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eri-cheri · 3 years

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Now that we have reached the last chapter of the year. It is time to do a 2020 roll call of what I like to call, “State of the Shippers”:

1. IzuOcha. Status: Placated.

-IzuOcha’s could celebrate several cute tidbits throughout the year. Mini moments as they say.

Anime Highlights: The OVA’s came in clutch with moments for shippers all around and IzuOcha is no exception. We got a cute tidbit where Izuku and Ochako bumped into each other and were flustered.

Manga Highlights: Christmas kept on giving to this fandom as the AM doll Izuku gave Ochako made many appearances. A cute fist bump between the two was also exchanged and Mina was right there bouncing with y’all.

Heroes Rising: Izuku super man carried Ochako to safety. And was Angy she was injured. Fans could enjoy the small Lois Lane moment.

Troubling Signs?: Ochako said “I would like to be excluded from this narrative” when it comes to her feelings for Deku. She’s a hero damnit! So if they are in for something, probably won’t be while they are still in school.

II. DabiHawks. Status: Yikes.

- Dabi and Hawk’s very public breakup set this fandom in disarray but also kind of disayay?

Anime Highlights: None yet. This fandom was cruelly cock blocked by Bones. Sorry DabiHawks stans.

Manga Highlights: Where to begin, my goodness. With these fans, I guess the good and the bad is a plus in this homoerotic double agent relationship. We have the notion that Dabi may have known Hawks when they were kids, which may be a positive? Hori sure loves his childhood friends. Other than that. The GIRLS WERE FIGHTIN’. Hawks is now permanently scarred by Dabi and I don’t think it was kinky folks. Tokoyami inserted himself in the middle to White Knight Hawks, Dabi broke up with him via YT expose and overall, shippers could anguish in the absolute MESS that this ship endured this year. But I’m sure that’s part of the appeal. So...yay?

Heroes Rising: They were both in it.

Troubling Signs?: The entire relationship is a troubling sign which again, is part of the appeal. Maybe Hawks will cuddle up with Dabi’s father after the war. That’s troubling! Speaking of...

III. EndHawks. Status: Yearning and Burning.

-If there’s one thing Endeavor couldn’t stop worrying about, it was his hot (in more ways than one) new side piece who probably should have looked at the fine print when signing a contract to be a recurring guest star on “Keeping up with the Todoroki’s”.

Anime Highlights: A fateful meeting finally in high definition for all our eyes to see! Hawks’s unwavering support of his biggest hero was endearing to watch and their shenanigans together spurred the anime onlies to finally jump on the biggest May-December ship in the series.

Manga Highlights: Endeavor’s admiration and concern for Hawks seeped through the pages as we entered our most exciting arc in the manga yet. Fate split these two up yet entwined their downfall together. And that Fate’s name was Dabi...or should I say ⚫️⚫️⚫️⚫️⚫️ or should I just say Touya!

Heroes Rising: “Don’t bite my head off, Endeavor.” Geez, can you flirt a little less loud Hawks?

Troubling Signs?: They say never meet your heroes and Hawks is in for a rude awakening. We shall see just how deep his admiration runs or if Endeavor’s past will split our dynamic duo up for good.

IV: TodoDeku. Status: “Precious”

-Shoto’s “Midoriya is in Danger” radar was highlighted in both manga and anime. 4th User’s quirk, who?

Anime Highlights: “Midoriya hasn’t returned yet.” “Where’s Midoriya?” “Midoriya! Grab my hand!” “Have some of my Soba Midoriya.” Shoto gets it. His emotional support friend is a danger magnet. TodoDeku’s also enjoyed tiny tidbits in the OVA such as a hand grabbing scene. Gotta hold tight to those crumbs.

Manga Highlights: Two Words. “Precious Friend.” Deku comes in w/o arms or legs fighting for Shoto and Shoto’s honor. These two spent the entire year worried sick about each other, and going against all odds to save each other. Precious Friends indeed. TDDK fans ate.

Heroes Rising: Shoto kicks some dog ass and then faints thinking of Deku (and Bakugo but shh. Let the shippers rejoice.) On the bright side, we have a 3rd movie coming featuring “The Three Musketeers” so shippers of TdDk can HOLD TIGHT to what’s to come.

Troubling Signs?: Shoto still doesn’t know about OFA and he’s gonna have LOTS of questions after this arc. Will Deku finally tell him? If not, it could make or break the ship.

V. TodoBaku. Status: “Shining through the city with a little funk and soul.”

-Who knew the greatest comedy duo we needed was Shoto and his hot headed “friend” or not friend? It still remains unclear to Shoto. Regardless, these two had a fun year.

Anime Highlights: “I wanna see your cute face”, disco dancing, and more fun in the provisional license training. Plus the OVA added some cute moments between the two such as Bakugo staying behind to save Todoroki during a dangerous excercise and his adorable plan neatly animated for us. I’d say TodoBaku’s really were resurgent and energized this year!

Manga Highlights: Shoto, that is not how you properly Catch a Kacchan, I’m sorry. But at least you did it you mad lad. As with Deku, Shoto spent the year worried sick about Bakugo. While the anime let us have our fun, these two were suffering in the manga.

Heroes Rising: Again, Shoto put a dog down and then fainted with Bakugo on his mind (and Deku but we ignore that. Shush.) TodoBaku’s have the 3rd movie to look forward to which is bound to have some amazing content!

Troubling Signs?: They have a lot of trauma to deal with. And a lot of Deku to worry about. I also imagine Shoto will be hurt about being left out of the OFA secret. We shall see what 2021 has to offer.

VI. KiriMina. Status: Unbreakable.

-Changing your hairstyle to match the gal who inspired you in middle school? Sorry y’all but if Mina were a guy, I’d say that’s gay af.

Anime Highlights: We got that backstory Bois. Red Riot’s origin might as well make him be called Pink Riot. Again with Hori and the childhood friends though I wouldn’t exactly call them friends. They just went to the same middle school but Kirishima was highly influenced by Mina’s Chivalrous spirit! A ship is born!

Manga Highlights: The influence is mutual! Mina creates a move based on Kirishima’s unbreakable and we all let out a collective “awwww”. Also in the war arc, we got Kirishima making sure Mina’s chivalrous spirit shines through right into Gigantomachia’s mouth! KiriMina may just be the unsung MVP’s of this arc.

Heroes Rising: They were in it.

Troubling Signs?: I can’t think of a single one. KiriMina’s can enjoy a peaceful sailing.

VII: KiriBaku. Status: Crumb Collectors.

-2020 was an uneventful year for KiriBaku but Bones made sure there were crumbs aplenty! Thank God for OVA’s!

Anime Highlights: KiriBaku’s did thrive in one episode! Kirishima reflects on the sludge incident and evolves his quirk based on inspiring words from Bakugo! Hooray! KiriBaku’s can thrive in their blossoming friendship. The OVA also has Kirishima (and Kaminari but shh) once again following Bakugo’s lead when it comes to the training excercise. How can you not? He’s so manly!

Manga Highlights: Not gonna lie. There is nothing much here this year. I did find a teeny tiny flake in Aizawa’s flashback. Kirishima and Bakugo are sitting next to each other. Oh! And at the hot pot gathering, Bakugo sits next to Kirishima! Eat your crumbs KiriBaku’s! There’s always next year!

Heroes Rising: Kirishima hangs with a lazy Bakugo and delivers the most hilarious line in the whole movie. “Silly Bakugo, there won’t be villains here!” Hahah... Silly Bakugo. Oh you~ KiriBaku’s can inhale the fact that those two sure love to hover around each other!

Troubling Signs?: With great crumbs come little responsiblity. No trouble if there’s no content! 🤔

VIII: KamiJirou. Status: Singing their hearts out 🎶

-If there’s any ship that’s coming close to canonization, I think this is it, folks! “Think of the person most important to you!” Can’t argue with Midnight!

Anime Highlights: Kaminari does non stop encouraging of Jirou and her hobbies! He works super hard to learn guitar for her sake! We love a king who can encourage his queen!

Manga Highlights: Kaminari thinks of the most important person to him and surprise! It’s Jirou! All of the feels can commence.

Heroes Rising: They were in it!

Troubling Signs?: Kaminari does love his women. And men. Kaminari overall is a huge flirt. But Jirou appears to have his heart strings. ❤️

IX: BakuDeku. Status: Rising. 👑

-Alternative Statuses include Winning, Thriving, Soaring. It’s just been non stop content this year. 2020 is truly the year for BakuDeku. The shippers can rejoice.

Anime Highlights: Three words. Be. My. Cane. The OVA’s helped fan the flames of the BkDk hearts with a surprise! Deku tops! Not only that, we got a lovely shoulder tap of encouragement in the canon material. While in season 4, Deku’s primary focus was Eri. Bakugo and Deku still had their moments to be hella gay.

Manga Highlights: Where do I even begin? I guess we’ll just cut to the chase with Bakugo Katsuki: Rising. We finally saw Bakugo’s true feelings manifest for Deku and if getting stabbed for him isn’t the ultimate showing of love, then idk what is. BakuDeku’s rounded out the year with the Volume 29 cover AND the volume 29 cover drafts to eat at our heart strings. Overall, their relationship got the spotlight in the manga this year. And we’re bound to start 2021 with a dramatic confrontation. Hand holding seems to be the key with these two and it didn’t stop with Heroes Rising...speaking of.

Heroes Rising: The entire movie. Like....yeah. That’s it. [OP, your bias is showing. You have to be SPECIFIC.] {But random criticizer in my head, if I lay out the entire plot of the movie, my post will be too long} [OP....] UGHHHH Okay okay. The POPSICLE MELTING. THE HAND HOLDING. THE CHARACTER DESIGNS OF WHAT MIGHT AS WELL BE THEIR LOVE CHILDREN. Did I mention? “It’s fine if it’s you?” CAUSE YEAH. Oh and All Might randomly officiating their wedding in their heads like idk. Isn’t it just simpler if I say the whole movie??!

Troubling Signs?: Well these two’s relationship is extremely delicate and while it has non stop soared this year, Deku might not take too kindly to Bakugo almost dying for him. Will they stop pushing each other away? Time will tell.

That’s all for this year folks! Happy Shipping and good luck to everyone next year!

#my hero academia #bnha spoilers #bnha #mha #boku no hero academia #bakudeku #izuocha #tododeku #todobaku #DabiHawks #endhawks #KiriBaku #kamijirou #kirimina

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solalunar-eclipse · 3 years

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A Gift To Remember

Summary: Shadow receives a gift for his birthday that causes a series of very interesting (and often cute) events.

Word count: about 7500 words

Author’s Note: I didn’t realize today was Shadow’s birthday! At the moment I’m more than a little confused because the release dates for SA2 say everything from the 18th to the 23rd, but this seems to be the one, so here this is!

Also, to that one anon whose question about this fic I never quite managed to answer- sorry about that and I do hope you’re still here to read this!

...

The main room of Team Dark’s home was, on a normal day, at least somewhat clean- which was in and of itself surprising, considering the fact that three teenagers lived there. (It was, of course, slightly less surprising when it was noted that one of these teenagers was a giant robot, one was already a businesswoman, and one had grown up in an incredibly clean environment.)

At the moment, however, said room was currently rather less clean, instead covered in various colorful signs, streamers, balloons, and other such decorations. After all, today was a very special day.

When Shadow and Rouge had discovered they shared a birthday (or creation day for Shadow, technically), they both became infinitely more determined to celebrate it for the other’s sake. This had actually, interestingly enough, also ended up making them enjoy their own festivities more than they had in quite some time.

Omega, meanwhile, had officially decided that this was his favorite day of the year.

Over the past few days, Rouge had already received a few presents from various people she knew in the line of clothes, makeup, or jewelry- but as much as she loved gems, her favorites so far were definitely the ones Omega and Shadow had gotten for her: a laser cutter that could slice through anything and a pair of (stylish) infrared goggles, respectively.

Shadow had just opened his present from Omega, which happened to be a sword that looked very cool...but was also longer than his actual body. This wasn’t actually as big of a problem for him as might be expected, as he’d gotten used to handling weapons several times his size during the alien invasion a little while back.

He had, however, been told rather quickly by Rouge to put it away ‘before you slice the wall in half, this place does cost money, you know!’.

Next, Rouge placed her present in his hands, but at first all Shadow could do was just stare at it. This was likely because the gift wasn’t actually wrapped, but instead consisted of a box made of wood slats and filled, oddly enough, with paper shavings. There were quite a few ribbons on it, though, in an attempt to make up for the lack of other decorations.

“I couldn’t wrap it, or else the present wouldn’t have worked.” she explained, sitting back down to watch him open it.

After prying off the top and shifting aside some of the paper pieces, the hedgehog froze.

Inside, there sat a single white chao egg.

Carefully lifting the egg out of the box, Shadow held it gingerly, as though he were afraid it might try to bite him if he wasn’t gentle enough.

“Rouge…” he began nervously. “Don’t get me wrong, I really appreciate this, but...are you sure I’m the best person to be taking care of a chao?”

“Of course, hon!” she said. “You’ve taken care of them before, haven’t you?”

“Yes, but…” Shadow protested, “...are you sure I’ll be able to do as well at home? The garden is their natural habitat…”

Omega folded his arms. “YOU ARE THE ULTIMATE LIFEFORM. OF COURSE YOU CAN RAISE A CHAO.”

“That’s right!” Rouge added. “The chao are always happy when you take care of them- this time isn’t going to be any different.”

“…I suppose so.” Shadow conceded, taking a deep breath. He began to rock the egg slowly from side to side. “Here we go-”

A crack appeared across the pristine white surface. The split spread rapidly while Shadow sat and watched, making sure not to move the egg about much. Chao had to hatch their eggs on their own- it was the way they first began to strengthen themselves.

Rouge laughed. “See? You know exactly what you’re doing!”

Shadow studiously ignored her and continued to focus on the egg. Then, suddenly, a chirp came from inside and the whole top half came flying off.

The hybrid looked at his newborn chao...and his heart (though he’d never admit it) immediately melted. Soft, big eyes gazed up at him, an overjoyed smile on the creature’s face. It cooed happily upon seeing him give a small smile back, and he reached out and began to gently pat its head.

The chao broke into an even wider smile as its eyes closed blissfully, the little sphere above its head popping into a heart. Shadow continued to pet it, offering gentle words of praise, and might have continued like that for the next ten minutes had a camera noise from Omega not made him look up in alarm.

“ADDING IMAGE TO FILE: SHADOW BEING SOFT.” he declared, while Rouge looked on with a giant grin.

“You will do nothing of the sort-” Shadow growled, jumping to his feet, before a soft whimper from his chao stopped him. Its eyes were watery, wide and distressed, and the hybrid immediately scooped it up in his arms, holding it close. It relaxed quickly, snuggling into his chest fluff, and he shot Omega one last semi-serious glower before turning his attention back to the newborn.

Omega promptly took another picture.

…

Later that day, at the party that all of their friends had thrown for them, the chao and Shadow were nearly inseparable. It tended to rest in his lap when he was sitting or rode in between his ears whenever he stood up to get something. Eventually, though, the excitement of a new environment overwhelmed its initial nervousness, which unfortunately led to Shadow returning from the dining room with his hands full of plates of food to discover his chao crawling along the precarious edge of a bookshelf.

Suddenly, the chao’s footing slipped, and Shadow froze, unable to move or do anything- but then Sonic of all people noticed and was already there, leaping up and catching the chao before resting it snugly in his arms. “Looks like someone’s already progressed to the giving-their-owner-a-heart-attack stage, hm?” he asked, smirking at the little creature.

“Thank you.” Shadow said as his chao was returned to him, trying very hard to ignore the way his hands and Sonic’s brushed in the process.

(He’d been nursing a bit of a crush on the hero for a while now, but had decided to ignore it until it wore off. Sonic had admirers from all across the globe vying for his attention- it was absurd to think that anything could happen between them.)

…

Over the coming weeks, all three members of Team Dark made sure to rework their schedules so that someone was always home to watch over the chao- no more climbing on bookcases for the little one now. Shadow did most of the caretaking, feeding, training, cleaning, and providing Chaos Drives (mostly green) to the chao. Rouge did, however, occasionally claim she could ‘handle the extra work’ to give him some spare time and Omega even took it upon himself to watch it every so often.

Sometimes, Shadow and his chao would even cook together in the kitchen (a hobby he’d discovered he enjoyed after finding out that Rouge tended to eat takeout all the time- “You can’t live off that day in and day out- you’re not me, Rouge!”). The sight of a tiny pale blue creature determinedly lifting a bag of flour and flying it across the room was awfully cute- especially after Shadow bought it a tiny apron in what he unconvincingly claimed was an accidental purchase.

Shadow never made accidental purchases.

As much as the hybrid took care of it, though, the chao also seemed to be helping him. He smiled more, glowered less, and generally seemed more tolerant of mistakes than he had been in the past. Nowadays, errors that would once have caused him to go off on a rant or huff about were now met with a calmer ‘it’s okay’ or an offer for help fixing it.

He often laid a hand on it in his sleep or curled around it protectively, and could easily be seen patting its head, carrying it around, or even- when he thought he was alone- nuzzling it gently. The amount of time and care he put into making sure that his chao was happy would have been astonishing to anyone who hadn’t already seen how much he cared about his friends.

It was no surprise then that, before long, Rouge and Omega woke up one morning to find the chao inside a cocoon (and also a very stressed-out Shadow).

The hedgehog promptly called in sick for the entire week- an incredible occurrence for him. He’d originally sworn that since he couldn’t get ill, he’d give his sick days to others when they needed it, but now that was all out the window. He wanted nothing more than to stay home and essentially sit and stare at the cocoon until it hatched.

While the two other members of Team Dark managed to convince him to eat, sleep, and do chores on regular intervals, whenever Shadow had a spare moment he’d stay in his room, watching and waiting. Their friends got so worried that Rouge and Omega had used everything in their power to coax him out of the house twice over those five days, but he refused to do any more. Even then his outings had to come with the promise that they’d both stay home, check it every five minutes, and call him the absolute moment something happened.

On the sixth day of waiting, the cocoon began to hatch while Shadow was attempting to discreetly read out loud to the chao from one of his favorite books. The moment he saw the split, he dropped the novel, jumped up, and shouted louder than he had in months- “Rouge! Omega! It’s HAPPENING!”

He hovered so closely around the cocoon that Omega had to physically pull him back as Rouge reminded him to give the chao more space. Within moments, the split had widened enough for a single black paw to poke out, feeling around carefully for some sort of purchase to pull itself the rest of the way outside. Soon enough, it had succeeded, earning- impressively enough- widened eyes from Omega and a gasp from both Shadow and Rouge.

Frowning light blue eyes were set in an equally grumpy (albeit adorable) face, with two little black ears and three tiny quills on the chao’s head. The ears and quills both had red stripes, as did the arms, legs, and even its tail. A red crescent shape sat on its chest, and two tiny purple bat wings flapped slowly behind it.

In short, it looked a lot like a tiny Shadow.

The hedgehog in question reached out carefully and began to pet his chao, offering some quiet words of praise, but before long it flew up and settled in its favorite spot in between his ears. When Shadow turned around to face his friends, they were met with the sight of a little glowering creature settled on top of his head…which really did look far too similar to the hybrid himself when he was irritated.

Rouge covered a smile with both of her hands. “Shadow...hon…”

He frowned at her, only serving to make the resemblance more obvious. “What?”

“It looks exactly like you!”

“Not really- it has blue eyes and...bat wings…” He looked up at her suddenly. “Rouge...how much time have you been spending with Spark again?”

“Oh, just a little- wait, Spark?” she said quickly, redirecting his attention.

Shadow flushed a bright green at that. “I might’ve already picked out a name...does it sound alright?” he asked, studiously looking anywhere but at his friends.

The chao chirped at the name and snuggled a little further into the fur on his head, seemingly pleased with the title.

He began to smile at that. “You like that name, do you?” he asked teasingly.

“It sure looks like it! I think it’s a lovely name, hon.” Rouge added.

The chao cooed, cementing its name with all of the team (whether Omega would admit it or not).

Now, if anything, Shadow and his chao were even more close than before. Rouge even bought it a tiny leather jacket to match his style, which was quickly deemed by everyone (especially their friends, to whom she’d sent about fifty photos) the most adorable thing ever.

...

One day, Shadow came home from lunch out with Silver and Blaze only to discover a quite unexpected scene- though he really should have seen it coming, considering what he’d noticed after his chao had hatched. Rouge was kneeling next to the sofa, scratching Spark behind the ears and saying in what could only be described as a baby voice, “Who’s your favorite momma? Me, that’s right. That’s right, isn’t it?”

“Uh….” he interrupted, feeling more than a little uncertain as to how to respond to this. He was torn between “I didn’t know you had a baby voice” and “I’m glad to see you and Spark getting along” and wasn’t entirely sure which one to go with here.

The bat, on the other hand, jumped a good three feet in the air at the sound before glaring at Shadow furiously. “Don’t startle me like that!” she shouted, more than a little tense...and also a bit worried?

The hybrid didn’t react, instead saying “It’s nice to see you spending time with Spark too, Rouge.” with a smile.

She relaxed a little at that, and Shadow sighed. “Rouge, I wouldn’t make fun of you- I do the same kind of thing, don’t I?”

“You’re right, you’re right.” the bat admitted. “I just had to! It looks like me- it even has my wings! How could I not?”

Shadow moved to sit down on the sofa at that, reaching out to pat the chao as well. Rouge smiled at him gratefully, and then they both looked down at the cute creature in between them, who was promptly staring up at both with a confused look on its face. After a moment, though, it seemed to realize that everything was alright and nuzzled both Mobians before curling up on the couch happily.

…

Another time, the entire team was out grocery shopping at their favorite store when Spark’s eye was caught by the soft, warm cinnamon buns sitting behind a glass case. After a minute or two of desperate pulling at the seams- to no avail- it flew over to Shadow and began to poke at his shoulder until he turned to look at it.

“Yes? What is it?” he asked, giving the chao a little scratch under the chin.

The chao pointed excitedly at the sweet treats, but its expression melted into one of dismay upon hearing him say “No, Spark, that’s not very good for you- and it’s too big for you to finish all by yourself, too.”

It mimed a clock insistently- they didn’t go to the store that often, after all- its frown deepening all the while. Shadow felt a little uncertain- he enjoyed giving the chao treats, but was now really the best time to feed it so much sugar? It could end up flying all over the place, and he really didn’t feel like getting banned from yet another grocery store. (The last one had been because Omega got a little too excited while messing around with the shopping cart and had melted it and twisted it into a knot...somehow. They were rapidly escorted out after that.)

Suddenly, though, the chao shuffled forward, took one of his fingers in between its tiny paws, and stared up at him with the softest, most pleading look it could possibly manage, its eyes wide and mouth quivering. “No...no, come on…” Shadow protested weakly, but already his resistance was melting away. It practically seemed to be saying haven’t I been good all week? Can’t I please just have this one treat? and the hybrid was in no condition to fight back.

Within moments, Spark was holding a cinnamon roll and dug into it with glee, only pausing once to nuzzle Shadow happily and offer him a quick bite as thanks. He accepted the gesture of appreciation easily (even though now his face had sugar on it after the chao’s affectionate thank-you) and was more than happy to see his chao smiling broadly with the treat in its hands.

…

The chao was, of course, still a great help to Shadow as well. One night in particular, it woke up to the sounds of quiet whimpering and began to look around, startled. For a moment, it turned to its caretaker for help- and then discovered that he was the one in trouble.

Shadow was curled up on his side, his brow creased in distress and his whole body shaking terribly. His eyes were squeezed tightly shut and occasionally the most terribly saddening sounds would escape his mouth. Once or twice, a tear escaped and trickled down his face.

Spark crawled up to his face gently, licking away the tear and nuzzling his cheek. Shadow shuddered briefly, but seemed to relax almost infinitesimally when the dark chao pressed itself against his chest for a moment. Eventually, the creature managed to get him to roll onto his back, at which point it crawled onto his chest, hoping that this would help him begin to relax.

It really did work- within moments, the small, warm weight on his chest made Shadow’s breathing even out and his shivers ease as the nightmare that was plaguing him began to fade.

Spark curled up, pleased with itself, and fell back asleep not long after.

…

There was just one problem amongst all this newly-discovered happiness that came with the chao. Ever since it had evolved out of its cocoon, Omega seemed as though he were hardly willing to interact with it.

Rouge or Shadow would hand it over to him, only to get it back less than a minute later. He spent the least amount of time with it out of the three, but when he was asked if he didn’t like the chao, he never said as much.

Omega didn’t tend to lie...but then why wouldn’t he do anything with it?

Once or twice, they’d caught him merely staring at Spark as the little creature sat on the couch, his optics clicking but otherwise utterly silent. The two Mobians hardly knew what to make of it- he’d never acted like this before.

They finally had the opportunity to discover why he was behaving strangely several days later, though, entirely due to an accident on Shadow’s part. Rouge and Omega had been answering a distress call regarding some rogue G.U.N. robots and needed to call in the hybrid to help. He’d driven his motorbike directly to the scene and leapt straight into battle…

...and hadn’t noticed Spark peeking out of the bag he’d left on his bike.

The chao- while fast, to be sure- was in no way prepared for a full-on battle. While at first it had hoped to help its little family, flying about uncertainly in hopes of doing something, it quickly discovered that the only thing it could really do was to hide behind an upended concrete slab and hope it wasn’t noticed.

That, unfortunately, didn’t quite work out.

It didn’t take long before one of the rogue drones spotted a fourth heat signature aside from the three it was fighting and began to stalk towards it, charging its laser cannon in the process. Shadow, confused at first, felt his stomach drop in horror upon seeing his tiny chao shaking in fear as the machine advanced on its hiding spot. He hadn’t thought to bring a Chaos Emerald, believing this would be an easy battle- and Rouge was busy in the air.

The laser cannon on the drone was almost fully charged, and Shadow fired up his skates in a futile attempt to somehow reach Spark before-

A white hot blast lit up the area.

Shadow couldn’t have stopped the strangled cry that came from his mouth if he had wanted to. The smoke began to clear, and he almost couldn’t look…

Something stirred within the haze, and as it cleared away, Shadow felt his whole body sag with relief upon seeing Omega shifting to an upright position from where he’d shielded the chao with the back of his chassis, blocking the full force of the laser. He let out a sigh as he caught a glimpse of Spark held safely in Omega’s hand as the other one retracted to reveal a flamethrower.

“MY TURN.”

Within moments, the drone was just so much melted slag on the floor and the battle’s tide was turned. Shadow and Rouge dispatched the other robots and then rushed to Omega, who had held onto the chao this entire time.

“Omega...thank you.” Shadow said, taking Spark from his friend and holding it tightly.

“IT WAS- zzzt- NOTHING.” Omega said, a sudden staticky buzz splitting his sentence in two.

“Omega?” Rouge asked, her eyes narrowing. “What happened to you?”

“NOTHING.” he said hurriedly, his voice still glitching. “WAIT- DON’T YOU D-DARE-”

The three had already begun looking to see what had happened...but then froze when they saw the damage his back panel had taken while shielding Spark from the blast. A giant, smoking hole of warped and fused metal was burned into his chassis, revealing a bunch of melted and sparking wiring that definitely needed urgent attention.

“Omega…” Shadow looked horrified.

Rouge frowned, confused. “Why would you do this to yourself? I know how much you hate having to go get repairs.”

The robot let out a burst of static that sounded almost like a resigned sigh. Turning around, he muttered, “IT’S LI-LITERALLY YOU. AND ROUGE. BUT TINY. THAT APPEARS TO HAVE… STRANGE EFFECTS- zzzt- ON MY BEHAVIOR.”

“Do you...not like those effects?” Rouge asked, now clearly shifting into ‘I’m figuring things out’ mode. “Is that why you’ve been avoiding it so often?”

“I AM A ROBOT OF MASS DESTRUCTION. I AM NOT SUPPOSED TO CARE FOR TINY CREATURES SUCH AS THIS ONE. I SHOULD NOT FEEL ANY ‘WORRY’ ABOUT IT- AND YET-” Omega cut off there with a frustrated crackle.

Shadow still didn’t understand. “You’ve always been a robot of mass destruction, but you never thought it was weird to worry about us before.”

“THAT WAS DIFFERENT!” Omega insisted. “YOU BOTH ARE POWERFUL. IT IS NATURAL THAT RESPECT AND CONSEQUENTLY OTHER THINGS SHOULD COME FROM THAT. BUT THIS-! IT HAS NO DESTRUCTIVE QUALITIES! BUT STILL I...YOU KNOW...”

“It’s official, Omega.” Rouge said at that, a smirk growing on her face. “You’re becoming more and more like us...organics are always weak for cute things.”

“IT IS SHAMEFUL THAT I SHOULD COME TO THIS.” he grumbled.

“It’s not so bad, really.” Shadow said, placing a hand on his arm.

“And that’s coming from the guy who never used to admit he cares about people!” Rouge insisted. “Omega, you know you don’t have to be embarrassed about that kind of thing here- you’d never make fun of Shadow for not being tough all the time, would you?”

“I GUESS NOT…” he said, still seeming irritated.

At this point, Spark flew up to sit in Omega’s hand, looking up at the robot with its little frowning face, before reaching out and patting a single finger solemnly with its paw.

“OH NO.”

“Oh yes.” Rouge answered, grinning. “Let’s get you to Tails now though, okay? Then once you’re fixed up you can come home and pet the chao.”

Omega turned his head away and refused to dignify that with a response.

(He did, however, pet the chao when he got home. Nobody teased him about it, for which- while he’d never say it- he was rather grateful.)

…

It was inevitable, eventually, that Team Dark’s schedule wouldn’t be perfect and that they’d all have to be out and busy at some point. This, of course, meant that Spark would have to be dropped off at the chao daycare.

Shadow had managed to force himself to reconcile with that fact, but the chao wasn’t nearly as good at that sort of thing.

On the day of, it was sobbing desperately, clinging to Shadow’s jacket with a tight grip as though it’d been handed a horrible punishment instead of a day spent at the warm, welcoming building in front of it. “It’s going to be alright. You’ll be okay, it’s just for a day. See, the Mobians who run it are very nice- won’t you look?” the hybrid whispered in a soothing voice, gently rubbing Spark’s head.

Omega stepped forward. “DON’T YOU...WANT TO SHOW HOW BRAVE YOU CAN BE?” he said awkwardly. Talking to the chao was still taking some getting used to for him, but he was definitely trying his best.

Rouge smiled warmly at that. “Of course! We’ll all be so proud of you, don’t you know that?”

“We can make a cake especially for you when you get home too, alright?” Shadow said, and that was the final thing the chao needed to hear. Wiping its eyes with a final few sniffles, it flew over to the little walkway towards the entrance and stood up tall, its body shaking slightly with leftover stress and its attempts not to cry.

“We love you!” Rouge called, blowing it a quick kiss.

“See you soon.” Shadow said gently, waving with a smile.

“YOU’LL BE THE BEST ONE THERE.” Omega added, shuffling in place a little.

The chao whimpered briefly, but then turned away and bounded into the daycare before it could lose its nerve.

Throughout the morning, it remained relatively antisocial- a bit like the hedgehog whose appearance it had taken- during the music and karate lessons. The other chao all babbled and played together, being mostly neutral and hero-types, and the few dark chao that were there wanted to cause an awful lot more trouble than Spark was in the mood for.

One thing that it noticed very clearly, though, was the extraordinarily frustrating presence of a royal blue hero and speed-type chao.

This chao didn’t seem to think even once (let alone twice) about anything it did. It banged on the drums until Spark’s ears were sore during music class and then somehow managed to smack it in the face during karate lessons twice, and all the while it chatted away with about five other chao all around it.

Needless to say, by midday, when it was playtime, Spark had just about had enough.

When the blue chao rushed directly through the little sand city that it had been carefully building, swiping everything away with a single dash, Spark growled, picked up the plastic shovel it had been playing with, and threw it so hard it whacked the other creature in the arm.

Snarling, it began to stomp off when it felt a hand on its shoulder. The blue chao darted away and began hurriedly to try and rebuild the city, occasionally glancing up at Spark with an apologetic expression in its eyes.

It...looked awfully sad, actually.

Suddenly, the dark chao remembered how it had quickly stopped banging on the drums when the teacher had told it to, and how it had looked rather guilty when it had smacked Spark in the face, and how excited it was when talking with the other chao…

Maybe it was just a little clumsy sometimes.

Spark sighed a little. The other meant well, it decided, as its anger began to fade. It appreciated the apology...but now the sculptures were gone and it couldn’t get them back. Then, though, its gaze fell upon a pair of toy cars sitting nearby.

Pulling the blue chao over to a strip of flat, packed earth nearby, it gave one car to its surprised companion and then set its own down at a line that could work quite well as the start of a race.

Soon enough, the other creature worked out the idea and began to cheer with delight, and before long they were racing cars like they’d been friends since the start. Eventually, they even switched to running races themselves, over and over again until they were all worn out and collapsed on the cool grass in a heap. Before long, though, they were up and at it again, only this time they started with a building game, and then had a little fun with the musical instruments, and soon enough Spark couldn’t help but wonder how they had ever fought in the first place.

Eventually, they decided that their next activity would be a race to the top of the jungle gym they noticed nearby. Spark was determined not to lose as it scrambled up the bars. It pulled itself paw over paw up the structure, getting closer and closer to the top, until-

Suddenly, a bar that it had been sure existed in front of it only a moment ago was now clearly just a little too far away, and the mistake caused it to reel forward, desperately clinging to the slippery bar it sat on. It twisted head over heels until it slid and fell all the way back to the ground, the wind slammed forcefully out of its little lungs.

Spark gasped soundlessly, trying and failing to pull air back into itself. After several agonizing seconds, it finally caught its breath- and then nearly got it knocked back out again by the impact of its new friend.

Regaining focus, the dark chao realized with a start that its friend was practically wailing into its chest, the soft blue creature shaking with desperate, panicked sobs. It looked up quickly, its eyes swollen and teary, and then reached out with its paws and hurriedly patted Spark’s body down, as though to reassure itself that the dark chao was still there.

The creature in question sat up and pulled its friend into a tight hug, feeling nothing less than awful as the blue chao sniffled and whimpered worriedly in its arms. Eventually, it managed to calm down enough to amble over to a small nest made of blankets especially for tired chao and lay down there next to Spark. The two chao curled up together, nuzzling gently as the shaky breaths of the blue one finally evened out.

Spark felt the little ball over its head pop into a heart shape, and noticed briefly that its friend had done the same. They remained curled up like that for the last half-hour or so of their time in the daycare, alternately simply cuddling or talking about their respective owners.

Spark hoped they’d get to spend more time with this friend of theirs soon.

…

Shadow pulled up to the daycare on his motorcycle at closing time, doing his best to smooth out his frazzled quills. It wouldn’t be very good to let his chao know that he’d been nearly as worried about it as it had felt itself.

He sighed, making his way towards the entrance of the building- and instantly felt the last wisps of his composure vanish upon seeing Sonic standing just inside. Before he could panic and flee the area at top speed, his legs (which didn’t seem to have received the message just yet) carried him through the door and inside.

Almost immediately, the blue hedgehog turned to face him with a bright smile. “Oh! Hey, Shadow!” Sonic said happily. “I didn’t know you brought your chao here, too! I’ve gotta say hi to the little guy again sometime!”

“This is my first time bringing it here. If it’s alright with that…I suppose you may.” the hybrid said, trying his best to sound coherent and cool (but actually just seeming stiff and awkward).

They talked for a little while as they waited for their chao to come out, chatting about their lives and friends. More than once, Shadow had to pinch himself in order to stay focused. His mind kept threatening to wander off into dreamland when he was around the hero, ready to admire his many great qualities (and wonderful appearance) at the drop of a hat.

Eventually, though, he became a bit worried by the fact that chao after chao were wandering out through the playroom door, being collected, and leaving…but neither Spark nor Sonic’s chao had even showed up. Soon enough, the two decided to walk into the room and find their tiny charges themselves.

“Uh, hi, mixter!” Sonic greeted the leopard who ran the daycare. “Didja see my lil’ buddy somewhere around here?”

“Oh, hello Sonic!” they said brightly- clearly the hero had been to this place quite a few times before. “Yes, your chao is over there in that nest there, sorry. I just hated to disturb those two…”

Shadow frowned. Those two?

His question was promptly answered when Sonic whisked aside the blanket covering the nest, only for both of them to stare at the sight inside.

Two purring chao, one clearly Sonic’s and the other obviously Shadow’s, were snuggled up together with big hearts floating over their heads. Even the hybrid’s dark chao, notorious for its ever-present frown, looked completely at peace with a small smile on its face.

He tried his best not to freak out.

“Erm…” Shadow began eloquently.

“Uh…” Sonic replied.

The two chao perked up at this, looking happily at their owners before nuzzling gently together in a manner that made Shadow’s stomach leap into his throat and then crash straight through the floor. In a further twist (both in events and in the striped hedgehog’s internal organs), Sonic’s chao then leapt happily into his arms, leaving Shadow to stare at the tiny version of his crush cuddling into his chest fur.

He sincerely hoped there was a convenient couch nearby for him to sit down on.

“Blu- come on-” Sonic began, looking oddly panicked for some reason, but then Spark sprang eagerly onto his shoulder and the hero rapidly fell silent as the dark chao nudged his cheek.

The two hedgehogs stared at each other for a long time. Shadow tried to move or do something other than just stand there, but it was awfully difficult when the hero was looking at him with those wide, soft green eyes….

“Er…Sonic?” Shadow finally choked out, in an odd, strained sort of tone.

“Yeah?”

“I think I’d like my chao back now.”

“Yeah.”

They each handed over their respective creatures, though Shadow felt rather reluctant to let such a tiny version of Sonic out of his arms. And for a moment he could almost have sworn that the hero held Spark a little longer than necessary, too…

…

Once he got home, the hybrid collapsed onto the couch and covered his eyes briefly with a hand. Spark, who had at first rushed into the kitchen (not having forgotten the promise of cake), came back and began to tug on his arm briefly before realizing that maybe Shadow wasn’t quite up to doing much of anything at the moment.

Rouge and Omega walked in just a moment later, their work having ended a little after Shadow’s. Upon seeing him slumped on the furniture, though, their greetings were cut short and instead replaced by worried questions.

Shadow sighed. “Spark...just spent a bunch of time cuddling with Sonic’s chao. And he noticed.”

“And that’s a good thing, hon.” Rouge shot back, having resisted a facepalm the moment she realized what all this was about.

“It is not!” the hedgehog cried out, before realizing that Spark was more than a little stressed by his tone of voice. “I’m not mad at you, don’t worry, it’s just...I already make enough of a fool of myself around him on my own. He’ll figure it out soon enough if we keep this up.”

“SO LET HIM.” Omega said. “EITHER HE STARTS DATING YOU OR HE’S AN IDIOT.”

Shadow blushed furiously. “It doesn’t work like that!”

“EXCEPT WHEN IT DOES.”

“Why don’t you tell him, hon?” Rouge asked. “I mean…” and here she developed a devious smile, “...didn’t his chao technically also act all affectionate with yours?”

The hybrid’s ears were bright green by now. “He’s nice to everyone, Rouge.”

At this point, Spark- who had left temporarily to get a pencil and paper- held up a drawing it had made of the scene at the jungle gym earlier. Shadow, of course, immediately began fussing over his chao, checking for any bruises or scrapes, but the bat in particular saw something entirely different.

“Kinda...reminds me of what happened on Space Colony ARK.” she mused.

Shadow’s head shot up at that. “What?”

Rouge smirked, but it was bittersweet this time. “Your fall...it really hurt him too, y’know? He didn’t go out in public for a long time after that.”

“He...he never mentioned that to me…”

“He wouldn’t have!” she said. “Sonic isn’t the type to ‘bother’ others with his feelings.” Rouge explained, doing air quotes at one point.

“HE ALSO STARES AT YOU WHEN YOU ARE NOT LOOKING.”

“He what?!” By now Shadow had been reduced to just looking back and forth between his two friends.

Spark flew in front of Shadow’s face and began to mime something. First pointing at Shadow, then a heart, then talking, then a hedgehog with all its quills pointed down…

“No! I can’t just tell him!”

“We’re hanging out with his team next week at the park- you should do it then.” Rouge replied, ignoring the last thing he’d just said.

“Did you not hear me, I can’t-”

“YOU WILL NEED SOMETHING NICE TO WEAR.” Omega said loudly over the rest of his sentence.

Spark cheered approvingly.

“So...you three have just decided for me whether or not I’m going to confess to Sonic.” Shadow sighed, beginning to resign himself to the fact.

“Absolutely, hon!” Rouge said brightly, slipping an arm around his shoulders.

He glowered at all three of them, but it lacked any real malice. “Alright, I’ll play along...for now.” he grumbled.

“EXCELLENT. LET THE PLANNING COMMENCE.”

…

One week later, Shadow was standing in the middle of a patch of grass, feeling like his knees were about to buckle as sweat trickled through his quills. He was no longer resigned to telling Sonic about his feelings and was in fact considering jumping into the nearby lake and hiding there for the duration of the hangout. His stomach- along with whatever scraps of resolve he may have had- were currently all the way back at their house.

On top of all that, he was frankly surprised he didn’t just spontaneously burst into flames when the other three Mobians showed up, Sonic in the lead.

“Hey guys!” he said excitedly. “Long time no see!”

Rouge snickered a bit at his catchphrase (it was one of many) but Shadow just felt his ears burn. He was just so cute and cheesy and already the hybrid’s mind was devolving into a mushy mess.

“Rouge, Omega.” he greeted them each, but he seemed to pause for a second on the last name. “...Shadow.”

The hedgehog in question thankfully managed a reply, and then the fun began in earnest. Knuckles and Shadow competed in several arm-wrestling matches with narration from Tails (“...aaaand Knuckles looks like he’s in the lead!”) and commentary from Omega (“YOU’RE LUCKY I DON’T ARM-WRESTLE OR ELSE BOTH OF YOUR ARMS WOULD BE BROKEN.”). Rouge and Sonic were busy pranking other innocent people, though once in a while the latter would look over at the competition, distracted.

Eventually, Tails and Omega got bored- which of course meant Knuckles and Shadow had to play the role of caretaker (“No, you can’t blow up trees. No, not even for ‘science’.”) for a little while.

At one point, though, Rouge got bored with the pranks and had dragged the echidna off to a park bench and was now flirting with him enough to turn his face as red as his spines. Tails had promised to behave- which now meant that he was halfheartedly attempting to convince Omega not to modify his cannon to launch ducks from the nearby pond- leaving Sonic and Shadow to themselves. Blu and Spark had been playing in the grass all this time (since both of them had brought their chao without really realizing that the other would do the same), and Shadow had very definitely not been thinking about how lucky his chao was that emotions were easy for it.

He remembered the talk his friends had given him before this outing then and wondered if maybe, just maybe, it could be that easy. Before he could stop himself, he’d already spoken.

“...Sonic?”

“Yeah?” the hero asked, turning to face Shadow.

“I...wanted to talk to you about something.” he said, regretting everything already because look how stupid he was about to seem...yet Shadow Robotnik the Hedgehog had never been one to do things by halves.

“Oh, really?” Sonic said, and now he almost looked relieved, for some reason. “I, uh, was actually hoping to do the same. That’s cool, what is it?”

“No, no, you go first.” Shadow urged him, hoping that he’d take the offer.

Unfortunately, today was not his lucky day. “No, man, you asked first! Go ahead, what was it?”

“Really- it’s fine.”

“No, you had something you wanted to say!” Sonic insisted.

“It’s okay, I swear-”

“Well, I guess-”

“I mean, if you want-”

“Okay-”

“You see-”

“I like you!”

Both hedgehogs shouted the words at the exact same time, before freezing and staring at each other.

“Wait…” Shadow began.

Sonic’s eyes were wide. “You like me back?!?” he gasped, hands flying up to his mouth.

“...yes.” he admitted, looking off to the side in embarrassment. Then it hit him. “Wait. You like me back?”

“Of course! How could I not?” Sonic asked incredulously. “You’re smart, funny, nice-” He’d begun listing off attributes while counting on his fingers, but cut himself off upon noticing Shadow’s confusion.

“Yes, but you’re a hero. The world’s hero.” Shadow began to frown, staring at the grass. “Why would you settle for someone like-”

“No.” Sonic growled, and the hybrid looked up suddenly to see his face twisted in anger. “Don’t ever say that.”

“But everyone thinks it…” Shadow protested weakly.

“Yeah, well, ‘everyone’ isn’t part of my love life.” Sonic assumed a slightly less aggressive stance, placing a hand on his hip. “Whoever’s been telling you that can either leave you alone or get their face introduced to my sneakers.”

Shadow blushed. “Nobody needed to. I just assumed...but perhaps I shouldn’t have.” he added quickly, seeing the hero begin to glower again.

“That’s right!” he said, zipping over to stand directly in front of Shadow. “No assumptions here- talk to me from now on if something’s worryin’ you, ‘kay?”

Then, he seemed to notice the sudden stiffness in the hybrid’s posture, as well as the green flush slowly creeping up his ears. Sonic leaned forward with a smirk, resting his forearm on Shadow’s shoulder. “Thinkin’ about something?”

Shadow gulped.

For once, he decided that he could do what he wanted. So, he slowly reached up a hand and touched the peach fur on Sonic’s arm gently, like it was the most delicate thing in the world.

Rather more quickly, Sonic turned a shade of bright red to rival Omega’s paint job.

“So, uh…” he began, his voice shaky. “Erm...do ya feel like sitting under that tree? Together?”

Shadow agreed, and the two walked over to the shady patch, sitting down and resting against each other. Soon enough, though, Sonic turned to face Shadow, a little nervous. “Do we, like, need to talk about this? Figure out...what to do about…us?” He started turning pink again.

“Maybe later. We have a lot of time, after all.” Shadow said, trying to contain the soaring feeling inside when Sonic said ‘us’- until he realized that he didn’t have to any longer.

“What’re you smiling about?”

“You. And me. Together.” Shadow said simply, making Sonic laugh and snuggle up against him, resting his head on a black-furred shoulder.

“Wow. That’s, uh….that’s new. I really like it though.”

Then, the hero looked up at him. “I really like you, too.”

At this point, a loud whistle could be heard from Rouge, who was standing not too far off and had likely heard a lot of what they’d said. Sonic just giggled, while Shadow shot her a death glare. She just winked and mouthed I’ll keep them occupied, at which point the hybrid tried not to show how very much he appreciated that and failed miserably.

And Sonic was purring now. Which of course meant that every single brain cell in Shadow’s head was promptly dead for the next five minutes.

After he’d recovered from that, Shadow wrapped his arms tightly around his...boyfriend? Maybe? He thought for a moment. “Hey, Sonic?”

“Yeah?”

“How do you feel about being my-” Shadow paused briefly to cough, trying to get the words out- “-boyfriend?”

“I think I like that a lot.”

Shadow smiled warmly, feeling the beginnings of a purr rise up in his own chest.

“I like that a lot, too. Almost as much as I like you.”

#shadow the hedgehog #rouge the bat #e 123 omega #sonic the hedgehog #happy birthday shadow and rouge!!#these two are the best #i swear i panicked when i realized that their birthday was today and not the 21st haha #me: has never actually fully raised a chao in-game #also me: *throws in made-up chao facts like i know what i'm talking about*#also all names for shadow's chao are valid this is just the one that i personally picked #hopefully everyone enjoyed being blasted by 7500 words of fluff :)#(and hurt/comfort of course)#i liked writing the part where it was like #blu and spark: *speedrun enemies to friends*#sonic and shadow: *PANIC*#just checking: is the term 'mixter' alright for a lengthened version of 'mx.'? i've seen it before but don't know for sure #this is my second attempt writing proper sonadow hopefully it was alright #:D #as always suggestions for how to improve my writing are more than appreciated!#sol's fanfiction

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random-imagines-blog · 3 years

Text

Just in Your Heart {Taylor Swift x ChubbyMale!Reader}

Requested by: @lunchawx Wordcount: 2114 Summary: After five years of dating, you’re finally thinking of making it social-media official. Warnings: Fat shaming.

You weren’t the sort of person that most people would picture Miss Americana herself to date. Taylor Swift had gone out with some of the best looking, or at least according to the media’s standards best looking - men in the world. You didn’t need to go over them. The tabloids did that enough for you on a daily basis. But the point was that you were the opposite of a lot of these men. You weren’t in the entertainment industry. You weren’t rich. You weren’t famous. You didn’t have a six pack or a chiseled chest or that rugged jaw line or any of those things. You had worked your way up to being a curator at a Museum in New York - not one of the biggest ones, mind you, but big enough to where you always had a lot on your plate. You were overweight according to your doctor though you ate healthy and tried to get lots of exercise. And you had next to no social media presence, only followed by your friends and family - not even Taylor as for the most part, you both agreed on keeping you out of the spotlight, much as that sometimes hurt. But then again - you both had been together for five years now, and you weren’t being picked apart by the media. That was nice.

“Do you think that this is folded in enough? I always think of that scene in Sleeping Beauty where they actually fold them in,” Taylor laughed, snapping you out of your thoughts. When you had stopped at the grocery store to get the ingredients for baking night, you of course had seen Taylor on the magazines. Stepping out with new ‘mystery man’ it had reported. It was only her new bodyguard and would be forgotten in a week or so but it was still a bit annoying to be surrounded by rumors of your own girlfriend.

“Yeah, that looks good babe,” You’d say, looking into her bowl. It was cake night in your shared apartment. The whole quarantine thing had the both of you at home a lot more, though you did still have to go to work, so you were trying new hobbies. Baking had been Taylor’s idea, and it was something you had shot down at first considering your weight, but she was so insistant. She had given you those puppy dog eyes you couldn’t resist. Those baby blues had you saying yes every time. “No shells this time?”

“Oh my god, it was one time, let it go,” Taylor laughed, going for the next couple of ingredients. “I don’t think that you put enough chocolate in yours.”

“It’s a light chocolate cake, not a Devil’s Food Cake. I’m still watching my weight, remember?” You kept on whipping the eggs until they were light and fluffy, and then finally folded your own into the rest of the mixture. “This will probably be my lunch tomorrow,” You joked.

“I’ll make you something, don’t worry,” She said, putting a kiss on your cheek, transferring a bit of flour that she had on her nose onto your skin. You laughed and wiped it off. “What were you thinking about?”

“Saw you on the cover of another magazine today,” You said, slipping behind her, taking the chance to run your hands across her waist as you went to grab one of the cake pans you already prepped. “They’re thinking that Greg is your new boyfriend. It’s really throwing them off that you’re not out there dating openly anymore.”

“Oh, that’s hilarious. I’m sure his wife is going to love that,” Taylor laughed, not taking it seriously. Being in the industry since she was a teenager meant that she had to develop that tough skin. You loved that about her. You only wished that you had been able to do that yourself. “Oh, let’s take a picture before we pop these into the oven.”

Always the change of subject. But you gave in, as you always did, giving her a little nod. She pulled out her phone, turned the front camera on, and snapped a picture of her kissing your cheek while the full cake pans were waiting on the counter. You were grinning, you couldn’t help it. Every time that this wonderful, beautiful woman gave you attention, you were fawning for it. You couldn’t wait to make her your wife. Just a little longer. Just getting the ring sized.

And then the pans went into the oven, and you settled back down on the couch, looking for something to watch while waiting for the timers. Taylor went straight to Law and Order. Of course. You even bobbed your head to the theme tune. Her favorite show in the whole world. She cuddled up to you, hand and head resting on your barrel-like chest. When she touched you like this, it was hard to feel insecure. And the way that she looked up at you whenever the screen went dark between scenes - still made you feel like blushing to this day.

Once the timer went off, cake out of the oven, it was the only part of this whole baking thing that you really enjoyed. Decorating. Tongue in cheek, going over the layers with the icing that you had managed to make look tie-dye with different colors. “What do you think, fruit maybe? Some whipped cream?” You looked over to see what she was doing, only to see that she was literally throwing sprinkles on top of the icing. Making a huge mess, but it was cute to see her looking so joyous.

“Whatever you want,” She’d say, bending low, turning the plate to see the other side of the cake, and then threw even more sprinkles. One thing could be said for her method - she was thorough. There was hardly an inch on it that was untouched. You looked back at your own which was looking plain in comparison, and started chopping up some fruit to put on the top. At least give some semblance of it being healthy. That way you wouldn’t feel as guilty when you went to the doctor next and explained what you’ve been eating. “I can’t wait to try yours,” Taylor said, sticking a finger in your spare icing and dabbed some of it on the tip of your nose with a giggle. Her eyes were lit up from the inside out. She looked happy. Truly happy. “Can we take another photo?”

“Can I at least get this off of my nose first?” You laughed. She shook her head no, and this time in the photo, she was licking it right off of you, the cakes on full display in front of you. Your face was scrunched up from the attention on your nose, which made her laugh when she saw it.

“This is really cute. I might even post it,” She teased, tongue in cheek.

“Doubtful,” You chuckled, and grabbed a knife to make the first cuts.

“No, really,” She said, leaning against the counter, looking at the picture on her phone. “We’ve been together five years now and I haven’t really been able to tell anyone but our close friends and family.”

“Does anyone else matter?” You asked, eyebrows furrowed. “Everyone that I care about knows about you. Why does the whole world?”

“I just - I don’t want you to feel like I’m ashamed of you when I’m not. I’d love to start posting pictures of us, like normal couples do.”

“We’re not a normal couple,” You pointed out. She was pouting again, but this time it didn’t look like she was trying to get what she wanted. She looked genuinely upset. You watched her for a minute as she dropped a couple more sprinkles on spots that she missed, trying to keep her hands busy. “Okay. Fine. You can post one tomorrow if you really want. But can we just relax tonight?”

“Okay,” She said, tucking a long blonde piece of hair behind her ear and smiled. She looked happy again. And that’s the way that you wanted to keep her forever.

Your phone was left in your office for most of the day while you were working on the usual day-to-day activities of the museum. You had forgotten your little agreement with Taylor the night before, having settled back in for a night of watching Olivia Benson on the television solving cases.

So when you finally had a chance to sit down and look at your phone, you were surprised to see that it was dead. You plugged it into your spare charger only for it to turn on and have hundreds - maybe even more notifications. You had to quickly go into your settings and try to turn them off so that you could have a breath. That was when you remembered, and immediately opened up instagram. 2.6 million follow requests. Jesus. At least your account was on private, who knows what they would have done if they had been able to go thorugh your photos and comment on them.

You’d leave those for another time to deal with. The next time that you were taking the subway and had nothing else better to do. But for now, you went to Taylor’s profile, where you were one of her millions of followers, never anything special until now. The two pictures from the night before, kissing and silly icing on your nose. ‘#bakingwithboyfriend.’

Over three million likes. Comments galore. And most of them were not of the nice and supportive kind.

‘Oh my god, is this some body positivity stunt?’ 'This is literally like three of her exes put together, weightwise. ‘ 'Must be really rich or have great dick’

There were other ones that were much more rude, but you weren’t going to go through them. You couldn’t. You wouldn’t do that to yourself. You put the phone back down, face down so that you wouldn’t have to look at it, or at the very least be a lot less tempted.

“Mr y/l/n,” Your assistant said, poking his head into the office. His face was looking flushed, so that already gave you an idea of what was going on. He already knew about your relationship, but that didn’t stop him from having fan-boy moments whenever Taylor came in. “She’s here to see you.”

“She can come in,” You said with a nod. He popped his head back out and the tall, lithe figure of Taylor, as dressed down as she could be, walked into the stuffy room. She smiled nervously and sat down across from you in the spot where donors or assistants usually would sit.

“You saw those comments, didn’t you?” Taylor said. You simply nodded. “I already talked to my publicist and we’re going to be taking comments off all of my posts. It isn’t right. Any of it.”

“Can’t say that it wasn’t expected though,” You admitted, leaning back in your chair. “I’m not Styles or Hiddleston.”

“That’s why I love you,” Taylor insisted. “You’re not any of those men, you’re you. They’ve got nothing, nothing at all, on you.”

“But I’m apparently three of them,” You laughed humorlessly. “Look, I knew what I was getting into by falling in love with you. I can accept it. Just sucks that the day had come after all.”

Taylor was quiet for a moment, but then she leaned forward over the desk, and took hold of your hands, giving them a squeeze with her well manicured fingers. “You’re everything to me, y/n. And I just want to show you that. I want to show the whole world that.”

“I know. I know,” You breathed out with a sigh. “Were any of the comments good?”

“Selena is going apeshit in the comments. Or at least she was while I was on the way here. Threatening to fight some of the people saying the worst things but I already deleted most of the really bad ones. I have my publicist on it. Some of them were really positive though. You’re really handsome. Some of them are threatening to come after you when we break up.”

“Ha, like that’s ever going to happen,” You said, shaking your head. “You’re it for me, baby.”

“You’re it for me too,” Taylor said, raising your hands up to kiss the tops of them. Your unmusical hands. “So - are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’ll get over it. I guess. More incentive to go to the gym maybe. Gotta show your millions of fans that you can still get a buff guy after all.”

“Don’t change yourself too much,” She’d say, smiling. “You’re perfect. Completely and utterly ... perfect.”

#Taylor Swift #Taylor Swift x reader #Taylor Swift oneshot #celebrity #celebrity oneshot #onreshot #one shot #request #x reader #taylors

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openheart12 · 3 years

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The Night We Met

A/N: Based off the song by Lord Huron, but without all the sadness :) this also might possibly have a part two with Ed leaving after enlisting in the Navy

Summary: The night when they first fell in love. The night God brought them together. The night where their future was just getting started.

WC: 1,589

It was a cool summer night in Bridgeport, Connecticut, stars dusted the dark sky and the streetlights shined down on the sidewalk the trio were walking on. The building came into view after a few more steps and excitement surged through the girls.

School was out for the year and sixteen year old Lorraine Moran decided to celebrate it by going to the theater with her two best friends. They had their arms linked with Lorraine in the middle, Mary, the oldest of the three was the one who purchased the tickets to a movie Lorraine couldn’t even remember because her attention had turned to something or rather someone else.

There was a boy at the entrance, who looked to be around their age. He had a hat that buckled underneath his chin, a white long sleeve shirt with a brown blazer over it, and black slacks. For the first time in her short life, her breath caught in her throat.

But that feeling was nothing compared to when their eyes finally met. Blue locked onto blue.

She hadn’t even noticed she’d stopped walking until her friends stumbled backwards.

“Lorraine?” Nancy questioned.

Mary smirked when she noticed what had caught her friends' attention.

“We’re going to miss the movie,” Nancy pointed out, pulling Lorraine out of the trance.

“Movie, right. Yeah. Don’t want to be late,” Lorraine stumbled out the words as she handed the usher her ticket with shaky hands and their fingers brushed against each other for the briefest second.

“Your seats are to the left,” the boy signaled with a natural smile, the kind that gave Lorraine butterflies.

The three made their way to their seats, but not without a final glance at the boy and as Lorraine turned around, the boy did too and their eyes met again.

“Lorraine has a crush,” Nancy proclaimed in a singsong voice.

“I do not,” she argued weakly, but the slight blush on her cheeks said otherwise.

“We can worry about Lorraine’s crush later, but the movies about to start,” Mary reminded, but ‘later’ never came for Lorraine since her thoughts remained on the nameless boy for the entirety of the movie.

She tried to think of what his name could be, but she couldn’t find a name that fit him. All the names she thought of seemed too boring to be his name.

After the lights came back on, the group made a dash for the exit. Lorraine immediately searched the area for the boy after entering the lobby. Disappointment washed over as she realized that maybe he had already gone home and the thought of never getting to see him again made her upset.

She was being ridiculous, she knew, being upset over the thought of not seeing a complete stranger again, but there was something about him that she couldn’t put her finger on.

Just as they walked out the front doors, a gentle hand grabbed Lorraine’s elbow stopping her from moving. She turned around to face no one other than the boy himself.

“Hey,” she breathed out.

“Hey,” he smiled in response. “What are you doing right now?”

“Oh, um, I don’t-”

“She wasn’t about to do anything. She’s totally free,” Mary interrupted.

Lorraine blushed at her friend's interruption.

“Well, in that case I was wondering if you would like to get ice cream. I know this cute little parlor right up the street and they have the best flavors,” he asked, a hint of nervousness in his voice.

“She would love to,” Nancy chimed him and Lorraine shot her a glare.

“I would love to,” Lorraine confirmed with a smile.

“Great, we can go now if you would like?”

“Sounds good,” she turned to her friends to say goodbye. “I’m going to kill both of you,” she whispered loud enough for them to hear and they giggled in return.

“Have fun!” They said at the same time before making their way down the street in the direction they had come from earlier.

“So…” he said, realizing that he still didn’t know her name.

She caught the hint and replied, “Lorraine.”

“That’s a beautiful name. Mine is Ed, short for Edward, but no one calls me that unless I’m in trouble,” he joked, earning a laugh from her.

“Nice to officially meet you, Ed,” she said, sticking out her hand to him which he took and placed a kiss on her knuckle. She blushed at the gesture.

They walked the rest of the way to the ice cream parlor in a comfortable silence, both reflecting on the other. Lorraine thought about how fitting Ed’s name was for him like a piece of a puzzle that falls perfectly in place.

Ed opened the door for her once they arrived and they headed straight to the counter looking at the countless flavors in front of them, each trying to find the one they wanted. Ed decided on strawberry while Lorriane decided on mint chocolate chip. He paid for the two of them and they found a secluded booth near the back where they took their seats.

They made small talk ranging from each other’s interests and hobbies to their favorite colors; everything two teenagers could possibly talk about, they did. It turned out that they had a lot in common and Lorraine found herself falling for him fast.

“It’s a beautiful night,” Lorraine said, looking out the window.

“There’s a park nearby, if you want to go take a walk.”

“Sounds good,” she smiled. She wasn’t ready for their time together to come to an end quite yet.

He led her down a small dirt path in the park and plants and trees surrounded them with the stars high above in the sky twinkling down on them. The moonlight illuminated the path they were on when suddenly the sky grew even darker and large raindrops started pouring out of the sky.

Lorraine spotted a gazebo in the middle of the park that could serve as a shelter and she grabbed Ed’s hand and they ran to it, hand in hand. He noticed her shiver once out of the rain and draped his blazer over her shoulders.

“Thanks,” she whispered. She stared into his eyes, feeling a pull towards him almost like a magnet. Realizing this was her movie moment with the whole pouring rain, his jacket, and the looking into his eyes thing, she found herself leaning in just as he did.

Their lips met in a soft kiss, tentative at first before they gradually became more comfortable.

After breaking apart, huge grins on their faces, she pushed the hair out of his face. “I had a lot of fun tonight, Ed.”

“Me too. Can we do this again sometime?” He asked.

Before she could answer, Lorraine was taken away to a moment in the future. She was dressed in a long white dress and Ed was in a tux with the song “Can’t Help Falling In Love” by Elvis playing in the background. Lorraine wasn’t a stranger to her visions, she’s had them since she was twelve years old. They were dancing in each other’s arms, smiles much like the ones they had on their faces right now were present once more and Lorraine had never felt more happy or carefree than she did in this moment.

“Lorraine?”

“Mhm?” She smiled in response.

“Are you alright?”

“Never been better,” she answered honestly. “And yeah, I would love to do this again sometime.” The smile reappeared on Ed’s face.

“It’s getting late, we should probably head back. I can walk with you if you’d like.”

“That would be great, thank you.” It was only a short walk from the park to her house and when they finally arrived, Lorraine was saddened that their time together had come to an end.

“I had a great time tonight with you,” Ed told her, making her blush yet again.

“Me too, thank you for everything.”

“I’ll see you later?”

“It’s a date,” she assured with a smile. He kissed her softly before making his way to his own house.

Lorraine watched him until he disappeared from her view and placed two fingers to her lips that still tingled. She made her way inside where she saw her mother sitting by the fireplace reading a book.

“Hey sweetheart, how was the movie?” She greeted her daughter.

“Great,” Lorraine replied back.

“With a smile like that, I’d say it was a pretty good night.” And if it was possible, her smile grew even bigger. “Is there something you’re not telling me?”

“I met a boy,” she said shyly.

Her mother put down the book and turned her full attention onto Lorraine. “Oh?”

“His name is Ed and he works at the movie theater. He’s really nice and he bought me ice cream after the movie finished. We also had a lot in common, he likes the same things I do and I don’t know, there was this connection.”

“You had a vision, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, it was our wedding,” she added. Her mother smiled softly. “He asked if we could do something again, I said yes I hope you don’t mind.”

“Of course not, honey, whatever makes you happy I want you to do and it sounds like this boy makes you happy.”

“Thanks, mother. I’m going to bed so goodnight,” she kissed her cheek before heading upstairs to her bedroom. She slept soundly through the night, dreaming of Ed and the future of what she knew was going to be good.

#the conjuring fanfic #the conjuring 3 #ed warren #lorraine warren #lorraine x ed warren #Ed x Lorraine

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sailorfailures · 5 years

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October 29th is Setsuna Meiô/Sailor Pluto’s birthday!

So how can you celebrate?

♇ Rewatch or reread your favourite Pluto-centric chapter, episode, or musical! Pluto’s narrative role is one of solitude, the lone Guardian of the Space-Time Door, so it stands to reason she would have the fewest dedicated episodes in the series - but she does still have some! Try episode 75, where she is introduced in order to guide the Sailor Team into Chibi-Usa’s dream and save her from a phantom reaper; episode 82, where the Sailor Team meets her in person for the first time and they learn of her unique duty as she guides them through time; episode 121, where she discovers Tellu’s plot to use alien plants to absorb energy and helps Sailor Chibi Moon thwart her; episode 171, where an unusual pair-up sees her join forces with Sailor Venus to fight Nehellenia’s Mirror Paredri; or episode 182, where she is intrigued by the appearance of a mysterious young girl into Usagi’s life, and the three of them must fight off a new villain.

In other canons, she had much more of an impact on the R finale in the manga than the anime, so you could reread Act 24: Attack – Black Lady and Act 25: Confrontation – Death Phantom of the manga or watch their corresponding episodes in Sailor Moon Crystal. She was also much more prominent in the Musicals, so why not try watching a production from the classic Myu run like Eien Densetsu, Shin Densetsu Kourin, or Tanjou! Ankoku no Princess Black Lady, or a newer musicals like Petite Étrangère? Lastly, while she didn’t have a huge role in the SuperS anime season, she did feature in SuperS: The Movie after Sailor Moon S: The Movie along with the other Outer System Sailors.

♇ Sailor Pluto is one of only two of the ten main Sailor Soldiers not to receive an official vocal image song, but she does have an instrumental song called GARNET GUARDIAN and two solo songs in the classic Musicals, STAY ALONE and FORBIDDEN HADES. She also shares a song there with Queen Beryl called Onna no Ronsou (“Dispute Between Women”).

Here’s a playlist of all these songs and other Sailor Pluto BGM cues!

♇ Setsuna’s favourite “food” is tea, implicitly but not necessarily green tea, so steep a pot of your favourite loose leaf blend in her honour. There are actually a couple of official Sailor Moon teas, including “space” flavour (which apparently means rum and raspberries, an approximation of the sweet aroma of ethyl formate experienced by spacefarers), but there are also various fan-crafted blends on sites like Adagio or Etsy, or you could visit a teahouse with some friends. Of course, any tea becomes Pluto tea if you put your cup on a Pluto coaster. If tea isn’t your thing, just try and avoid her least favourite food for the day, which is eggplant.

♇ Sailor Pluto is a mysterious character, but we still know a few of her hobbies/interests. She would love to become a designer, even famously depicted wearing a (now vintage) 1992 haute couture Chanel dress, so you could dress up in your most high-fashion outfit, browse some style blogs for inspiration, or just watch The Devil Wears Prada for the 973154th time. She is also said to be talented at sewing, much like Sailor Jupiter, so it might be time to bust out the sewing machine and look up some elegant patterns - though word-of-Goddess also states that she likes to lounge around the house in hotpants, so you could, you know, just do that.

(Manga scan credit: SailorMusic.net)

She’s also a physicist, so you could read about or watch some science info-tainment, from a good old Carl Sagan documentary to a smaller YouTube channel like Physics Girl.

Her stated hobby is shopping, so why not embrace the 90s by going mall-trawling, patronise some local sellers, or browse online for ways to support small businesses or official series merchandise.

♇ Dress like Setsuna for the day! Setsuna had possibly the most iconic personal style out of all 10 Sailor Soldiers because she almost always wore the same outfit - a mauve two-piece suit inspired by Chanel’s 1992 Spring ready-to-wear collection. She did branch out into other outfits on occasion, though, particularly in the manga, where she dabbled in more risque looks. No matter what she wore, her style was always chic and elegant, giving the impression of a luxury designer brand, and it had a professional edge that separated her from the rest of the cast as a more mature working woman, featuring blazers, button-downs, statement jewellery, and bowties. You don’t need to own designer-label clothes to emulate Setsuna’s style - turn to YouTube or independent bloggers for tips on how to DIY some thrifted pieces so that they look ultra-fashionable without the price tag.

As Sailor Pluto, her image colours were black, grey, and maroon/reddish-brown, and when transformed, we could see she wore a plum lip tint. Her earrings were large, deep red (her favourite colour), and arrow-shaped, reminiscent of acrylic or enamel.

♇ As the Guardian of Time, her birthday is the best opportunity to get yourself organised. As the new year approaches, why not work out what your schedule will look like, and invest in a quality calendar, planner, or app that will help you achieve your fullest potential in the months to come?

♇ Setsuna is often portrayed as the loneliest Sailor Soldier, having to defend the Time Door all on her own. If you know someone who’s often isolated and could benefit from some social interaction, reach out to them and hang out for a while. It may make more of a difference than you think. Especially if you have a super-cute tiny polite purple kitten to bring with you.

♇ Have you considered dying dramatically then coming back to work the next Monday like nothing happened?

♇ If you’re still harbouring unrequited feelings... it’s time to move on. Take it from someone who’s pined for millenia.

♇ Fav and read some Sailor Pluto fanart and fanfic on sites like Pixiv, Twitter, and AO3 - or contribute your own new content! Don’t forget to tag!

Feel free to reply and reblog with your own ideas of how you’re going to celebrate Setsuna’s day!

Happy Birthday, Setsuna!

#Sailor Pluto #birthday #long post #Sailor Moon #Setsuna #Trista #tomorrow!

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becasbelt · 4 years

Link

Chapters: 4/12 Fandom: Pitch Perfect (Movies) Rating: T Relationships: Chloe Beale/Beca Mitchell Characters: Beca Mitchell, Chloe Beale, Dr. Mitchell (Pitch Perfect), Beca Mitchell's Mother, Aubrey Posen, Jesse Swanson Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, skateboarder!beca, Romance, Angst

* * *

CHAPTER 4

“Are you sure I’m not going to fall over?”

“I’m gonna hold onto you. You’re not going to fall.”

“What if you let go?”

“Chloe, I’m not going to let go.”

Chloe looks at Beca with unbelieving eyes. “I remember learning how to ride a bike, Beca. I know about the whole ‘make them believe you’re going to hold on and then let go after a while’ thing.”

Beca bites her lip to stop the grin threatening to break free. “I was… definitely not going to do that.”

“Sure you weren’t.”

Beca’s friendship with Chloe has progressively built over the past month or so. Usually Beca liked to be a loner and didn’t mind not having anyone to hang out with, but the ginger was just about the most persistent person Beca had ever met, besides maybe her father.

There hasn’t been a day that’s gone by since Beca joined the Bellas that Chloe hasn’t talked to her in some way. She always wakes up to a good morning text, and often falls asleep texting the affectionate redhead. Chloe liked to show up unannounced at Beca’s door with coffee, movies, or snacks, and Beca would always let her in with fake annoyance.

Beca didn’t know exactly what it was about the senior that made her accept her into her life so easily. Maybe it was the way Chloe never pried. She was always eager to share, and sometimes over share, details about her life, but she never forced Beca to talk about hers. She was kind and understanding, and she didn’t seem to mind Beca’s constant grumpiness and turbulent personality. She just seemed to get Beca in a way that no one else ever had.

It was fair to say that Beca was attracted to her a cappella-loving friend. When she’d first realized the fact, she had immediately tried to deny it and avoided Chloe for almost a solid two days.

Then Chloe had shown up at Beca’s dorm with ice cream, asking if she was okay, and Beca knew she was screwed.

So Beca liked Chloe, and she was pretty sure that Chloe was crushing on her as well, if the way she was always flirting with her and touching her was any indication. Which was honestly awesome, if you asked Beca.

A hot, funny redhead possibly liked her? Yeah, Beca would take that.

But Beca knew nothing could happen between them. If something casual were to develop, that would be great, but Beca had a feeling that Chloe Beale didn’t do casual.

Chloe Beale was the most passionate person Beca had ever met. She had an opinion on just about everything and cared deeply about most things in life. Beca guessed that she liked commitment, and was all-in when it came to relationships.

And Beca is leaving at the end of the year, which is decidedly not all-in in any way.

So Beca was fine to just be friends and ignore her feelings until the end of the year. Then she would go back to Seattle and probably forget that Chloe Beale ever existed in the first place.

At least that’s what she told herself.

But still, Beca couldn’t help but allow her eyes to drift to Chloe’s face every once in a while; let her touches linger longer than they should. A little harmless flirting never hurt anyone, right?

Sure, right.

Beca holds one hand up to her heart and raises the other square in the air. “I swear on my official BU rape whistle that I will not let go of you until you give me explicit permission to do so.”

Chloe giggles before forcing a serious expression on her face. “I will trust in the whistle,” she says solemnly. “Now, help me get on this death trap.”

Beca rolls her eyes affectionately and holds out a steadying hand for Chloe to take. “Hop on up, then, Tony Hawk.”

One of Chloe’s hands comes up to grip Beca’s as she places one foot on the purple and black deck. Then, she sucks in a breath and brings the other foot up. Chloe’s hands move to grip Beca’s shoulders from where she’s standing in front of the board. Beca brings her own hands up to hold Chloe’s arms.

“See?” she says once Chloe’s steady. “Not so scary.”

“Easy for you to say,” Chloe says, face bunched in concentration and focus. Beca can’t help but find the expression cute.

In fact, all of Chloe looks cute today, she thinks. She’s wearing some old, worn-out converse, ripped jeans, a BU snapback, and one of Beca’s flannels over a t-shirt because she had to look the part, Beca. Beca hadn’t fought her on the matter one bit. She didn’t dare say anything that would make Chloe want to change out of this look.

Oh yeah, she was royally screwed.

Beca realizes too late that she was openly checking Chloe out. When she looks back at Chloe’s face, the senior is wearing a smug smirk.

“What are you lookin’ at, Bec?” Chloe teases.

Beca feels her face flush. “Nothing,” she says quickly, causing Chloe to laugh. Beca moves so that she’s standing behind Chloe instead. “Let’s just do this thing. Maybe if I’m lucky you’ll crash into something.”

Before Chloe can come up with a comeback, Beca begins to push her. Chloe yelps at the sudden movement and throws her arms out for balance. This time it’s Beca’s turn to laugh. She settles her hands on Chloe’s waist and starts her on a slow roll down the sidewalk.

They’re at the skate park near Barden, though they’re sticking to the safety of the flat sidewalk. On top of the clothes, Chloe had also insisted she go to an actual skateboard zone to learn. Beca, of course, hadn’t minded one bit and just hopped into Chloe’s car.

Chloe rolls for a while, though her form still makes it look like she’s free-falling in midair. “Try putting your arms down to your side,” she suggests. “That way you won’t look like you’re trying to take flight.”

“I’m gonna fall if I do that.”

Beca rolls her eyes. “For the last time, you won’t fall down.”

Despite her hesitance, Chloe slowly lowers her arms down to her sides so that she looks more casual, though they still fly out every once in a while when she loses her sense of balance. Beca nods her head in approval.

“I’m gonna let of you now.”

“No, you can’t,” Chloe tells her. “You said you wouldn’t.”

“Yeah, well,” Beca replies, unconcerned. “We all say things in life we don’t mean, Beale.”

With that, Beca lets go of her hold on Chloe’s waist. Chloe’s hands immediately fly out to balance herself again. “Beca, you piece of shit!” she yells as she rolls away on her own.

Beca just laughs. “Loosen up,” she calls back to her, “and if you feel like you’re going to fall just hop off.”

Chloe does her best to follow Beca’s advice and eventually relaxes. After a while she successfully attempts a push with her foot. Beca whoops in response. Chloe makes a wide turn at the end of the path and skates her way back over to Beca. When she comes to a clumsy stop in front of Beca, she’s grinning from ear to ear.

“How was that?” she asks, seeming supremely proud of herself.

Beca shrugs her shoulders, but a grin is plastered on her own face. “You’re a natural, Chlo.”

Chloe flips her hair with an air of fake cockiness. “I know.” They both laugh and start walking back in the direction of the park, knocking their shoulders together playfully. “So,” Chloe says after a moment of quiet, “am I going to get to see some of your dope moves?”

Beca wrinkles her nose. “If you promise to never say ‘dope’ again, then sure.”

Chloe cheers and pushes the board into Beca’s hands. Beca holds it loosely by her side as she walks over to the edge of the bowl. Luckily there’s only one or two other skaters at the park today, so it isn’t overly crowded. She sets up her board so that it’s hanging over the side and places her feet in position. She looks behind her to see Chloe settled on a bench to watch and shoots her a wink before pushing forward and dropping into the bowl.

The familiar rush of adrenaline she always gets from skating fills her body, and soon all Beca can think about is the feel of the board beneath her feet, the wind rushing in her ears, and the feeling of weightlessness as she twists in the air. She only glances over at Chloe once when she hears her cheering loudly for her after she does a trick, and she shoots her a grin with her tongue stuck between her teeth in response.

After a couple minutes – or fifteen, she honestly doesn’t know – Beca flips up out of the top of the bowl. She’s breathless, more so from the thrill than the actual physical exertion. Smiling, she makes her way leisurely back to Chloe.

Chloe stands as Beca approaches, a dazed look upon her face. “I’m gonna say it,” Chloe says once she’s close enough. “Beca Mitchell, you are hot stuff.”

Beca blushes and brings a hand up to rub the back of her neck, looking to the side in embarrassment. “Yeah, well,” she mumbles, scuffing a toe against the pavement. “Everyone needs a hobby, right?”

Chloe hums in agreement and Beca looks back at her to see her looking her up and down with her bottom lip trapped between her teeth. Beca’s blush darkens. A second later, and Chloe seems to snap out of it. “So are there any other talents of yours that I should know about?”

She sounds like she’s joking, and Beca should just accept it as a joke, but for some reason Beca decides to take it seriously.

“Actually, there is one other thing you don’t know about me.”

* * *

Small fists slam down on the piano keys in frustration. A voice lets out a cry a moment later. “I hate this!”

Hesitant footsteps approach the front room. “Everything alright, Bug?”

Beca wipes an angry tear from her eye and sniffs. “Don’t call me that,” she mumbles. “I’m ten now, so I’m too old for that.”

Her father holds up his hands in surrender before making his way to stand next to where Beca sits on the piano bench. “Scooch over,” he says, nudging at her shoulder.

Beca slides over without a word, still glaring at the keys in front of her. “I hate the piano,” she grumbles bitterly.

“Is that so?” her dad asks, eyebrows rising. “And why is that?”

Beca crosses her arms. “It’s stupid. And hard. And the music is boring.”

Her dad nods his head solemnly. “Well, that is true,” he agrees.

“I never want to play again.”

“Okay, then don’t.”

Beca looks up at him in surprise. “What?”

He shrugs. “If you hate it so much, then just quit.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

A look of apprehension crosses Beca’s face. “Okay,” she says slowly. “Then I’m going to quit.”

Her dad smiles. “Good for you, Beca.”

With that, he turns towards the piano and places his hands on the keys. Beca listens glumly as he starts playing a sweet melody. Thinking he’s just showing off, she scowls and turns her head away to glare at the wall.

Then the melody starts to shift into a more familiar one. Beca turns her head slightly to look at her dad, only to see him already smiling at her. She turns her head away pointedly again. Undeterred, he continues playing until he suddenly stops, holding out the chord leading into the next phrase. Beca turns towards him again and sees him looking at her expectantly.

Stubbornly holding back a grin, Beca looks down at the keyboard. She slowly unfolds her arms and lays her right hand on the keys before playing the pickup notes leading into the next part of the melody. Her dad continues playing, accompanying the melody she plucks out. Eventually her left hand joins her right and it becomes a full duet.

They mess around for a while, trading the lead part back and forth and adding embellishments where they see fit until the song comes to a natural end. Her dad puts his foot down on the sustain pedal, letting their final chord hang in the air to fade out. He puts his hands in his lap and looks over at Beca with a casual expression on his face.

“You sure you want to quit?” he asks simply.

Beca shakes her head and smiles. “I guess not,” she admits. “Not yet, at least.”

* * *

The rehearsal room’s lights are turned off, the space lit by the light filtering in through the windows near the top of the bleachers. The setting sun bathes the room in an orange glow, illuminating dust particles in the air where the rays hit them. The atmosphere is quiet and still.

Beca sits on the bench in front of the old piano, wringing her hands nervously in her lap. Chloe sits next to her, surprisingly quiet for once, as if sensing that this is a big deal. She had asked no questions when Beca had led them here from the skate park, which Beca was grateful for.

If she had been asked any questions, Beca might have chickened out.

She still might.

At last, Beca finds the conviction to move. She rolls her shoulders back and takes a deep breath, shifting on the piano bench to get comfortable. She shakes her hands out slightly before hovering them over the keyboard. The moment her fingers make contact with the smooth ivory, she lets go of her breath and begins to play.

The melody that comes to life is sweet and soft and delicate, and Beca doesn’t even have to think of the notes to play it. It’s a song that she played often as a kid; one that her father eventually had to tell her to stop playing because he kept getting it stuck in his head when he tried to do work. She closes her eyes and lets the familiar movements take over.

Beca supposes that playing piano is a lot like riding a skateboard, in a way. Both fill you with emotions until you can hardly breathe, causing all thoughts to vanish from your mind except for what you’re focusing on right then. Both have highs and lows, whether they come from jumps and flips or rising dynamics and falling lines.

Both have a place in Beca's heart, and Beca thinks she’s finally beginning to understand that.

When the final chord plays, Beca sustains it for a while and allows the notes to ring through the air before slowly fading away, the room filling with silence once again. Except, Beca thinks she feels lighter now than before, somehow.

She opens her eyes and looks at Chloe to see a small smile on her face and amazement shining in her eyes.

And Beca supposes that Chloe Beale is not unlike music either; she fills you up and takes your breath away, leaving parts of her in your heart.

Beca feels her heart beat heavily in her chest.

After a long moment spent looking at each other, Chloe breaks the silence. “Where did you learn to play like that?”

“I might have taken lessons for a year or so. Or seven,” Beca admits sheepishly. “As well as voice lessons for six,” she adds as an afterthought.

Chloe shoves her, though not hard enough to push her off the small piano bench. “Beca Mitchell, why didn’t you tell me you were a music genius?”

Beca shrugs. “It never came up,” she reasons lightly, then becomes a little more serious. “Plus, I, uh… I don’t really do that stuff anymore.”

Chloe’s eyebrows furrow. “Why not?”

Beca looks away from Chloe’s concerned gaze. “It’s complicated,” she says quietly.

She feels a hand rest on her arm. Beca looks back at Chloe. “Well, regardless of if you enjoy it or not, I thought it was beautiful,” she punctuates her thought by gently squeezing her arm. “You are so talented, Beca.”

Beca suddenly has to fight off a wave of emotions at the words, and she feels herself leaning in towards Chloe without even realizing it. Chloe’s eyes are focused on her lips as she also leans in just the slightest amount. Beca glances down at Chloe’s lips for a brief moment, and she considers closing the distance.

Then, Beca pulls away and the moment disappears. She clears her throat and looks down at her hands in her lap. From the corner of her eye she sees Chloe try to act casual as well. Beca decides a change of pace wouldn’t hurt right about now.

“Want to go get some food?” she asks only slightly awkwardly. She tries for a more sarcastic tone. “I worked up an appetite showing off for you today.”

Chloe giggles and the tension releases. “Only if you let me pay for you, superstar.”

They get up from the small bench and walk out of the rehearsal room. Chloe makes sure to lock the door behind them and they set off on their way. Beca feels Chloe reach down to loosely entwine their fingers, and she can’t help but think that she’s kind of okay with where she’s ended up for the time being.

* * *

Beca’s first a cappella competition is about as dull as she expected it to be. Most of the groups are mediocre at best; between poor tuning, uninspired arrangements, and uncertain vocals, Beca is all around unimpressed.

Not that Beca knows or cares about anything a cappella related, of course.

The group performing currently shows mild promise, Beca thinks. They wear all black, and their light melody floats easily above the soloist. It’s nothing too flashy, which Beca respects.

Then they pull out sock puppets and Beca’s respect is immediately lost. Still, she can’t but admire their creativity, even if it is pretty lame.

Aubrey doesn’t seem too impressed by them, either. While the “Sockappellas” go through their set, she quickly tries to shut down any of the complimentary comments the rest of the Bellas have about them. “There’s no craft there,” she hisses. “Watching them will make you worse.”

Annoyance flares up in Beca. “At least they’re different,” she counters quietly. She doesn’t turn around to see Aubrey’s reaction, but she can feel the captain’s glare burning on the back of her head. Beca fights off a smirk.

The Sockappellas conclude their set and the Bellas clap politely for them before huddling up. “Hands in,” Aubrey tells them. The Bellas do as they’re told, and Beca sandwiches herself in between Cynthia-Rose and Lilly. “Remember, ‘ah’ on three,” Aubrey says sternly, and they all attempt to throw their hands up on three (after three?) once again with little success.

Chloe tries to calm Aubrey down from her frustration while the announcer on stage starts to announce them. “Let’s give it up for… the Barden Bellas!”

The crowd cheers and the Bellas start walking down the aisle towards the stage. They climb the steps and get into position, and Beca makes sure to tug her skirt down from where it’s ridden up.

She might end up quitting the Bellas because of the uniform alone.

Nevertheless, Beca poses with her hands on her hips and stares out into the audience, asking herself yet again how she managed to end up here.

Aubrey blows into the pitch pipe and tucks it into her blazer pocket before counting them in and their performance starts. Although Beca had been sceptic of the group when rehearsals first started because of how terrible they were, they had somehow managed to pull themselves together to be at least halfway decent.

The first half of their set goes off without a hitch, with no puking or any other bodily fluids flying out into the audience in any capacity. Chloe’s solo goes alright as well, though Beca does notice a few of the audience members start to dose off and lose interest in the middle of it. And Beca can’t really blame them; the set is pretty dull.

Still, Beca feels a sudden stab of annoyance that no one’s paying all that much attention to Chloe. She sounds great, and everyone in the audience should take a moment to appreciate her voice.

So Beca’s pretty done with the performance by the time Fat Amy’s solo comes around. What she is not expecting is the energy that the Australian manages to pump into the number. Amy goes completely rogue with the her performance, and Beca can see Aubrey glaring daggers at her as a result.

The thought of Aubrey being pissed off coupled with the ridiculousness that is Fat Amy is enough to make Beca smile all throughout the Aussie’s solo. She’s holding back her laughter by the end of their set, and she lets herself grin widely at the audience as they hold their finishing pose.

Amy soaks in the audience’s praise for a few moments before the Bellas bow and make their way offstage. Beca passes Jesse on their way down the aisle and he gives her a thumbs up before the announcer calls the Trebles up to the stage. The Trebles rush onto the stage in flurry of energy that makes Beca roll her eyes.

The Bellas group up together at the back of the auditorium to watch the Trebles’ actually good performance. Chloe sidles up next to Beca halfway through and Beca leans comfortably into her side, quickly losing interest in the Trebles. She glances up at Chloe to see her attention still focused avidly onstage.

The Trebles finish their set and the crowd erupts in cheers, clearly in love with the group of boys. Beca hears Aubrey scoff from behind her and just shakes her head, laughing at how ridiculously serious some people are about this whole a cappella thing. She starts playfully bumping into Chloe’s side to keep herself entertained as they wait for results.

Much to her surprise, they end up getting second, which is good enough for them to advance to the semi-finals. A part of Beca is proud that they were able to pull through so that they can advance, but a larger, louder part of her is kind of disappointed that she’ll have to keep rehearsing and going to competitions.

Unsurprisingly, the Trebles get first. Which Beca thinks is fair, because they were pretty much the only group with a worthwhile performance.

Beca expects Aubrey to immediately start lecturing them about what they should have done better as soon as the Trebles run out of the auditorium in a frenzy, trophy held high above their heads, but surprisingly she doesn’t say a word. She just ushers them out the door with a smile on her face behind the Trebles.

The scene that greets them out in the lobby is an absurd one. The Trebles seem to be squaring up against a group of four middle-aged dudes, though it isn't clear which side had started it. She watches them mouth off to each other for moment in amusement before a couple of the older men single out some of the Trebles – including Jesse.

A crease forms between Beca’s brows as she watches a short, black-haired guy start trying to convince Jesse to hit him. Beside her, Amy makes a punching motion, obviously thrilled by the violent turn, and Chloe places a hand on her shoulder to admonish her.

Jesse is obviously uncomfortable at the prospect of fighting a random stranger, and Beca feels some of her protective instincts rear up. Jesse may be kind of annoying, and nerdy, and way too into singing for her liking, but he is sort of her friend, damn it. If anyone was going to beat him up it would be her after he gets on her nerves too much.

“I’m just gonna,” Beca says absently to no one in particular, carefully climbing her way down the steps towards Jesse. “I’m just gonna check on him.”

Beca makes her way as quickly as she can in her heels over to Jesse and taps the man on his shoulder with a sharp “hey” to get him to turn around. He turns around, only to meet the end of her fist.

Now, Beca’s no pro fighter. Sure, she’s been in her fair share of tussles here and there because of dumb people from her high school, but she definitely wouldn’t say that she enjoys fighting.

Still, she’s got a mean left hook, which is coming in handy right about now.

The man falls to the ground and Beca shakes out her left hand, her knuckles stinging unpleasantly from the impact. The guy she just punched has a red mark on his cheek from where she hit him, but he looks thrilled for some reason. “Oh, that’s fantastic,” he says gleefully.

Thoroughly confused at this point, Beca looks over to see Amy, holding the Trebles’ trophy in her hands, advancing towards the psychotic man. “Feel the fat power!” she roars. Beca quickly goes to work trying to subdue the large Australian and grabs onto one side of the trophy, but Amy still manages to kick the guy in the balls, to which he responds equally as enthusiastically. Amy tries to pull the trophy out of Beca’s hands. “Give me the sharp weapon! I want to put it up his butt!”

The man gets on all fours and sticks his ass in the air. “Ooh, cherry on top,” he says excitedly.

Beca doubles down on her efforts to remove the trophy from Amy’s hands, and Amy automatically pulls it in the opposite direction. One moment they’re playing tug-of-war with it, and the next it’s flying through the nearby window. The larger part of the trophy crashes through the glass, shattering it instantly.

Shock courses through Beca’s system at the destruction, and she holds her hands, still clutching onto part of the trophy, up to shield her face from the flying glass. She slowly lowers her arms to see a police officer walking briskly towards the building and the people around her start to scatter. Amy runs down the hallway with a cry of “I’m vertical running!” while Beca stands frozen in her place.

The next thing she knows, handcuffs are being slapped around her wrists and she’s being led outside to a cop car. Before they reach the car, Beca hears her name being called from near the building. She looks over her shoulder to see Chloe running after her.

“Beca, what should I do?” Chloe asks in a panic once she’s close enough, looking as if she’s on the verge of tears.

Beca tries to twist around to see her better, but the cop holding onto her arm makes it difficult. “Everything’s gonna be alright, Chlo,” she tries to reassure her. “I’ll call someone to come sort things out. I’ll be fine.” Chloe looks like she doesn’t believe her, so Beca gives her reassuring smile. “I promise.”

Although she still looks hesitant, Chloe slowly nods her head. “Okay,” she says shakily. “Just… if I don’t hear from you within 24 hours, I will come and get you.”

The cop opens the door and Beca slides in, ducking her head so she doesn’t smack it on the frame. “Thank you,” she tells Chloe. “I’ll be alright. Just tell the girls to leave without me.”

The last thing Beca sees before the car pulls away is Chloe standing on the sidewalk, hands on her hips and looking like her entire world has dropped out from underneath her.

* * *

A cop comes to let her out before she’s even had her one phone call.

In all honesty, Beca had no plan when she’d told Chloe that everything would be fine. She didn’t really have anyone she could call; all of her friends were in the Bellas, her dad would literally kill her if he found out about this, and Kimmy Jin would probably hang up as soon as she heard Beca’s voice.

Beca’s been arrested before. Twice, in fact. The first time had been because she had been caught graffitiing with some of her buddies and the second was because she had been drinking at a party that got too out of control. Both times she had called her mom to come get her, which her mother did without a word, though Beca had felt the palpable disappointment coming from her.

Her mom wasn’t here now, so Beca had to come up with another plan. She’s just decided on calling Luke – sure, he’s her boss, but she also has a feeling he’s the type of guy to have both been arrested and also bail out his friends who have gotten arrested – when the door to her cell opens. She looks up to see a police officer standing in the now open cell door.

“You’re free to go,” he tells her gruffly.

Beca stands slowly. “How?” she asks, confused as she follows the cop out of the holding area. “I didn’t even call anyone.”

The officer shrugs. “Someone just came to pick you up. That’s all I know.”

He opens the door leading out into the police station lobby and Beca feels her blood turn to ice at who’s standing there.

“Dad?”

Her father looks at her sternly. “Let’s go, Beca."

He leads her out of the building and Beca can feel the anger coming off of him. “How did you know I was here?” she asks.

“Officer Presley is a friend of mine,” he answers shortly. His words are clipped and he doesn’t turn to look at her. “He recognized you and gave me a call to let me know what happened.” They reach his car and he finally turns to look to look at her, but Beca kind of wishes he’d turn back around. She can’t bear to see the look in his eyes.

“And you’re mad,” she says hesitantly. Might as well poke the bear and get it over with, she figures.

Her dad barks out a laugh. “Hell yes I’m mad, Beca,” he says, voice just edging on a shout. “I get a call in the middle of the night saying my daughter has been arrested for destruction of property? I think I have the right to be upset.”

Although she’s at fault here, Beca can’t help but get defensive. “I was putting myself out there,” she retorts. “Making memories.”

“If you think I’m going to let you drop out and go back to Seattle after this, I’m not,” her dad tells her firmly. “Get in the car.”

“You’re not even going to hear what I have to say?” Beca questions him desperately.

“No, not tonight,” her dad says, obviously done with talking. Beca pushes back the onslaught of frustrated tears that threaten to escape and climbs into the passenger seat. When her dad turns on the car, Frank Sinatra is playing on the stereo, and she immediately leans over and jabs her finger harshly on the power button, silencing the noise. Then she folds her arms and glares out the window.

The car ride back to campus is tense and quiet. Beca doesn’t speak and neither does her father. When he pulls up next to her dorm building, she pushes open the door and jumps out before the car has even made a complete stop. She slams the door shut behind her and storms to the building, not looking back once.

Beca walks dejectedly down the hall to her room, feeling angry and sad and frustrated. This wasn’t how this night was supposed to go. She was only supposed to go to the stupid competition, hopefully lose said competition, and then maybe cuddle Chloe to console her on the way home. She certainly wasn’t supposed to get arrested.

She just hoped her dad wasn’t serious when he said that she couldn’t quit school anymore. It had to be just a thing he said in the heat of the moment, fueled by anger, right?

Beca sighs and pushes her door open. She’s met with the sight of all the Bellas sitting in her room; piled on the bed, laying on the floor, or – in Aubrey’s case – perched in her desk chair. Various catcalls immediately sound from the girls at her entrance and Beca feels her spirits lift a little at the sight of these weirdos.

“What up, Shawshank?” Amy asks.

“Did you get yourself a bitch?” Cynthia-Rose inquires slyly.

“Did they spray you with a hose?” comes Amy’s second question.

Beca smiles a little and looks at Chloe, who’s sitting on the end of her bed next to Cynthia-Rose. “You guys waited up for me?”

“Of course we waited up for you,” Chloe says softly, pushing herself more upright on the bed.

Suddenly Kimmy Jin materializes in front of Beca. “They’ve been here all night,” she says sharply. “It’s a real inconvenience, Beca.” With that she he walks out of the room, slamming the door behind her.

Beca holds back a smirk at how upset her roommate is as Aubrey stands up from the desk chair. “Beca, I’m glad you’re here,” she says formally, which Beca thinks is odd, considering this is her room. “Our scorecard revealed that the Sockappellas almost beat us. Fat Amy,” she turns her attention on the Aussie, who smiles cheesily up at her. “You have to stick to how we’ve rehearsed,” Aubrey lectures sternly. “No more surprises.”

“We should be taking risks,” Beca interjects, and Aubrey’s attention snaps to her. “It’s not enough to be good; we need to be different.”

Aubrey stares at Beca as if she’s just grown a second head. “And where is this coming from?” she asks incredulously. “You go through rehearsals all year as if you hate being there and now you suddenly want to start making suggestions? That doesn’t seem quite right to me, Beca.”

Beca clenches her jaw to keep from lashing out at Aubrey’s patronizing tone. “Look,” she says through her teeth. “If you want to keep doing the same set over and over again, it’s none of my business. I could not care less,” Beca shakes her head. “But I can’t have been the only one to notice how half our audience was asleep, right?”

She looks at the others and is relieved to see some of them nodding their heads in hesitant agreement. She opens her mouth to speak again but Aubrey cuts her off. “I have the pitch pipe, and I say we do the set-list as planned.”

Chloe starts to speak, “Aubrey, maybe we should consider trying something else-”

“Aca-scuse me?” Aubrey interrupts sharply. Chloe’s mouth snaps shut. Beca’s eyes narrow upon seeing the look of shame that crosses Chloe’s face. “This is the last I want to hear about any this. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going home so I can get some rest. I’ll see you all at rehearsal tomorrow.”

With that, Aubrey shoots one last glare at Beca, which she reciprocates, and exits the room. There’s an awkward silence that follows her departure, and it’s broken by Amy clearing her throat. “Welp,” she says, pushing herself to her feet with a huff. “I think I’ll take my leave as well.” She heads to the door and the rest of the Bellas soon follow suit, murmuring their goodbyes as they leave. Soon, all that’s left is Beca and Chloe.

Chloe stands up from the bed slowly and turns to Beca. Beca gives her a small smile. “Well, thanks for waiting up for me, I guess,” she says awkwardly. Chloe nods her head.

“Of course. It was the least I could- I mean, we, could do.”

Beca smiles for real at her little slip up and folds her arms over her stomach. “I really did appreciate it,” she says sincerely and looks down at her feet.

Then, all at once she’s being enveloped in Chloe’s hug. Strong arms come up around her shoulders and Beca lets her arms loop around Chloe’s middle as warmth fills up every corner of Beca’s body. For once she doesn’t complain; she just lets herself be held. She buries her face in Chloe’s shoulder, breathing in her familiar scent, and feels calmer than she has all night.

She feels a kiss being pressed to the top of her head, and for the first time Beca lets herself think that if Chloe were to remain at Barden for some reason, it wouldn’t be so bad being forced to stay.

#fanfic #pitch perfect #bechloe #beca mitchell #chloe beale #life is not a love song

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scifinal · 4 years

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DW s12e10: It's Quite Unfortunate That This Child Keeps On Regenerating

It's only fitting that the first post on a blog called "SciFinal" should be about a season finale.

Not that fitting is the fact that in said post I'm going to begin where it all started for me.

Part One: How I Even Got into This Mess of a Show in the First Place

While I call myself a huge Doctor Who fan, even a – *gasp* – Whovian, I must admit I am not as familiar with the franchise as I would like to be; I've seen the new show, I've seen Torchwood (though, admittedly, I had to force myself to finish the fourth season – but that's a story for another day), I've listened to a handful of audio dramas (including Kaldor City, which I consider to be canon for both DW and Blake's 7) – mostly Torchwood audio dramas, but who cares, – I've read a couple of comics, I've got a novel or two somewhere on my bookshelf, I've seen the first couple of seasons of the classic show, but that's about it. I can't say I grew up with it – it wasn't on TV when I was a kid, there isn't an official Ukrainian dub, et cetera, et cetera. I first heard about it when I was about thirteen, when my classmate did a project about something they liked – and was pretty dismissive of my peers' hobbies at the time, believing myself to be somewhat above them, so I didn't pay much attention.

Then somebody finally pressured me into watching it (I believe I was fifteen or something back then) and I loved it. The first two episodes of the first season, I mean. I watched those, texted my friend something like "consider me a Whovian now!" and abandoned the show completely only to return to it maybe several years later.

I loved it. This time, for real.

Doctor Who has been with me ever since that time, it has a big soft spot reserved for each and every Doctor ever in my heart, and for each and every companion. I know full well it's cheesy, and it's stupid, and it's technobabble-y, and it's glorious in all of its cheesy technobabble-y stupidity.

And I hate this finale.

Part Two: Doctor, Why

I hate this finale – because I hate Chris Chibnall. Mind you, not the gentleman himself (I don't even know what he looks like, and I can't be bothered to Google), I hate what he did to Doctor Who.

Now, when it was revealed that the would replace Steven Moffat I felt... nothing. What did you expect? I had no idea who the man was. I know now he's made Broadchurch, and I know he wrote a bunch of stuff for Torchwood back in the day, including Cyberwoman. I had to drop Broadchurch because of how well-handled the depressing atmosphere was, and I love the flawed, dumb, sexy-cyber-bikinied, almost-fifteen-minutes-of-Ianto's-whining-including (I know because some time ago I literally cut almost every single moment of Gareth David-Lloyd whimpering, moaning, groaning, screaming, and mugging at the camera out of the episode and made those bits and pieces into a beautiful clip show called "I HATE THIS" to explain exactly why his face was and still is so punchable) mindless fun that is Cyberwoman (this is also one of the two episodes in which they actually do something fun with the pterodactyl living inside Torchwood's underground base). The latter also led to the creation of one amazing in how it develops Ianto's character audio drama entitled "Broken". I love Broken. I am now forcing you to look at its cover because of how much I love it.

Here we go. Now, back to the point of me rambling pointlessly

In his video "Sherlock Is Garbage, and Here's Why", a well-known YouTuber hbomberguy pointed out how Steven Moffat's problem is that he is more than capable of writing a good one-off episodes, but ultimately fails at managing multiple complex, overarching stories, as visible when you look at the difference between Moffat's individual episodes and his run on the show.

Now, I believe that Chris Chibnall suffers from the same affliction: he's a good screenwriter but a terrible, terrible showrunner. Sure, he's made Broadchurch, but Broadchurch, in its essence, was a complete singular story with a beginning, a middle, and an end. There were no bigger, incomplete arcs expanding at the expense of other episodes, and the show did exactly what it was originally designed to do: it told an uninterrupted story.

Here comes Chris Chibnall's run on Doctor Who.

Now, while Steven Moffat was ultimately not very good at managing overarching stories, he tried to do so nonetheless, and the fans seemed to like his attempts. And while I can't be sure as to whether it was Chris' original vision for the show or he and his co-writers were merely trying to emulate Moffat, he attempted the same. A friend of mine has even pointed out how, to her, it was painfully obvious how the writers of the finale were desperately trying to copy Moffat's style (to give you some context, she grasped it from a 30-second clip of the CyberMasters' reveal, and that clip basically consisted of me filming my laptop's screen and laughing at their design, making the video wobbly and the audio distorted). At the time of writing this post this friend hasn't seen a single episode of Chibnall's era and, as far as I know, has no wish to do so – mainly because of two reasons that both have something to do with the finale:

Somebody's already spoiled it for her, so who cares;

I ranted to her about how shit this finale is and now she hates everything about Chibnall era.

I am very sorry for the latter, since I genuinely believe there are some nice episodes in these seasons, and I especially like the "historical" ones, they really are quite a lot of fun, I like Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison fighting badly CG-ed alien scorpions, I love Lord Byron and Mary Shelley running around a haunted house trying to escape from a Cyberman (even though it's all too similar to the Agatha Christie episode from Russel T Davies' run), I adore that episode about Rosa P–– oh, wait, no, that one was crap and ripped off Blake's 7... Anyway, I love Jodie Whittaker's Doctor, I am a big fan of Graham, I like Ryan just fine, and I can put up with Yaz, even though it's been two seasons and I've still got no idea what's her personality supposed to be, and I absolutely love the new Master (he reminds me of a cute little pug with a big Tommy gun). There is plenty of good stuff in these two seasons, they are lots of fun to watch, but this finale... Oh god, this finale.

Part Three: We Had All of Time and Space at Our Fingertips and We Ended Up with This

We are getting to the point of this whole thing. I would love to begin with the obvious, the twist, but there's so much wrong with this who-cares-how-many-parter than this one big thing.

It is inept. It is impotent. It is incompetent. It is bad at almost everything except its okay camera work, somewhat good (for a British TV show, I mean) effects, and its really solid performances.

Its editing is tone-deaf to the extreme. There is a moment in the final episode where Ko Sharmas asks who will be the first to cross the Boundary and step into the unknown, and immediately it cuts to Yaz walking towards it, all fast and silent. I would love to show you a clip of it, but I don't have one and I can't force myself to download the episode and sit through this shitshow again just to present you with a ten-second clip. Nonetheless, that part is not edited like a dramatic moment. You edit comedies this way. Bad comedies. Bad editors edit bad comedies this way.

Its plot is incoherent. There are several plot threads in this finale, and they're managed in a way that doesn't make the viewer care about all of them at the same time, rather the viewer goes "oh, I've completely forgotten this was happening" and then, before they can even begin to care, the show cuts to something else. It's all over the place and oh so annoying.

The plot armour is painfully obvious despite every attempt to disguise it. There wasn't a single, solitary second when I believed the Doctor was really going to sacrifice herself and, lo and behold, here comes the old guy ex machina to do it for her. The only questions I was asking at that moment were "How are the writers going to prevent the Doctor's death now that they've seemingly created themselves a way to go on forever?" and "How can Whittaker care so much about her performance in this scene she's literally almost crying?". I wholeheartedly related to the Master asking "So why are we still here?" and shout–– hiss–– mumbl–– whatever-ing "Come on, come on, come on!" – at that point I've suffered through at least forty-five minutes of utter nonsense, people going preachy, religious Cybermen with Dalek motivations, that absolutely ludicrous scene in the previous episode when the show was trying its worst to make me perceive autonomous flying Cyber-heads with laser eyes as a serious threat, a shit twist and... Oh.

I've got to finally touch on the shit twist, haven't I?

It doesn't make sense. No, I mean it. I guess it makes sense from the show's writers' standpoint to retcon everything in a way that would allow them to go on forever without having to come up with a way to circumvent limited regenerations, yes. And I won't be touching upon all the lore people say this twist has ruined. No. It doesn't make sense as it is.

The twist is revealed to us by a madman that claims to have hacked into a database, claims to possess control over the Doctor's mind, and gives the Doctor and the audience no actual solid proof that the Timeless Child is, indeed, the Doctor. We have Ruth, sure, and she's nice enough (damn, I want that vest), and she's a Timelord that happens to own a TARDIS that looks like a blue police telephone box, and she calls herself the Doctor. Here's Ruth:

I really like Ruth. She also makes no sense from the show's timeline standpoint, since the Doctor's Type 40 TARDIS only got stuck looking like a police box in 1963, so there's no reason for the Doctor to not remember being her.

We also know that the Judoon have identified Ruth as "the Fugitive"... except in one of their previous appearances in the show they weren't able to identify their targets exactly and thus were seeking out non-humans. There is a possibility that they were only looking for a Time Lord on Earth.

You know what? It's possible that Ruth is actually the Master messing with the Doctor. I have just as much proof of this as I have of the fact that the Doctor is some kind of an endlessly regenerating superbeing.

But this is not the most maddening thing here. I loathe it, but I don't loathe the twist itself: I loathe its lifelessness, I loathe how empty, how unemotional, almost robotic it feels. When somebody'd spoiled the finale for me, I got angry, and I started asking questions, and when later I saw the actual thing...

This gif. I can't even explain how accurate it is. I stood there, in the middle of my kitchen, episode paused, holding a cup of cold tea and desperately looking around as if in my surroundings I could somehow find that emotional reaction that this show failed to evoke. I was ready to burst into tears of how empty it felt, and how empty I felt, and how the same show that has Christopher Eccleston go from literally foaming at the mouth with pure hatred to shocked silence in a matter of second because of one sentence that you, a viewer, can't help but be astonished by failed to make me feel the tiniest speck of literally any emotion. And slowly, I felt that vast void in my chest fill with sheer, pure, flaming hatred for the person who made me feel nothing, for the story that left me not bored – but empty.

And the next moment, in its own unique way of being absolutely tone-deaf, the show introduces the CyberMasters, looking ridiculous, being asinine in concept, making me burst into laughter with their dumb design. Wow.

So.

Chris Chibnall's Doctor Who is no longer a show. Chris Chibnall's Doctor Who isn't even, as somebody on Stardust said, a fan fiction. It's a rollercoaster. A lackluster rollercoaster that lifts you from the vast caverns of frozen hell, devoid of any life whatsoever, soulless and abandoned, to the heavenly torture of being so bad, so utterly awful and ridiculous, that you can't help but laugh as you watch something you used to love be distorted and deformed to the point where you can't recognise it anymore nor really care. This is what Chris Chibnall's Doctor Who has become. And I'm going to continue my ride on that grotesque rollercoaster. I'm going to pirate that ride and get on it again. Because I'm a masochist. Because I want to feel something, even if it's hatred towards those that make me feel nothing.

Because some time ago my fifteen-year-old self watched the first season and learned a lesson that I hold dear after all these years – that I can't abandon hope, and that someday, somehow, things are going to get better. That the future is being written right now. That the future can change.

#doctor who #thirteenth doctor #doctor who review #i hate this #review #sci fi

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fics-for-my-heart · 5 years

Text

Tinder Boy (b.h) (p2)

Summary: From train rides and weird left swipes to just a tiny white lie

Word count: 5772

Warning: some language, poorly written angst

A/N: This is part two of a (now) three part series. A really appreciate all the comments and such you guys have shared. And the encouragement in this piece being so long. Please keep it coming.

Masterlist

Part One Part Two Part Three

It’s been three days since you met Ben Hardy on the train. Three days of texting, one late night phone call, and a question you needed to ask him but weren’t sure how. You’d been juggling the topic back and forth all day and we’re currently pacing your room.

He’d come here for some press events for his new movie and had been going almost none stop since he left the station. But he’d still text you, and even checked to make sure you made it home safe the night you went out with some friends, and teased you about your hangover the next morning.

The problem? Your mom wouldn’t stop. Every time you were even looking at your phone she was at you. “Is that the boy from the station?” “Y/N. I’m serious. Ask the boy over for dinner would you.” “He was handsome, and don’t think I didn’t see him carry your bags!”

Finally, you just snapped. “Okay mom, fine. He’s my boyfriend!” You slapped your lips closed and your heart fell out of your ass.

“Oh.” She responded. Taking a moment to process what you said with a clap of her hands. “OH! I just knew it! I could tell by the way you were looking at him.” You rolled your eyes at her exaggerated remark. “Y/N you simply must invite him to dinner now.”

So, here you were, pacing your room, waiting to hear from him after what you hoped wasn’t too sketchy of a text.

You: Ben?

Benny: Hey! I have two more interviews and I’ll be able to chat! X

You: Cool, cool. Could you call me when you’re done? I need to talk to you.

You: It’s uh, nothing too serious.

Time seemed to slow. You knew that the interviews lasted anywhere from thirty minutes to an hour. Hopefully not too long though because you weren’t leaving your room till you spoke to Ben. (Also, you really really needed to avoid your mother.) After a few more minutes, you flopped onto your bed and closed your eyes.

The shrill sound of your phone ringing woke you with a start. Benny was across the screen and you quickly gathered yourself before answering.

“Hello!” You hoped he couldn’t tell you’d been asleep, or that you were suddenly nervous about hearing his voice.

“Hello, hun. Everything alright? Your text was a bit... cryptic.” You could hear people in the background, and the sound of doors shutting.

“Are you busy? It’s really not that important. It can wait.” You were on your feet again. Stomach in a twist and your fingers pushing your lip between your teeth.

Another door closed and it was silent. Ben didn’t speak for a moment, but you could hear him moving stuff around. “Nope. Not busy. We just officially wrapped the interviews and I just got cozy in my hotel room. So. Are you okay?” There was concern laced through is words and it made your heart tighten.

“Well. Yes and no. Um. Remember how my mom wouldn’t stop talking about you? Going on and on about how handsome you were and how cute we would be together?”

“I tend to have that effect. Keep going my ego is loving this.” He laughed, and you did too.

“Oh, sush. Before I continue, I need to know something.” You paused a moment, hearing him “uh huh”. “Was that offer of if I need a fake boo a real offer?”

“It could be. I wouldn’t be opposed.” He sounded so casual about this, while you were still nibbling at your lip and lowkey freaking out.

“Okay, so just know you can say no. But….Uh….I kinda told my mom that you were my boyfriend and now she insist even more so that you come to dinner.” Your eyes squeezed tight as you waited for his response.

He giggled. Actually fucking giggled. “Y/N, I’d love to be your fake boo.”

You couldn’t help the sigh as relief washed over your entire body. “Really? Oh Ben. Thank you. Are you sure it isn’t too much?”

“I’m sure. I don’t have anything planned for the rest of the month so I’m free. And I wouldn’t mind spending more time with you. I can extend my stay at my hotel no problem.”

Before you could process what you were going to say you spoke. “You can stay here. I’m only here for four more days and there’s no need to spend money to stay somewhere.”

“If you’re sure, it’s a deal. So, what’s the plan?”

———

The sound of the cafe wasn’t enough to calm your nerves. You and Ben had agreed to meet at a cafe downtown to decide how you would go about this scheme. He’d said he was on his way, only ten minutes out. But that was almost twenty minutes ago. Your head jerked around every time the bell chimed on the door, and your mind started replaying your conversations. What if he changed his mind and you never heard from him? What if he was really just in it for one thing and was just playing you? What if- Your thoughts were cut short by a hand on your shoulder.

“Y/N?”

You looked up and relief washed over you. “Hi, Ben!” You stood up and hugged him.

“I’m so sorry I was late. I walked here, and there were more people than I expected who wanted to stop for pictures.” He removed his hat, running a hand through his hair as he watched your face.

“You’re fine. You’re a movie star and people love you.”

He blushed a bit, but before he could respond, someone came and took his order. “So.” He started, turning his full attention to you. “How are we going to go about this, boo?”

You shook your head and gave a laugh. “Well, we can start with some rules if you’d like? I hear that's how most of these fake relationships start.”

“Alright.” He pursed his lips. “First rule. If we go out to eat I’ll pay.” He put his hand up as you went to protest. “Nope. It’s a rule. Next rule please.”

You hummed as you thought. “No overdoing the PDA. My dad would have a cow. Mom might gush over some kissing. If you’re comfortable with that.”

Ben nodded. “I don’t mind. We don’t even have to if you don't want to.” You nodded and he continued. “We should take some photos together, maybe?”

“Yes. My mom has already asked to see some. I told her you had them all because my phone reset.” You laughed, holding your phone up to take his picture. “Perfect.”

“I already took one of you.” He blushed again, turning his phone to show you a picture of yourself, drink in hand, looking out the window deep in thought.

You could feel the heat rising up your face, so you quickly changed the subject with a nod. “We need a backstory. I’ve kinda thought of one.” He nodded and you continued. “So, I’m going to school for public relations. We could say that we met five months ago when you came in for a meeting and our relationship bloomed from there?”

“I like it. We can say that I thought you were so gorgeous that I forgot how to breath.” The way he was looking at you, mixed with the seriousness of his voice made your heart flutter.

“I like it.” You smiled at him, watching his eyes light up as he smile back. “Okay. So. Tell me a little about yourself. Anything you feel is important for a significant other to know.”

The two of you spent almost two hours talking. You talked about broken bones, pets, past relationships, and siblings. He told you about filming for his movies, how close he still is with the cast of BoRhap, and about his upcoming film. You told him about your studies, hobbies, and favorite books. Anything the two of you hadn’t shared the days leading up to being here.

Eventually your mother called, interrupting a conversation about music. “Honey. Where on earth are you?”

“I thought I told you, I’m picking up Ben.”

“Ope! I forgot! Oh boy! I need to make dinner. What does he like better, spaghetti or chicken Parmesan?”

You repeated the question, then answered with Ben's response. “He said either is fine, but hasn’t had Chicken Parmesan in a while.”

“Okay, I’ll get it started. It should be ready when you get here. Love you!”

“Love you too.” You said, hanging up. “We should probably get going. She’s starting on dinner.”

“Alright. I need to stop and grab my bags and check out and then I’m good to go.”

You drove Ben to his hotel, joining him up to his room to help with his bags. Once he checked out, the two of you made your way to your house.

By the time you pulled into the driveway, you looked over at Ben. “It’s not too late to back out.”

He placed his hand over yours, lightly rubbing his thumb over your knuckles. “Nope. Let’s go, love.”

“Mom? We’re home!”

“In the kitchen!”

Your stomach grumbled loudly as you made your way close to the kitchen, earning a laugh from Ben.

“It smells amazing!” You said, stepping aside. “Mom, this is Ben.”

She spun around, her face lighting up. “Oh! Hello! It’s nice to meet you!” She came over and gave him a big hug. Then stepping back to look at him and realization took over. “You’re that actor! I’ve seen you on tv. Y/N you didn’t tell me he was an actor!”

“I didn’t think it was that big a deal.” You shrugged, giving Ben an apologetic smile as your mom kept smiling at him.

“It’s nice to meet you Mrs. Y/L/N. Y/N has told me so much about you.” He kissed her cheek and she blushed a bright red.

“You are too sweet, I wish I could say the same about you though.” She gushed, turning just in time to see you dip your finger in the sauce. “No no! Dinner is just about done. Go get Ben situated and it’ll be ready.”

“Did you get the guest room fixed up?”

She flicked her wrist, “No, he can stay in your room. You’re both adults.”

You gave Ben a wide eyed look and he just shrugged with his eyebrows slightly raised.

“O..okay. Yeah, that’s awesome. Thanks. We’ll be down in a bit.” You quickly walked toward the door, grabbing Ben’s hand and leading him to the steps. “You can totally sleep in the guest room if you want.” Your voice was a whisper as you pushed your door open.

Ben closed the door while looking around your room. “It’s up to you. You could give me a pillow and blanket and I’ll sleep on the floor.” He gave you a reassuring smile as he sat on your bed. “Your mom seems incredibly happy that you’re in a relationship.”

“Yeah.” You replied softly, turning to move some things around on your dresser. “It’s been a while. She’s always on my case about me ‘not getting any younger’.”

“My mom is the same way. Every time we talk she wants to know about my relationships.

“That’s how mine was,” you joined him on the bed, sitting cross legged facing him. “That’s partly why I snapped.”

“Let’s stop at my moms on the way back.” He joked.

“Hey if this goes well, why not.”

A knock at your door caused you to both jump. “Dinners ready!”

Dinner went by smoothly. Your parents asked all the typical questions about Ben. He continued to compliment your mom on the food, and talked with your dad about sports. It was nice to have a family meal and not hear about your lack of relationship. And it was nicer to see them getting along with Ben. But there was a twinge of pain in your chest that this was pretty much a lie.

“Y/N?” Ben’s voice pulled you from your thoughts, his hand was over yours. “You alright?”

“Yeah, sorry I was thinking about an assignment I have due before break is over.” You lied, smiling and forking the last bit of food into your mouth.

Your mom shook her head. “Always a busy bee. I said Angie is coming over tomorrow with the kids. Will you help me bake some cookies?”

“Yeah sure! I miss the little stinkers.” You piled your fork and knife on your plate, looking around the table. “I’ll wash up, if you all are done.”

While you did the dishes your parents and Ben talked in the living room. Just as you were finishing up, a pair of arms wrapped around your waist and a chin came to rest on your shoulder.

“Your mom’s behind me.” Ben whispered in your ear. His breath sent a shiver down your spine that you hope he couldn’t feel.

“You two are so cute. Your father and I are going to head to bed. Love you!”

“Love you too mom!” You smiled, Ben nuzzled his head further into your neck. He stayed that way even after she was gone. “Sleepy?” He nodded. “We can go to bed too if you want.”

He let go of you, let you dry your hands then softly took one in his hand and led you upstairs.

“Can I take a shower?” He asked, picking up some clothes from his bag.

“Yeah, it’s down the hall to your left.”

You quickly changed and got comfortable in bed with a book. When he returned your eyes almost bugged out of your head. He was just wearing a pair of sweatpants, his hair slightly damp. He glanced around the room before looking up at you. “Do you have an extra pillow and blanket?”

“Shoot. Sorry. I meant to get them for you. Uh. You can sleep in the bed if you want. It might be a bit odd if my mom comes in and you’re on the floor.”

“If it’s fine with you, sure.” He smiled, walking around to the other side of the bed. “You parents are really nice.”

“I hope they didn’t embarrass me too bad.” You scoot a little, not that you needed too really.

“Your mom pulled out a baby book and showed me a picture from where you cut your own hair in third grade.” He wiggles around a bit before pulling the covers over himself and grabbing his phone.

Your jaw dropped. “No. You’re lying.” He had a huge grin on his face as he turned his phone around, showing you your third grade class picture. “Oh. My. God. Ben. No. Delete that!”

“But you look so cute!” He pulled his phone away as you reached for it. “I think you did a decent job!” He was laughing now as you reached over him.

“I hate you.” You groaned, reaching down and digging your fingers into his side. He erupted in a fit of laughter, rolling around trying to get away from you.

“S..st..stahahahp!”

You stopped, keeping your hands at his sides. “Will you delete it?”

He took a second to catch his breath before laughing and nodding. “Yes. Yes. Just please don’t tickle me anymore.”

You moved back to your spot, picking your book back up. “No promises.”

“Rude.” He poked your leg, making himself comfortable again.

“Will my reading bother you? I can turn the light off.”

“ ‘s fine.” He locked his phone and rolled over, facing you. “Goodnight.”

“Goodnight, Ben.”

——

When you woke up, your pillow was harder than normal, and warmer than normal. You reached up to touch it only to have a hand stop you.

“Don’t do it.” Ben said, lightly kissing the top of your head.

“Oops. I didn’t mean to roll over on you.” You didn’t plan on moving though.

Ben moved his phone to the other hand and placed the one around you on your back. “It’s fine. It worked actually because your mom came in earlier to see if we were awake. You should have seen how cute she looked when she saw us like this.”

You groaned. “I’m sorry she’s being weird.”

“Nah it’s fine. There is something you should see though.” He laughed nervously. He tapped on his phone for a moment before holding it down to your level.

“Ben hardy seen with mystery woman?” Was across the screen with photos of the two of you waiting for the elevator at his hotel, driving away and even one at the cafe.

“Oh boy.”

“Joe sent it to me, and I quote ‘excuse me sir you have some splainin to do’ with a gif from I love Lucy.” He swiped off the photo to show you the message.

You rubbed a hand over your face. “You just responded with a wink face. Oh lord.”

“Eh. I’ll tell him eventually. You should see the WhatsApp chat. It’s just the boys sending eye and tea emojis. I had to turn the notifications off.” He laughed, you could feel the vibration in your cheek, followed by a small grumble sound.

You sat up, taking in his bed head with a smirk. “Hungry?”

“God yes. I was waiting for you to wake up.” As soon as you moved he was up out of bed. He slipped a hoodie on the held open a robe that was on your chair.

“Slow down buddie.” Your face was hurting from smiling at how weirdly excited he was.

“I love breakfast and your mom said she’s making French toast.” He practically dragged you down the steps.

Breakfast was, per usual, amazing. She had some fresh fruit to go along with the French Toast and cool whip. When Ben finished his second plate he gave a pleased sigh and rubbed his belly.

“Mrs. YLN, I have to say I think that was better than my mom’s.” His eyes widened. “Don’t tell her I said that.”

“Your secret is safe with me.” Your mom responded, she reached over and took your plates. “Dear, I want to start baking around noon. Your sister will be here around three.”

“Sounds good. Do you need us to do anything?”

“Nope, I sent your father to the store so the two of you are good to spend the next few hours how you like.”

Ben smiled. “Got any movies?”

“Dude. We have an entire wall of movies. Dad’s been collecting them since before I was born. The basement is like a little movie theater.”

The two of you went to the basement, chatting about movies along the way. It wasn’t anything fancy, just two comfy couches and a big screen TV. The part that amazed Ben was the bookshelves full of movies.

“Wow. You weren’t kidding. I don’t know if I have time to choose one.”

“We still have three days.” You plopped down on the couch watching him skim the shelves. “We can come back down tonight and spend the next two down here.”

“Sweeeeet.” He looked a bit more before stopping. “What’s Spirited Away? I’ve seen a lot about it but never seen it.”

Your mouth dropped. “Only one of the best movies ever.” You jumped up, making grabby hands. “Sit. We will watch this first.”

You put the movie in, quickly getting it started before turning the lights off and sitting back on the couch. “Y/N.” Ben said softly as the beginning music started. “Wanna cuddle? Just, ya know, in case your parents come in.”

“Uh, yeah. Yeah, sure.” Your heart was fluttering as you fitted yourself into the space under his arm. He smelled good, and was warm. You definitely would miss this when everything was over.

“Let’s fuck with the boys too.” He laughed, pulling your leg over his, snapping a picture with the title of the movie. He sent it to their snap group chat. “That’ll really bother them because I still haven’t responded to-,” his phone buzzed. “Damn. Joe works fast.”

He opened the snap to a picture of Joe with his face super close to the camera. Across the screen was “COME ON WHAT'S HAPPENING!?!?”

You shook your head, using it as a way to push yourself a little closer to him. You could feel his chest moving as he laughed. Snapping back with “watching a movie bro”.

“You’re going to drive him crazy.”

Ben shrugged, wrapping his arm tighter around you and putting his phone down. “He’ll be okay for a few more hours.”

Aside from the occasional question here or there Ben was pretty quiet. You looked up once, thinking he was asleep, only to find him wide eyed at the tv.

“That was so good. Now I see why those soot sprites are so popular, they’re adorable!”

“Right, it was one of the first Studio Ghibli movies I watched.” You patted his chest, rubbing your face lightly against him before getting up, his arm following you till you were out of reach.

“You mean there’s more? Alright. We have to have an entire marathon of them.” He nodded his head as he spoke, opening his phone and laughing. “Look at this.”

You snapped the dvd closed and walked over to him, taking his phone. It was a picture of Rami from Joe. He was looking at a computer with a magnifying glass. “We will find out boy.”

“Wow, are they always this weird? Oh! I should send them a selfie.” You looked at Ben for approval.

The smile on his face grew bigger as he pulled you into his lap. “I like your thinking.”

Holding the phone up, you made sure to get Ben’s head over your shoulder. “This should help.” You added with a tongue face.

“Oh yes. Perfect.” He lightly kissed your shoulder before releasing you.

Before you could respond, your mother called for you.

“You wanna join us?” You were still sitting on his lap.

He thought a moment before shaking his head. “I think I’ll take a nap. But save me some cookies.”

“Will do sweet thing.” You laughed and patted his cheek before hopping up and heading to the kitchen.

——

“Which do you want to make next?” You asked your mom, sliding the tray of chocolate chocolate-chip cookies into the oven.

You mom skimmed her recipe book. “What about peanut butter? It’s been awhile since we’ve made them.”

You gave an excited jump. “Those are my favorite.” You dug around in the cabinet. “Uh. We don’t have any peanut butter.”

“Rats. It was on the list I gave your father.” She wiped her hands on her apron while shaking her head. “He forgot to get more noodles too so I’ll run back out. Is there anything you can think of?”

“Nope.” You glanced at the ingredients you had laid out on the kitchen island. “I think I’ll make some brownies.”

“Sounds good.” She gave you a quick kiss, hung her apron up and headed out.

After starting your ‘70s playlist you got to work. Dancing around and singing while mixing everything up. Once the cookies were done you placed them on the cooling rack, then prepped the square pan for the brownie batter.

Hooked on a Feeling was playing, and of course you had to sing along. “I-I-I-I-I'm hooked on a feeling. Do-dodo-dooo. I'm high on believing. Da-dada-daaa. That you're in love with me.” You shook your hips to the beat of the claps while pouring the brownie batter. “Lips are sweet as candy. It's taste stays on my mind. Girl, you got me thirsty. For another cup of wine.” When you placed the pan in the oven you spun around, nearly falling over. “Jesus Ben!”

He was leaning against the door, a smile on his face. “Didn’t aim to scare you.” He stepped in, swiping his finger through the brownie bowl. “Mmm. That’s good.”

“Thank you.” You turned to see him eyeing the cookies. You stepped beside him, bumping him with your hip. “We can share one. They’re still hot though.” You added, handing him half of one.

He was looking you in the eyes, and his smile made your heart tighten. He still had lines on his face from the pillow too which added to the softness of it all.

“Did you have a nice nap?”

“I did. What are you about to make now?”

You stepped back to the cookbook and shrugged. “Mom had to run out to the store but should be back soon. You can pick something if you want.”

He joined you, his arm hitting against yours as he flipped through the pages. “There’s a lot in here. Wow.”

“Yeah, mom started it when Angie was little. Every year they would add a new recipe, and when I was old enough we added two. It kinda became a family tradition.”

He was giving you that soft smile again, but you avoided his eyes by dusting some flower off the counter and into your hand. “How about Cinnamon Roll Sugar Cookies? This sound good.”

You clapped your hands together. “Alright. First things first, the cookie dough.”

Ben was very helpful. He would get the right amount of ingredients and helped mix them together. He even mixed up the cinnamon mixture. When the brownies were done he got them out for you and placed the cookies on the sheet and stuck them in the oven. But when he stepped back beside you he started laughing.

“What?” You looked up and him and pinched your brows together. Your hand came up and wiped at your face which only made him laugh harder. “What is so funny?” You groaned.

He lifted his phone. “Hold on hun.” He was still giggling as he turned it around. On the screen was a photo of you, face pinched together in annoyance, and right across your cheeks were smudges of flower.

“Really?” You glanced at the back of your hand to find flower all over it. You looked up to meet his gaze, his eyes crinkled at the corners.

“If it helps, you still looks gorgeous.”

Inside, you were melting at his words, but you kept your face as serious as you could. “Ben. Darling. Delete the photo.”

He shook his head. “Nope. I actually really like it. What are you doing?” His eyes grew wide as he watched you dip your hand in the flower.

“You’re missing out on all the fun, Benny.” You tried to sound innocent as you pulled your hand from the bag, observing the absurd amount on your hands. He backed away, circling the other side of the island while still looking at you. “What’s the matter? Afraid of a little flower?” You flicked your hand out, a flower cloud hung in the air for a moment and when it cleared you lost your mind laughing.

Ben let out a “pff” sound, loose flower floating in the air. He had a nice splat of it over the lower part of his face. “Oh. You’re going to pay for that!” He raced around the island, arms out to grab you, but you dodged. “What’s the matter, love? Afraid of a little flower?”

“Don’t you dare!” He was reaching into the bag now. “We’ve already made a mess! No!” He was coming at you again, hand nice a white. You ran behind the table this time. The two of you bobbed back and forth before he bolted around to you, trapping you in the corner.

“You’ve got something on your face.” He said softly with a devilish grin on his lips. “Let me just…” He brought his hand up, but before he could touch your face you started tickling him. “NO!! That’s play-playing dirtyyyy!” He was laughing but he took his flower hand and rubbed it all over your head.

“I just washed that!” You yelled, hands speeding up at his sides. You could feel his hands at your waist. “Wait! No! I’ll pee my..” Too late. He started tickling you back. You withered around trying to escape him. Hands clutching his shirt to hold you upright. “Ben! O-o-okay! Truce!” You dropped your head low, tears in your eyes from laughing so hard.

“Good to see I’m not the only one who is ticklish.” He was looking down at you with his hands on his hips, panting.

You peeked up, hands wrapped protectively around your waist, equally as breathless. “We’re going to have to clean this up before my mom gets home.”

“No more tickling?” He raised his arms.

You gave him a cautious look before nodding, stepping to him and giving him a hug. His arms wrapped tight around you as he rested his head on yours. “No more.” You whispered, subtly breathing him in. “For now.” You giggled kissing his chest before, reluctantly, freeing yourself from his arms.

The two of you work easily around each other to clean up. He swept the floor while you cleaned up the counter. Just as you finished the cookies beeped and your mom came in with her hands full.

“Oh! Thank you Ben.” She sighed as he took the bags from her. “It smells nice in here. Did you guys make the cinnamon cookies?”

“Sure did. Ben, wanna put the icing on them?” You asked, licking some from your finger as he nodded.

“Darling. You’re an absolute mess.” Your mom said once she looked at you. “How did you get so much flower in your hair?” Ben snorted

Not even turning to acknowledge the sound, you shrugged. “Eh. You know how messy flower can be.”

“Go take a shower, flower. Your sister will be here soon.” She laughed as you kissed her cheek.

“Babeee.” Ben wined when you reached the door. His lower lip was out and he was giving you a puppy dog look. You raised your brow at him and he tilted his cheek at you. “Don’t forget me.”

You laughed, taking the few steps to him and tiptoeing up to press your lips against his soft cheek. “Sorry, hun.” You kissed him once more, because it just felt right, then turned on your toes to go shower.

——

After your shower you tossed your flower covered clothes in your hamper. You added Ben’s clothes from yesterday as well as his sweatpants he had placed on top of his bag. On your way down the stairs you could hear Ben talking.

“He’s definitely become a mentor to me. He actually texted me the other day and told me he saw the trailer for my new movie.”

When you entered the kitchen, he was standing at the counter chopping mushrooms. You stopped at the door, admiring him and your mom standing together talking.

“That’s awesome. I always knew they were kind. I was watching Live Aid and I remember the excitement of seeing them walk out.”

“That was an exciting way to start filming. Brian and Roger were both there and it was nerve racking as heck, but an absolute thrill.” He picked up the cutting board and walked around your mom, dumping them in the pan. “It’s an experience I’ll never forget.” He still hadn’t seen you when he turned around, his attention went right to what your mom was doing.

“It’ll be fun stories to tell your grandchildren that’s for sure.” She laughed, handing him the unions she’d just chopped. When she looked up at you she winked, turning to take over the stove.

You finally announced your presence. “Hey hon, I’ve got some of your clothes that I’m going to wash with mine.”

He smiled, walking over to kiss your cheek. “Thank you, love.” He pecked your cheek once more and whispered. “You smell nice.”

You laughed and rolled your eyes as you made your way to the laundry room. “I’d hope.” You ignored the soft pat on your butt.

As you loaded the washer you couldn’t help but smile as your mom and Ben’s conversation continued. The soft way he had looked while she spoke warmed you heart. Hearing her tell stories to someone so interested and the gleeful look in her eyes made you happy.

But at the same time, the reminder that this was all a lie was causing your insides to sour. You couldn’t lie to yourself about the fact that you were definitely feeling something for the green eyed beauty. Maybe it was the fact that he was helping you out. Or the way your stomach filled with butterflies when he called you love. Or how when you touched his feeling lingered.

So many thoughts were running through your head that you didn’t realize you weren’t alone.

“Y/N?” You dad spoke, causing you to jump.

“Jesus.”

“I’m sorry hon. I just wanted to tell you your sisters here. You alright?” He stepped closer, trying to get a good look at your face.

“I’m alright. Just got distracted.” You gave him a smile. “I have another internship this semester and I’m just overthinking it.”

“Hey.” He turned you around to face him. “We are so proud of you. You’ll do great.” He pulled you into a hug, kissing the top of your head.

The sound of the door opening pulled you guys apart. “Thanks dad. I’ll be out in a second.”

When you joined everyone in the living room, your nephew, Asher, was wide eyeing Ben with his mouth open. “You’re. You play Angel in X-men! Mom! He plays Angel.”

Ben was absolutely beaming. Your niece, Elliot, was hiding behind your sisters leg, but the moment she saw you she ran right around Ben and jumped into your arms.

“Oh my sweet girl I missed you.” She was squeezing your neck and kissing your cheek.

“I mwiss you tuw.” She squeaked. Her little hands pushing your cheeks together. “You so pwety.”

“Not a pretty as you, El.” You kissed her little nose and turned to your sister. “Hi Ang.”

She wrapped you in a hug while whispering in your ear. “What the fuck bro?”

When you turned back around, Ben was on the couch with Asher, listen to him talk very enthusiastically about how even though Angel was a bad guy he was his favorite character. The way Ben was listening to him, his complete attention on this hyper child, brought that now familiar feeling to your stomach again.

“Excuse me.” Angie pulled you onto the couch, her attention on you. “Spill. When did you nab Ben Fricken Hardy.”

“Well.” You laughed, occupying your hands by playing with Elliot’s wild hair. “It’s kinda a funny story actually.”

Tags:

@unlikelysamwinchesteronahunt @hermionedeservesbetterthanron @screaminggalileochickenwrites @queen-bunnyears @pastel-world14

#ben hardy #ben hardy fic #ben hardy fluff #ben hardy x you #ben hardy x reader #ben hardy fanfic #ben hardy imagine #ben #tinder boy #my work

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suffering-and-happy-about-it · 5 years

Text

In and out (Part 6) (Nathan Drake X Male reader)

Description: There was a deal between Elena and Nathan to make her way to Yemen for managing to get them to the city. But plans don’t go so easily as they should. Well, isn’t that pretty common thing for Nathan & Co.™?

A/N: Sorry for the delay! I am just sooo busy rn.

Tagging: @march-moon

Mood for this chapter: Come with me now by the one and only Kongos.

Florence wasn't exactly fond of that Y/N actually had some valid reason to keep up with them. Not that she exactly didn't like that new guy, but in her opinion, it was too hard to keep up with them, it was too dangerous and he would be risking his life for some piece of treasure. She just felt like he's wasting their and his time with them.

But Nathan nor Sully didn't seem to mind it that much, they were pretty welcoming of his presence. He was actually a pretty good source of information. Y/N knew a lot of things about the city and lead them directly to the "downtown".

"Okay. What's the deal? Because you're looking like some mummy here and I don't like it." Nathan joined Florence all of a sudden and asked her because she looked seriously frowned and pissed.

"Oh don't worry. I'll manage my situation." She told him in a pretty cold voice. "Worrying about me is your new hobby? Because you're asking me questions like is anything wrong a lot since we got here."

"Don't flatter yourself that much, mum. I'm just afraid that something will go over your mind and you will just blow, maybe stabbing someone to death." Nathan stated in an unsure voice. Florence had to laugh at that because she saw the joke said between the words.

"I just don't like that," she nodded her head in Sully's direction, frowning a bit. "I think it's..."

"He looks like he can look out for his ass."

"You're telling me that because you two had a moment in that hotel room." Florence shut his mouth off and Nathan was surprised about everything she said. A moment they had? Nathan and Y/N had a moment? And what kind of moment?

"You don't know what you're talking about, Florence." Nathan shrugged to answer her as her lips curled into a confident smile.

"Oh, I have a boyfriend for more than ten years and I don't know what having a moment means," Florence stated ironically and sniffed out. "I'm sincerely sorry, Drake. Don't make a saint out of yourself." She said in a low voice and looked at Y/N's little and cute bum.

"I don't blame you. Look at that man's ass." Florence walked down the stairs beside Nate, just a few inches away from Nate. "That precious ass is a true royal jewel."

"If Sully heard you right now," "He would say that I'm right." She laughed as Nathan bumped her arm with his hand with rosy cheeks. Were they seriously talking about some man's ass? And was Nathan seriously enjoying the topic? Yes, he was.

They walked to a first street that was supposed to take them deeper to the city. But there was a barrier with two soldiers next to it, looking like the street is out of order for now.

"Looks like we have complications." Y/N said slowly, thinking about what happened. Why would the streets were closed? He rode here like three hours ago when he was on his way to pick them up.

"We don't like complications," Sullivan said and his face looked seriously dark.

"I'll try to talk to the gentlemen, ok?" Y/N smiled and walked to them in his own, slowly fast pace.

"Now we have the chance to leave him here and just disappear, let's go, guys!" Florence whispered to her partners, trying to make them go away by a nearby alley. She thought that they will be able to walk through the city on their own. They were a bunch of adult people who should be capable to look after themselves.

"Why?" Nathan asked with a frown.

"He's one of us, floweret," Sully stated and looked at his fiancée, still trying to make them vanish into the thin air.

"Don't you dare to speak back to me, you traitor. He doesn't look like a type to handle this sort of life even though you seem to like him!" She whisper-shouted at Sully with an unbelieving face.

"You didn't particularly choose it too and look at how it suits you," Sully stated with a smile directing to that man's back.

"He had that look," Nathan took the ring from under his shirt and showed it to her. "That look of a person who finds themselves in this kind of life. He has chosen this life in that hotel room."

"But I'm worried that he'll not be able to do all of... This." She fenced with her hands pointing at them, at her, at the city, at Yemen, at everything.

"You didn't even give him a chance. What if he surprises us... And there is our favorite guide!" Sully exclaimed in a laughing voice and pointed out that Y/N is coming back. Florence seriously looked like she will stab Sully to death, but she managed to give a fake smile to the stranger.

"Something happened in the center and it is locked down for now. But I know another way in. Let's go!" Y/N exclaimed in an excited tone and went on to another of the alleys.

"Does it involve climbing?"

“Don't act like a pussy and come on, Nathan,” Florence took the lead next to Y/N with stubbornness in her eyes. So the man caught up on them as Y/N lead them through some old, nearly dangerous parts of the town.

“Shit!” Y/N shouted at once, throwing his hand back to make them stop. There was a very unpleasant atmosphere in the air as he peeked out to see two men standing near the alley he was planning on to take them through.

“Looks like someone doesn't want literally anybody in there,” Y/N stated as he turned to them with an unsure look. He was clueless about what they'll do now. There was another passage through the city, but it would take the whole evening just to get there - and they would be in a tight corner if that would be closed too.

“Well, go on cowboy,” Florence nodded her head in the direction of the men and measured with her look. They seem to be Syrian, yet they had different gear than the official guars at the downtown. “Talk with them.”

“I would do that on my own if I could. But those guys aren't from here; well, it at least seems that they aren't a part of the army locking down the downtown.” Y/N answered her in a bit too loud and stubborn voice than he actually expected.

“Slow down. There must be another way in. We will not give up here,” Nathan felt so disappointed in Y/N. It seemed that he was actually afraid of these guards. He wasn't so sure that Y/N was truly one of them at the moment; because he would try to come up with some crazy-ass plane which only lunatic can come up with.

“There's is like another way in across the city, but it might be closed.” Y/N sighed and looked at the guards with lips tied up together.

“Well, it looks like I'm up for a good run, don't ya think?” Florence asked all of a sudden in an absolutely terrible Texasian accent, making all of the looks popping on her.

“Oh no,” sighed Sully and caressed his sweaty face with his palm.

“Florence, don't you dare to do it again,” Nathan asked her with a whisper.

“You have a better plan?” Florence rose her eyebrows and then inhaled loudly in a cocky manner. “Go ahead, mister genius. I'm listening.”

“What's this about?” Y/N asked them. He was totally not understanding that situation. He crossed his hands over his chest, being genuinely interested in their bullshit.

“Just pulling out a plan named Saudi Arabia,” Florence got her backpack off her back, giving it to Sully. “Just a quick question. Hows the possibility they'll burn me alive or kill me by stones?” She asked as she got her shirt off, showing all of them black comfortable and yet still racy bra. She showed the shirt into Sully's arms, making her chest displayed as a trophy.

Every one last of them must've said that she is nice, but nobody said anything of this out loud.

“Like, fifty-fifty. I mean, probably depends on their mood.” Y/N answered as she walked passed him.

“You better be fast, I'll catch up later, boys.” She smiled wickedly as she walked directly in front of the guards, putting her hands on her hips. “Well hello there, boys.” She whispered and laughed like a total psycho as she runs to the nearest alley. The men were thunder-struck, then angry and then both of them run after them.

“So she has done this before?” Y/N asked them as they walked to their desired alley in a quick tempo.

“Well it was better the last time,” Nathan sighed in a relief that nothing was in there was at the moment as Victor put Flo's bag over his shoulder. “She completely undressed on a Saudi Arabia market.”

#nathan drake #nathan drake x male reader #in and out #fanfiction #uncharted #hell yeah #have a lovely day

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poisonappletales · 5 years

Note

What are your favorite traits in each of your characters?~

Hello, fearofprayer! Ooh, let’s see…this should be fun. Of course, I’m going to keep my answers spoiler-free. But whenever Beauty and the War (X Playing Pieces) is released, please feel free to ask again if you’d like to know about those.

Now then, this will include my thoughts on all my characters - the cast of Don’t Take This Risk being among them. I’m going to give you the short summarized answer first, followed by a wordier explanation telling you what I think in detail.Shall we begin?

Arsenik of the Hulder

Favorite Traits: Intelligence, style of speech, his hobby of writing

One of my favorite traits is that he speaks in that intellectual, old-fashioned style. It lets me use that older style of writing that you see in classical literature, whether it’s Jane Austen or Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Plus, he has a hobby of writing, so it gives me a chance to write things like poems.

You might say I like the opportunities he gives me for writing myself! On a related note, he enjoys reading just as I do, but I wouldn’t call that a trait I prefer/like in a character. It honestly doesn’t matter to me if a character has similar hobbies to me or not.

Why am I mentioning this? I just thought it’d be something you’d like to know, particularly since it’s common for “writers” and “reading” to go together. If he were to discuss books with someone, that would be easy to write since I enjoy doing so as well! However, his opinions are not necessarily the same as mine.

Anyway, what I like most about him is his style of talking, his intelligence and his writing inclinations.

For those who aren’t a fan of him, a common reason would be that they find his sort of character to be “boring.” I just want to note that I’m not offended by any of those kinds of opinions. Like and dislike whichever character you want! It’s your prerogative. I’m glad if my cast feels like actual people you can form opinions about when you meet them.

But yeah, I do know a lot of people who find things like the classic books boring, so if you personally aren’t fond of his speech, that’s totally understandable. Or just, you know, the do-gooder character you see in shows. Though, something you may not realize is that he sounds a little more stilted/formal when he’s around his beloved…

(Again, that’s not a trait of his that I would call a “favorite” of mine. It’s just there and a part of his character that feels fitting for him. His shyness/awkwardness is just something I thought I’d bring to your attention in case you missed it in the demo!)

Oh, and a bonus trait I like about him (or the Hulder in general) relates to what’s been said about his clan: “They’re only gentlemen during the day.”

Chase of the Trold

Favorite Traits: How he rounds out the cast and what he represents

Ah, Chase. Two things I like about him: 1) He rounds out the cast well. 2) His relationship with Ambrosia (should you choose to put these two together) has a nice meaning behind it.

What do I mean by “nice meaning”? Well, does anyone remember this Chase/Ambrosia piece I wrote a while back? Chase is not considered conventionally attractive, but Ambrosia doesn’t subscribe to the masses, to say the least. She’s not superficial and considers beauty to be in the eye of the beholder.

He’s a character that represents those principles.

Going back to my first point, it’s not too difficult to see how he rounds out the cast. He’s the most “average guy” of the group. I have heard a lot of players like him for that reason (heart of gold and a nice guy who’s easy to get along with). He also has a few people who dislike him for…a certain “temper” scene in the demo. Those of you who came across it probably know what I’m talking about here!

He has his strengths and weaknesses. I know I definitely wanted to make him as much a “real boy” as possible, so to speak. Hate him or love him, it’s your call!

Wind of the Imugi

Favorite Traits: Cool, tough barbarian fighter

Your resident tsundere (the hot-cold jerky type), even if he isn’t your textbook classic example. I don’t like to do stereotypes straight-out, so you can’t expect my characters to follow any of those archetypes to a T.

I’m not generally a fan of tsunderes. I don’t mind them in shows, and I think that the cast needs their spice at times. They can create fun situations. It’s just not going to be a favorite of mine (not typically at least - there are always exceptions).

So, what do I like about Wind? He’s cool and tough and isn’t scared of slicing through flesh with those claws of his. I feel like I just picked him to play in a video game selection screen. You could say that’s what I like about him. I would enjoy playing him in a video game for a time.

“What kind of description is that?”

Oh, and if a fan dislikes him, it’s usually because he can be a jerk. That’s it.

Night of the Vi

Favorite Traits: Attitude and armor

Not that much is known about this guy yet, huh?

I’ll just tell you that my favorite traits about him is his cool attitude and that wicked black armor. I called Wind cool as well, but Night’s in a different way. He’s more relaxed and adventurous. As for that armor - well, it’s pretty self-explanatory. (Imagine the cosplaying opportunities there.)

If players don’t like him, it’s often because they’re not into his free lifestyle. He’s not looking for something serious straight off the bat and wants to come into a relationship naturally - whenever he feels it. In the meantime, he doesn’t see anything wrong with living it up, inside and outside the bedroom.

Describing it that way, I feel like you can almost see him as something of a James Bond character now…

Onyx of the Vi

Favorite Traits: Talented killing machine

All right, sure. Let’s put these Vi’s in a row, and give Onyx a nice animated gif that I have to polish up some more one day.

There’s actually a whole lot I like about Onyx. While you wouldn’t want to run into him in real life, there’s something awesome about him being a killing machine on the battlefield, wouldn’t you say? A stone-cold killer, daunted by nothing. His skill with a blade is a sight to behold.

A perfect dark warrior.

I’m actually looking forward to drawing and animating more of him fighting, with his blade drawn. Though, in that case…expect blood.

Prince Alexandrite of the Vi

We don’t talk about the prince.

King Barium of the Vi

Favorite Traits: A natural-born leader + cool and collected + some king realism

His easygoing nature, combined with his natural authority, makes him a likable and charismatic king. Those are my favorite traits about him. If he only had one or the other, I may not have necessarily called that my favorite (more so for the trait of being “cool and collected,” which I may or may not find likable on its own).

Plus…his armor’s pretty neat, isn’t it?

He owns a harem, and while that alone does not automatically make me favor a character, I do like how it’s a realistic aspect for a king of certain eras.

Viktor of the Hulder

Favorite Traits: Exciting party-maker with…comedic tendencies

And we’re back to the Hulder! The reign of the Vi is over - I joke, of course.

You know, it’s really funny, but I hear a lot of players say they like this guy for - shall we say - the wrong reasons. That is, for Arsenik reasons. What do I mean? Case in point:

1) They like his shyness. This young man isn’t shy. I remember talking about it way back here, but yes, Viktor is a far cry from that description. He’s confident, talkative and gregarious. Sure, he blushes and stammers when Ambrosia touches him in the demo, but he’s still rather loud, wouldn’t you say? He makes his emotions very clear! He shows what he’s feeling and thinking a lot.

2) They like that he’s quieter/withdrawn/someone they can take the lead with. This is similar to the other point. This man is loud, sociable and can even be a little charming in how he flirts with Ambrosia in the demo, wouldn’t you say?

If you’re looking for someone sweeter, shyer and reserved, that’s all Arsenik. You want someone with confidence, liveliness and fun? Here’s Viktor!

That said, what do I like about Viktor? Well, he has a true knack for making a situation humorous. Look at any of his conversations, and I bet you’ll see what I mean. Plus, he has that old-fashioned way of speaking that’s always fun to write out. Just keep in mind that Viktor might be raised to speak like a Hulder, but he isn’t someone who would be considered intellectual.

I almost feel like Viktor has more fans than Arsenik does, given what people tell me! Just a reminder - Viktor isn’t an official love interest in Beauty and the War (X Playing Pieces). There is a secret bachelor, but that may or may not be Viktor. However, if you so wish, I do encourage you to pursue him in-game to find out.

Bo-Peep of the Cucuy

Favorite Traits: Bubbly cuteness

Not long after talking about the king, it only makes sense to discuss one of his mistresses!

She’s peppy, bubbly and cute! She may not be the brightest around the block, but that adds to her charm. Some players assume she’s innocent possibly because her voice is, well, childish (and her mannerisms can be as well). But oh no, make no mistake.

This is the king’s woman - a sexy gal with legs for days. That kind of person. She knows more than a few tricks in the bedroom to keep a man satisfied. She’s well-versed in fashion, flirting and make-up (hopefully - she does have the tendency to wear too much herself).

Despite her capacity for sexiness, she altogether feels, as I said, cute, which is what I like about her.

She is due for a bit of a re-design in the future. Just some tweaks to bring out what I had in mind.

Jasmine of the Phoenix

Favorite Traits: Prim girl trying hard to seem older than she really is

I do like Jasmine. She might be the eldest of the Phoenix cousin trio, but she acts more like the middle child.

She seems prim and proper, but she has immature tendencies. (She’s the one who goes “Moooom, she’s picking on me again” or “Stop messing with my things or I’m going to kill you, you little brat!” Just replace “Mom” with “Ambrosia.”)

She can be almost something of a “normal teenage girl,” but I like the contrast between her “prim” side and her “teenage girl” side. She’s also due a re-design again, but she’ll still be pretty.

Ah, and another thing I like about her: that competitive streak of hers. It makes for more amusing scenarios, as you might have seen during the last exciting Valentine skit.

When it comes to “teenage girl” types of characters, they’re usually hit-or-miss with me. But I happened to make her a kind I could like.

(You might think I made an entire cast of people I enjoy…but I actually do have characters I wouldn’t like if I wasn’t the one who made it. And it may not be the people you think it is - aside from maybe one of them, which you’ll see later down the list. As a writer, I want a fleshed out cast and story!)

Rosemary of the Phoenix

Favorite Traits: Fun, lively, endearing

If Jasmine is like the middle child, then Rosemary is equivalent to the youngest. She’s loud, fussy and often bursting with opinions, which makes her fun. I like how she livens things up!

I also enjoy her role in the story, as she plays her part well. What that role is in full detail remains to be seen…

Since she’s sensitive about her weight and enjoys eating, I’ve had a few players assume that I’m trying to make her a walking “fat joke,” but that really couldn’t be further from the truth! What I’ve made here is a character.

I’ve got to tell you, I’ve known people with these insecurities. I’ve even had players tell me that they relate to what she’s doing (i.e. airing out complaints, cheating on their diet, etc.). And I think those are all beautiful people.

You are not meant to ridicule Rosemary. That would be Wildfire’s job. She has strengths and flaws like all the rest.

She’s another one of those “average teenage girl” kind of personalities, but as with Jasmine, I like her. She has endearing qualities, and it’s not hard for her to grow on you! At least, in my personal opinion.

Wildfire of the Valkyrie

Favorite Traits: She does her role well

Speaking of Wildfire…

Say “hello” to my least favorite character. Frankly, I wouldn’t even put her on my list of favorites, and usually, I’m naturally fond on my own creation.

I don’t know if this comes as a surprise since I made a whole game featuring her as one of the protagonists (War: 13th Day), but I did say I can write about characters I don’t even like myself. It just depends on the story I want to tell.

I think almost all of us know people who have made your life way harder than it has to be. If not yours, then someone else’s - someone you cared about. You could call them enemies, rivals, bullies, or even monsters depending on the severity.

Wildfire isn’t based off anyone in real life, but she has elements from all those types of terrible people. In the end, she reminds me of them too much to like her. If you do like her yourself, that’s perfectly fine, of course. You can feel whatever you want about my character. She does have a backstory and a personality because I want her to be three-dimensional. In fact, I was a little surprised by how many people do like her from what I’ve heard.

Now, to be fair, I do enjoy a good villain in a series. But she didn’t hit any of the right buttons for me and that’s entirely on purpose. She has a role to play, and it fits her. She’s the mean girl with the tough girl attitude.

If I had to pick something I like about her that’s more defined than “she does her role well”…can I get back to you on that?

Brooks of the Valkyrie

Favorite Traits: Entertaining, dreadlocks

Okay, this is easier. Brooks is just plain fun. Her banter with others is a pleasure to write out. Her dreadlocks are pretty cool, too.

Did you think I was going to mention “armor” again?Hmm…I wonder if I can cite “banter with her best friend” as a favorite trait of Wildfire’s…

Ambrosia of the Phoenix

Favorite Traits: Gentle, pure, strong of heart

The innocent sweetheart and exotic Snow White beauty of the island. Here’s the heroine of the series, Ambrosia of the Phoenix!

You might have heard me mention this before but one of my favorite archetypes? The yamato nadeshiko (the proper lady). She’s delicate and feminine. A big-sister type and wife material.

She may not be strong physically, but don’t underestimate her steel will! She’s my number one favorite female character.

While she’s not a fighter, you could say she’s strong in the way that a mother or, as I mentioned before, an older sister is. Who takes care of the chores? She does. Who tries to remind the immature ones (i.e. her cousins) about what to do and looks out for them? She does. If you’ve done something wrong, she will straighten you out but with kindness. If someone’s bothering you, she will step in and be there for you.

Now, when it comes to herself? That might be a different story, but that’s her weakness.

She’s also pretty sexy during the Present Day. Not that she can’t be in the First Act.

If a player doesn’t like Ambrosia (the First Act version, I imagine), they usually tell me it’s because they think she’s too “naïve” or “weak.”

Yes, she is naïve - at least, in the first act of Beauty and the War (X Playing Pieces). She’s young, so it isn’t too surprising. Again, that’s your call to make, but personally, I like that sort of character.

As for weak? I said before that she’s not strong physically. Perhaps, being naïve can be a form of weakness or just how much her young heart can love. And she does have her shyness. But I like shy girls too, so I apologize if that isn’t your cup of tea since you’ll be seeing her a lot!

And since we’re talking about her…

Ambrosia F. (Don’t Take This Risk ver.)

Favorite Traits: Same as above? With some differences.

Let’s talk about her Don’t Take This Risk version. She’s pretty much the same person, but there are differences. For one thing, her speech has less old-fashioned wording (something I enjoy doing for her Virgo Island self).

If you haven’t read the webtoon yet, there are spoilers ahead. (So, I do recommend you stop here and check it out if you haven’t yet!)

This Ambrosia is a bully victim, suffering from low self-esteem and cutting issues. Much like her other self, she’s strong of heart and will. She gets part-time jobs after school. She takes care of Grandmother when her cousins are too scared to do so (or too busy with homework/something fun). This is someone strong and independent, even if it doesn’t come with the usual tough, no-nonsense attitude you see with these kinds of women. (But let it not be said that I don’t like those types as well. I can indeed like those, too.)

When Dev offers to help her out financially, Ambrosia refuses because she wants to take care of things herself. She speaks gently but surely - like a mother/big sister again.

As young as she is, she’s sadly optimistic and naïve…but will her encounter with Unknown change her?

Evie O.

Favorite Traits: Naughtiness, lively

You might recognize white-haired Evie O. from Death Room and the Don’t Take This Risk webtoon!

According to what fans tell me, she’s my most hated character.

For me, I actually don’t dislike her. If I knew her in real life and she did the same shenanigans, I wouldn’t be fond of her, no. But as a fictional character? You remember what I said about liking a good villain, right? She’s one of them.

She’s not a villain of the “Let’s destroy the world!” variety, but she has just enough naughtiness to make the story juicy. In Episode 20, you see a little bit from her perspective at the end. Did anyone catch her hint of insecurity?

She does have more depth than you might think. Of course, once they’ve been explored, you may not like her any more than you already do!

Unknown of Don’t Take This Risk

Favorite Traits: Crazy fun, predatory

This guy is crazy fun. Aren’t a lot of you on the edge of your seat whenever he’s around? Whether you’re looking forward to him or dreading him, he’s a character who knows how to steal the spotlight. He’s certainly a pleasure to write and a proper foil for some!

He’s also someone who a lot of people don’t quite get. Hence, the webtoon. Is it helping any? Do you feel like you understand him better?

Probably not. After all, his name is still…Unknown.

It’s interesting to note that some fans typically don’t like Night for his liberal lifestyle, but then, we get to this guy…then again, some people still fancy Unknown’s a bit reserved in some sense. Just remember: ignore the voice(s) in the game if it’s confusing you; the webcomic captures him perfectly.

Oh, and make sure you don’t do what he does at home. Unknown’s an interesting character to write, to be sure, but I don’t endorse what he does!

X from Prison

“Oi, Crown Ruler, why are you always putting me last? I ought to come first, you know! I’m the star of Beauty and the War, I’m tellin’ you!”

Favorite Traits: Powers, masculinity, snarkiness

I like X. He has good chemistry with (Present Day) Ambrosia. He radiates strength and masculine energy like he’s some kind of Arnold Schwarzenegger. But what I like most would probably be his powers, like his switch between Aries form and Regular.

His snarky remarks are pretty fun, too. You would think I’d mention this about Wind, but I just happen to prefer X’s debatably “friendlier” style. I don’t have anything against Wind’s sarcasm, and in fact, it can charge scenes with a certain kind of momentum that makes it engaging to watch. It’s just not enough to enter “favorite” territory for me.

Hopefully, I haven’t missed anyone there! I didn’t include the Huntsman’s characters (Dev and Dominic) since you asked about favorite traits for mine.

I’m a writer before I’m an artist, so you might notice that when I make a story, I make characters that fit a role. Each actor has their part in the unfolding play, and they must arrive on stage during their scene. Perhaps, individually, they may fall flat to one viewer, but together, the resulting interaction can be phenomenal - pure entertainment.

To say the least, these characters, even the ones I’m not strictly fond of, can become more intriguing when they mix and match with the others. So, that’s something I would like to add that I enjoy for each and every one - their chemistry and interaction with the rest of the cast. (Some more so than others.)

I typically enjoy talking about my characters, so if you have any other questions or if I wasn’t clear about something, please feel free to ask. Were you surprised by anything I had to say? If you have the time, share your thoughts! I love to hear them.

#ask

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recentanimenews · 6 years

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The Top 10 Most Powerful Devil Fruits in One Piece!

The most iconic feature of One Piece’s pirating saga is the mysterious Devil Fruits – oddly colored fruits of unknown origin that appear throughout the series. Upon consumption, they grant the eater fantastic powers, but strip away their ability to swim. A person can only consume one of these miracle fruits, and each one is unique (although they can be very similar to one another), so naturally, you’ll want to get your hands on the most powerful one if you want a good shot at being the Pirate King.

But what makes a Devil Fruit strong? Abilities can range from permanently turning your body into rubber, to granting you total control of an element. Having so many Devil Fruits out in the wild makes for some very powerful players going after the One Piece, but power is measured by more than brute strength alone on the Grand Line. Keeping that in mind, here are my picks for the 10 most powerful Devil Fruits in One Piece!

10. Paw-Paw Fruit (Nikyu Nikyu no Mi)

Starting the list is the misleadingly named Paw-Paw Fruit, which allows users to repel almost anything they touch, and makes cute little paws appear on their palms. A Paw-Palmed person can push away objects and enemy-attack at devastatingly high speeds. This doesn’t only apply to solid objects: in the series, Kuma uses this ability to repel gases like the air around his hands, sending high-pressured blasts of wind at his enemies. The Paw-Paw Fruit can even repel insubstantial things, like ghosts and the sensation of physical pain, allowing Kuma to externalize his own pain and put it in someone else.

9. Op-Op Fruit (Ope Ope no Mi)

Speaking of “overpowered,” the Op-Op Fruit allows users to create a zone of influence or “room” where they have complete control of the placement of everything caught within; the dangerous thing here is that objects and people that leave the room don’t revert back to normal until the user makes it so. It’s a great fruit for Trafalgar Law, the “Surgeon of Death:” as a doctor, he can make even better use of the space, using it to both save lives, or, on the other side of the spectrum, slice a mountain in half. The ability is even shown to transplant personalities (allowing for classic body-swap hijinx)!

But the Op-Op fruit isn’t considered valuable because of all those abilities; What makes this fruit so special is its ability to grant another person eternal youth at the cost of the user’s life. Who said power doesn’t come at a high price?

8. Dark-Dark Fruit (Yami Yami no Mi)

Known as the fruit with the most “evil” power, the Dark-Dark Fruit bestows the user with the power of darkness, obviously. Users of this fruit can create black holes to absorb any attack and flatten their opponents with immense pressure. Blackbeard, this fruit’s user, was able to crush an entire city by sucking it into his body, and he can store people and objects in this pocket of darkness (although living things seem to have a very bad time when exposed to it). This special fruit also comes with one other potent ability: when the user touches another Devil Fruit user, that Devil Fruit’s ability is temporarily nullified, as demonstrated when Ace and Blackbeard clashed on Banaro Island. As long as he can touch them, against Blackbeard, all other Devil Fruit users are just regular humans.

7. Ice-Ice Fruit (Hie Hie no Mi)

The Ice-Ice Fruit grants the user the power of Ice, which has dozens of practical applications in a story set on the open ocean! Former Marine Admiral Aokiji used this Fruit to halt an oncoming tsunami from destroying Marine HQ, and freeze a volcano to keep it from erupting. While the Ice-Ice Fruit can also make short work of enemies by freezing them solid, it’s indisputably best application is as the coolest form of transportation on the seven seas: allowing Aokiji to ride his bicycle on the ocean by freezing the surface of the water. Ride on, cool guy.

6. Glint-Glint Fruit (Pika Pika no Mi)

The Glint-Glint Fruit turns users into a light human, and gives them the ability to control and become light, effectively making them a Dragon Ball Z character. Admiral Kizaru mostly uses this ability to kick his opponents at the speed of light, and shoot explosive energy beams. If moving that fast wasn’t enough, he can “bounce” himself off of any reflective surface too. Oh, and for close-range combat, the Glint-Glint Fruit also allows the user to create a sword made of light, so on top of all of that, he gets a lightsaber too. That’s fair.

5. Mystical Zoan Type Phoenix Devil Fruit

Marco’s Mystical Zoan type Devil Fruit doesn’t have an official name yet, but its power is undeniable: it allows him to transform into a legendary phoenix, granting him the ability to fly, control phoenix fire, and recover from injury. Recently it was also demonstrated that Marco’s phoenix fire can be used to heal others’ wounds too. It’s like the Swiss army knife of Devil Fruits! Marco best used this ability when he went toe-to-toe with Kizaru during the Whitebeard war, keeping the Admiral away from his captain, Whitebeard.

4. Rumble-Rumble Fruit (Goro Goro no Mi)

Logia type Devil Fruits grant the user total mastery of an element, and what element could be more useful than electricity? Eneru used the Rumble Rumble Fruit to zap his enemies with precise control, regulating the voltage anywhere between 1 and 200 million volts. The power also makes his body practically untouchable, and allows him to do crazy things like restart his heart by defibrillating himself. With a power like that, you’d be unstoppable, as long as you don’t run into a person made of rubber... but what are the odds of that happening?

3. Soul-Soul Fruit (Soru Soru no Mi)

The Soul-Soul Fruit grants users the ability to manipulate souls, allowing them to reduce others’ lifespans by taking a piece of their soul, and using it to bring an inanimate object to life. Big Mom built a society using this fruit, allowing her to use fragments of her followers’ souls to create an army of servants. The only drawback? These enspirited objects have free will, which really isn’t a problem if you’re the biggest, toughest, meanest woman on the sea. Big Mom hasn’t been seen using this ability to attack her enemies directly, but she became queen of her own island, and has a huge family of loyal children, each ripe with life-force to create more loyal minions.

2. Tremor-Tremor Fruit (Gura Gura no Mi)

Whitebeard’s Tremor-Tremor Fruit basically grants him the ability to create and hurl natural disasters at his enemies. No really. As a “Tremor Human,” he can create powerful vibrations with his hands, causing massive earthquakes and tidal waves. He used this ability to practically level Marineford in one punch, and in a world where super-powered people can’t swim, tidal waves are a big deal. In terms of sheer destructive power, nothing else comes close to the Tremor-Tremor Fruit, so much so that it’s been called “the power that can destroy the world.” The Tremor-Tremor Fruit would easily top this list, were it not for...

1. Hobby-Hobby Fruit (Hobi Hobi no Mi)

The Hobby-Hobby Fruit gives the user the ability to ruin lives. Well, more specifically, it allows users to turn whomever they touch into a toy, erasing away any memory of the person in the process. Using this power, Sugar created a caste of subservient toy citizens in Dresrossa, some of whom were forgotten by their friends and loved ones for over 14 years. On top of that, once turned into a toy, the victims enter a contract with Sugar where they’re forced to obey her every order. All Sugar needs to do is catch her opponents unaware long enough to touch them to turn them into loyal servants for life. Sure, it’s not flashy, but in terms of “power”, the Hobby-Hobby Fruit is the most life-altering and devastating Fruit we’ve seen to date.

Honorable Mention: Wash-Wash Fruit (Woshu Woshu no Mi)

We’ve talked a lot about destructive forces on this list, but is that really all there is to power? Truly, the most powerful Devil Fruit is the one that can change hearts and minds: Tsuru’s Wash-Wash Fruit. This quirky fruit grants the tough old marine the ability to fold and hang her enemies out to dry like laundry, cleaning their hearts in the process. Eiichiro Oda has even stated that it’s a particularly potent ability against pirates, as it makes the victims better people, and less likely to commit crimes. You go, Tsuru. Maybe you’re the one who will finally clean up this “Great Pirate Era.”

Those were my picks for the 10 most powerful Devil Fruits in One Piece! Think you know a fruit that’s stronger than these ones? Then shout it out in the comments; part of the fun of such an expansive story is theorizing what would happen if any of these superpowers went toe to toe! And in case you missed it, you can check out my list of the best longest running gags in One Piece here if you’re looking for even more One Piece content to read.

---

Sam Wolfe is a freelance writer and video editor who can't believe you're still not caught up on One Piece. You can find Sam's unorganized thoughts in the form of a Twitter feed here.

By: [email protected]

#Anime #News #Latest in Anime News by Crunchyroll!

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mint-kook · 7 years

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I tagged along (wherever you are)

Hey! So I am a very new writer who decided to create a sideblog (elsearwrites) for writing. I really enjoy your fics so I would appreciate it and be honored if you took the time to read something I’ve been writing for Hoseok x Reader! It’s called I tagged along (wherever you are), and is a social media and college au where Hoseok is an instagram famous dancer and the reader is a famous youtuber. The first part is a prologue of how the reader actually became to be a youtuber, and features best friend! and frat boy!Jungkook who broke her heart. It does mention sex and alcohol, but just once and is not explicit. Word count for pt.1 is 2.4k, at least for now because it is unedited and very rough. I just wanted to show a person before I upload it to my own blog. Sorry if it’s long, you don’t have to read it all lol.

So here’s part 1/prologue: A Role Model

You ran.

All you could think about doing is running.

You didn’t really know where you were going, because your visions were blurred by your tears and your brain blurred by shattered pieces of your heart. But whatever your legs remember, took you back to your room.

And you enclosed your whole world in the bleak dark room you returned to.

Just 25 minutes ago you walked into your best friend Jungkook and a girl he was chasing after for some time having sex.

You have been hopelessly in love with him for a good decade, ever since you met each other on a playground, but knew he didn’t feel the same way about you when you watched him fall for someone else all those years. Because you were too scared to break what you already had, the strong friendship that protected you from bullies and protected him from giving up on his dreams. That tight bond you had made you hope. Hope that somewhere along those years, maybe he felt at least a possibility that something more could develop between you two. So you tried hard to be the ideal person Jungkook dreamed about. You were even a model because Jungkook half-heartedly stated that he wanted to date a model once. But when you saw his eyes soften at someone that wasn’t you, your heart betrayed you.

“Y/N! Look, you know Somin right? She’s the one in your Chem class. I think she’s cute and I used the time I waited for you to talk to her.”

“Y/N, Y/N…She’s different from all the other girls I dated. Something about her…is special. I feel like she may be the one…Pfft I sound so cheesy, this isn’t me.”

And so, you got desperate. Before he made things official, maybe you can change something. And even if chances were bleak, you couldn’t take the bottled up feelings inside you anymore. Or, that was what you thought.

“Y-Y/N!”

He panicked to cover both him and the girl, both confused and shocked at your presence, clearly someone that did not belong in the almost perfect picture.

“Uh…I-I’m so sorry.”

Ah. So they did make it official. Was in the middle of making it official.

And so you ran.

You only convinced yourself you would be okay if you were rejected.

But when you were rejected without you even saying anything, every resolve and every cell you managed to convinced screamed otherwise.

You weren’t okay.

For a couple of days, you were holed up in your room. You had no midterms, and you were that honor student that passed all her classes, and no class you had this semester were attendance mandatory. You managed to avoid the hell out of Jungkook somehow thanks to your roommate’s extremely kind cooperation (Raeun was now your new best friend, screw ex-best friend). You turned off notifications from Jungkook, effectively ignoring every message and call from him. But honestly, you couldn’t turn off your phone. It was the one thing you couldn’t do, because while you were holed up in your room, Raeun and your phone were the only things that connected you to the outside world.

And before you were to head bang on the wall regretting to even think about trying to confess to him, you decide that you need time to yourself. Time to think about you. Distract yourself from whatever may happen to something you tried hopelessly to protect.

And you find yourself in more deeper than ever in the world of social media.

Unhealthy? A little, yes. Successful in distracting you? Also, a little, yes.

That “little” comes from the frequent posts Jungkook updates on his Instagram and Snapchat and sometimes on Twitter, where he seemingly has a blast at parties his frat hosts. You had to admit, even if you told yourself you didn’t care, you were a little, well maybe a lot angry that nothing seemed to change in his carefree alcohol induced world. Were all the messages and missed calls a lie? Even if they stopped all together after a long while, you still had hoped he cared. It wasn’t until Raeun told you that he posts a severely lessened amount ever since that day, and that it’s most likely people of his fraternity controlling what he posts, that your anger subsided.

Even if you told her and yourself that you didn’t care.

“Y/N? There is some food in the fridge for you. Just in case, I’m leaving the door locked. Don’t open the door for anyone just in case, unless it’s the RA, kay?” Raeun said before leaving to take her Calculus exam.

God, why was your roommate and now-best friend such an angel? The mom friend? She even cared for you while she had a very important exam the next day. She was the guard that made sure Jungkook wasn’t going to be near you, hiding you in the closet or threatening to call the RA back when he knocked on your door and called for you for what seemed like an endless period of time.

You didn’t know how you were going to thank her for her hospitality, her generosity, and her existence. But knowing how vulnerable you feel, she just smiles and pats your back.

“Girl, I know how you feel. One thing you shouldn’t do is apologize. Thank me later but there’s absolutely nothing you should apologize for.” She gives you a wink.

Now alone, you felt your nerves kick in as you try to register that Raeun cannot protect you when she’s gone for classes. You hated feeling dependent on her and you hated feeling weak, but you know what?

You felt like you deserved a break. You studied so hard, you tried so hard to grab Jungkook’s attention, and you tried so hard dealing with emotions strong enough to break you down and you were just done. You were tired. So what if you rest for a couple of days? No one will be mad. Raeun was right. You can thank her later, but surely you don’t have to apologize for feeling this way.

So you kicked yourself onto your bed, and dived straight to watch some funny videos. And as you scrolled through your Instagram feed, something happened.

Yes, something magical happened.

It wasn’t Jungkook acting all stupid at a party again, hell no.

It was something entirely different.

You saw the swift arm movements, the smooth lines and fluid form, the music created using the human body. Was that even possible?

You saw sunshine.

“J…J-Hope?”

That was his name. J-Hope. The boy who shone his sunny yet fierce facial expression dancing a routine to 24K Magic.

And that was your entrance to something new. You became a fan of him in a split second. One moment you are replaying the video for about 25 times and the next moment you are exploring his page. The next moment you are following him. And the next moment and for the next few following moments you were drowning yourself in this newfound excitement.

Raeun came back to you giggling and sighing happily.

She frowned for a few seconds, wondering if she should take you to the school psychiatrist, but she later understood when you told her that you recently found out about J-Hope.

“Oh, Yeah. He’s like…super popular lately. It’s said that he’s one of the best young dancers and he’s getting a lot of media attention lately. Well, he is hot after all, he has sooo many followers.”

“…He’s…he’s soooo talented. Like, really talented. Not just because he is hot though. His dancing is just so passionate.”

Raeun smiled a little, glad at least something simple like this (to her) was able to get you to laugh a little.

But to you, it wasn’t something simple. For the next few days, all you did was stalk his Instagram, liked all of his oh-so-aesthetic pictures, watch literally all of his videos, and as if that wasn’t enough, rewatched them all over again. You learned a lot about him. About how his real name was Jung Hoseok. How he is currently a street dancer who slowly gained exponential fame through social media and went viral. How even if he danced so passionately he always found time to appreciate his other hobbies such as photography and singing. How he dreamed of becoming a professional dancer and opening his own dance school one day. How for now, he loved to meet new dancers, collaborate with them, and show them off to the world like the world doesn’t have enough sunshine. How even if he seemed all badass, there were cute things about him too, like being afraid of snakes and rollercoasters. Your world shined through this man who didn’t even know you.

And Raeun may not understand you. I mean, all you have been doing was either catching up on notes you missed or watch J-Hope. But soon, she started to leave you be, and started to even watch him with you. It was crazy to think that something like this served as distraction away from Jungkook, but you surprised Raeun by entertaining a crazier idea.

“Hey. Y’know what? How bout, I try this?”

Raeun turned away from the phone screen a little belatedly.

“Try what.”

You pointed to the screen.

“This.”

“What, dancing?”

“Well, not exactly. But you know how I modelled a little before? And how I sing sometimes?”

Raeun rolled her eyes and chuckled.

“You make it sound like you just touched both hobbies. Your mom and I both know how prolific you are, with both singing and modelling.”

It was true. Even if you became a model for the sake of catching Jungkook’s attention, you were naturally talented at it. And singing was something you were so often praised for, even by Jungkook. But you had no confidence in both, and that was ultimately something that made you quit modelling or drop out of your high school honors choir. Perhaps your confidence was dropped to an infinitesimal level due to failing to be with Jungkook, but during the past few days, that confidence level surged to the northern skies. And who made that confidence soar? J-Hope. Someone who doesn’t even know you. And because of this certain Jung Hoseok, you were willing to do something that always lingered your mind. Jung Hoseok inspired you.

And so you made up your mind. You didn’t care if no one will notice you at first. You were finally breaking out of your shell into becoming someone you should have become so long ago.

But you were never too late.

You weren’t going to let one guy ruin your life like that.

You were going to be someone like J-Hope.

——————

After a little while, you picked yourself up your feet. You weren’t holed up in your room, and you learned to be a little bit more independent. More confident. More you. Yes, you still made efforts to avoid Jungkook, but still. An improvement.

And now, you were about to make more.

“Kay, Y/N, let’s try this one more time.” Raeun called out to you behind the camera amidst your trance.

“Oh god, I’m so sorry. It’s just…I haven’t done this in a long time, y’know?”

“Of course I know. Take your time, okay? Remember. Just be you. Don’t worry about what other people have to say. You are freakishly talented enough.”

You and Raeun smiled at each other and as you shut your eyes you took another deep breath. Your hands were sweaty, both your feet and voice were shaking, but after a while, you envisioned the sun. You had the same anxiety during the first modelling job where your parents, Jungkook, and Jungkook’s parents were watching, but now, you had that same adrenaline-fused feeling of excitement that you discovered with J-Hope. You. You were going to do this.

And you open your eyes, and sing.

And as you thought, it was difficult.

Your first video was a self introduction.

“Hi, I’m Y/N. And I have a story to tell. But y’know, it’d be a little boring to suddenly open myself up like a book, so I wanna take my time. So please, listen to me.”

You utilize whatever you learned in modelling to keep a straight face, strict but fluid posture, and beauty tips. You recalled the times where you enjoyed singing, back when your parents would attend your childhood talent shows and you personified a loud, clear voice.

Since when was all of that convoluted? When did you start being so shy with your own voice? Was it when little boy Jungkook bragged to his friends on the playground that you were the best singer he knew? Was it the pressure? But at that moment, you didn’t blame anyone. No, not Jeon Jungkook. When you sang, you just remembered how happy you were, singing. You lost that joy but you found it back. That’s all that it mattered.

You try a number of different songs, from Boa’s Every Heart to Audrey Hepburn’s Moon River, and though Raeun praised you with hugs and tears you were never sure enough that you were good.

But, it happened.

At first, responses toward your uploads were slow. You thought you were fine with that, because even letting out what you wanted to let out was cathartic to you. But during the first few months, you became more and more dejected over low views and lack of response. However, Raeun’s networking connections and incredible signal boosting as well as your busking and frequent gigs at school events or small coffee shops, your name spread like wildfire through the entire school. And although it was a little towards the future, you went viral on YouTube.

Somewhere in between though, you think you see Jungkook across campus. He was with the girl he was with that one time-Somin, you think her name was. You would be lying if you said you were completely over him. But with Raeun’s now utter determination to get you “out there” and your busy schedules balancing school work, recording, and finding times to at least breathe, you become more invested in yourself than thinking about him. And so, you smile. You don’t say “Hi” or anything awkward. Maybe one day you’ll have the courage to talk to him, or, well, stop avoiding him first. After all, you completely shut him out without his say in anything. But for now, you think that him being out of your life was not something that was losing light. If Jeon Jungkook was someone you wanted to please, then J-Hope, Jung Hoseok was your role model. You don’t have to please someone in order to admire them. That was it.

#bts #bts imagine #bts imagines #jungkook #j-hope #submission

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iammarylastar · 7 years

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2. Husband and wife

*5 years earlier*

“Jack let me introduce you to Shade Johnson. Shade this is Jack McLane, your partner.” Chief McKay announced.

The new pair stared at each other from head to toe.

Interesting! He thought. Embarrassing! She pursed her lips.

“I work alone!” They both objected in unison.

What a good pair! McKay thought to himself. They already are on the same page.

“Sorry guys but we need you both this time. We have some jeopardized interests in Paris. A branch of the Calabrese’s mafia from New York threatens an operation of dismantling of weapons and drugs deal. Our contacts on the spot who have been working undercover for nearly a year just fucked up. They’re off. You will fly to Paris and keep an eye on what the fuck is going on down there and report your French counterpart. Nothing really hard. Sneaking in the clubs the Italians regularly attend, keeping a watch on the big shots and their whereabouts, noting down addresses and acquaintanceships, reporting to French competent authorities. Like a walk through a meadow for you both.”

Chief McKay stopped his speech and looked at his two recruits. The man seemed bored and the woman upset.

“I’m sure Mr. Action man could do this all by himself right? I’ll surely be more helpful in another place with something riskier to do than babysitting McLane.” She snapped.

“Oh! Mrs I-have-menstrual-cramps-30-days-a-month sounds grumpy. An all-expense-paid trip in Paris with nothing to do than hanging out and be on a stakeout, I’m in! I bet the little Frenchies are warmer than you, Icecube.”

“Fuck you McLane.” She glared at him. Motherfucker. Fucking blue eyes.

“Matter of time baby.” He winked at her. She’s sexy when she’s pissed off.

“I’m glad you would enjoy a mouthful of some frog’s legs Parisienne.” She smiled exaggeratedly. Bastard.

“Sounds tasty darling.” He licked his lower lip before he blowed a kiss to her. Partner.

“Stop this! You are official agents of the CIA and you’re on mission from now on. I’ll not allowed any complaints nor whining. If you have personal requests, please use the hierarchical ladder. Now, pack up and take your files. You could study them in the aircraft. Take off at 1:00 p.m.”

Both agents grabbed their files, mumbling purposely too loud some chosen love words to their forced partners.

“And fill your luggage with fancy clothes, you’re gonna spend time with Parisian’s ‘la crème de la crème’. Lucky you, the American taxpayers offer you a room in the most expensive Parisian hotel. Luxury ‘à la française’. You will reside in the Ritz, place Vendôme for the next 3 months.”

“Nice!” Shade mumbled. “High heels and diamonds necklace, my life.”

“Picky princess…” Jack whispered.

“Guys I warn you, however you need to fix it, you figure it out. Get ready to get along and share a suite and live together for awhile.”

“Together?” They startled at the same time.

“Hold on guys. We need you as a couple. You’re officially Mr. And Mrs. Sinclair. Congrats you lovebirds!”

Shade’s face crumbled in pieces, while Jack’s lightened up just a bit. One thing he got from his hated father was the ability to push the other’s button. He has inherited the sardonic one-liner skill, the itchy trigger finger John McLane senior was well known for.

“Now get out of here, I’m tired to see your faces.”

Jack walked gently Shade towards the door, he opened for her. Reaching out the hand he unsuccessfully placed in her lower back before being yanked at roughly, he bowed:

“After you, love”

“I’ll be sick!” She grumbled.

“And no hanky panky guys you’re on duty!” McKay shouted to the young couple, laughing out loud.

“Let ’s work on our love story honey.” Jack shifted in his seat, facing his temporary wife.

“Don’t call me that McLane.” She glared at him for the hundredth time since they had settled down in the airplane.

Jack had acted like a fucking gentleman, touchy, smooth and attentive at will. Though she found him pretty attractive, he was definitely not her type.

“I know your maiden name, date and City of birth, everything about your fake parents and big sister, where you were in High school and college but the file doesn’t mention private stuff like…” He paused and thought of what he wanted to know.

“Like what, McLane?” She roughly asked.

“First, my name, our name is Sinclair, and since we’ve been in love and married for…” he flipped through the pages of the file to check on the date.

“Supposed to be in love.” She snapped.

“OK hun. Supposed to be in love and happily married for 2 years, I think you could call me by my first name. Jack, remember? We’re stuck with each other for the next 3 months, and 'undercover’ means we have to build a good story, in case people ask for more details. Details make the story credible.”

She rolled her eyes and sighed loudly, giving up. “Well Jack. What do you want to know?”

“Favorite colour?” He tried.

“Who would give a fuck?” She snarled.

“Honey…” he begged.

“OK, OK. I’ll answer but stop calling me honey! Blue.” She said.

“Great! Favourite meal? ”

“Bo bun. Thaï food. ”

“Mmmm. Love Thaï food too. Hobbies? ”

“I like to read files and reports. I like study about weapons and close quarter combat. I run 5 miles every morning and work out at least one hour a day. I don’t hang out with mate, I hate shopping, I don’t drink alcohol nor smoke. Satisfied?” She taped a forced smile on her beautiful face.

“Well… Let’s say you like reading books and going to the gym. We’re heading to France, are you sure you don’t like wine? French have some stunning Grands Crus, it would be a crime not to taste them.” Burgondy fine wines were Jack’s weakness.

“No. Read my lips. No alcohol. No cigarette.”

“Jesus, I hope you have sex at least. Otherwise your life would sound… deadly boring.”

“Dont push my button McLane.”

“Ok I’m done. How did we meet?”

“Highschool. The common cliché. You were the most popular quarterback. I was cheer leader.” Shade said.

“Great. Our wedding?”

“Simple. You fell on your knee to propose to me during the Superbowl, broadcast live on the big screens, I said yes, jumping up and down like a hysterical teen. You offered me the engagement ring you paid with your first salary, I jumped into your arms, everyone was in tears. Big ceremony in a luxury hotel, wedding pic on the beach. You looked dapper in your three piece suit, I looked fabulous in my 20000$ spectacular wedding gown. First dance was “Fly me to the moon” by Frank Sinatra- barf- Champagne and huge cake you and I cut together. The pic is pinned in our living room.

“Sounds like real. Very romantic. Honeymoon?”

“Gosh! Paris or Hawaii. Whatever. My dear husband refused to leave the bed to go sightseeing.” She sighed.

“ Yeah, you worn me out. I love that part. That’s why we’re back in Paris. Romantic getaway to finally enjoy the City of Lights and Lovers.” Jack looked straight into Shade’s green eyes and went on.

“Do we want kids?” Jack abruptly asked.

“Why did you ask that question?”

“We’ve been married for two years. That’s the usual next step…” he wondered.

“I guess we wanted some, one day, but we’re actually busy with our careers.”

“Do you want kids?”

“I just answered, didn’t you hear?” Shade got upset.

“Nah, I mean you, the real Shade. Do you want children?” Jack sounded serious.

“That’s highly personal. But I feel like you’ll harass me until you got your answer so. .. No.”

“It’s a shame. I’m sure you’d make beautiful babies.”

“You sneaky bastard. You don’t end up as a CIA spy without serious family traumas, do you?” Shade smartly noted.

“Good call. My so called father has me choosing for this job. He was a cop. Married to his loyalty to the NYPD. Never at home for Xmas nor birthday cakes. Only seeing in me a lame juvenile delinquent, like I was a disappointing pain in his ass. Never want to be that kind of father for my own kids.”

“Do you still want kids? Your trauma is not as serious as mine. I win hands down McLane.” Shade smirked.

“Sorry to hear that Honey.” Jack grabbed her hand.

“Don’t call me Honey. I warn you.” She yanked at it in disgust.

“Fine. What would be our emergency code?” Each agent, each mission needed one.“

"Not Honey for sure…”

“Anything in mind?” Jack asked.

Shade sighed loudly, obviously bored by the game. “I figured out all our love story already. You chose. I don’t care.”

“Great I like this. Let’s say… Babe.” He tried.

“No way. Pick something else.”

“Mmmm. Have you ever own a pet? I’m sure you’re a dog person.” Jack guessed.

“Wrong. We were not that kind of happy perfect family with pets and smiles. Mostly punches and bruises.”

“Holy shit. You’re right, you win hands down. Worst childhood award. Any blankie or favorite teddy?” He went on.

“I had this koala bear my aunt sent me from Oz when I was born. He was fluffy and cute. He had little Boomerangs tied on his back. I named it Boo. He was my best friend. We were inseparable until my father threw it in the fire.”

“Boo. Suits you. That’s it. You’ll be my Boo.” Jack smiled.

“I totally hate it. That’s the most ridiculous pet name for a guy??? Let’s say…. you do look like Cupcake, what do you think?” She smirked.

“I’m a fan. I vote for it. Boo and Cupcake. Sounds like killer names for a dangerous mission. Exclusively reserved for emergency case.” Jack said, proud of his nice touch and of his ability to make Shade talk about herself. It punched his heart to figure out her as a little girl fighting with family issues but that’s what made her strong and bitchy. Which he liked a lot.

“Anything you wanna ask about me?” Jack was ready to let it all out for her.

“Only one. When are you going to shut up?” She snapped sarcastically.

Jack frowned and slammed his back on his seat. It was a long shot…

Jack suddenly shoved into his carry on and dug out a dark blue jewel box he was quick to open. Two wedding rings were lying on the velvet pillow, tied with a silky ribbon.

“I thought those ultimate details would make our romance real. I hope you’ll love the one I chose for you.”

Without asking for permission he freed the single diamond ring and put the ring on her finger. A weird twist tickled her stomach when he stared intensely at her, squeezing tenderly her left hand.

“For better or for worst, Boo. Happily ever after.”

“Oh, shut the fuck up McLane.” She snapped, uncomfortable. Why had he be that damn cute?

@kenzieam @oddsnendsfanfics @pathybo @frecklefaceb @jaihardy @jaicourtneyseyes @tigpooh67 @pernilleals @writingismyhappytime @beltz2016 @societalfailure @beautifulramblingbrains @captstefanbrandt @red-diary @badassbaker @bookwarm85

@singingpeople

@angelswannawearmyredshooz

#2 #jack and shade #jai courtney #live and die hard

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tgreuniverse · 7 years

Text

re: [quest] Chapter 4 “sponse”

Hello!! This chapter is about Hori Chie and Tsukiyama Shuu and is very cute (happy birthday the other day, 2/25, to Hori, btw!!)♥

This post has Part 1 of the chapter in full under the cut (mainly for mobile users). The next parts are underway and I’ll do my best to keep things organized to link up.

Click here for my compilation of translations of the light novel re:quest

Finally, a disclaimer: I’d encourage anyone invested in the Tokyo Ghoul series to buy the official copies of this light novel and any official translations when they are released in your area to support the authors and publishers.

Thanks everyone for your patience and don’t hesitate to send me corrections/suggestions/asks and messages! – koko♥

Chapter 4: Sponse Part 1 Part 2 TL: Occasionally Tsukiyama throws in English or French words when he’s speaking. Anything that’s written in Roman letters in the original Japanese text will be bolded to indicate that it’s in another language. All other emphatic markings are for conveying regular emphasis.

“Alright, now take a picture, of me!” “Nahh,” Hori replied, and the conversation was over in 3 seconds. She was watching through the coffee shop’s big windows at the shopping street where people came and went, housewives buying things for dinner and hoisting bulky eco-bags on their shoulders. Hori looked like an uncomfortable elementary school student in the chic and relaxed coffee shop where she sat. However, inside, she was already at the level of a college student. Well, actually, she almost never went to college, as she roamed from east to west as a “free camera-man” with her camera, her one hobby, always by her side.

“Well, seems we’re done around here,” Hori said, standing just as she finished eating her parfait. “Wait, Hori!” She paused. What made her stop was the man with a well-arranged appearance, somewhat like a model, and a voice that if you walked through town you could take to be from an entertainment industry – the man most annoying in the eyes of someone like Hori – Shuu Tsukiyama. A man who was always prideful and focused on attention from his surroundings – marked by the [CCG] with the title “gourmet” ghoul, he really didn’t have much of an understanding of the world. Indeed, the situation of such a ghoul known as Tsukiyama, having a face-to-face conversation with the human Hori Chie, was one you wouldn’t find anywhere else. Due to the strange situation, the two pretended to be high school students simply going out to the local coffee shop. In high school, Hori’s evaluation of Tsukiyama’s pride did not come from second-hand gossip, but from her own deep curiosity about his differences from others. It came from her simple thought “well, this looks interesting” as she peered through her camera’s viewfinder. The result of which, it turned out, was her taking pictures of the gourmet ghoul’s predatory scene. One thing leading to another, this resulted in a pretty strange relationship. Today, like most others, since a while ago, Tsukiyama had gone on and on about some favor he wanted to ask, and since Hori couldn’t exactly refuse as it became more and more annoying, well, here she was. “Hori! Why on such a whim? It’s a favor from an old friend, so just sit for a bit and tell me what you want to eat, you little mouse.” “Tsukiyama-kun, you always treat people like pets, don’t you? Hot cake.” “Haha, so you were aware of being my pet! That lady right there, let’s ask her for a most supreme hot cake!” With that, Tsukiyama snapped his fingers and signaled the female server across the room. While Hori sat back down, he suddenly exclaimed, “Hori! Listen until the end of what I’m saying. This is business.” “Business, huh?” Hori had finished her drink, and with her straw, clinked around the milkshake’s ice at the bottom of her glass. With nothing better to do, Hori went back to listening. “That’s right. In fact, this time, I want you to go to a villa.” Hori released the straw and tilted her head. “Huh?” Tsukiyama sighed. “Have I at last both been thrown away by Kaneki-kun and become dismissed by you?” He, always pursuing some gastronomic meal to satisfy the tongue itself, was fascinated and obsessed with this one-eyed half-ghoul named Kaneki Ken. Even after having had a relationship with Tsukiyama for a while, Hori had never before seen him stick to a single ingredient in such a way. Even now, he was working hard to earn Kaneki’s trust, but Hori believed he was still just trying to eat him. Since he was separated from his precious villa, Hori wondered if Kaneki was finally disgusted and had kicked Tsukiyama out. “Haha! That’s nothing, nonsense. I am his dagger, and my heart is always his bedside.” “You’ve prepared everything up to your house but everyone’s being removed from your circles?” “If you were the patron like me, would you be concerned about everyone? This is a taste of being god.” “I’m full. That story sounds long so I’m gonna go home” “Wait wait, food is something that should be enjoyed at your leisure. Would you like some kind of after-tea?” Hori sighed. “My orange juice is fine.” With this Tsukiyama let out a cough and returned to what he was saying. “I have a garden party at my villa on my next holiday, and I’m supposed to give a speech. I want you to put capture it with your camera.” “Wha…?” Tsukiyama was a ghoul of a respectable family, the descendent of the Tsukiyama Group that everyone had heard of at least once. “Along with that, although this will be a surprise, I’m thinking of expressing everyday gratitude towards the servants in the house. To leave memories, you know?” The Tsukiyama family, of course employees included, had a large number of people. I knew it, Hori thought, as she ate the hot cake that had finally arrived. The aspect of self-righteous egoism is often looked down on, but consideration for things one likes or for one’s self is fine, as such things have the potential to help one feel better in their own skin. “Of course, you’ll be compensated. How is it, Hori? You’ll take the job, right?” As a reply, Hori only groaned, “you really are annoying.” “Haaaaaahn?!” At Tsukiyama’s desolate voice, Hori said, “I’m not interested.” Hori's photography activities were actually quite selfish. When she thought about taking photographs of an event of such high social value, she realized that would mean taking pictures with no real substance, and only taking work for the value of money. She definitely wasn’t one to be so influenced by money. Right now she wasn’t in the mood to take pictures of things she wasn’t in the mood to, and wasn’t up for the tension of working for money at all. At this point Tsukiyama, who knew from personal experience not to press Hori as she would continue to refuse (even in a case where it seemed likely she’d be killed), simply mused “hmmm.” It seemed her orange juice was all gone, too. His time was almost up. “Ahh, well then. Let’s see, Hori, do you have any interest in flowers?” “Flowers?” “Yes! At my family’s villa there are many varieties of flowers in bloom, in a vivid wide space, and it’s . . . it’s something like a utopia!!” Tsukiyama, spreading both hands, began to gestured and gestured as he started explaining. “There are many rare and valuable varieties, and the roses are particularly superb! The garden party this time will be done according to the season of the roses. There are so many scenic sights that you can see as you pass through.” Hori stabbed her last piece with her fork. “. . . oh, ok. . . . I’ll go then.” Tsukiyama’s unexpected palm hung open in the air. “So . . . you’re not against it anymore . . . then? “I said, I’ll go,” Hori repeated. Tsukiyama, who obviously hadn’t expected Hori to accept yet, seemed confused. “I wonder where this wind blew in from?” “I just want to take pictures of flowers, and if Tsukiyama-kun’s place has roses, then that sounds good to me.” Tsukiyama’s family paid attentive care to its rose garden, and although the rose garden was the only thing Tsukiyama recommended, Hori thought that maybe she could see ever more amazing things. Since she ended up deciding to go, she thought it would be interesting to go on a walk with Tsukiyama. However, there was still one problem. “There will probably be ghouls at this party, right? Won’t I end up getting eaten?” Although they did go out and talk ordinarily face-to-face, there was a clear border between Tsukiyama and Hori, that of being a person and a “ghoul.” While Hori was greatly aware of the risk to her own life that she put into her photo activities, she didn’t particularly want to live a rushed life, and didn’t think anything like “I would die for my craft” or whatever. In the moment, she had just gone with what she had wanted to do. But now she needed to tend to her safety. “There’s no need to for you to worry about that. The servants will be told by me personally, and it will be arranged so that the guests know as well, that they must not lay a hand on you.” “Okay. Well, it seems like there will be plenty of preparation, so I’ll take pictures of the good stuff, and I won’t when nothing happens. It will be done suitably.” Hori stood up while stretching very much. “Well then, the next consecutive holidays. This time advanced payment would be nice, in the usual account.” “Oui, I definitely won’t miss that. In return, I’m expecting amazing photos. Capture the moment when I shine the most!” “The moment you shine the most, huh,” Hori repeated. With that, she slid the bill across the table to Tsukiyama and left the cafe.

#tokyo ghoul #tokyo ghoul:re #tgre #tokyo ghoul light novels #tokyo ghoul: quest #tokyo ghoul translations #my translations #tokyo ghoul: sponse #tsukiyama shuu #hori chie #tokyo ghoul information #tg light novels #ishida sui #towada shin

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nozoroomie · 7 years

Note

For the prompts things, would you consider doing a Kanadia Flower Shop AU ; a ; I think it'd be really cute. Thank you in advance! ~

Sorry this has taken so long! I hope this is everything you’re hoping it might be, i’ve been thinking a lot about this since I saw it in my inbox ;u;.

I’m also doubling this as a birthday present for my fav!! Happy late birthday Dia ily ;o;!!

KanaDia flower shop au! here we go!

(Note: all italicized words said by Mari are said in English)

The bell on the door of the shop chimes as its pushed open and the girl at the counter looks up from her inventory sheet. She throws on her warmest smile and looks in the direction of the door. She opens her mouth to call out a friendly greeting until she notices the familiar tall form and blonde hair of her best friend.

“Ah, Mari.” Dia frowns, crossing her arms and watching as Mari’s head turns towards her.

“DIA~” She shouts happily with a small skip in her step. “It’s lovely to see you~”

“If you’re not here to buy flowers today, I suggest coming back at a later hour.” Dia replies, going right back to her inventory sheet. “I’m getting this week’s inventory organized and seeing what I might have to order for the following week. We’re making arrangements for a wedding soon and we need to be ready.”

“Yes yes, I know, that’s why I brought you some help~!” Mari’s says in a sing song voice. “I remember you told me your sister has decided to leave the business, and that leaves only you and Maru-chan left to run Azalea, right~?”

Dia looks up from her paper to see Mari right in her face, her bright eyes practically glistening. Dia can feel a bead of sweat form and she sighs.

“Well, yes,” she begins, “I haven’t even put a job description up yet, and I’m far from ready to do an interview today. Plus, I’m not quite… certain that whomever you’d recruited to help us is fit for the position. I know what you, Yoshiko-san and Riko-san spend the weekends doing.”

Mari laughs.

“Trust me Dia! You will like her. She’s a hardworking girl who needs something to keep her busy~ Right Kanan?”

Dia’s attention is brought to a girl who lingers at the front of the shop, leaning over and examining the marigold displays at the front. The girl in question looks up at the sound of her name and she smiles. Dia can feel her face heat up from how her indigo hair contrasts with the vibrant orange blossoms and when the girl makes her way over to them, Dia’s amazed to see how tanned the girl in question is.

“I’d answer yes, but I’m not so sure what I’m answering yes to.” The girl, Kanan, admits. She has a sheepish smile on her face and Dia almost frowns.

How could Mari bring someone so attractive into her shop and tell her she wants the job she hasn’t even officially put up yet?

“Well, you’re smart to.” Dia replies.

Kanan laughs a bit before politely bowing.

“My name is Matsuura Kanan.” She introduces, “Part time diver and training to get on the olympic swim team.”

Dia awkwardly returns the bow, introducing herself.

“D-Dia Kurosawa. Business woman and full time florist.”

Dia watches as Kanan beams in her direction and she almost melts. What a dazzling smile.

“Well, now that you both know each other-” Mari cuts in, giving Dia knowing eyes, “What do you say? Does she get the job?”

“Are you kidding me?!” Dia objects, forgetting about the smile and turning to her taller friend, “We haven’t had a proper interview! I don’t have any sort of resume, references, I have no details about her past or current work experiences and frankly, I don’t quite have time to do an interview, as I mentioned.”

Mari pouts.

“Oh come on Dia! You have a perfectly capable girl ready to be hired at any moment and you’re going to say no because you can’t interview her?!”

“Absolutely, yes.” Dia deadpans.

Mari frowns but her guest begins to laugh.

“Mari, she makes a good point.” Kanan points out and Mari’s frown only deepens.

“I know but! I really hoped I’d be able to get my two best friends in the same spot. Visiting you both while you’re at work would be so much easier for our schedules!”

“Mari-san.” Dia says with a frown. “Whatever you were planning, please. Just stop.”

“Well, it’s not like that was my real goal any way.” Mari sighs and looks at Dia. “Are you sure you can’t hire her? She’s qualified for every task, and strong! She can lift so much! Her strength is like, Wow!”

“Mari-san, I appreciate your help, but as a business owner I must be professional. If Matsuura-san would truly like to work her, then she can bring a resume and I can schedule an interview with her in the near future.”

Kanan smiles.

“That’s only fair.” She says.

“Now, I hate to push you out so early, but I really must get this inventory done before close.” Dia decides, not wanting to waste any more time than she needs to. “Unless, you’d both like to purchase something..?”

She lets the sentence trail off and Mari laughs.

“I think I’m fine. What about you, Kanan?”

Kanan ponders it for a moment.

“You know, maybe I might. I’ll stop by tomorrow, if that’s okay? You’ll be here, right?”

“Of course.” Dia replies. “The only days I’m not here are Sunday’s and Mondays, when we’re closed.”

Kanan smiles.

“Then I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Sure enough, Kanan shows up bright and early, a few minutes after the shop opens. Dia’s busy watering the plants out front, her red apron on and a small smile on her face. Kanan watches her with a smile as she moves from one pot to the next, not paying attention or even noticing her arrival. Kanan leans against the wall of the shop and watches as Dia leans down, inspecting her arrangement of day lilies with careful hands.

“I can see you, you know.” Dia says eventually.

Kanan’s smile grows.

“And yet you said nothing?” She quips playfully and Dia smiles.

“Well, I am working after all.” She turns to her and green eyes meet violet and hold her gaze. “How can I help you today, Matsuura-san? Is it possible you broguth a resume for me?”

Kanan shakes her head.

“Not today, unfortunately. I have a friend whose father works on the ferry so we’re going to see if I can get a part time job at the office there.”

Dia nods.

“I wish you luck with your job hunt.”

“Thank you, Kurosawa-san.” She gives her that beautiful, dazzling smile and continues to speak, “I would like your help in picking out some seeds. Maybe some beginners gardening tools?”

Dia smiles.

“Of course. Follow me inside.”

They spend an hour going through the shop. Dia asks questions about any information Kanan has about gardening, which is surprisingly not as limited as she expects. Dia hands her some instructional pamphlets and points out the best beginners flowers for her. Kanan talks about how she would like to bring a lot more colour to her apartment, and how she knows caring for a few potted flowers might be a nice hobby to do when she finds herself at home for long periods of time.

In the end the two of them decide maybe purchasing an already growing flower might be the best route for Kanan to go down, especially since her apartment has no room for a large amount of garden supplies. Kanan finds herself scanning the small pots with different tags labeling which flowers have been planted in its soil.

“This is such a hard choice.” Kanan admits. “I’m not even sure what flower to choose. They all look like they’ll grow to be beautiful plants.”

“Take your time.” Dia reassures, “The right one will come to you.”

Kanan thinks about all the flowers in front of her more and glances to Dia.

“Which one would you choose?” She asks with a small smile. “If you were me, what plant would you go for?”

Dia contemplates it for a moment, before picking up a small pot. It’s plastic is firm, tough, and unlike the others it has yet to begin sprouting. Dia holds the pot carefully in her hands as she looks to Kanan.

“Dianthus caryophyllus. The Carnation.” the brunette answers in a soft voice. “It’s been a while since I’ve been able to successfully grow any carnations that aren’t pink or white. This pot here has the final red carnation seeds I’ll get for the season, and while I doubt they’ll be able to bloom, I really do think getting some time out of my shop might be their chance to grow and become the beautiful flowers they’re meant to be.”

Kanan watches as Dia’s gaze lingers on the undisturbed soil for a moment before she puts the pot back.

“However, it would burden me more to sell you a flower that might not even bloom. So, I recommend any of the-”

“I’ll take it.”

Dia’s surprised by how determined Kanan’s voice is. She feels her ears heat up as she looks at the dark haired girl and watches her pick up the pot she placed down. Kanan holds it closer and smiles down at the small pot before turning her gaze to Dia.

“This is the one I’ll take. I’ll be leaving with it, if you don’t mind.”

Dia only stares at the other girl for a moment, hoping the red of her ears doesn’t stand out too much. She watches as Kanan uses her other hand to fish into her back pocket, turning to move towards the counter and pull out her wallet. Dia frowns slightly, but follows.

“Are you sure?” She voices her concern. “There’s no guarantee that this flower will grow, and I’m not one to give refunds for faulty seeds.”

Kanan laughs.

“I won’t take any refunds if she doesn’t grow. But I’m taking her and giving her a home and I’ll make sure she does her best.”

Dia doesn’t prompt any further. If the beautiful girl wants to buy her last red carnation, who is she to object? She steps over to her till and begins to cash her out. Kanan hands her exact change and gives Dia another smile, different this time. It’s a bit shy.

“So, before I leave to introduce this small flower to her new home, any final tips? Things I should look out for or do to help her grow?”

Dia considers going over everything they went through earlier but decides to let Kanan part with one last piece of wisdom.

“Talk to it.” She answers, “About anything really. Tell it about your day. The things you like, anything. It’s been proven communicating with your flowers can help with their growth.”

Kanan laughs again and nods.

“Got it. Thank you, Dia.”

She gives her a small wave before making her way to the door and exiting.

A new morning ritual begins from then on. Dia always finds Kanan ready to greet her the moment she begins watering the flowers for the morning. They don’t talk about much. Dia asks about the carnation and Kanan answers on it’s progress. Kanan will update her about her day, how great a workout she did and how the water felt if she had an early morning swim.

They talk about their mutual friend quite a lot. Kanan had been Mari’s childhood friend throughout their schooling, while Dia met Mari through social events and was her college roommate. The fact the two of them hadn’t met one another throughout that time is a complete mystery to them, but Dia isn’t ashamed to admit she’s happy to have met someone who plays such an important part in Mari’s life.

Each visit Kanan pays to her small shop has Dia feeling happy. Whenever she hears the familiar footsteps of Kanan approaching her, or hears that upbeat voice or gets the chance to see that happy, tanned face of hers, Dia feels blessed. It isn’t until they exchange phone numbers that Dia realizes just how happy a simple message from the other girl can make her, even if it’s something as simple as a picture of the carnation plant that’s formed a small seedling, or a good morning message when Kanan has to work and is unable to stop by the shop.

The budding crush Dia has goes far from unnoticed and she inwardly sighs. The more she talks with her, the more it grows. The more she wants to know about the other girl.

She wants to tell Mari off, be offended that she introduced her to such a perfect girl, but on another hand she wants to thank Mari, because without her she wouldn’t have such a great presence in her otherwise boring life (aside from her beloved little sister, whom she will never be bored of.) Kanan is amazing. She’s nothing short of fantastic and Dia wishes she could find a way to tell her that herself, but there’s no point.

There’s just no point telling her when Dia knows there’s a good chance she’s straight.

A ping from her phone pulls her from her thoughts and Dia finds a message from said girl. She swipes open the screen and is greeted by an image of a tall plant stock and at the end of it is a small bud in bloom, with tips dyed a deep, beautiful red. Her eyes widen and she smiles as a follow up message is sent to her.

“Here she is :D!” Is all Kanan’s text says.

“Incredible!! You did it (＾＾)ｂ” Dia replies

“Heh, thanks. I think the talking step really helped with her growth.”

“Oh yeah? What did you tell her about?”

Dia’s phone is silent for a bit and she wonders if Kanan’s gotten busy, but the reply soon comes in the form of two words.

“Honestly? You.”

Dia reads the words over and over again, unsure of what to think. Talking about her? What exactly did Kanan say? Did she tell the plant all about her business? Possibly all her hard work that she does to grow the most beautiful flowers in the area? Dia doesn’t stop the blush from forming and another message pops up from Kanan.

“I told her all about you. How hard you work, your favourite colour, the colour of your eyes and the cute little barretts you wear. I told her about the way you smile at the sight of a bud forming on every flower and how you greet the small planters every morning before watering them. How every time you work on an arrangement the smell of each flower always lingers.”

Dia inhales sharply as another quick reply is sent from Kanan.

“Oh geeze, That last comment makes me sound like a creep!! I didn’t mean it in a negative way or anything, I just think you always smell really nice (〃ー〃) ”

Dia’s practically a tomato at this point, noticing the blushey emoji Kanan adds to the end of that reply. Her heart races and her eyes are glued to the small phone screen. She fumbles with her phone a bit and her hands shake as she begins to type out a reply, a small bit of hope forming in the pit of her stomach.

“You just told the seedling all about me to encourage it to grow?! Why on earth would you talk about me of all things?”

When fifteen minutes go by and there’s no sign of a reply, Dia huffs and begins to pace.

Why would Kanan talk about all those things? There’s several different things that it can imply. Kanan might want the plant to know its roots. Where it all began and the kind of person that began to help its life grow. Maybe Kanan thinks that it might be interesting to talk about someone who works with plants. Maybe she thought that something related to what the plant is familiar with might encourage it to grow. That is a small possibility.

Or perhaps the reason Kanan talks to the carnation a lot about her is because she just might like-

Dia shakes her head and smacks her cheeks with both her hands. That is the most unlikely answer she could ever determine. There’s no possibility of it being that. Kanan’s never said anything about her sexual identity and Dia’s just setting herself up for heartbreak if she continues to think about this. Unless there’s a chance Mari knows-

Forgetting her previous train of though she dashes for her phone. She picks it up, going to her important contacts and immediately begins to call her. The phone rings once. Twice. There’s a third ring before the other line is picked up.

“Hello~ Mari speaking!”

“Mari,” Dia states her name seriously, “I need you to clarify something with me right. Now.”

“Dia?! You never call me without letting me know the day before! What’s up?!”

“What is Kanan’s dating preferences?!” She practically shouts into the receiver. “Mari, I know you know!”

Mari’s laughter comes from the other line and Dia groans.

“This isn’t the time for laughter! I’m serious!”

“I-I’m sorry! This isn’t what I expected at all! Oh my god, Dia you’re so adorable!”

Mari continues to laugh and if Dia weren’t the proper mannered girl she is, she’d hang up on the spot. She can tell Mari’s trying to collect her bearings but the moment she sounds calm, she starts laughing again. Dia’s hand grips her phone tightly and she grumbles.

“Ohara Mari you are absolutely ridiculous”

“Me?! I beg to differ!” She continues to laugh and Dia pinches the bridge of her nose.

“Mari, please! I need you to answer me because-”

“You’ve got a crush on her, right~?”

Dia’s lips form a tight line and Mari giggles.

“Oh~ Did I guess right~?” She teases and Dia sighs.

“Alright, yes. You did. It’s inevitable, really, you brought one of the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen to my shop and she’s been visiting me every day and-”

“Aw~ I didn’t think she’d visit you every day. That’s sweet.” Mari’s voice is soft when she replies and Dia takes note in it as she presses on.

“Yes, well as I was saying-”

“Dia, remember the first winter after we became roommates and I brought Riko-chan over to study with us?” Mari suddenly cuts off, taking her back to their college days.

“Well, yes, but what has that got to do with this?” Dia frowns, staring out the window.

“Remember when Riko left to take a call from her girlfriend and you were surprised to learn she was dating a girl?” Mari asks in that same soft voice.

“Yes. Yes I remember that.” She answers.

“What was it that I told you after that?”

Dia begins to wrack her brain for the answer. She remembers they were all under the kotatsu, because it was winter break. She was working on her research paper while Riko and Mari focused on math. She made the comment to Mari offhandedly and Mari laughed and said-

Dia gasps and before she can reply, Mari laughs.

“Sounds like you figured it out~ Ciao, Dia!”

The phone call ends with a blip and Dia places her phone down. Her mouth is agape and all she can do is quietly repeat what Mari said that evening long ago.

‘It’s not that surprising when you know all my friends are gay.’

There’s a sharp knock at her door and Dia practically jumps four feet in her surprise. She quickly shoves these thoughts aside, knowing it might be Ruby coming by to drop off the books she borrowed. She takes a moment to compose herself, brushing a few strands of hair from her face and flattening her dress before walking to the front door. She opens it up, ready to greet her sister but words don’t even form when she notices who it really is.

Kanan stands there, the potted carnation in her hands and a tiny blush on her face. she gives Dia a crooked smile and Dia swallows the growing lump in her throat.

“Hey.” Kanan greets.

Dia doesn’t know what to say and only nods.

“I uh. I thought it might be easier to explain myself in person, rather than text.” Kanan explains.

“And.. you brought your carnation?”

Kanan blushes a bit.

“May I come in?” She asks, changing the subject.

Dia pushes the door open a bit more and steps inside. Kanan follows and Dia closes the door behind her. She shuffles out of the doorway while Kanan kicks off her shoes. Dia decides to distract herself with making some tea for the two of them and Kanan follows her inside, looking at the various decorations around the house before seating herself at the small table in the center of the living room. She sets the flower pot gently on the table in front of her and takes her time looking around Dia’s house while she lingers in the kitchen.

It doesn’t take Dia long to return with two mugs of tea and with a slightly shaky hand, she places it down in front of Kanan and takes a seat across the table from her. Kanan thanks her, putting her hands around the mug and looking down at the steam rising from it. They don’t say anything for a few moments, and in the silence Dia swears her heartbeat must be the loudest thing in the room.

“I uhm,” Kanan eventually starts, looking up from her cup, “I guess I should tell you why I talked to the flower about you.”

‘Absolutely.’ Dia wants to say, but she only gives a small nod.

“I… well, whenever I found myself going to talk to the flower, I just couldn’t think of anything. I know you told me that you can talk about literally everything with the flower, but it felt weird trying to talk to a plant about my workout routine and hobbies. It just felt like I was bragging about things many people do to no one in particular.”

Dia can understand that.

“So I tried thinking of different things to talk about. Talking about entertainment with the flower is hard since I rarely keep up with anything, and well, I thought back to you. I thought to myself ‘What might Dia talk about with her flower?’ and in the end I just- started talking about you.”

Kanan’s crooked smile makes it’s way back to her lips and she shrugs a little.

“One day I’m telling the little flower that you’re the really sweet florist who was afraid to sell me a plant that might not grow, the next I’m telling her about what happened when I saw you earlier in the day. It just felt right, talking to the flower about you. It felt good. It reminded me of the look you had, the day I bought her from you. The soft look in your eyes and the way your voice sounded. I felt the maybe you’re silent wish for the carnation to bloom might help encourage it and so I decided to continue talking about you to give it that daily boost of love; because you love all your flowers and because I-”

Kanan cuts herself off and Dia notices the growing dark hue to her cheeks. Kanan swallows and looks Dia head on. Dia’s face heats up once more and Kanan speaks in a clear voice.

“I continued to talk about you because at the time I thought, maybe I was feeling something for you. I know we had just met and it’s stupid, thinking you might be falling for someone in the first week of knowing them, but I couldn’t stop thinking about you. Thinking about you made me really happy, I smiled with every thought of you. I wanted to see you so many more times than I was to try and confirm these budding feelings but the more I lingered on it, the more swept up I became.”

If Dia’s hopes weren’t high earlier, they definitely are now. The words that Kanan says, the slightly shy tone to her voice, that gentle, warm gaze she keeps throwing Dia’s way, all of them are telltale signs of an obvious crush. Dia knows that with all of her being. But even knowing doesn’t stop that little bubble of dread from popping and Dia almost recoils at the realization that signs mean nothing and she could be misunderstanding it all. She clears her throat, deciding it’s her turn to speak.

“You couldn’t stop thinking about me?” She asks. Kanan nods.

“Mhhm. Ever since that day with Mari, the moment I saw you I just-”

She stops speaking and chuckles, shaking her head.

“Geeze, what am I doing?” She lets go of her cup and pushes the plant towards Dia. “You’re familiar with the language of flowers, yes?”

Dia frowns at the topic change and gives a curt nod.

“Okay, good. So you can tell me what it means to give someone a light red carnation then, right?”

“Admiration.” She answers instantly. “To give someone a red carnation can be a way to tell someone you really admire them.”

“Right! Yeah. But look at this one- look at our carnation.”

Dia almost blushes from how Kanan stresses that it’s not just hers, but theirs and she stares at the small petals that have recently bloomed. In the picture Kanan sent earlier, it seemed a lot lighter, giving off a light red feeling, but as she examines the small blossom she notices the deeper hues inside the petals and she doesn’t face Kanan.

“It’s a lot darker.”

“R-right. And a deep red carnation can symbolise-”

“A deep love. Affection.” Dia cuts her off with a faint whisper.

The two of them fall silent. Dia’s heart races as Kanan’s shy display with the carnation gets her point across. Kanan knows she doesn’t need to say anymore and Dia, as happy as she is to hear this, can’t utter a single thing. She feels like this might be a very realistic dream.

“You love me?” Dia eventually asks, looking directly at Kanan.

The other girl blushes heavily.

“I-I might. It might be love. It’s hard to tell right now but I know for certain I hold a huge amount of affection for you and I- Well I mean, maybe this huge amount of affection is love? It could be love. Maybe. I might be wrong. Oh god this is a mess. I’m a mess.”

Dia watches as Kanan crosses her arms and looks at the table as she fumbles with her sentence. Her face is reddening the more she embarrasses herself but it doesn’t stop the smile that grows on Dia’s lips. She leans in a bit while Kanan goes on.

“-Anyway my real point here is that I really really like you and I thought this would be a neat way of telling you and-”

Kanan cuts herself off when she feels Dia’s hands gently folding over top of her own. She glances to them, then back to Dia’s face. Dia’s still smiling and Kanan swallows again.

“I like you too, Kanan.” She says.

The silence that follows is a comforting one. Kanan’s smile radiates all the happiness she feels and Dia can’t help but feel the same way. The two of them lean closer to one another and as their lips meet for the first time, their small little carnation opens its petals a tiny bit more.

#Kanadia #Kanan Matsuura #Dia Kurosawa #Mari Ohara #Love Live Sunshine #myfic #ultimate wing woman Mari #I hope you ike it!#happy late birthday Dia!!#mikantrapper #flower shop au

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