoned. “Speaking of home, there’s someone who likes to see you.”

You turned and you saw your six-year old boy with a dark, long manes and grey eyes. “Mom!”

You rose from the seat in swift motion and ran towards him. “Daichi!” You hoisted your son in the air and gravitated him towards near you, pecking his black locks with your numerous kisses.

“How’s your day, my little boy?” Your hand scuffed his hair locks.

The boy’s lashes fluttered and his grey eyes twinkled with wonder. “I got candy from my teacher today. I behave, just like you said.”

“Good job!” You ruffled his hair. “I think we should go out and get some fast food. What do you say?”

The boy wiggled in your arms. “Awesome! Come on, let’s go, let’s go, let’s go!”

Giggling, you said, “Easy, there! We’ll go right away!”

Your friend smiled at the sight of you and your son.

“Let’s bring Auntie Emi with us.”

You looked at your friend.

“I’ll drive,” Emi said, grinning. “Only if he tells us.” Emi proceeded to tickle Daichi, making him wiggle harder than the first.

“After that, we’ll help you with the homework, okay? Your mom has to study and do assignments for the upcoming lecture.”

Daichi nodded, eyes still twinkling. “Okay!”

With an unexpected life comes with a blessing. The only problem is, without a stable finance, you’re set to a dooming failure.

🔥🔥🔥

At the fast food restaurant, you ordered the food for Daichi, and Emi’s food set on a large plate, she offered to share with you, though you spent your share pf money for your appetite. Although it’s vaguely small, but doable since you’re hungry since this morning, only drinking nothing but sweetened coffee.

“You okay there?” Emi asked.

“I’m fine, it’s just…having a rough time,” you replied. “If only there’s something I could do to make my son happier.”

“He’s already happy,” Emi objected.

“Yes, but the problem is…something has been missing in his life. I wish I could take it away and make it all better for him.”

Emi placed her hand atop of yours. “I’m sure things will work out. I’ll find you a job and see what’s going to happen next.”

“Easy for you to say,” you said, rolling your eyes. “If only things are simpler.”

“It will,” Emi promised.

Then you smiled to yourself.

I hope so.

“But for now, I have to fix my college life.”

Emi shrugged. “If you say so.”

“Mommy, mommy!” Daichi said, tugging your top.

Your eyes casted down on him. “Yes?”

“I want…”

“Yes…”

“When is Dad coming home?”

Your heart froze.

“I’m…I’m not sure, sweetheart,” you said, stroking his hair. “We’ll enjoy first, okay?”

His eyes went crestfallen. “Okay.” Before returning back to his meal.

If only you knew who the father is.

Taglist: @colored-tr-panels @mrssano04 @goldenbeskar @f1yh1gh @galactict3a @onyx-blossom @sehunnies-hunnie96 @penguinlovestowrite @akemiixx01

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