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marblemoovt · 2 years

Text

I (Absolutely) Do (not) - Mondo Owada/Reader

Masterlist

Rating: Teen

Word Count: 3.5k

Warnings: None, just good ol’ fluff and angst (happy ending)

Summary:

Today's the big day. Today you're finally going to marry your fiancé.

Note:

I am currently posting a few of my old works from Wattpad onto ao3, and now tumblr! Keep in mind that most of these are probably a couple of years old. And while they might make me cringe, as old writing tends to do, I don't think I'll ever rewrite any of them due to sheer laziness. I hope you enjoy reading these tho!

─── ⋆ ｡ﾟ☆: *. ☽ .* :☆ﾟ｡⋆ ───

The chime of the church bells startles you out of your thoughts. Today's the big day! Today you're finally going to marry your fiancé! After being engaged for more years than you can count, they agreed to picking a day and hosting a ceremony. The setting wasn't ideal. At first, you proposed a simple wedding with a few friends and family, but your fiancé insisted on something grander and more extravagant. So here you are, in a church, having a wedding with barely anyone you know on the guestlist --most of your friends had cancelled due to conflicting schedules.

Your fingers fidget, and it becomes increasingly difficult to not scrunch up the fabric of your wedding attire in your hands. Instead, you drum your fingers on the table in an anxious fit. A knock on your door sends a jolt through your heart, and you nearly fall off your seat. Rising from the chair, you hastily make your way to the door, hoping it's your fiance sneaking away to see you.

"How's it goin', Soon-to-be partner of F/n?" a familiar voice says, throwing your hopes into the dumpster. (F/n stands for your fiancé's name. Forgive me for the awkward term usage. It's very difficult to find a gender-neutral term for relationships/marriage.)

"Mondo?" You open the door to reveal a dressed up Mondo in his snazzy white biker outfit. He never wears those clothes unless it's a special occasion or he's kicking some ass. "You certainly look fetching today, Mondo," you snicker to yourself.

"Hey! Don't laugh at me! I was told that ya gotta wear white to a wedding," he grumbles, refusing to admit to his blunder. You stare at him, waiting for some sort of punchline, but this is Mondo we're talking about, and he rarely jokes around.

"Traditionally, wearing white is something the bride does. Not to say that other people can't wear white, but often it's the bride who has to wear white."

"Oh..."

"But honestly! You look great in white! It really, um, accentuates your manliness?" You grin and shoot him a couple of finger guns in an attempt to wipe the unamused frown that's starting to settle on his face. He sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose.

"It's a miracle you're getting married, ya know that?" His words make you sputter, and you slap his shoulder half-heartedly.

"I know, I know. Someone like me settling down seems impossible-"

"No, dumbass. I'm talkin' 'bout how you're gettin' married after being engaged for so long. I thought I was gonna have to pummel some sense into that piece of shit." Mondo interrupts you to prevent any misunderstanding, flicking your forehead. You pout and ruffle his pompadour in retaliation. He clicks his tongue and tries to repair the damage while giving you a serious look. "Listen, ya gotta stop with that self depricatin' humour. It ain't funny, and it ain't true."

"It's my wedding day, and you're still going to badmouth my fiancé?" You try to steer the conversation away and ignore his last remark. He frowns at the change of subject but decides to drop it.

"I told ya since day one. I don't trust that snake. You told me that they slithered into someone else's bed while you were gone."

"That was different, Mondo! Our class was missing for two years; they thought I died!" You try to justify your fiancé's actions, choosing to believe in their love for you. Clearly, Mondo is annoyed at how blinded you are by your feelings.

"Ditch those fuckin' rose-tinted glasses, Y/n. It doesn't take a genius to see how shady it was when they asked you to marry 'em after not seein' you for two years! How long did it take for you to have this ceremony? How many times did you doubt whether you would actually get married to them?" He begins to poke holes in your beliefs. Turning your head away, you refuse to meet his eyes, not wanting to acknowledge the possibility you've been played. "Damn it, Y/n! Look at me! Look me in the fuckin' eyes and tell me that this is what you want! To get married to someone who continues to grow distant from you, who leaves you crying alone at 2 am! Cause it sure as hell ain't what I want for you."

You bite your lip, knowing that he's only trying to look out for you in his usual brash way. You hadn't noticed, but your knuckles had turned white from gripping your arms. Taking a shaky breath, you walk to the door and open it. "Please, I need to be alone right now."

"Y/n...."

"I know." He walks up to you, and you pat his arm. "I know you're only looking out for me... because I would do the same. But I really need to be alone right now, need to think for a bit and get my thoughts in order." You know how riled up the both of you get when a spat happens, so you decide it's for the best if you cool off before continuing the conversation. Mondo grimaces and nods his head.

"Well, ya better think hard. Cause there's somethin' important inside that head of yours that you're forgettin'."

"What do you mean? Is there something about my fiancé I'm supposed to recall?"

"No, it's not that. I would prefer if you forgot about the bastard entirely. Just... don't forget the celebration gift I gave ya. You did promise you'd wear it on your wedding day," he says bitterly, but he sees your confused expression and dismisses his words. "Nevermind, I'll be out near my hog if ya need me." He walks out the door, closing it behind him. The click of the door sends a wave of sadness to wash over you, leaving the room silent with only the periodic chimes of the church bells. Was this really what you wanted? Was it too much to expect your fiancé to still love you after going missing for two years? You begin to nervously chew on your nails, the glint of the engagement ring glimmering on your ring finger. Taking a brief pause, you slide the ring off your finger and stare at it intently. To disperse any feelings of doubt, you leave the room to search for your fiancé, hoping to strengthen your resolve over marriage.

Luckily for you, their dressing room is only down the hall. You quietly walk down the corridor, not wanting to attract any attention from the guests. Remembering that you also forgot your breakfast donut in their room when you were sneaking flowers for your fiancé, you make a mental note to eat it if your fiancé hasn't already found and ate it before you. You stop in front of the door. However, the door is slightly ajar. Out of curiosity, you decide to take a peek before knocking on the door, but to your horror, you see your fiancé kissing another person. Your fiancé is blocking the view of the other person, but things grow heated, and you watch as your fiancé hoists them up onto the table. You hold your breath. If they could just turn a little, you can catch a glimpse of the cheeky minx your fiancé is passionately making out with. They pull apart with giggles and lingering touches between them; it makes your heart feel queasy.

"We can't keep this up for long. The ceremony is in twenty minutes," a feminine voice says in a breathy tone. You freeze. There's something so familiar about that voice that it's unsettling.

"Darling, twenty minutes is all we need," your fiancé replies, launching an assault on the other party. Laughter erupts, and you feel your knees buckle. A strong pair of arms catch you before you hit the floor, turning you away from that horrid sight. You don't remember what happens next, only that you're picked up and carried outside to the hidden garden at the side of the church. Hands gripping the collar of a white trenchcoat, you numbly turn your head to see a familiar pompadour and those violet eyes that you've forgotten you adored.

".....Mondo?"

He turns to you, a furious expression on his face. "You saw nothin', ya got that? Wipe that disgusting memory from your mind!" His eyes soften when he notices that you're trembling. He tries to set you down on a bench, but you refuse to let him go, so he sighs and sits down with you in his arms. "Didn't I tell ya they're a real piece of shit?" You nod slowly, burying your face into his shoulder. He pats your back and says, "Look, if you wanna cry, I ain't gonna stop you. Let it all out so that we can go back inside and kick some ass."

You laugh, but your laughter turns into hiccuping, and your hiccuping turns into sobbing. Crying into his shoulder, Mondo strokes your back in comfort and waits for you to finish. "I was supposed to get married today," you sniffle.

"I know. At least you found out what kind of trash they really are."

"To think that they were cheating on me!"

"Yeah! how dare they!"

"On my wedding day!" you shout furiously.

"What a shitty person!" Mondo continues hyping you up.

"With my own mother!" you shriek.

"Ye-- wait, what?" He pauses in shock. "You're joking, right?" He looks at your tear-stained face, and his expression falls. "Oh shit, you're actually serious." Mondo ponders for a minute before mumbling, "I always knew they were a motherfucker." You gasp. Trying to laugh and a stuffy nose created the byproduct of a weird mating call that whales use. Mondo lets out a chuckle, the vibrations rumbling off his chest and sending tingles through your body.

"So much for getting married," you sigh, the disappointment clearly showing on your face.

"It's not like ya have to specifically marry them. Hell, you're sittin' on the lap of the hottest biker in the world." He tries to cheer you up, which works wonderfully as you giggle, the corners of your mouth twitching into a smile.

"You are wearing white... You can be my bride!" You chuckle, tears forming in your eyes at the thought of Mondo finding a veil big enough to cover his pompadour --or would he just cut a hole instead? Regardless, the image brought a blush to your cheeks.

"Fuck, you really have no idea what ya do to me." He gazes at you and brushes away some of your tears with his thumb. "C'mon, we got a wedding to crash and a fiancé to beat up!" He stands up, and you set your feet on the ground, taking his hand that he offered to you. You walk through the doors, and suddenly, a priest grabs your arm. You notice he's out of breath with sweat dripping down his forehead.

"Goodness me, child. Where have you been? Your fiancé and mother are worried sick. They couldn't find you anywhere. We must hurry; the ceremony is starting." The oblivious priest guides you to the grand double doors that lead to the alter. You frantically look behind you to see Mondo clenching his fists before storming outside. Disappointed, you let the priest guide you and begin walking down the aisle once the band starts playing the wedding march. You see your fiancé standing at the alter, but their eyes aren't focused on you; their eyes are focused on your mother. It feels nauseating to be the only person in the room who's aware of the adultery that was committed several minutes ago, which you don't even know when it started.

Reaching the alter, you feel relieved that you manage to maintain a neutral expression as your fiancé smiles at you and the vows are read.

"Do you, F/n, take Y/n as your wedded spouse, to have and to hold, for better, for worse, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do you part?"

"Absolutely! I mean, I do," your fiancé stumbles, earning a few chuckles from the audience, but it left a foul taste in your mouth. The priest then reads the vows for you, and you take a deep breath before answering.

"I..." Your fiance gazes at you expectantly, but you notice their eyes shifting away from your face and glancing at the front row where your mother is seated.

"I absolutely do not!" You declare, shocking even the priest. Your mother quickly rises from her seat and tries to persuade you.

"Oh, Y/n. If it's cold feet you're having, don't worry! Marriage is great, and you love F/n." She tries to reassure you, but you brush her off.

"Why don't you marry them then! I saw you two practically fucking in the dressing room twenty minutes before the reception was supposed to start!" you shout at your mother. The crowd and even the priest gasps. Everyone is whispering amongst themselves, unsure of what's going on.

Your 'fiancé' butts in. "Now, Y/n. I'm sure this is all a misunderstanding. Are you sure that's what you saw?"

"I'm sure of what I saw. But maybe I should get my vision checked because I don't even know what I saw in you in the first place!"

Your fiancé feigns hurt and continues to remain ignorant in front of the many eyes watching them. "You can't just accuse me of something you have no proof of, Y/n. Honestly, I'm quite hurt that you think I would do something like that."

Your mother turns to calm down the audience when you notice a giant stain on the bottom of her dress.

"Boston cream..." you mumble.

"What? This isn't time to be thinking about food," your fiancé frowns.

"No! I left my donut in your room when I went to put flowers on your desk! I watched you and mother make out on top of the desk. That stain is proof that she was sitting on your desk! How else could she have gotten that distinct chocolate glaze and cream filling on her dress?!" Your fiancé flinches, and your mother swoops in to try and save them.

"I was checking the catering when a waiter ran into me."

"Bullshit," you retort.

"Y/n, it's really not a big deal. Why don't we continue with the ceremony? You won't meet another nice fiancé like F/n again."

"No! Marriage this and marriage that! It's always you insisting... that I get... married," you finish in a hushed tone. "I didn't survive the antics of a psychopathic bear for two years just to marry some trash I don't even like!" Your head throbs, and you bring a hand up to soothe the pain in your temple. "Holy shit," you mumble to yourself. "I-I never wanted this. Why did I agree to do this?" Furrowing your brows, you try to remember why you agreed to this engagement. You vaguely recall being engaged, but why wasn't it with F/n?

Your mother panics and grabs your hands. "I did this for your own good, Y/n. I couldn't have you marry a biker --a biker, Y/n!" She continues to ramble on, her eyes freaking you out. "We can share. It's no big deal. It was so lonely when you were gone, but F/n kept me company. We can keep each other company from now on." Her grip tightens to the point of it being painful, but you're unable to wriggle out of her iron hold over you. "Oh, you should have just eaten your donut like a good kid. If you had eaten it, none of this would have happened." You manage to wrench her hands off of you and shove her away. Your mother has clearly gone insane during the time you disappeared... has she been spiking your food?

You narrow your eyes at your ex-fiancé. "Were we ever dating?" You ask. Your memories are a jumbled mess currently, and you can no longer recall what happened when you came home after escaping Hope's Peak Academy.

"Only for a month or two before you went missing. I only dated you to get closer to your mom," they admit, to which you reply with a punch to their face. The audience cheers, and some even whistle, which makes you feel like a total badass. The sound of an engine revving catches everyone's attention, and a familiar figure comes blasting down the aisle on a motorcycle.

"Mondo!" You brighten up upon seeing him. With your back turned, you're unaware of the blow your ex-fiancé is about to deliver for that punch you gave them. A blur of white flashes past you and the shrieks of F/n echo in the room.

"You fucker!" You turn around to see Mondo lifting them up before smashing their face into the wedding cake that was conveniently placed near the altar. He dusts off his hands before confidently strutting towards you and carries you in his arms.

"Where have you been," you whisper, the blood rushing to your cheeks.

"Pickin' up some of your things. You're obviously movin' in with me after that shitshow." You notice that a duffel bag is sitting in the sidecar, presumably holding your belongings.

"You can't leave, Y/n! The ceremony isn't finished!" your mother wails, flinching when she sees your icy glare. Mondo sets you down on the bike before sitting in front of you. He kicks up the kickstand, and you flip your middle finger at your mother and her lover.

"Fuck both of you! I'm moving out!" you shout right before Mondo speeds out of the reception hall, leaving everyone in a state of confusion. You laugh and whoop in joy as the wind runs through your hair. Mondo glances back and smiles at your state of excitement. "Did you see the look on their faces?!"

"Yeah, the two of them looked 'bout ready to shit themselves. Ya did good, Y/n." You can feel the warmth radiating off his back as you tighten your hold around his waist. Suddenly, you remember the engagement ring on your finger. You had slipped it back on earlier, but now you have no use for it. You remove the jewel-encrusted band and watch the road. Once you pass by a bridge, you toss the ring. A finger on your right hand glimmers.

"Mondo, do you remember where I got this ring?" you ask, gazing intently at the purple gem in the center of the ring.

"Course I do. I was the one who gave it to ya." You knit your brows.

"Is this the present you gave to me to celebrate something?" When he doesn't respond, you crane your neck to catch a glimpse of his face, noticing that it's bright red.

"It was to celebrate our engagement," he finally answers.

You exclaim in surprise, "We're engaged?!"

He nods solemnly and begins to explain everything to you from his perspective. He recounts how the two of you fell in love at the academy, how he proposed when everyone escaped, how you started to ignore him the night after and suddenly became engaged to someone else. "The gang's gonna lose their shit when they see ya!" he happily states, rambling on about how everyone missed seeing you.

"What now?" you ask, still staring at the ring --which is now on your left ring finger.

"Well, you did promise me you'd wear it on your wedding day." He pulls up to his biker gang headquarters. The building is decorated crudely in flowers with a sloppy hand-painted banner of Mondo's name and yours. Tears well up in your eyes, and you try to blink them away.

"Did you plan for this to happen?"

"I sure as hell wasn't gonna let you marry anyone else but me," he huffs, stepping off the bike and extending his hand to you. "I was even ready to snatch ya away if things didn't go as planned."

"But who will officiate our wedding?"

"Of course, it's gotta be my bro, Taka. Who else? Man's so talented, he's gonna be my best bro and our officiant!" You laugh at his words, glad that his bromance with Taka is still going strong. "You're fuckin' beautiful when you laugh, ya know that?" He admires your crimson face and cheekily plants a kiss on the corner of your mouth. "You'll look even better with Owada as your last name." He tugs your hand and leads you to the entrance. You walk through the door together and see all of your old classmates.

"Y/n!" they all shout happily. You grin, practically glowing from all the attention. Your friends cancelled going to the first wedding because they were busy attending your wedding with Mondo.

This is it, this is the wedding you wanted. A wedding surrounded by close friends in a place you cherish.

Mondo squeezes your hand. The two of you walk down the aisle together, where Taka is waiting with a dictionary in his hands. You eye the book and let out a small laugh.

"It was the best I could do on such short notice!" he says, profusely defending himself.

You stare lovingly at the man standing in front of you, his eyes glimmering like the gem on your ring.

Today's the big day; today you're finally going to marry your fiancé.

─── ⋆ ｡ﾟ☆: *. ☽ .* :☆ﾟ｡⋆ ───

End Note:

Holy shit, I re-read this and fell in love with it all over again. This is one of my all-time favourite works that I've written and I hope you guys love it even half as much as I do.

I noticed while skimming that I used Y/n in this work. I have come to personally prefer not using/reading it, so any current or future works I write will not have it. Although I know it can be a bit difficult in this regard because of wedding vows. I would like to add I will probably also try to avoid anything like f/n (friend's name), y/e/c (your eye colour). etc. Mostly for immersion reasons and my brain hates auto-filling in words.

This work is based on a prompt: "Twenty minutes before you are about to get married, you find your mother and your fiancé kissing passionately."

Reblogs are appreciated!

#danganronpa #mondo owada x reader #mondo x reader #mondo owada #danganronpa x reader #fluff and angst #angst with a happy ending #hurt/comfort #I can't tag too much without giving anything away and I hate it #Taka and Mondo bromance #We love to see it #You and Mondo get married #Banter #bamf reader #bamf mondo #established relationship?#tbh this is one of my favourites #gender neutral reader

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grayintogreen · 2 years

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32 and 37 for the writer ask.

32. Copy and paste your top three favorite lines/jokes/sentences you’ve ever written. What fics do they come from?

Goddammit. These are not gonna be TOP THREE. These are gonna be three "I think about this a normal amount" monologues that immediately came to mind when I saw this question. My memory is swiss cheese and I don't wanna be the kind of person who holds all of her best lines in her head like ah yes, I wrote that. I'm practicing confidence but not like that.

“Here it comes again, the wily little sliver. Ever in need of help from its grander portion.” Even through the pain in his voice, he had to speak so fucking pretty. “Shall I put whatever deal you’ve come to make in writin’, then? I want to make sure we get the details right this time. There’s no worse bastard than the kind that reneges on a fair bargain and then argues semantics to make himself look better.”

-Lucien, once upon a damn-you-all, Chapter 30 (this is one of my Lucien speeches that just lands EXACTLY RIGHT for me).

“Oh no.. You think there’s an excuse. My father didn’t buy me a pony. My mother ignored me. I was picked on in school for being unique and setting fire to small animals. I had an uncle who touched my hair a little too much. Is that what you’re imagining?” Every word dripped with condescension.

She leaned closer and spoke slowly, making sure he understood every word in her lilting accent clearly. “Everything I have ever done and will ever do- womb to tomb- has been in pursuit of this singular goal. For four generations, we have been his loyal priestesses waiting for the time when one of us would be called to break the chains and release Oblivion. My mother thought it would be her, but I got her first, and I’m sure she was very proud of me. So no, Lucien, there is no excuse. There is no tragic narrative. I do this because I am fucking crazy, just like my mother and her mother before her and so on, and I like it.”

And with that, she took a step back, smiling sweetly. “Not all of us have an excuse, because when it comes down to it, what excuse is really good enough to justify the systematic murder of millions of people?”

Jayne Merriweather, the shattered stage is set (and there's a role you must fulfill), Chapter 11 (Jayne reading Lucien for filth is the best)

“I went somewhere for awhile,” Lucien said, kneeling down. “A bit of a shite place, in the end. They like to fight monsters, but they don’t fight the right kind of monsters.” He pressed the same fingernail he’d used to cut himself against Reese’s forehead, dragging his hot blood across his skin as if he was fingerpainting. “And you wanna know how they do that?”

Reese spat on the ground, missing Lucien’s boots by centimeters.

Lucien continued, undeterred. “They make people into monsters. That’s what I am now. That’s what we- the lot of us-” he gestured to his group, all of them having filed out of the booth, still holding their weapons ready, “- are now. Monsters.”

He pressed in even closer. “So let this serve as a warning. If you and yours come to bother me or mine again, the ravens will be pickin’ bits of you to bring back to their queen ‘til the next Calamity.”

-Lucien, this church takes no conversions, Chapter Eight

37. Give an update on your current WIP - if you don’t have one, give a sneak peek to a title or idea that you have and would like to write.

My "current WIP" is a Scrivner document full of my Whumptober fics, one of which is the Ophelia story for LitMoR, various stuff for you can't deny high noon, and trying to begin all of the dreamers defying convention.

But my Whumptober fics involve I think at least three new pieces for earthquake weather, some Artagan-centric fics, a handful of Lucigast and Widomauk, more Creecien (including a cav/necro AU), and a bunch of other stuff! I'm very excited.

FANFIC ASK GAME.

#my asks #ask game

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yeonban · 3 months

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@dangaer, cont'd.

spine stiff, features void of the emotion he feels churning within his chest; the usual for him, a coldness that permits nothing but confliction in his eyes, exasperated, a boy so calm he becomes the first one to move no matter what state of disarray he may find himself in the middle of. he doesn’t have to be in this moment, he knows, more than aware that if the tables had been turned, his own hands covered with so much of his own blood, that toma would have been just as visibly distraught as some of the customers that surrounded them towards him, for him, leaving no place for worry or doubt from just how much he really does care —— he’s aware of this, and yet despite that knowledge he still cannot bare to gift him back the same and not for the first time does he find himself wondering what kind of thing toma truly thinks about this / what sort of people they’ve become / what must be going on inside his head as shin gives him a response more robotic than man in characteristics. he’s long since convinced himself it’s because he no longer wishes to create such a burden on his friend’s already loaded shoulders, and that does hold up some truth. he knows well of how quick toma is to ignore his own pain the moment someone else’s comes into equation, a silent stepping stone towards something supposedly grander than his own existence / something to remind him to try to smile and put on a brave face, assurance to both their customers and their friends in a way he’s certainly sure he’ll never get to completely manage. he could’ve been hurt, of course, but it’s more of an injury to be treated as if he was so naïve to follow such a deflection and he has no intention to ignore the blankness of his tone as he assures him, the drying red that stains their hands and the floor below his knees alike.

❛ don’t worry about me like that … i’m fine, promise. ❜ you don’t need to, he almost wants to say; what about you, he almost wants to shout. he settles for neither, maintains his opinion, keeping his gaze bared into those concerned eyes because it means he can keep this conversation focused upon the boy who needs to hear it the most at this moment in time. ❛ besides, wouldn’t a guy like you notice it if i were? you’re not that much of an idiot, toma. ❜ something with a little more consideration, prompting, as he lifts one knee up. the dull ache his only reminder of just how long he’s been sitting down here, but not enough to convince him to never do it again.

❛ i’m sure those girls are more hurt, knowing they’re going to miss out on an afternoon with their favourite butler, at least. ❜ sarcastic, a half-jest; there is some truth to be found under that attempt of a playful tone he uses, well aware that he didn’t part with just the smiles of relieved customers the moment he’d lead him out back, the sudden goodbyes that meant seeing him once again in merely a few minutes. all the same … ❛ sawa’s making up what she owes me and covering your shift, so looks like it’ll be up to me to walk you home. ❜ and he means it with sincerity, forwardness. without intervention, this man will never stop; while he supposes others would find bravery in a trait he has to admit it’s something that frustrates him about toma, more often than most would be lead to believe. he too worries about what might happen if that injury were to reopened, overworked —– but more so the idea of it happening to toma, when shin is finally in the position to actually do something to help. this, however, he chooses not to add and instead offers a momentary little shrug, a gentle change in attitude.

❛ … you’re buying dinner on the way home, though, before you get too comfortable with the idea of me doing everything for you. ❜

Staring intently into the depths of crimson eyes for a prolonged moment, enough for Shin's sincerity to incontestably come across as such, Toma's expression ultimately yields and eases into relief, muscles releasing the worry they'd been anxiously holding onto. The rude remark brings a smile to his face, and so does the upcoming tease, a sign that all is indeed well with the one of them who matters most. ❛ I see... I'm glad. ❜ The subsequent mention of a familiar name brings the blond's attention back to Shin, though, and his expression darkens slightly, fleetingly. Less than a second passes before the mixture of emotions in his eyes is exchanged for a grateful smile, and it's an odd sensation... to find himself in Shin's care when it has always been the other way around (not that Toma has ever viewed it as such; his efforts have always been ceaselessly selfless rather than bearing an expectation to be repaid, but it's certainly a startling change of perspective; from the one who needed nothing and offered everything, to the one who ought to rely on the person he's never wanted to bother nor burden with his problems, lest he ends up inconveniencing others in the process too). ❛ Sawa is... well, I guess I'm in your debt now, Shin. ❜

As if having effortlessly read the thoughts that trouble him so, the demand Shin follows up with surprises Toma into momentary speechlessness, yet a chuckle accidentally escapes him in response, a frail yet wholeheartedly genuine outburst of emotion. Disconcerting as this helplessness might feel... if Shin desires to switch their usual dynamic the other way around on this particular instance, then who is he to refuse his wish? The incessant stinging in his palms seems to increase anyway (likely from the alcohol attempting to fulfill its role) and any attempt at holding strong would inevitably only make matters worse, he can tell this much.

The look in Toma's eyes returns to serenity then, pure and resigned to his fate, and he supposes he should make the most of this incident while it lasts. When will he be able to act to his heart's content and allow himself to be pampered again, once his wounds close up and there remains no excuse to fall back onto? When will he be able to benefit from Shin's kindness next, if his work ethic will take a shift for the better (in part due to the guilt felt for those who have to take on his share of the work) and there won't be any more injuries on his part to serve as an excuse? ❛ Heh... are you sure? If I pay for it, we'll have to eat together. And if I won't be able to use my hands to hold the chopsticks, you'll have to feed me. You won't escape so easily from this one, you know? I might even decide to take advantage of this injury to rope you into staying over. Are you sure you're prepared for that? It's not too late to back out and switch places with Sawa. ❜

#muse: toma.#dangaer #* toma. / ic.#SHIN PAMPERING TOMA IS EVERYTHING I'VE EVER NEEDED HELP...#Toma's internal strife is making me snort tho he really went through ALL stages of grief about this injury before arriving at acceptance #At least he's willing to sit back & let Shin take the reins now :) even decided to be obnoxious about it since the chance presented itself #LMAOFAJSDASUIDJ icb this injury alone is bringing them closer than 5 years of Toma's attempts to close the distance between them!!#Toma (...partly) joking: Maybe I should get injured more often #Everyone within earshot: (immediately smacks reason back into him)

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hamliet · 2 years

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I'm very sure you might've answered this somewhere, but what is your take on Eren's character arc in total?

Do you think the story was too kind to him?

Do you think his actions should've had more positive consequences?

I've been revisiting the story now that a pretty good amount of time has passed and I think my biggest true issue is that the ending was so 'selfish'.

AoT generally acknowledges all perspectives, but I feel like the ending was too skewed towards the main cast and the "bigger picture" suffering was kind of an afterthought.

Somehow I just can't imagine the more empathic characters like Jean and Connie not even mentioning the grander suffering Eren caused by the end.

It feels like rather than including another perspective on the matter, the narrative was skirting around it a little for at least a somewhat hopeful ending for the cast because if realistically 80% humanity gone means 80% Earth gone, there is no hope for a future for *anyone* in the longer run and that really does make the Alliance's effort of stopping Eren pretty pointless.

And that's fine for the point that blind, selfish genocide doesn't really solve the issue of people being people or racism or anything like that, but I feel it's more as a result of the narrative being selective than natural theming.

I love that it breaks the whole cult of personality thing with Eren, though and depicts him as this pathetic, screwed up dude in his manbun form.

It really is only him and his friends who benefitted from his actions in any way.

Also I feel Annie's line about him not caring about himself has been a pretty overlooked element of this whole thing.

His actions are destructive in many ways, including self-destructive and his genocide still didn't prevent Paradis from being at least war-torn.

He gave his friends the rest of their lives, but it was at the cost of literally the rest of the world.

I can see people being uncomfortable with the scene of people going to see his grave, but he also did save Paradis from certain destruction for a time.

I get it, but I also wish the story really had at least one of his friends be more critical of the consequences *after* he was gone.

Something like "he saved us, but at what cost?"

A little more "telling" in that aspect?

In general, I think it was fair to Eren, definitely not too harsh, but neither was it too light. I don't think his actions should have had any more positive consequences at all haha.

I think I am in the "it was fair to him" category, but I do think the final conversation with Armin could have been framed a bit better, like with a comment much like you say here (at what cost?). Isayama himself said he felt he oversimplified it a bit there, and I think this is the case.

That said, I think people being uncomfortable with people visiting his grave is missing the point to an extent--or at least, the fact that Eren's loved ones visit his grave is, I think, important to the themes.

There's the deep humanity of SnK that made me actually like that, even if I think the majority of people won't accept visiting his grave. I think people tend to live in black and white this day and age, welcome people in or out. The reality is that even if someone you love turns out to be a fascist or a monster or any number of things--it doesn't change your feelings immediately. The "right" thing for you to feel is not necessarily hate--it's obviously a moral imperative not to deny it or to excuse it. And some may hate or cut ties, and that's okay. But that doesn't happen overnight, and even if you end up cutting contact, that doesn't change the impact a loved one has had on you. You will always have once loved them.

So, I think the end message of Mikasa's arc captures this nuance beautifully. Even if Eren is a monster whom the world justifiably loathes or honors for his monstrosity (which means his evil continues long after his death, so he's still harming the world), he saved her once, and that's something she refuses to forget simply because she doesn't want to forget it; for her, that moment was beautiful in a sea of horror. She didn't excuse him: she executed him for his crimes, to stop him, and she and the others live their lives to stop him post his death by telling everything. But because she loves him, she's glad he existed. It's not about morality.

It's just that he was born, and he existed, and she loved him. She accepts that without moralizing or justifying or faulting herself for this love, or feeling pressured to shrug it off and forget, or pretend it wasn't love.

#ask hamliet #eremika #snk #snk ending #does that make sense?#i feel a little rambly

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peanutpinet · 3 years

Text

Lucas (mafia leader) x Reader (female)

A/N: I had this thought for days now and was like, ya know, just let it out. This is my first NCT (?) WayV (?) fanfic? Scenario? Yea XD For those who have read my past fanfics/scenarios, you know how horrible I am in explaining XD but yea, essentially I just imagine that you, the reader are a uni student whilst Lucas is part of the NCT mafia, "leader" of the WayV unit (I know Kun is technically the leader, but just for the sake of the story), okie, leggo

Sighing in defeat, you gathered all your books, stationery and some clothing before sneakily going out of your dorm and to your boyfriend's apartment since he gave you the spare key, saying that it was for emergencies or whenever you wanted to come over.

After texting Lucas that you were heading to his apartment, you went to grab a cab and head there. Truth be told, you never really went there and only got the address from Lucas. Which is why upon arriving, your jaw nearly dropped when you saw his apartment; even making sure whether the address Lucas gave last time was the exact one and making a mental note to yourself to look up things beforehand.

Upon arriving, you felt like you just came from the countryside to the big city. You went to the front desk and inform them who were you looking for, handing in your ID card and was immediately directed to the elevator, one of the securities pressing the highest floor of the elevator and left you in the elevator on your own.

Just when you thought that it couldn't get any fancier, the minute you stepped out of the elevator, you were amazed at the decor and the fact that there was only one door made it even grander. Taking out the key Lucas gave you, you were actually hoping that it wasn't the correct one and Lucas just sent you the wrong address but as it turns out, the key fits and you took a deep breath, walking into the room.

But on Lucas' side, he actually didn't receive your text message. So, the second he heard someone coming into his suite, he was already reaching for his gun because he wasn't really expecting anyone to come. But as soon as he heard your signature nervous voice, he felt relieved but worried at the same time. Did something happen to you?

"Lucas? Ar-are you in here? The people at the front desk just directed me here. I uh sent you a text" you called out

"I'm here sweetheart. Now, what brings you here at this late hour? Is there anyone I should be concern with?" Lucas stated, coming out of his bedroom

"Huh? Wow. I mean, no. Sorry, it's my first time here. I uh, I was just wondering if I could stay for the night. The dorm was so loud that I couldn't study nor sleep" you admitted, trying to avoid eye contact with Lucas, thinking that it was a lame excuse to come over

"Of course you can. I gave you the spare key for a reason, didn't I? Uh, sorry about the mess and all. I didn't expect you to come. I didn't receive any messages. C'mere sweetheart" Lucas mentioned, giving a hand motion for you to go to him

"Really?! I could've sworn I...(looks at your phone) I forgot to click the send button" you sighed, hitting your head as you went over to Lucas

"Hey, hey. Don't do that. You'll hurt your brain even more. No harm sweetheart. My place is yours. Come. I'll order some McDonalds as well if you'd like" Lucas cooed, bringing you into his office

"Damn. Two desktops?! Bro and this processor is the latest one?!" you commented, placing your bag down and immediately inspecting his desk

"Sometimes I play some games with the guys. Feel free to use it if you'd like. Lemon tea or coke?" Lucas asked, scrolling through his phone

"Lemon tea, no ice. It's worth the money better. Are you sure I can study here? Am I not disturbing you?" you questioned, sitting on the chair

"Not at all, sweetheart. It's almost 10pm. I'm done with work. You're free to use my computer. I've ordered your favourites already. I'm going to go for a shower for a bit. Feel free to turn on some music as well, alright? And please don't study for too long. I worry you'll hurt that gorgeous head of yours" Lucas chuckled, kissing your forehead before leaving you in his study room

After settling, putting on some music with your account (which was already in Lucas' Spotify), you grabbed your books and stationery then started to study for your finals. In the midst of it, you heard Lucas coming in with McDonalds; wearing a plain T-shirt and sweats.

Because there was only one chair in his office, with your consent, Lucas placed you on his lap as he was feeding you McDonalds whilst scrolling through his phone, occasionally leaning his head on your back as he does so.

After finishing the food, Lucas was about to get up and cleaned up so you could study a bit better since he knew you didn't like a messy space but when he felt your head slightly leaning backwards, he questioned whether you were already sleepy or not.

"What's wrong love? Tired?" Lucas murmured as he placed his chin on your neck, wrapping his long arms around your waist

"Huh? Oh? Sorry. I didn't realise I was leaning back" you yawned, scrubbing your eyes but Lucas stopped the motion

"Don't. Your eyes will get irritated. I think it's about time you sleep, hmm?" Lucas commented, tucking a hair behind your ear as he kissed the side of your cheek

"Hmm. I guess so" you sighed, leaning onto Lucas's chest

"Alright princess, let me just shut everything off. Kay, let's go to bed" Lucas chuckled, carrying your small figure in his arms and tucking you into his bed before going to the other side of the bed

The next morning, you were woken up by the sound of your phone's alarm but just stayed in bed whilst scrolling through your phone until you realised that you had exams that starts in 45 minutes. Immediately, you got up and went back to the study room to grab your clothes, without even calling out to Lucas and head to the bathroom to get ready.

After getting ready, you were so ready to rush out the door and call a cab until Lucas finally called out to you. Once you told him that your exam was starting in literally 15 minutes, he just chuckled and told you that he'll drive you there; which was a first since all this time, you guys just have dates near your campus since your dorm had strict rules and Lucas would just walk you there (A/N: how you guys met is a story for next time, lol).

After packing some food for you, Lucas grabbed his car keys in one hand and your hand in the other, making your way down to the parking lot where your jaw also almost dropped again since the car Lucas owned is probably enough to pay your whole entire undergraduate life.

Whilst in the car, Lucas told you to eat so you wouldn't be hungry during the exam. He also mentioned that he'll come to pick you up to celebrate finishing your finals since he knew that you've been stressing over this last final for weeks; saying that he'll treat you out.

Once you've arrived, Lucas pulled you to give a slight peck on your forehead, encouraging you to do well in your finals and that he'll see you right after you're done. You smiled and thank him. Getting out of the car, you saw nearly the whole campus that was by the front gate staring at you; even your friends were stunned before rushing to you, managing to get a glimpse at Lucas who just smiled before leaving.

"Gurl!! I knew your boyfriend was hot, but well off? You definitely hit the jackpot!!" one of your friends blurted

"Sis!! Can we save the conversation for later? I need to get this exam over with first" you bargained

"Okay, okay, good luck with your exams!! I'll see you later!!" your friend exclaimed as you went to your exam hall

Thankfully, the exam wasn't as hard as you'd thought. You didn't know if it's because Lucas actually helped you study since he actually knew the subject or something else but you were glad to finally be done with it. After the exam, you got a text from Lucas, saying that he'll be running a bit late which you didn't mind. Your friend, who was also done with her exam, came to your exam hall and didn't spare a second before plastering with all sorts of questions.

Asking you where you've been the night before since you weren't at your dorm; and when you told her you were at Lucas' place, she squealed, asking if you guys did anything spicy which you immediately cut her off, saying that you just went there to study because the rooms near yours were getting too loud and rowdy.

You also explained how kind and caring Lucas was; despite the amount of work he had to deal with, he was still soft when it came to you. Ordering your favourites from McDonalds, letting you just barged into his apartment whenever and even using whatever he had; hearing this, all your friend can do was just squeal, saying that Lucas was the perfect boyfriend.

And right on cue, Lucas texted you saying that he's almost at the front gate. Your friend saw your smile and teased the heck out of you before letting you off just because she supported your relationship; knowing that you had a rough past and it was nice to finally see you happy with someone; someone that genuinely cares about you.

But of course, life ain't that easy. Because just as you were skidding along the halls to the front gate, you accidentally bumped into someone and dropped your phone. You immediately apologised about to get your phone when the person you bumped into stepped on your phone. Looking up, you met with the campus' miss popular with her boyfriend.

"Can you please let go. I really have to go now" you sighed, looking up

"Can't your boyfriend get you another one? Oh wait, is he the one that you're meeting? Honestly, I dunno what he sees in you. Oh wait, I think I do. He's probably just in it to play around or probably did it because of a bet" the girl scoffed but you were just not having it and shoved her feet off, nearly falling if it weren't for her boyfriend being there

After getting your phone, you were about to make a run for it before she grabbed your hair, pulling you back and making you fall; calling you names and all. When you got back to your feet again, she nearly slapped you when you got ahold of her hand about to push her back when her boyfriend came and took your hand, twisting it behind your back, allowing an opening for her to get a good punch out of you.

It felt like forever since you were trapped between the two "bullies" of your campus and for Lucas, it meant something was wrong. It's been almost 30 minutes since he arrived and called you but there was no answer at all. Frustrated, he called Winwin to track your phone as he went in to find you; thinking that you were held captive by one of NCT's enemy.

When he did see you, he felt a slight relief that it wasn't one of NCT's enemy but he was still very much pissed at the sight. When the girl was about to hit you for like the 15th time, Lucas grabbed ahold of her arm, throwing her to the floor before looking at her boyfriend who turns out to be one of the bartenders in one of NCT's bars.

"B-boss..." the man stammered, letting go of your hand as you almost dropped if it weren't for Lucas catching you

"You better come to work tonight. We'll have a lil discussion about respect? Hmm? Make sure everyone comes. Or I'll just have to report Taeyong about this" Lucas growled, making the man cowered in fear

"N-no sir. Everyone will come tonight" the man stuttered as Lucas stood up, holding your figure firmly in his arms

"Good. Wouldn't want to make a big deal out of this hmm? Oh, and do bring your girlfriend while I take mine to treat the wounds you both caused" Lucas scoffed, bringing you out of the campus

Once you've reached his car, he gently placed you and put your seatbelt on before going to the driver's seat. Once he was in, he called Kun, telling him what happened and that he's planning to have a meeting later tonight in the bar. After the call, Lucas took your hand in his, stroking your knuckles as he drove back to his apartment.

Upon arriving, he helped you get out of the car and into his apartment. Inside, he brought you to his room before going to the bathroom and grabbing some medicine for your bruised face and cut on the lips. Lucas treated all your wounds as gently as possible, worrying that he might accidentally hurt you, treating you as if you're as fragile as an egg.

After he was done, he threw all the cotton buds and ordered some food for the both of you; knowing that you will tell him whenever you're ready. He put his hoodie onto you before bringing you to the living room to cuddle and just watch the whole day. Occasionally, food will come and it was all from your favourite restaurants.

After the next 5th Disney movie ended, you told Lucas that you wanted to take a shower and he told you that you can borrow any of his clothes. He even said that he'll run you a bath but you told him that you were just going to take a light shower which Lucas didn't mind. Whilst you were showering, Lucas prepared a T-shirt and shorts along with the hoodie you were just wearing.

After your shower and putting on the clothes Lucas prepared, Lucas came and redid the medicine on your wounds before going back to watching some heart-warming movies on the bed. Feeling better, you decided to tell Lucas what happened and whilst it seemed that he was calm, his mind was off wondering the endless possibilities of teaching the two that harm you; whether it'd be physically or mentally.

Either way, Lucas listened to all your rambles, wrapping his arm around your shoulder, leaning you onto his chest, giving kisses on your forehead, cheeks and occasionally your neck, chuckling when he saw you flustered; basically making you 10x better, treating you like a queen up until you fell asleep.

When you did fall asleep, he gently tucked you into bed, kissing your forehead, smiling at your sleeping figure before leaving the room to the bar where he was more than ready to make the two-person harmed you suffer; not forgetting to ask Hendery and Yangyang to come over to watch over you.

"Sleep tight sweetheart. I'll be back before you know it, alright? No one treats my queen like trash and gets away with it" Lucas mumbled, kissing your forehead as he left as quietly as possible

and let's just say that everyone in the bar that night experienced a side of Lucas that no one would like to see or hear ever again.

"Try and lay a finger on her again, I won't be so nice next time" Lucas scoffed, seeing all the staff looked down, especially the two-person who hurt you

A/N: I hope that this was alright but yea, this fanfic has been stuck in my head for days

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tundrainafrica · 3 years

Text

Title: Lovebug (13/14)

Summary:

“It might be a bug.”

“A bug?”

“Sometimes the developers of this application make mistakes. This is our first time meeting I’m sure so…Isn’t it a bit weird that we just met for the first time and it rings like this? And for two strangers to coincidentally ring each other’s alarms?“

Levi is the developer of the Love Alarm App and Hange is married to Zeke.

Link to cross-postings: AO3

Other Chapters: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

Notes: Feedback is very much appreciated :D

With attire alone, Levi was already a fish out of water.

As the seconds ticked though, his self consciousness only grew.

It wasn’t just an issue of clothing. Too many things had been against him the whole way to the dinner room. The white and silver of the windows of the private dinner room in the hotel reflected the setting sun, the marble floors, the glass bridge, the carpeted floors.

The scenery was only half the battle though. The men and women strode in and out of the dinner room with attire much grander than is. There were leather bags, the jewelry and constantly hovering in the air were the business vernacular that fell into one ear and out the order.

There were too many conversations on mergers, acquisitions, business climates, market prices he could never be part of. And his own direct companions weren’t making it any better.

As Levi soon understood, it wasn’t their job to make him feel comfortable anyway.

“Yelena,” he repeated, a memory exercise for himself. The whole journey from the convention center on the first floor to one of the rooms in the mid floor of the hotel was silent and long. In the sea of business pleasantries though, it seemed ironic that the blonde had never even made conversation beyond her own name.

Even as she sat next to him on the dinner table, she didn’t speak, not even bothering to respond to her own name. She was too close though, only a few inches away that Levi swore she had heard it.

“That’s your name right?” Levi added. He couldn’t think of much else to say. After blurting her name mindlessly, with Porco and Pieck seated just in front of him, looking at him expectantly, he knew he had to continue with something.

“I introduced myself back in the lobby already,” Yelena finally responded.

“You did,” Levi said.

“Is there anything you want to ask?” Yelena asked, no hint of benevolence in her tone.

Levi had been rolling on the bed, in and out of sleep the whole day. He didn’t trust himself to say anything else. He didn’t trust himself to think.

Yelene had a knowing look on her face, as if she knew something he didn’t. And she seemed to be enjoying it. Since a while ago, she hadn’t at all been subtle with the fact that somehow, by just their first meeting, Levi had managed to rub her the wrong way. It wasn’t too radical of an idea, that she may enjoy his pain.

Levi’s mind was suddenly racing, reminding him why he had even considered going in the first place. Is there anything you wanna ask? Those words echoed for a while longer. The longer he sat there silently, the more restless he became. He avoided her gaze, looking behind her, then behind Porco and Pieck, taking in his surroundings again. He was observing mannerisms, branded bags, branded ties, branded purses and Zeke in the middle of all of it, going from one table to the other.

Eventually, after the discomfort settled, Levi realized he was torturing himself for a reason.

Hange wasn’t there. And he shouldn’t have needed that long look to notice it. But you’ve given up already? Right?

“You’re not going to eat?” Pieck was a lot more friendly. There was a huge difference between being polite and being friendly and Levi suspected, he was only seeing politeness as friendliness given the stark contrast of Yelena’s overall approach towards him

In the air, tension hung so thick. Levi didn’t notice a piece of bread and a bowl of soup had been served in front of him. “I will.” He immediately went for the spoon in front of him.

“That’s the spoon for the main course,” Yelena said.

“What?” By the second, Levi was starting to realize how disconnected he actually was. Around the soup, there were spoons, forks and knives in multiple sizes. In a panic, Levi had looked around to see it was the same for everyone else.

Yet, everyone else knew how to navigate such a complex design.

“The small one is the soup spoon.” Pieck was helpful at least. “No, that’s the tea spoon,” she added as she looked pointedly at the smallest one Levi had taken hold of.

Levi was familiar enough with tea to be familiar with the size of the teaspoon. At that point though, who cared what spoon he ate with? He wasn’t there to dine.

By some pride or just utter frustration at the whole situation, the spoon debacle was never solved and Levi never touched his soup that night. He closed himself off from everything else, keeping his world closed to anything but the entrance, Zeke, the crowds, and the one familiar face he wanted to see.

But Hange never showed up.

“She’s not coming. If that’s what you’re thinking.” Yelena could have been reading his mind.

“Who’s not coming?” Levi asked. He widened his eyes in mock surprise but he kept his voice toneless. In his mind, that seemed like a good balance to display both calm and disconnect.

Yelena never answered the question. Maybe she knew silence was the right answer, that is, if her attention had been to keep his insides boiling in frustration, his mind racing.

The grin on her face only proved it. Maybe that was her intention.

It only got worse though as the night dragged on and Levi noticed his own restlessness around the salad course that he could barely even look at.

He could barely coordinate his hands. His legs were trembling.

Those few moments he focused on evening out his breathing, he was able to grip the spoon, then the steak knife as the main course came in.

As if to add salt to whatever wound she had, Yelena commented abruptly. “It’s not everyday people like you will be able to get steak like this.”

The steak could have just been soft. Or Levi was recovering. One of those, he couldn’t be too sure. But it was a good steak. He could tell that much. It melted in his mouth and he had spent an inordinate amount of time contemplating how it was physically possible for steak to melt in his mouth.

Then suddenly the delectable steak rotted mid chew. “You look like you’re enjoying yourself.” It was as if Yelena was on a mission to be a total buzzkill. Maybe she was being paid by Zeke to do just that.

And she was doing a wonderful job. Levi almost choked on that last piece, his fork fell to his lap. In a bout of embarrassment, he stood up. “Toilet.”

Five minutes and an empty bladder later, whatever peace and calm he had managed to muster alone in the toilet completely dissipated. It seemed like that dinner was also on a mission to make him as miserable as possible even in a supposedly pleasant environment.

“Where’s my steak?” Levi put too much energy into keeping his tone as subdued as possible.

“Oh, you weren’t done?” Pieck asked, seeming genuinely curious.

He had only gotten two bites. Of course, he wouldn’t be done. He was close to raising his hand up to call the waiter until he was reminded, he didn’t even pay for the dinner. Did he even have the right to complain?

At that point, Levi was just a little ticked, his grumbling stomach at having missed three courses over his own discomfort and tense state was already catching up to him. “What made you think I was done?”

“You put your spoon and fork together, like this,” Pieck said. “That means you’re done with the course.” She organized her plate the same way Levi did, for just a second.

Maybe Levi had been too self conscious. In an attempt to seem more posh than he actually was, Levi had channeled his own fastidiousness into putting the utensils together before he left for the toilet.

“I would think someone who works in corporate would know this. This is standard fine dining,” Yelena said nonchalantly.

Fine dining for Levi meant a dinner at a cafe, or a sit down restaurant. The whole world that existed for the sake of fine dining, the course meals, the secret language he didn’t seem to understand felt completely unnecessary. And the longer they sat there as if deliberately keeping him in the dark while he starved, Levi only became more and more impatient.

“I’m sure you wouldn’t have known any better at first,” Levi said.

“I’ve been handling Zeke’s properties overseas for years so I’ve had my fair share of fine dining experience.” She then turned to Pieck and Porco who both nodded. “Even before that, my parents have taught me this. Have yours?”

Levi’s earliest memories of fine dining had been sit down restaurants, diners, nothing too fancy. He shook his head. “Well, I didn’t come here with the intention of dining. You put me on that list yourself, without even waiting for a reply.” He regretted it, as soon as he let it out. His grumbling stomach had him almost out of control.

Yelena raised one eyebrow. “Oh? Then why did you still come, Mr. Ackerman? The free food?”

Levi froze.

“The free food you barely even touched?” Yelena pressed.

And Levi stiffened up, much harder than he would have thought was ‘completely frozen.’

“You have some business to settle with Mr. Jaeger I’m guessing?”

“It’s none of your business.” Levi managed to say.

“I’ve been working for the Jaegers for years. I manage their overseas properties, a few apartments and houses here and there,” she said proudly.

“And?” Levi challenged. “Does that make you entitled to whatever other business Zeke has?”

That question was a response enough. Enough to get Yelena crack, her expression shifted from incredulous, to abrasive to subdued. One eyebrow raised, mouth twitching slightly. “I had to clean up the mess you two left behind.”

Mess? Levi had an inkling of an answer.

A clatter of metal on a plate. “Yelena! Not here,” Pieck said.

“Then we should talk outside then.” Yelena was half way to standing up, before she stopped herself.

Levi found himself following her gaze. The one view that had her frozen in her tracks had been Zeke and before Levi even knew it himself, he was just as surprised as Yelena.

“Should we retire early?” Zeke asked.

“Sir, you haven’t eaten yet,” Yelena argued.

Zeke shook his head. “I hold these dinners to find potential business partners, not to eat.” He turned to Pieck. “I think Pieck can take over from here. I’ll leave you to answer any questions about Jaeger healthcare holdings.”

Pieck nodded. “Yes sir, I’ll take over.”

“No hurry, everyone’s still busy with their meals…” Zeke looked pointedly at his surroundings at the other people. HIs staff table had been conveniently placed by the corner, and it didn’t seem at all like their conversation had been heard by everyone else.

Pieck and Porco were noticeably eating faster, seeming deep in thought. Back into business mode maybe, the caustic exchange of a while ago completely forgotten. Or at least they looked like they were attempting to forget it.

Not burdened with that same responsibility, Yelena didn’t seem to put up any facade. Her own antagonizing attitude towards Levi didn’t falter. Yet somehow, Zeke’s presence had kept her mum, subdued her to just venomous glares.

They exited the dinner hall and made their way out of the hallway, opening up to the open hotel lobby. “We can talk in my private suite,” Zeke said. “I don’t like having a lot of my conversations in public.”

Levi didn’t respond. The glances Yelena snuck him only made it harder to come up with anything more than a few mumbles which he was sure would only make him look pathetic in front of Zeke.

“Did you pay for the flight yourself?” Zeke asked.

Levi nodded. Where’s Hange? That thought tore into his mind so abruptly, Levi found himself having to clamp his mouth shut, much tighter than normal. He couldn’t trust himself to speak. God knows, he might end up asking just that cursed question.

“You’re quiet,” Zeke commented as they entered the elevator. “Did you enjoy dinner?”

Levi nodded and mumbled some hint of a yes.

Zeke raised his eyebrows. “Really what was your favorite course?”

The steak obviously. Even those words got caught somewhere in his throat, admitting to Zeke that he enjoyed the food seemed almost like flaunting himself naked.

Luckily—or unluckily, Zeke didn’t prod, instead going for another speech which made Levi regret keeping silent. “I hold dinners every night for PR, get the right potential partners to the same room, for my healthcare holdings, my supermarket holdings, my…” Zeke rattled on.

To Levi, it felt the blonde had just been jacking himself off instead of actually making conversation. Still, that gave Levi time to think.

Thinking turned out to be a bad thing.

Even before they arrived at the penthouse floor, Levi had to admit, the hotel was posh. The scent of new wood hung in the air, the marble finishings, the lamp made out of metals Levi suspected weren’t easy to acquire. And when they stepped from the elevator wing to the matted floor of the penthouse, whatever plush they used underneath greeted him in some strange manner.

Strangely, Levi felt guilty for dirtying something which he was completely aware was supposed to be dirtied anyway dealing with foot traffic everyday. Then the more they walked, the more self conscious he became of the way he was walking.

Zeke and Yelena both walked ahead with confident strides and Zeke never stopped talking. When Levi found himself listening, he noticed, Zeke's tirades only made the grand hall seem grander, a completely different world to Levi, something he wasn’t supposed to be in.

Was he a visitor. Hell, maybe not even a visitor. A slave? A serf?

“The convention is to attract potential resellers. We’re planning on reselling our research, our products, our technology, to this region...”

They walked towards the end of the hall, stopping in front of some fancy door only accentuated by the plush carpets and the decorative lamps.

“... And this city will be our hub…” It looked like Zeke had been too distracted by his own grand plans to even bother to open the door. It was fortunate then that Yelena had the key and that she knew her way into the presidential suite.

They settled on the sofa in the living rooms, the first room past the foyer.

“We’ll set up office space... Maybe a building...”

It was around then that Levi noticed he hadn’t been offered a seat but he didn’t mind it too much. The multiple sitting rooms, the wide window to one side that gave a good view of the infinity pool on the balcony, and beyond that, a view of the city.

Did Hange get to swim? Levi looked out for a while longer and he couldn’t look away. The longer he looked, the easier it became to imagine her leaning over the infinity pool in her purple bathing suit.

“It will cost a few million dollars…”

Just like in the country club.

“Levi, you want to go for a swim?”

Levi coughed, an instinctive movement. “Sorry… Excuse me, what?”

Zeke looked very unimpressed. It was obviously a joke. “For gods sake, sit down. It’s distracting just watching you stand awkwardly.”

“So why did you invite me here?” Levi asked. If not to listen to you ramble. He added silently to himself.

“I think I have a right to answer first,” Zeke said. He nodded to Yelena. The latter walked away and back to the kitchen. “Why are you here? Don’t tell me you’re here for the convention?”

“What if I am?”

Zeke spared a small grin. He leaned back on the sofa and looked to the side, as if sharing an inside joke with himself. “And do you have plans of investing?”

Millions of dollars. Those three words echoed in Levi’s head. He didn’t have that money and he most likely never would.

Zeke didn’t give him time to speak. “Figures,” he muttered. “So why did you come here?” He asked in a clearer voice.

“You invited m---”

“I wouldn’t have invited you if you weren’t here already,” Zeke said.

Yelena chose that moment to come in between them, a wine bottle on one hand, two wine glasses on the other. Her movements were too casual, the fine dining positions of a while ago seemed almost like a facade.

Zeke gave a nod in thanks. “Sit where you’re comfortable.”

Yelena didn’t hesitate. She settled on one of the sofa chairs, a comfortable distance between them. She mirrored Zeke’s own expression, a mix between mocking and expectant.

It only became harder to speak. When Levi was weighing between speaking up and staying mum, he found, as painful as it was to continue speaking, the outcome seemed more desirable.

At least in his head.

“What’s wrong? Can’t tell me why you visited my convention?” Zeke took a sip of the wine. “Unless it’s something… controversial? Embarrassing? Offensive?.”

Levi felt his skin crawl. Not completely in control of his body, he almost feared his facade cracking and not noticing it. He cleared his throat. “I was going to speak.” He paused, using that moment, to meet Zeke’s eyes. “It’s about Hange.”

“What about my Hange?” Zeke had put too much emphasis in those last two words, it seemed almost out of place. In one sleek movement, he straightened up on his seat and tightened his grip on his wine glass

It was as if Levi was walking on Zeke’s territory, completely unwelcome. And Levi was starting to notice that. He shook his head and softened his voice, a subtle peace offering. “I had plans for the emotion alarm, I wanted to discuss them with Hange, get her opinion---”

“Erwin hasn’t told you yet?” Zeke put down his wine glass. “We’re terminating the contract.

It was like a ton of bricks fell on him. His stomach followed suit. Levi went for his wine glass and took a long sip which quickly turned into a gulp then he let out a cough. Water would have done a much better job to clear the tickle in the throat, the pang in his chest and the hollowness in his chest that followed. But he wasn’t going to ask for water in Zeke’s territory yet.

A ninety five percent chance of termination. Erwin had said back in their meeting.

“So it’s final?” Levi asked. The crushing disappointment had been enough proof that Levi had been vouching on that five percent.

Zeke nodded once. “Hange won’t be bothering you anymore. We’ll find another developer for her to work with.”

“I was working on some plans. They’re suggestions I was hoping she’d consider. If I---”

“Levi, can you send it over through email? Do you have to talk to her?”

Levi felt the blood rush to his face. He bent his head down almost immediately, focused on his shaking hands that were only gripping his knees tighter. He dug his nails into his knees, as if that would be enough to stop the shaking. “No, I don’t need to.” It could have come out as an exhale or an actual response.

“Well, that makes things easier. You know, she doesn't want to see you.” Zeke’s voice was painfully casual.

Levi looked up again, regretting it almost immediately. Zeke had a look of triumph on his face. It had only served to piss Levi all the more that Zeke had tried to hide it behind a nonchalant face. Seeing the small smile that decorated his lips, Levi dug his nails deeper into his knees. “Then why?”

“Why what?” Zeke pressed. “Why doesn't she want to see you?” His voice was getting colder and colder with each word. They twisted into an almost malevolent sneer.

“Why invite me here?” Levi asked, his voice clipped. Grappling with both Zeke’s attitude and the revelation on Hange’s feeling, Levi was finding it harder to speak.

“So you came because you were invited then?” Zeke took another sip. “And how were you invited?”

Does he expose Hange? And maybe Levi had taken too long vacillating.

Zeke had ended up answering the question himself. “An email? A support ticket with a flyer? Spam mail?” He took another sip. “You and your company have your very techy love alarm. And I have my own version too, my very old fashioned love alarm.” He gestured in front of him, right at Levi. “And it’s ringing in front of me right now.”

It took a few more seconds for Levi to understand it.

Zeke was either impatient. Or probably he thought Levi was a total idiot. He bent forward, leaned his elbows on his knees and dropped his wine glass on the wooden table with a loud clack.“Tell me, why would you go all the way here, over a fake email?” he asked. “Her name really was enough for you to book a plane ticket and fly across the ocean?”

Levi didn’t respond.

And it looked like Zeke didn’t need an answer anyway. He waved one hand in front of him and rolled his eyes. “I’m sure you’ve been in the corporate world long enough to know, there are meetings that could have been emails yet you still chose to take a plane and come here.”

“Do you want me to write an email?” Levi asked.

Zeke shrugged. We don’t need your input. This project...it’s mine and Hange’s.”

Yours and Hange’s? He raised his eyebrows in mock surprise, as if that slow and subtle movement had been enough to quell the fire in his chest. “What makes you say that?”

“It’s our project. It’s my gift to Hange.”

What does that make me? Levi didn’t say it out loud. He didn’t even want that instinctive jaw drop, the twitch in his mouth that followed to expose what the hell he was thinking.

“You’re merely someone paid to do the work.” Zeke continued, as if he had heard Levi's silent question.

Levi didn’t even feel it. He wasn’t even completely aware it happened until Zeke’s eyes widened for a split second in surprise, then narrowed again, shifting instead to one could have been pure fury.

But Levi didn’t care. Even when looking down had revealed, he spilled wine all over the lush carpet. The wine glass had hit the table, scattering pieces of broken glass on the table and over the floor.

It would be a bitch to clean up. Levi didn’t care about that either, it wasn’t his mess. It wasn’t his fucking presidential suite.

Zeke just had more practice in the diplomacy department. “Why do you feel it necessary to stand up and cause such a ruckus?”

The calmness had Levi’s blood boiling more violently inside him. He could only be grateful that the breaking the wine glass had released some of that pent up energy.

Zeke was only making it harder and harder to stay still. “I’m only stating facts. The money I put into it makes it mine. The fact that you’re being paid to do it. The fact that you even signed an employment contract relinquishes all ownership you have of all the projects you do in the company. You of all people should know that. I can’t even believe I need to school someone like you on this. You can’t even keep yourself together.”

Levi looked away, back at the view of the balcony, the glowing city. How much of it was owned by people who knew nothing about construction, architecture or just the hard work that went into even making such a view possible? A tiny injustice that surfaced in Levi’s mind as he let Zeke’s words sink in. “With all due respect... ” His last few words came out softer than expected. But Levi had seemed almost confident with them. “...You know jackshit about coding or psychology.”

Soon, Levi gripped enough of that new found confidence to take control of the conversation. “You know nothing about how any of that shit works. You didn’t stay up all night working on that damn application. I’ll fucking bet my whole life savings you don’t even know how this application works.”

“Ackerman, watch your mouth!” It was Yelena who spoke, looking as if she had just recovered from shock, eyes wide, her own wine glass on the table.

Levi cleared his throat. “Once again, with all due respect.” He was mildly aware then, that he may have raised his voice. Zeke was surprisingly—almost admirably calm. He put one hand as if to stop Yelena and spoke up. “And does ‘knowing jackshit’ make me less of an owner?”

That was a question that Levi couldn’t answer. He regretted losing control. In shock, or in some punishment which only the inner workings of his mind understood, Levi could only stand still, unable to even sit back down.

Zeke stared at him accusingly. “Mr. Ackerman…” he started. “You don’t believe there’s any dignity in the labor of moving money around? Investing and reinvesting?”

Levi felt shame wash over him.

It was a strange state to be in. There was more than enough dignity in being a billionaire, in being one of the top one percent who just bought and sold whatever they got their hands on. It was an inarguable fact that society thought highly of the top one percent regardless of where they got their money. Yet Zeke had a way of speaking that made Levi reflect the validity of his own words, any disrespect or any backhanded insult he could have been sending to anyone else.

Levi knew he was being manipulated but he couldn’t seem to point out how.

Maybe it had been the way Zeke had opened his eyes, his face a mix of confusion, hurt, with a hint of derision. Or maybe everything had been Levi’s imagination and once again he was faced with the prospect that maybe he didn’t mean it.

“That…” That wasn’t what I meant.

At that point, Zeke had stood up and at that difference of height and difference of social status, Levi had to bite his tongue, not to lose his composure.

Zeke though seemed to know he had taken control of the conversation. “You’re trying to cover your ass?”

“Cover… my ass?” Levi said that last word with a little more venom in his mouth. Somehow, the eloquent Zeke suddenly putting so much force into one single curse only added to the tension of that moment.

“Trying to justify your own mistakes by emphasizing your own superiority. It’s a very common tactic. You’re not the first to employ it.”

“I never---”

“You should be thanking me. I’ve been treating you fairly, paying you for your hard work. And on top of that, I’ve tolerated the transgressions, even putting more money unnecessarily into covering this up.” Zeke said. He walked towards the kitchen island, pulling an envelope from next to the telephone and slamming it on the counter. He wasn’t motioning though for Levi to come.

Levi preferred to stay frozen, just standing between the sofa and the coffee table. But when Zeke opened the envelope, pulling out pictures, and a few pages which he waved on the air and slammed on the table, Levi’s curiosity peaked.

Levi covered the distance in so short an amount of time, he never figured out if he seemed too desperate.

In hindsight, it wasn’t important. The contents of the papers, the pictures bundled together by paper clips had only been a more pressing matter.

Zeke’s words only confirmed it. “You went on a road trip up north on Hange’s birthday?”

“We did,” Levi said. There wasn’t much else he could have said to deny it. The evidence was too overwhelming— blurred pictures, screenshots of comments online in threads, subthreads, all speculating Hange’s side relationship.

“No use denying it. Yelena made a call to our employees in our estate up north. They mentioned Hange’s companion when she visited.”

“But we didn’t do anything…”

Zeke raised one eyebrow as if he had caught them in the act. “I’m not accusing you of it. But what would you say in your defense? When the Love Alarm rings, when you book a double room in a motel and when you’re together, almost inseparable in all of these pictures,” Zeke spread the photos on the table, shots of them in the motel, in the train station, in Zeke's house. “Hange isn’t a high profile person. It never made the news, Yelena and I made sure of that but people talk, anyone familiar with the tech world and particularly interested in it, would know how our family looks like."

It was funny, how anger could so easily sour to shame. At that moment, Levi considered disappearing an almost welcome development. Zeke pushed the pictures nearer to him, in one messy pile, the screenshots on comments, mentioning words like ‘misters,’ ‘paramours,’ ‘who’s the man???’ “We purged the internet of all photos, no names. Some people repost but I have people watching and reporting. This isn’t cheap.”

I’m sorry. Levi’s first instinct was to apologize, the adamance of a while ago almost completely forgotten. But sorry’s wouldn't work. “How much? I’ll pay what I can.”

Zeke scoffed. “Can you?”

Levi couldn’t think up much to say. He scanned his eyes over the comments at first to feign business, an excuse not to speak up. The more he looked, the more engrossed he got at lines of comments. Others towards him, then as he turned the pages, they were all towards Hange.

Slut. Whore. Low life. Cheater.

“I’ll pay what I can,” Levi said.

“How much are you willing to shell out? A hundred grand?”

That was a huge chunk of Levi’s annual earnings already. He wasn’t one to disclose salary though. He kept his mouth a thin flat line and nodded.

Zeke shook his head. “I’ll be generous, considering all the inconvenience you’ve caused both of us. While you're here, humor me,” he said. “I may not be a coder or a psychologist but I’m sure, there are things I can teach you. If you’re willing to shell out a hundred grand, let’s gamble with it. I haven’t had a good game in a while.”

“A good game?”

Zeke turned to Yelena. “Can you be a dealer again?”

“You plan on playing heads up?” Yelena asked,

“We have a table in one of the private rooms, why not?”

“Heads-up poker?” Levi clarified. There was only one game heads up that the two could have been referring to, mentioning terms like ‘deal.’

Zeke didn’t even bother to answer the question either for lack of consideration for Levi or just an expectation that Levi may have understood.

Levi didn’t live under a rock and he was very much familiar with the game. He had played a few games on online poker sites back in college.

Still, he moved a little sluggishly behind his two companions. Levi could have just been a little too wary or Zeke could have been out for blood.

The stakes then and there were completely different. For one, he had never bet almost a year’s worth of his own salary on a single game. He had never played with anyone whose net worth was a thousand, or maybe even a million times his own.

At that moment, Levi felt like a total beginner and it was as if hesitation clipped every single moment he managed to pull out of himself. There wasn’t too much he was expected to do but watch as Yelena prepared a few playing cards then chips.

Zeke made himself comfortable right in front of Levi. “Willing to bet a hundred grand?” he said those last words with an ominous smile on his face.

Levi sensed danger, but he couldn’t sense any proper way out either. He owed Zeke, he knew that much, whether it be for the money or the utter disrespect he had been treating him with since a while ago. Maybe he owed Zeke for more than that, for any inconvenience Zeke may have experienced at Levi having gotten a little too close to Hange.

Levi admitted, even just to himself, he had been a little too close to Hange for either of them to have been comfortable. Guilt, a sense of duty or just hyper awareness of everything all at once had Levi conceding, “Do I pay now?”

“We play with chips first,” Zeke responded.

Yelena dropped colored stacks of chips in front of them. Levi counted reds, blues, yellows, browns.

“You should have a hundred thousand worth,” Yelena said. “Do you know the colors?”

“Yes, just a bit.” Dabbling into online poker for a few months at least, Levi had enough experience to tell the browns as five thousands, the light blues as two thousand and the rest had inferred for himself from the amount of chips in front of him. He looked up to see that Zeke had a noticeably larger stack. “That looks like a lot more than a hundred grand,” Levi noted.

Zeke didn’t answer immediately and the flicker of realization came quicker, quick enough to have Levi coughing in surprise. The odds were against him.

“It is,” Zeke said as he counted his own chips, as if it wasn’t plain and utter cheating or even deception that he had a glaringly higher amount of chips than Levi. He slipped the chips towards the side and looked questioningly at Levi.

What had Hange told him back then in the golf course?

Zeke likes winning...But the way he goes about winning is like...He’s always been smart about it, always playing safe.

And what a better way to play safe than to have a larger pile than your opponent.

Zeke spoke up. “Hange and I, we’d play games with business partners while talking contracts and logistics. And Hange always said this about games. They teach things and sometimes they expose parts of ourselves… And the more I played with Hange, whether it be mahjong, blackjack, golf, or chess, I started to notice something. Games are a mirror of life, almost a clear reflection of what you deal with in business and in relationships.”

Zeke paused for a second and closed his eyes as if deep in thought. The room filled with the sound of shuffling of cards, the sound of the clack of chips as Zeke ran his hand over the brown ones, tapping them over the wooden round table in stilted and deafening movements.

“Poker is one of my favorite games. Like business, you base your decision on three things… Tells, numbers and circumstances,” He paused for a few seconds longer and he could have been expecting Levi to speak.

Levi didn’t look up though, instead using the brief silence to make sense for himself the amount of chips on his side.

Zeke spoke again. “Yelena, shuffle up and deal. We’re playing heads up. Our small blind is five hundred dollars and our big blind is one thousand dollars,” he said coldly. “I hope that isn’t too much money.”

In truth, that was enough money to make Levi’s stomach turn. Zeke’s manner didn’t look like it welcomed any protest though, so Levi merely nodded as some weak reply.

A weak nod could have sufficed as a response. Zeke turned to Yelena. “Give our valued guest the dealer button.”

The dealer plays the small blind. Levi counted five hundred dollars worth of chips and pushed it in front of Zeke.

Two cards lay in front of him, care of Yelena. Levi had played before and he was familiar at least with what a good hand would have looked like. In one swift movement, he held the cards in front of him.

Ten of Clubs and Nine of Clubs. With just one look, he knew he could complete either a flush or a straight.

If the board plays to his advantage.

Zeke tutted. “It’s not considered good practice to lift the cards. Most poker players would just raise the corner just high enough to see their own cards.” He demonstrated that exact same movement, only raising high enough that he could get the contents cards with one glance. “You’ve never played on the board?”

“I’ve played for a few months online,” Levi muttered. He would look back at that experience with little animosity. After all, a few months dabbling with bets online and just applying what little he learned from his statistics class had seemed like an overall enriching experience at first. Then and there, on the board, with thousands of dollars at stake, Levi felt utterly vulnerable. Like a beginner. Maybe, in the grand scheme of things, someone with only months worth of casual experience was a beginner.

And Zeke held a glaring advantage, something Levi couldn’t so easily brush away. Levi’s own instinct, his own experience with odds had him considering raising. Just for a second. When Zeke was staring at him though, his own pile much bigger than Levi, Levi could only weigh between two decisions, fold and give up that hand or match Zeke’s bet.

It’s still a good hand anyway. “Call,” Levi said, matching Zeke’s bet.

By the way that Zeke was looking at him though, Levi knew he was probably not playing on the board properly. Zeke spoke up. “Tells. One important concept in both poker and business is tells,” he explained. “The way you carry yourself tells me you never played on the board. Am I correct?”

“Yes.” There was no use denying it but Levi didn't have to spare him a long answer.

Zeke dropped five purple chips on the table. “Raise to 2500.”

There was value in those chips, his lifestyle, his savings. And for a split second, he saw an abyss. He had spent too much on a flight ticket, a hotel room, just all the food he had been eating in that town. Then another year's worth of income on stake, reduced to chips.

By some strange instinct, by some adrenaline rush, Levi had managed to brush it away, reducing whatever stakes to the few chips on the board. And he was grateful for the power of delusion. By god, if he didn’t have at least a sliver of self-delusion, he could have folded right then.

“Call,” Levi said, once again matching Zeke’s bet. He needed to calm down. It wasn’t a loss yet, the game hadn’t even started.

There was hope in whatever cards Yelena was shuffling. She spread the first three on the table.

“We call that a flop,” Zeke said. “Just in case you didn’t know.” And of course Levi knew, he had played online long enough to pick up some terms. With the grin on Zeke’s face, a far cry from a face more appropriate for a game of poker, Levi was certain Zeke was provoking him. “I know what a flop is,” Levi said, running his eyes over the three cards.

Ace of clubs. Seven of Clubs. Eight of Hearts.

Levi started to calculate. He had 2500 dollars, a months worth of basic living expenses on the line. He wondered if it would have felt better just dropping the one hundred grand to Zeke from the start. There was something notably more painful and more terrifying about the possibility of watching his money whittle away slowly.

“During business meetings, I like to tell which topics, which specific products make my business partners uncomfortable, when dealing with stakeholders, with employees. I like to take a few quick guesses on the backgrounds of the people in front of me, to see whether they’re worth dealing with in the long term. ” Zeke explained. “How they handle pressure…”

Was that a threat? A challenge? Maybe it was. Levi was suddenly morbidly aware that he had licked his lips, that his hand shook as he took another peek at his cards.

He had a chance for a straight. But what would Zeke have? And Levi had made the mistake of looking at Zeke then.

“Another ‘tell’, your eyes widened just there. You have a pair? A potential straight? For someone who wears her heart on her sleeve, Hange does a much better time hiding than you do.” Zeke had deliberately put more emphasis on the word Hange.

If Levi hadn’t frozen solid, tensed up by the shoulders with Zeke’s almost accurate guess, the word Hange had done the trick to make Levi terribly, terribly self conscious. In an instinctive moment, Levi bent his head down, raised one hand in an attempt to cover his own eyes, only to realize a second later with his hand halfway to his eyes, that that had done worse to even show that he had something to hide.

“You don’t have to hide it. We all know already, you’re in love with Hange.”

Levi had accepted that part already. If he had been in complete denial at that moment, maybe he would have lost himself in Zeke’s accusing glare.

“Are you going to deny it?” Zeke dropped an alarming number of yellow and purple chips. “Raise to four thousand.”

Levi let out a sound, a combination between a no and a quiet huff and he matched Zeke’s bet.

“A month ago I heard from the staff in our summer house up north mentioning the man, who always followed closely behind Hange, the man who so willingly got a single bed hotel with her, the man in the train station who sat close to Hange Zoe,” Zeke said. “People talk, Levi. Did you consider that? And I thought to myself back then, maybe, it could have been a coincidence but Hange had her own tells as well. When Hange saved you from drowning, did you know she didn’t want to let go?”

Yelena put one more card down. Two of diamonds.

“This is a convenient turn card ,” Zeke commented. “If you have a nine, or a ten, you have a chance at a straight. Have you calculated?” He raised one eyebrow.

Levi didn’t answer. Hell, anything he did say could probably be taken against him.

“Hange would have. When we played, she would babble on about statistics. Everytime she held out a hand, completely beating me, she would babble all the calculations in her head. She has always been quick witted, intelligent, clever. That’s why I fell in love with her too.” He had said that part louder, more confidently and so matter-of-factly, and Levi was reminded he would never have that same confidence to say those words about Hange, even if he would have meant it.

There was a clack of poker chips. Four thousand dollars? Levi counted. He looked towards the pile next to Yelena. He had four thousand dollars there already. A total of eight thousand dollars on the table, months worth of rent for most.

From the expectant look on Zeke’s face, Levi was expecting he’d only go higher. Do I fold? But maybe with the excruciating mentions of Hange, that was something Zeke had wanted him to do. In a sliver of weak protest, Levi matched the bet, his own bet up to eight thousand dollars.

He needed a jack or a six for a straight. But why was Zeke easily dropping bets? Did he have something better?

“Let’s consider numbers in real life. Even with how you and Hange were acting, I thought I could give you the benefit of the doubt. When the alarm rang, when you and Hange accepted it as truth, I realized my suspicions might be right. Hange might actually be attracted to you, she might actually love you. So what does that mean for me?” Zeke was once again playing with his chips.

Five thousand dollars worth? Levi thought loudly to himself as he counted the chips.

A bluff? Levi’s mind was racing. Zeke’s own words were deliberately or even just half heartedly disturbing. But there wasn’t much else he could do, four thousand dollars were on the line. Zeke proved to be confident at least with his own hand.

Bluffs happened, Levi played enough to be aware that people did put more than enough money than necessary just to scare people into folding. Another surge of protest later, Levi had matched the bet, putting his total bet at eleven grand.

The final card on the board was a jack and Levi didn’t have to look back at his own cards to confirm it. He had a straight. When Zeke had bet ten grand in chips, it had been much easier to call.

Soon the cards were revealed, an Ace and a King. Zeke had the strongest pair.

But Levi had a straight. He took the pot, more than a total of twenty thousand dollars, more than enough to offset his whole trip. When Levi looked up at Zeke, he regretted it almost instantly.

The latter didn’t seem at all affected by losing over twenty thousand dollars. “Circumstances, the most powerful tool but the easiest to control with the right resources. ” Zeke said, as if that had been the explanation for his own strange behavior. “It’s only natural when the person I’m married to starts running off with another man, I’d feel threatened. When she started working on the love alarm and I noticed she was happier, happier than I’ve ever seen her before. Then she was crankier than I’ve ever seen her before, then sadder. I wondered, what was our head developer doing to make Hange like that.”

Nothing. Fall in love with her? There weren’t too many things which could have fit what was starting to seem like a redundant question, so once again, silence was the best response.

Yelena spread the deck of cards over the table and Levi instead focused on dropping the new blind and appreciating the deft manner at which Yelena ran her hands over the cards.

He wasn’t in any state to be mesmerized by cards though.

Zeke’s voice echoed in the room. “Levi, I asked you a question.”

“What did I do, you mean?” Levi asked. That was the last thing he remembered and it had seemed almost redundant, not worth an explanation. Zeke shook his head. “Do you think she’s in love with you?” A strange question to ask someone, too personal. Zeke had a way of speaking that demanded answers.

Levi’s mind was working faster, vacillating between answering or not. He thought back to the ringing of the love alarm, Hange’s words up in the tower. Hange seemed happier, then crankier, then sadder, than I’ve ever seen before. “That’s for Hange to decide, right?” Levi said.

Zeke’s voice was suddenly softer as if they had released a sigh with his words. “Considering circumstances though, I was assured Hange can’t just leave.”

That last word had peaked Levi’s interest. “Leave?” He repeated.

“Even if your love alarm is correct, even if by some chance she loved you, and she didn’t love me, Hange can’t leave. I made sure of that. I’ve covered my bases.”

Covered your bases? Levi bent his head down, hiding that incredulous look that forced itself out of him.

“I paid for her research. I paid for the emotion alarm. I paid for the media embargo so your photos wouldn’t get printed. I paid for everything, our home, our trips. Hange can’t just leave, after I put so much into this relationship right?”

Yelena dealt a new set of his cards and Levi pulled his new cards towards him and took a peak.

Eight of hearts. Three of hearts. Shitty hand with a potential for a flush.

Zeke slipped the new cards towards him. “She’s not going to leave. And the more I thought about it, the more I realized, why are you still hurting yourself over this. Why don’t you give up?”

“There’s nothing to give up. I wasn’t holding on to anything.” Those words had been surprisingly easy to say. “Hange married you. I went here to talk to her, nothing more than that.”

“You could have sent an email. You could have sent it through Erwin. Why come here yourself?” Zeke’s words were suddenly ringing through his ear.

“Why are you so bothered by me showing up? You didn’t have to invite me here,” Levi said, and somehow, a cathartic release that came with those words.

The shocked almost speechless expression on Zeke’s face, a far cry from the calm, poker face of a second ago, sent a rush of confidence over Levi

Maybe there were things he knew about Hange that Zeke didn’t. Levi continued “I don’t understand why you had to go through all this trouble, covering the embargo, sending Hange away, buying the emotion alarm. Even if you didn’t cover your bases, even if you give Hange all of that, she wouldn’t have left you. She really believes she’s in love with you.” She’s a prideful prick that way. He added silently to himself.

“What do you know about Hange? You only met her months ago.”

Long enough to feel like I’ve known her my whole life. If his words could have at least been enough to ensure some happiness for Hange in the future, it was worth a shot. “You should have just trusted her. You take in the most free-loving person I have ever met as your partner and you trap her by hanging all that over her head? That’s not how to love someone like Hange.”

“Who are you to tell me how to love the person I’m married to?”

This time, it was Levi’s turn to ask a question. “Do you love Hange?”

“More than you’re capable of understanding,” Zeke answered venomously, as if it was an attack on Levi.

Somehow, of all the things, an attack on his own ignorance didn’t feel like anything at all. Levi was confident, he wasn’t ignorant. “Hange really believes love is a choice, love is freedom. And you think the best way to love her is to tie her down with money and gifts? With circumstance?”

“You can’t assume that.”

“Then why do you have to make her feel guilty? Why do you give her everything just so she won’t leave? Why are you assuming she’ll leave the moment she gets the chance?”

One hand on the table, and the table rocked, the pile of chips Levi had meticulously organized fell in one crash, the few others as they slid amongst each other, colors mixing amongst one another.

Yelena was the first to speak. “Focus on the game, Ackerman.”

“Check.” He didn't have the best hand. As the river opened up to reveal a potential for a flush, he still thought it worth a shot.

Zeke pushed a huge pile of chips to the front. “Raise to a hundred thousand dollars.” Almost all of Levi’s available funds.”

“Fold,” Levi said.

The button switched. Levi and Zeke dealt their blinds again. Yelena dealt another two cards. And the game continued.

Carefully raising the corners of his pair, Levi noted a three of spades and a queen of hearts. Even before Yelena had dealt the river on the table, Zeke had already pushed his pile to the middle. “Raise to a hundred thousand dollars.”

Levi couldn’t win, and just like the hand before, he folded.

It continued with that same pattern for the next ten hands. Zeke started to bait him, going all in towards the fourth hand, enough for Levi to lose all his savings, and Levi would fold. Hands later, Levi had lost the winnings of the first hand, he had absorbed a net loss. Zeke’s large pile was starting to seem more ominous.

Circumstances. The word started to hold more gravity as Levi reflected the unfairness of it all. Zeke wouldn't have minded putting one year’s worth of Levi’s salary in a single round, he had more than enough to spare.

You can’t win against money. What the hell was he thinking, giving up his blinds every single time. Zeke obviously bluffed a few times. No one would be lucky enough to have a streak of good hands.

But which hand? Levi thought loudly to himself, as if by some miracle, a god-sent answer could echo in his head.

“We can do this all night,” Zeke said, his composure once again collected, the exchange of a while ago forgotten.

Levi lost track of the number of hands. A quick look at his chips only made him realize he had forty thousand dollars left. Did he lose that much by just folding?

He would lose a hundred dollars that night if he continued playing but when he willed it, he realized was ready to lose that money. But the more Zeke played, the more he spammed all ins, the more urgent the loss started to seem.

It took a few more handsfor Levi to gather the courage to play, even with the stakes completely against him. Levi spared some thought to calculation, taking from Zeke’s rulebook.

Tells.

Zeke wore a poker face...Nothing there.

Circumstances

He had to do something fast, or risk losing all his money.

Numbers

Most importantly, statistics were on his side. He had opened his new hand to find a pair of aces.

Ace of Clubs. Ace of Spades. Statistically, the best poker hand. He could easily win everything back.

Then came the first three cards.

Ace of Diamonds. Queen of Diamond. Nine of Clubs.

“Raise to ten thousand dollars,” Zeke said.

Three of a kind, with the strongest cards. “Call,” Levi responded.

The next card was dealt. Ten of diamonds.

“Bet twenty thousand dollars,” Zeke said.

“Call,” Levi said again, pushing his pile of chips to the middle of the world. He couldn’t be too sure how he looked then. Were his hands shaking? It wasn’t a graceful movement for sure. He had to push his pile to the middle with three clumsy movements while Zeke did it in one elegant push.

But Levi noted the subtle way at which Zeke raised his eyebrows before they met eyes. And for one second, Levi allowed himself a long stare, a slight movement of his lips, nothing close to a smile. If that one expression would be enough for Zeke to fold and give up everything, it was worth a try.

It wasn’t.

Yelena dropped the last card on the board. An Ace of hearts.

“Raise to one hundred thousand dollars,” Zeke said, notably louder than every other time before.

Enough to make Levi jump, enough for him to doubt. He snuck another look at his cards. Four of a kind. You’re fine. Why was his heart still beating wildly? Why was meeting Zeke’s eyes for a while longer such a harrowing experience?

It’s a poker face. People do this when they play poker. Levi told himself and the longer he was able to convince himself that Zeke knew what he was doing. And maybe it had always been good practice to stay calm, even when everything was stacked against you.

“Showdown,” Yelena said.

Or maybe Zeke just wasn't that connected, especially since nothing much was at stake for him.

It could have been all those guesses, or it could have been the ugly one that opened up in front of them right then and there.

And it looked like Zeke had figured it out first. “Have you heard of the term bad beat?”

Levi was taking longer than usual to make sense of the cards, much slower than usual and maybe it had been the exhaustion of calculating the past almost countless hands.

“There is roughly a four thousand to one chance of getting a four of a kind. But sometimes, people have something better than that… Not often but… It’s still worth considering.”

Something better. And when Levi was considering every hand better than a four of a kind, it became much easier to scan the river then Zeke’s hand for the answer.

Zeke had two cards: King of Diamonds and Jack of Diamonds. A Royal Flush.

“There’s a six hundred thousand to one chance of actually getting a royal flush. First one in my life.” Zeke could have been genuinely amazed, but that big ham reaction had been more than enough to piss Levi off.

It made it difficult to sit still.

“When you consider circumstances, you introspect, you strategize and you pray for a little luck,” Zeke said. “Believe me, you had every other chance to win before. I went all in with the worst cards and you folded every single time. Are you that terrified of losing a few thousand dollars?”

Hundreds of thousands of dollars. Levi corrected in his head. An annual salary’s worth. And maybe that was the point Zeke had wanted to make. By circumstances alone, Zeke had manipulated Levi's choice.

Zeke smirked. “Circumstances rely on luck too and luck is a funny thing. Even if you play everything correctly, you can still lose. Life’s unfair isn’t it.”

“You had less to lose than I did,” Levi said, his lip trembling. “That’s all there is to it. If you lost all the money, you would have put more in.”

“I would have,” Zeke admitted.

“I was playing a losing game.”

“At least you got the lesson. These are your circumstances. Every life lesson everyone should have learned from birth, life isn’t fair. I’m surprised you’re expecting that from a casual game.”

“I never said that. I knew I was playing a losing game and I expected that.” It had taken all his effort to keep his reaction unreadable, and god he wished he had managed it every other time before. “Thank you for the food. Thank you for the game. Thank you for covering for me and Hange.”

With the game over, it didn't look like he felt compelled to wipe that smug grin off his face. And there were things Levi wished he could tell Zeke, and maybe it was worth the risk. “One last thing, I don’t agree with you about relationships, businesses being like games. Loving isn’t a game. When you give all this money to Hange do you expect her to give back? You expect to be able to manipulate relationships through circumstance alone?"

“I told you Ackerman, don’t tell me how to love my partner.”

"I don't have enough fucks to give for every single person in this world. I’m not telling you how to love the person you married because I actually give a fuck about your love life. I’m only telling you how to love your partner because your partner just so happens to be Hange and Hange’s a free bird. She doesn't deserve at all to be loved like that. Don't cage her in with circumstances. Don’t tie her down with money, with a debt of gratitude.” He pushed his seat back and walked away.

“Where are you going?”

“I need some fresh air.”

The sliding door wasn’t locked. He forced it open gently then too hard, enough to make it rattle, He gave one was long look at the infinity pool then leaned his arms on the balcony railings. He took a deep breath.

And that reprieve was just a little too short. It turned out Yelena followed behind him, a piece of paper in hand. “Zeke’s bank details,” she said.

That had seemed too abrupt. But really, what was he supposed to expect, a consolation prize? Hange’s location?

“It would be much easier if you paid immediately,” Yelena said. “Do you have the money on hand?”

He didn’t have the credit rating to pay that in one go. He opened his own banking application and attempted to transfer that much in one go.

Bank error.

“We accept checks,” Yelena said.

Levi had never dealt with checks. His credit card limit was far less than how much he needed to pay. And a few exchanges later, a quick google search later, Levi had figured it out. He could pay by wire transfer but by god, and just the wire transfer would cost him more money than necessary.

Levi was a man of principle though. Slip of paper on hand, Yelena’s contact details on his phone he made his way out of Zeke’s presidential, without even bothering so much as a goodbye. It looked like Zeke had retired to his own private room or study anyway. Did he need that pleasantry from Levi of all people?

On the way back to his own hotel, he took a long cut, through the hotels that connected to one another through glass pathways, a few floors above ground. He made sure to take a longer time than usual, enough time to reflect on his own shitty luck.

A fruitless reflection with a very very repetitive and depressing conclusion. That’s just how life is?

If it hadn't been for those two who had talked a little too loudly by the side, maybe Levi would have deemed it fruitless.

If didn’t look to his right to see the entrance to the casino, if he didn’t walk quickly past the slot machines, taking in the red plush carpet, he would have said it was a total waste of time. The dim room only further accentuated the lights that never seemed to come from an exact same place. The casino had a way of just letting some strange feverish state, some illusion blanket his surroundings.

Hange Zoe. The man at the front had said her name, too proudly, as if in total amazement. For a while, the dazzling casino lights had him doubting that name clipped into one brief exchange. Others seemed to be talking about her too. Then he was following the crowd.

Murmurs of Hange Zoe, none of them demeaning or admonishing. Others seemed breathless, and Levi thought it worth his time, to tiptoe just to see a good look of what they were staring at.

Fruitless.

Levi dove into the crowd, slipping his way through, bending over, moving his hand through when necessary. He never made it to the front, but he did note the messy mop of brown hair, tied into a high ponytail, bent over the table. The autumn jacket, the side profile and the glimmer of some tight lips.

Hange was deep in thought in the middle of what looked to be some poker game. Her own pile of poker chips right next to her, much larger than everyone elses. He knew her enough to make that type of guess.

Circumstances.

Levi decided it would be a waste of time. Circumstances were never his to control anyway. They were Zeke’s, they were hers.

Hange Zoe’s win again.

How many hands had she played before that?

She’s cheating.

No, she’s just lucky.

I heard she calculates every single hand.

Levi felt some sense of superiority, knowing something the murmuring crowds didn’t.

All summarized into three things. Firstly, lady luck was probably on her side, it had always been as if making up a string of misfortunes in a previous life. Secondly, she probably calculated every single hand. Third, Hange would never ever cheat.

And those would be last few thing he would allow himself be proud of. That would be the last time he would think of Hange as someone remotely his.

As Levi turned the heel and walked back to his hotel, he decided, although it wasn’t too fruitless a detour, he still regretted making that quick trip into the casino.

***

If Levi knew he would have felt like shit as soon as he came back from vacation, maybe he never would have gone on that stupid vacation in the first place.

Monday. Monday morning. Those words managed to taste bitter, even when Levi was barely forcing it out of his mouth. It could have been the fact that he barely had time to get over the jet lag or it was just way too early in the morning. Scratch that, it wasn't any of that at all.

Zeke was sitting on the couch, seeming very much unaffected by what should have been transoceanic jet lag and very much unaffected by the words that came out of Erwins house just a second ago.

At first, Levi even doubted what I heard, attributing it to exhaustion. He turned back to Zeke, no sadistic grin, no furrowed brows. He was calm, unimpressed and all business.

"Sorry… it's too early in the morning… I don't think I heard you correctly,” Levi said, an attempt at professionalism even with the trappings of shock, disbelief and very inconvenient drowsiness.

“We don’t usually invite lower management to these types of meetings… But Mr. Jaeger requested you be here, to answer any questions that might pop up...” Erwin said apologetically.

“No. Not that… You mentioned it a while ago...Why is Mr. Jaeger here?”

"We’re making amendments to the contract," Erwin answered.

“And why do you need me here?”

“He’s here to buy the love alarm,” Erwin said so casually that Levi had to clear his throat, get rid of whatever popping sensation had been going on in his ears.

My love alarm. The love alarm he worked more than half a decade on. The love alarm which he knew like the back of his hand, from the backbone of the codes to the front end bugs.

"It's for sale?" Levi spat out. There were only so many ways he could speak and so many ways he could even articulate the emotions running through his head.

Erwin cleared his throat, seeming uncomfortable at such a simple question. "Initially no… we never considered selling it but when Zeke called about it last week, we thought it worth a conversation.” He turned to Zeke then back to Levi. “We were able to run through Zeke’s proposal with the higher ups last Friday, and given the generous proposal, we are more than willing to sell him the rights to the Love Alarm and the Emotions Alarm project.”

How much did he offer? Levi instinctively looked towards Zeke but he soon figured out that no matter what he said, Zeke probably would never disclose the final price. In some vague response, Zeke pulled the brown envelope on the table closer to himself. "Everything has a price,” he said matter-of-factly.

Erwin spoke up. "I did the calculations as soon as I received your call last Thursday and it looks like it would be more than enough to cover what potential earnings we expected within the next two years and more than enough for the development of another project.

Last Thursday night. The night they had met in Zeke’s penthouse suite. Was buying the love alarm an impulse decision on Zeke’s part? The timing just seemed too right.

And they only continued to talk about it, as if Levi wasn’t there. What did an engineer know about business though or about purchases as high volume as the rights to the love alarm?

For something that had taken countless all nighters over time and years of development, the process of selling it just seemed too easy. “Mr. Jaeger, if I may ask, what made you consider buying the love alarm?” Levi asked.

“Hange’s research,” Zeke said, as if it was the most obvious and the most noble reason in the world.

“And when you buy it, what then?” Levi challenged.

“I’ll work with Hange. We’ll hire new developers to fix the bugs you never fixed. We’ll further improve the product and the code and we’ll break the product down, see what else we can use to improve the emotions alarm project.” The answer was disappointing, a far cry from what Levi wanted to hear.

Your other plans with Hange. He had opened his mouth, ready to expound on the question.

Erwin though may have sensed the thick tension between them. "You have the contract?"

Zeke nodded. "I had our lawyer work on it over the weekend, a rush job. You can run through it with the higher ups and I'll have someone pick up a signed copy by this week"

"Believe me, we’re decided, you can even pick it up tomorrow," Erwin said as he opened the envelope, pulled out papers and flipped through the pages. For a second, he dropped the paperwork on the table then onto the page where the executives were expected to sign.

All familiar names from the big wigs all the way, down to Erwin. Levi's name wasn't there at all. Figures, Levi after all, was merely an engineer. He couldn't help but sense irony though in the fact that the one who knew the most about the product had no say in its actual fate.

Erwin's words only made the irony seem more glaring. “We'll use the next two weeks to do some clean up on our end, pack up the resources and work on data migration.”

By ‘we’, Levi knew Erwin would be ordering him to do that.. He couldn’t help but feel slightly cheated though. He would be basically ordered to take apart something he built from scratch, send it off and never see it again. And the longer he stared at the contract that would be ordering all that, the more desolate the air around him seemed to feel.

The product he had worked on for years, taking apart every now and then, breaking and putting back together to find even the smallest bugs, going on countless hours of overtime over, was like a child to him, a child he was unwillingly sending it away to some known.

Some masochistic part of him had him still staring at the contract, long enough still to remember his first contract when he first signed into the company, something that stayed snug into the back of his mind, unexpectedly kicking his arse then.

Ownership of Intellectual Property. Employee agrees that the Company shall own, and Employee shall (and hereby does) assign, all right, title and interest...

Everyone in the room seemed to have too much regard anyway for pleasantries anyway and never felt the need to clarify it. Levi had to rely on his own memory of Zeke saying it just a few days ago in his hotel room.

The company pays you. Any effort, ideas, projects you put into our product is company property.

And Zeke will be buying it so it will be his property.

Whether Zeke even knew how the alarm worked didn’t seem to matter to him though.“So, I guess in a matter two weeks, all server data and resources should be with Jaeger corporation.”

Erwin nodded. “We’d be happy to expedite the process. If all goes well, yes.”

When a huge sum of money was on the line, suddenly red tape was so easy to squeeze one’s way through. It took an enormous amount of effort to stay calm as they signed away the culmination of his own hard work, his countless hours of overtime, the blood, sweat and personal investment he put into that one application, all signed away in a brief second, all the red tape of a few weeks ago, non-existent.

Erwin turned to him, “If you can stay behind after the meeting, so we can discuss the logistics…”

Most days, Levi appreciated the manner at which Erwin spoke, the way he took some regard of Levi’s own time when giving orders. That day, there were too many things happening to even appreciate.

What else do you expect me to do? Say no? Hell, he had wanted to say no, but by the glaring lack of his own name on the contract, the glaring lack of regard for his own opinion on the matter, Levi could only seethe silently.

“Oh yeah,” Zeke snapped his fingers, loud enough to call Levi’s attention. “Hange sends her regards. She enjoyed working with your company a lot.” He turned to Levi and gave him a nod. “And to you too Ackerman, I just have to say we’re very grateful for your hard work and your generosity.”

What generosity? The implication that Levi had any say on commercial decisions seemed mocking.

“We’ll take good care of both applications,” Zeke continued. “And regards from Hange, she wishes you all the best with Petra.”

Petra. Levi let out a cough, letting out a subtle look at Erwin. If the latter did seem bothered, he didn’t show it.

With that, Zeke left the room, and Levi started to understand how someone could keep such a confident demeanor even with the slightest inconveniences. Somehow, having that many assets, wealth and power under one’s belt really had that paper.

The way he strode, embodied it, the way that in just a few phone calls, he had completely dismantled everything Levi had worked on, making it his own.

And when he closed the door gently behind him, leaving Levi and Erwin alone in the room, Levi was reminded once again, the love alarm, the emotion alarm, were never his, as much as he would have wanted to claim ownership.

They were never his, but suddenly they were Zeke’s. Levi turned to Erwin, narrowing his eyes, as he watched the blonde make his way to the desk. Erwin seemed uncomfortable as if he sensed the strange betrayal that something so standard as corporate procedure could bring. Then he cleared his throat and spoke up.

Two weeks. Levi was given two weeks to clean everything, migrate all data and vacate the office.

It was the company's project but it was Levi's responsibility. There was a broken partnership which somehow ended with two products sold. Yet even with all the damage dealt by that deal, the management needed some scapegoat from within the company.

Erwin had explained everything with as professional of a face as possible. With the tight lipped attempt at a grin that followed, the way he had avoided Levi’s eyes one too many times, Levi suspected Erwin knew more than he was letting on.

The photos maybe? The bug with Hange? The broken partnership? Of course someone would end up having to take the blame for giving Zeke a ‘bugged’ application.

Too many reasons, many among those rooted in some attempt to save face, in filthy office politics. And by then, Levi hadn’t been expecting too much.

That probably had been the reason that when Erwin looked back at him with a much softer expression, Levi couldn’t help but let out a long sigh, something to abate whatever emotion was threatening to let loose.

I didn’t think it was right for the mastermind behind the application to be terminated completely empty handed.

Erwin had arranged for some severance pay after the two weeks were over.

Enough to get out of the country, start somewhere else.

A job termination shouldn’t have been enough to be driven out of the country. Levi didn’t make too much sense of Erwin’s words until he had experienced it for himself a week later, through an empty email inbox after sending out the same resume to twenty companies for over thirty roles.

Have you heard of a no poach agreement? Erwin had asked back in the office.

A no poach agreement?

It’s technically illegal so this usually comes as a verbal agreement among companies. They’d note their best employees and if they have to let one go, all companies agree, they cannot hire them for a certain period of time, five to seven years. It's a 'scratch my back, I'll scratch yours' type of deal.

To keep company secrets apparently or to keep Levi from making a similar application in any other company.

If you want to continue working in the development industry, your best chance would be abroad.

Around one week left before his termination would become effective and Levi gave up on finding a development job in his city, hell even his country. Around that time he had started to clean up his studio apartment, throwing out whatever was needed.

He started looking through immigration laws, consulting when necessary. He looked through apartments in other cities, then labor laws. The severance pay was more than enough at least to get him out, and Erwin had been a big help in straightening other legalities out.

He had an extra few weeks to clean out his room, pack up his things, straighten out immigration issues and buy a damn ticket out of there.

In between, his final week at work. He had never considered leaving his job of over a decade to have ended such a long bittersweet moment. In reality, he never really had the time to appreciate normalcy and he felt some regret at that.

Migrating server data, resources, making sure everyone under him had straightened out their leaves, making sure they were assigned to new projects took time. Allowing himself reprieves in-between to just sit down, and stare at half filled boxes also took longer and more effort than he had expected it too.

He stared at the ever increasing boxes that lined his office walls for a while longer. Surprisingly, for someone so fastidious, he had a lot he needed to clean out, both inside the computer and outside.

You will lose all accesses, to emails, to chat accounts and to company property by end of day Friday. He got that same message, in different forms from human resources, from Erwin and Levi was on a strict time limit to get everything out.

In some protest, some act of empowering rebellion, Levi was taking his sweet time. He continued to reserve conference rooms, staying out of his own room as much as possible, going through each line of code slowly as if he they were all individuals all deserving of their own greeting.

He started with the backend, then went to the frontend. He looked through the pull requests and the merge requests and the fixes that would never make the next release.

And Friday couldn’t have come any faster. By then, Levi had ninety percent of his office space cleaned out. He entered the room to find his own team lugging out some of the boxes.

100 percent done then? Levi thought to himself.

Eld was the first one to speak up. “We thought you’d need some help. We heard you only had until five to vacate the room." Yet, he had the expression of a guilty child caught taking cookies from the cookie jar at midnight.

His whole team looked similar.

Levi shook his head. "No, this is much appreciated," he said. A stiff choice of words if he did say so himself but the last few hours of work weighed on him more heavily than the days leading up to it.

He only had two hours before he lost access to everything he had worked on for years.

He held his work laptop close to himself as he watched them lug box after box out of the room.

"Eld was suggesting we go get something to eat tonight," Gunther suggested.

"That depends…" Levi started. Definitely, whether he enjoyed it depended on how quickly he could brush off that weight then that tightening in his chest. "Have you talked to your new team leads? Your new managers?" he asked, an attempt at a light conversation. He wondered if his expression betrayed his words.

Maybe they did. "Or we could wait a few days," Eld said.

"We'll see. We have a few more hours before the end of day," Levi said. He slipped past them and walked back into his office.

Shelves empty, desk spotless and even the floor shone with some unsettling gleam. It had always been spotless, he made sure of it but there had always been something melancholic about rooms that had been full for years, suddenly empty.

And until a few weeks ago, the room had felt like Hange. He had deliberately left many of the crooked books on the shelf, the crooked documents, the titled reusable paper tray and the test devices messily lined up on the shelfs because Hange had left it that way.

And the whiteboard right next to his desk which Hange had failed to clean many weeks before was suddenly wiped clean. Levi didn't even noticed he let out a sound, a mix between a gasp and a whimper when he saw Hange's list of emails completely gone, erased over.

"You okay in there, boss?" Petra asked.

"Someone cleaned the whiteboard," Levi said.

"Oluo, I told you he'd point out your shitty job cleaning the board!" Petra said, from just outside.

Oluo responded. "Well, he's not going to be using it anymore so I though--- Ow!" Some silence followed, then approaching footsteps. "Sorry sir, I'll clean it again."

"No, it's fine," Levi said, he put his hand up, as if to stop Oluo from making that quick trek back to the white board. "I'll clean up the rest. Thanks for the help."

For once, he was grateful for someone's carelessness. The white board wasn't as clean as he thought it was a second ago and maybe because he would have rather it wasn't clean.

Hange wrote in crooked lines where ends hit one another, others fell and the fonts and sizes were never too similar from one line to the other. And the closer Levi came to the whiteboard, he noticed it, one email peeking out, spared by the shoddy erasing job.

Wingsoffreedom132

Hange had multiple emails she used for testing and when Levi opened his work laptop one last time, enjoying the last few hours of access as he cleaned up folders and code repositories, he found himself looking back at the email.

Does she still use it? He asked himself

Maybe. It was worth a try at least.

He looked once again around the room, the very empty room. Then he looked back at his screen, opened the repositories that were ready to be sent out to the point person from Jaeger corporation.

Then he opened his own personal folder, the unfinished codes from the love alarm then the mood alarm then the plans, the files and on the upper left of the file 'the Mood Alarm.'

To hell, with red tape, bureaucracy and all that shit. It was his project, right at his fingertips. It wasn’t Zeke’s nor was it management. The only reason they probably hadn’t sacked him on the spot was because he was the only one who could have so efficiently organized it before they sent it off to some poor sap who worked under Jaeger corporation.

He allowed himself one rebellion, or more specifically a string of rebellions.

If he were forced by some bureaucracy to send all the resources of the love alarm and the mood alarm to Hange, he would do it on his own terms.

He disconnected from the office wifi. He opened a hotspot then he opened his own personal email. Opening an incognito tab, he transferred all the codes and resources to his own personal repository, organizing it in a similar manner.

Then copied the link and started to compose an email.

To: [email protected]

All the codes for the love alarm

He pasted the link right below.

All codes for mood alarm.

And below it, he pasted another link.

He waited for a few more seconds as the email loaded the attachment, the file with all the plans he had for the mood alarm, allowing himself a small smile as he imagined Hange pondering the name 'mood alarm.'

He vacillated between writing a message under and keeping it brief. Then a second later, his fingers moved for him, he didn't even realize what he had been writing until it was on the page, ending on a period for finality.

“Dedicate your heart.” He read it out loud, then he felt a pang on his chest and a twist at his gut.

Dedicate your heart to what? He didn't want Hange dedicating her heart to anything. He wanted her free, flying high, doing whatever the hell she wanted to, bound by no role, no debt of gratitude, no excuse for love.

Reach for the sky? Hell, she could probably even make it to the stars.

So he went for something that left him cringing.

Reach for the stars (or anything higher than that).

Then he added something, collateral from that rush of indignance.

Don’t let anything stop you. Just remember, I would have given you all these damn codes for free.

After sending the email, he took a few precautions. He cleared his history, his cache, his browser and he deleted the rest of the files in his laptop. With one hour before the end of day, he turned off the laptop.

“Do you need any more help?” Petra had entered the room, hands behind her back in some very faux casual manner. And she seemed to be avoiding his gaze.

Levi used that moment to wipe that last line of Hange’s email, as if that could have been evidence to that bout of rebellion. “I’m done. Let’s leave the rest to whoever will be cleaning up the desk.”

Petra didn’t seem at all suspicious, or maybe she didn’t care. “That’s good. WIll you be joining us for dinner?”

Levi nodded. “Maybe my leaving is worth a dinner.”

“You’re really leaving?”

“Looks like it.”

“What are you gonna do?”

“I bought a plane ticket, secured a visa. I'll go somewhere, far from here, then find a job or maybe work freelance.

“I want you to stay here.”

“I wanna stay here too,” Levi admitted. “But I couldn’t even find a job.”

“I’ll miss having you here… And working with that love alarm. I really believed in the product and it made me realize my own feelings too,” Petra leaned by the window, looking worse for wear.

When Levi gave a long look, he noted maybe she had been crying. He almost felt guilty for not even struggling to fight back tears then.

Maybe his body had already reached the point of pure catatonic, pure acceptance at the hopelessness of the situation. “I’m sorry.” What was he saying sorry for? “I mean— I’m sorry I can’t stay.”

Petra took a deep breath. “This is probably the only time I can say something so I’ll say it now and you know, if you believe in your love alarm, you probably figured it out already,” Petra started. “I like you, I really like you. Actually you know what, it might be love. I don’t know if that would change anything—”

“It won’t.” Levi kept his voice firm. “I bought the ticket. I organized my papers and I have a place to stay. I’m leaving.”

“For good?” Petra had on a wounded look, her mouth twisted into something similar to a pout, by her eyes were elsewhere as if she knew there was a little too much vulnerability in her voice. “So, whatever I feel, it won’t change anything?”

Levi shook his head. “I don’t think it would be fair to you if I accept your feelings. I’m in no hurry to date.” He let out a clipped sardonic laugh. “At this point, I’ll probably die alone.”

“You deserve—”

“And you deserve someone who wouldn’t decide to date you for convenience.” Maybe Levi had been a little too frank at that moment.

Petra didn’t respond, her mouth frozen in a tight lipped line.

“The love alarm will be back so maybe you can use that to find someone else whose alarm rings with yours,” Levi continued, his voice deliberately gentler. “Or what about growing something organically, without the help of that stupid app. I honestly think, sometimes the love alarm causes more chaos than actually fixes things.” He shrugged. “It depends on the circumstances really.”

Circumstances he probably would never understand. He turned back to the black screen and reflected for a long painful moment about it. He was a slave to circumstance.

They were silent for a while longer and Levi used that time to recover, willing himself not to meet Petra's eyes.

She broke the silence a few seconds later. “We’ll meet you by the gate for dinner?”

“I’ll see you then, just give me an hour or so,” Levi said, checking the clock on his phone. He had a little more than an hour left before EOD. “Or just text me when you find a restaurant.”

It took a little longer to convince Petra to leave and it had ended with them having to text Levi a familiar restaurant name.

Levi had taken his time doing nothing at all, just sitting on his office chair in his bare office room. He counted down the minutes on his phone until five. A few times he had even stared at the seconds counting down on the digital clock view on his phone.

Around a minute past five. He booted his laptop again, typed out his email and password.

Access Denied. Please contact your IT Administrator.

At exactly five in the afternoon, he lost access to the system. He took a deep breath and let reality weigh him slowly, then sink deep into him in one swift sensation.

The love alarm and the mood alarm were never his. Any delusion that they were his had dissipated with all the company accesses.

***

In an airport, the point past immigration is international space.

Maybe that explained that strange liberation that came with getting past immigration and walking through the gates, searching for his own. Or it could have been many things at once. He was out of his old job, out of his old environment and somehow, in its own way, it symbolized a new beginning.

Even as an international space though, some things weren’t completely unavoidable. Settling on the departure gate, Levi went through some final checklists on his phone.

He had a new bank account. He had a place to stay as soon as he landed.

And his inbox was a confluence of unread mail. Many of them were goodbyes, from colleagues, some from finance, from human resources, from his own team and he wondered how the hell people found out and what they were thinking about his leaving.

Erwin sent a few tips on taxes and getting housing loans. Petra had sent a ‘safe flight’ message with the same pleasantries of meeting up when she gets to visit.

There was one message was avoiding and he decided to open it last. He spent the first few minutes before that spamming the same thank you message to every single goodbye message.

That one other message after all, was easy to ignore, just a bank notification that money had been wire transferred.

One hundred thousand dollars, the exact money he had lost and sent over to Yelena, he realized as he opened the message and put a little more thought into it.

You have two weeks to claim it. Two weeks? The countdown started a week ago and he only had a week to claim it.

Actually, not even a week. Looking up at the boarding time, he realized he only had an hour. He could probably organize something to have it sent over to his new account. Considering timing and the logistics though was stressful enough already. And besides, his mind found it more enticing to just indulge the context behind such a large sum of money.

It could have been a scam. The amount of money though had seemed too much of a coincidence and admittedly, Levi was a still lovesick.

Don’t send me money. Just fucking talk to me. Levi whispered to himself. Just in case, just in case that was Hange.

In some indignant response, he decided to delete the message and instead, spend last few hours going through some obscure threads on the industry. Something he had been actively avoiding.

Business Jaeger Zeke Jaeger acquires the love alarm… The mogul had found a fatal bug on the love alarm…

In a noble effort to improve the efficacy and accuracy of the product, he took it upon himself to oversee development….

Head developer behind the love alarm has been terminated....

Unnamed developer. He had at least been given that much. Levi let out a sigh. For a high profile application, no one really figured out the name of the head developer. It was a thankless job but Levi never thought too much about the glory of it.

And at that moment, he could only be grateful for the anonymity, whether or not Zeke had done it deliberately.

Plane ready for boarding.

They would be starting with first class passengers first and Levi knew he had more than enough time to take a trip, to the farthest trash can, yet still something near enough to catch the flight.

He unzipped the front pocket of his backpack, pulling out a small sim card pin. He poked it, pulling out the tray, noting the bronze sheen of the sim card. It had taken him a few tries to hold the small card between his fingers and a few more tries to bend it between his fingers, bend it to the point of unusable.

He pocketed his phone and quickly made his way back to the boarding gate.

No bank account. No phone number. He wondered why he went through that much of an effort to destroy everything.

Maybe just for an attempt for a new beginning. Or maybe because he didn’t want her to find him.

The more he thought about it though, the sooner he realized he wanted her to find him. He just thought it better to assume that she wouldn’t even try.

#levihan #levihan fanfiction

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tossawary · 3 years

Text

Chapter 24: “Seeing is Believing” of “pride is not the word I’m looking for” random favorite lines and commentary. Not a full list or full commentary, but longer commentary than usual to talk about quest construction.

AN: This was... a weird chapter to write. When I started outlining, I had... the conversation with Shen Qingqiu planned... the conversation with Shen Yuan planned... the fact that SQH, SY, LQG, and LFL was the quest party... and the fact that they get the Eye at the end of it. That was everything.

The entire rest of this chapter came together FRIDAY LAST WEEK.

Huan Hua Palace wasn’t going to be there. The Weeper didn’t exist. The Eye or its previous owner wasn’t at all connected to the Garden Master. The Shadow Cave Wolf Spiders didn’t exist. The murder plant didn’t exist. The mysterious monster showing up at the end wasn’t originally planned either.

I mean, I had a lot of pre-existing plot threads to tie in and weave with, but ohhh boy! Picture someone lying facedown on a floor like, “I forgot to plan the contents of the super important quest...”

I was originally going to have the Eye quest a lot simpler, but given the weight “Death of the Author” had when I finally reached this part of the story, that wasn’t really going to do! It had to be bigger than that! It needed oomph! This also felt like a good opportunity to really establish the new SQH-SY dynamic. To explore SY fumbling to find a place in this world without strict character role, especially in relation to settled and well-supported SQH.

“One attempts to remain dignified,” Shen Qingqiu agrees. “As there is little point in kicking and screaming about how such ignobility isn’t fair.”

“Ha! Is there ever?”

“Not in my experience.”

“Yeah, it’s definitely not cute when I do it,” Shang Qinghua jokes.

Shen Qingqiu’s lips actually twitch at that.

Success?!

AN: I wasn’t going into this fic with the intention of writing any Shang Qinghua and Original Shen Qingqiu almost friendship! But it started developing and it seemed a shame not to explore Shang Qinghua developing a real relationship with Shen Qingqiu (though not a particularly close one) when the man is suppose to be the scum villain (and the readers know that the man might get replaced by Shen Yuan).

I can see myself writing more Shang Qinghua and Original Shen Qingqiu content in the future. Someone dropped a particularly nice prompt for them in my inbox that I’m looking forward to exploring at some point.

(I mean, not to say that Shang Qinghua has a type, but Shang Qinghua has a type and it’s handsome, deadly, intimidating, frosty men with a villainous character design and trust/abandonment and communication issues. I could make it work.)

“Ah, well, two ‘ideal’ situations come to mind: severing the personal relationship for good… or, ah, talking about how to do better and trying that. You don’t have to forget or even forgive if you don’t want to! But, ah… there’s got to be a difference between totally swallowing your anger and cutting ties forever, right?” Shang Qinghua says awkwardly. “If there’s… ever going to be anything good afterwards…”

Shen Qingqiu stares at him for a sweat-inducing length of time.

“Ah, fuck,” Shang Qinghua thinks.

“Sorry,” he says. “Ahhh, I’m just… thinking about something someone told me… in… in regards to some of my own problems. Never mind! Never mind!”

AN: Luo Jiahui really is out here making Moshang and Qijiu get their fucking act together just by setting a better example.

“Shizun, my apologies for the interruption, but I came to ask Shizun if he would be willing to join our music lesson today? The disciples have missed his playing and are eager to present their improvements.”

“...Very well, unless anyone here would disagree…?” Shen Qingqiu looks directly at the Qian Cao Peak cultivator, as though daring her to object and die.

“It’s an excellent suggestion!” the Qian Cao Peak cultivator says quickly.

The young woman smiles. “And perhaps Shizun could sit in on the calligraphy lesson afterwards? In order to offer his opinion on my progress as a teacher?”

“Fishing for compliments is unbecoming,” Shen Qingqiu says dryly.

“Wait, what?” Shang Qinghua thinks.

AN: So, this has all been happening in the background, but Shen Qingqiu accepted this House of Rejuvenation woman onto his Peak about... 6-ish years ago now? This is kind of meant to parallel Shang Qinghua’s once-secret relationship with Luo Jiahui.

Shang Qinghua was out here trying to be a better person and Shen Qingqiu noticed; now Shen Qingqiu has his own positive (platonic) relationship with a nameless background character who was meant to die for plot reasons. What a thing, huh? If the story was saved because Shang Qinghua started a domino effect of saving random people who went on to change things?

After all, as Shang Qinghua said to the kid, besides Peerless Cucumber’s apparent talent for cultivation, he knows that his fellow transmigrator has three very important skills that will serve him well on An Ding Peak! 1) An encyclopedia knowledge for even seemingly pointless bullshit (which is kind of flattering, honestly). 2) The willingness to fight total strangers over seemingly pointless bullshit. And 3) a sharp enough tongue to win.

Peerless Cucumber didn’t find these points as funny as Shang Qinghua did.

AN: Shen Yuan was always going to end up on An Ding Peak. I thought about sending him to Qing Jing or Qian Cao or Qiong Ding... or any other Peak... but that would take him too far away from Shang Qinghua to really explore their relationship and to move him around conveniently in the story. And SY sticking to An Ding seemed to best illustrate the fact that SY is lost and doesn’t know what to do except cling to SQH.

“It’s not much, sure, but it’s yours,” Shang Qinghua says finally. “You’ll be joining the talisman classes soon, so don’t try anything from a book and then need to request some home repairs.”

Peerless Cucumber nods and puts his stack of manuals down on the table.

“How’s your tutorial mission going?”

“Fine,” the kid says shortly. “Have you found anything for the other one yet?”

“Ah, not yet.”

AN: “Are you winning, son?” meme energy here.

Ah, now Shang Qinghua recognizes his fellow transmigrator’s expression! That’s the same stunned expression one of his Huan Hua not-disciples, Yu Chaonan, made upon meeting the Bai Zhan Peak War God for the first time. Shang Qinghua assumes that Peerless Cucumber was expecting a man who looked more like a musclebound giant and less like a pop idol (if one with amazingly muscular arms), which is a super common and never-not-funny misconception people have about Liu Qingge.

“Brother of one of the most beautiful women in this world, bro,” Shang Qinghua reminds his fellow transmigrator, amused. Aha! Now Peerless Cucumber’s vehement disinterest in the harem stuff is making even more sense than before!

Shang Qinghua’s assumption gets 100% confirmed when it comes time for Peerless Cucumber to fly with Liu Qingge for the next leg of the journey. The other transmigrator is so embarrassed and awkward about it that Shang Qinghua’s super direct brother-in-law asks if the young man is alright.

AN: This was so fun to write. Shang Qinghua really can use the Liu siblings to gauge people’s sexual/romantic orientation.

The map (or rather, the copy Shang Qinghua made of the delicate original map) takes them to a green and grey landscape of leafy trees crawling over a wide network of tall cliffs and deep gorges. Gurgling rivers cut through twisting rock formations. Shang Qinghua can’t see any of these rivers on the map. Or these deathly drop ravines. From the outside, the whole thing looks like a natural maze (holy shit, there could be so many monsters and death-traps in there!), and Shang Qinghua would know those golden robes flying low over the hanging trees anywhere.

“Huan Hua,” Liu Qingge mutters.

“Do you think they’re looking for what we’re looking for?” Luo Fanli asks.

“That’s usually how it goes,” Peerless Cucumber says, before Shang Qinghua can.

AN: I came up with the skeleton idea first. Then I was like... “I should give it three eyes.” And then I was like... “But who IS this dead author? A god? A spirit? What grander implications am I spinning here?”

And THEN I remembered that I had some ambiguous powerful being force the Garden Master into exile due to a flood. This was because, in the Epic of Gilgamesh, the immortal man Gilgamesh meets in the abyss is the survivor of a great flood. So I was like, “Reduce! Re-use! Recycle! There’s my skeleton!”

So I wanted to relate the skeleton to water because of the flood angle. Water as a symbol of cleansing/reincarnation is a big thing throughout many cultures. I can’t remember exactly how the crying aspect came up, but I knew there was going to be water in the temple now, so at some point my brain like was, “Bro, this skeleton should totally be crying because mythology vibes.”

So I built the surrounding land off the idea that there was water flowing from or around this temple. At this point, I had decided that Huan Hua Palace should also be looking for this artifact, so I had to come up with a way to hide the temple, yet have a way for SQH’s party to track it down.

The damage to the doors is worse: someone once upon a time collapsed a part of the cliff face around the entrance, essentially leaving only the top fourth of the utterly smashed stone doors visible. It’s a wall now and has been for ages. It looks like it would take days to dig through the rubble. Someone has even super helpfully carved, “These doors will never open again,” just above the wreck.

“Guess we’ll have to go in as intruders rather than guests!” Luo Fanli says.

“What would be welcoming us inside a lost temple exactly?” Shang Qinghua asks vaguely, inwardly cursing the fact that explosive mining techniques will definitely attract the Huan Hua Palace Sect cultivators’ attention and also probably collapse the whole cliff on them.

“We only have to clear a passage for us, not the whole door,” Peerless Cucumber says optimistically. “Is there a special technique for this kind of thing?”

“Aha, not really.”

“Oh.”

“Why don’t we just keep following the water?” Luo Fanli says.

“...How so?” Shang Qinghua asks.

“Some of those waterfalls could be passages inside,” Liu Qingge explains, because he and the little sister-in-law apparently share the same brain. He’s already eyeing the waterfall wearing down the giant statue on the left.

AN: Temples in quests need to have traps and obstacles and monsters! Well, not ALL of the did, but this one did. I based the obstacles they faced as much as I could around the whole “Death of the Author” theme, while using this whole quest to explore Shen Yuan, Shen Yuan and Shang Qinghua, Shang Qinghua and Liu Qingge and Luo Fanli, and so on.

The idea here with the door is that the “author” is not going to let them inside the temple to take the interpretation of the narrative (the Eye) for themselves. The story is over (the temple is closed for business)! The author is dead! If they want to get inside, they have to break inside or slip inside as intruders.

This also creates a convenient obstacle to hold up the Huan Hua Palace Sect cultivators so that our party can be nearly caught later! And shows off Shang Qinghua, Liu Qingge, and Luo Fanli’s twisty lines of thinking.

Luo Fanli is holding the light and Shang Qinghua passes the other transmigrator to her, while accepting Liu Qingge’s hand for help getting out of the water.

“Ahhh, that was fun,” Shang Qinghua mutters.

Then he notices that Liu Qingge has the Cheng Luan sword out and ready. Shang Qinghua looks through the surrounding darkness, but all he can see are columns and water. For a moment, he thinks he sees something, a prowling shadow at the other end of the cavernous room, but he wipes the water out of his eyes and it’s gone.

AN: The water in Shang Qinghua’s eyes briefly lets him see a flash of the invisible monsters who show up later! It helps up the tension.

Another low growl rips through the darkness and Peerless Cucumber shuffles a little closer to Shang Qinghua. Because that sounded really fucking close and yet Shang Qinghua still can’t see the thing that’s making that sound.

He doesn’t see Liu Qingge lunge at him either. He only feels his brother-in-law shove him into Peerless Cucumber, knocking them into the water, out of the way of something that howls when Liu Qingge slashes at it with his sword. Shang Qinghua rolls off Peerless Cucumber and looks up just in time to see dark blood splatter across the watery floor. Liu Qingge pursues the attacker with a second slash, but only seems to meet thin air this time.

“It’s invisible!” Luo Fanli cries. “Fuck!”

“Behind you!” Liu Qingge snaps, and spins to slash at the thin air beside him. Dark droplets of blood hit the water again and something hisses at him.

Luo Fanli whirls and slashes, searching for an opponent.

“They’re reflected in the water!” Liu Qingge yells at her, standing guard over Shang Qinghua as he gets to his feet again. “Listen for their footsteps and vocalizations! Feel the demonic energy and air displacement!”

AN: I got this from a list of Dungeons and Dragons puzzles. The idea is that there’s some puzzle that must be solved, but the truth of the room can only be seen in the reflection of the nearby water (or mirror or whatever).

Which felt fitting for a “Death of the Author” quest! Whatever an author’s intentions, the story is what they actually wrote, so the audience interprets a text without the context of the author’s insight. The truth (of the story) is in the reflection (audience interpretation)! It felt like a fun idea.

It also allows Shen Yuan to actually contribute to the quest via monster lore and bring up his impaired vision problem. And to confront Shen Yuan with the reality of this world. And to show off Luo Fanli’s fighting skills. And to show off LIU QINGGE’S legendary fighting skills, instincts as a warrior who fights many dangerous beasts, and the fact that he’s clever and observant!

Liu Qingge is good at what he does! And this is what he does!

Someone has… angrily… or desperately… carved a lopsided message into the wall.

“‘If I go blind, so does the world,’” Peerless Cucumber reads.

“...That’s probably not good,” Shang Qinghua says.

“Nooo…” Fanli agrees.

The messages continue as they climb, carved into the walls, the ceilings, the floors. Most of it is illegible. Some of it is just nonsense. Some of it looks like the same kind of historical records carved into the broken tablets. Some of it looks like someone attacked the walls after reading what was written there. There are deep gouges in the walls and cracked marks that would match a giant’s hands.

“‘The water cleans the lies,’” Peerless Cucumber reads. “‘I am the only one who can see.’ ‘Lies everywhere, lies everywhere, lies everywhere.’ ‘The water cleans the evil.’ ‘I do not have enough tears.’ ‘Everything is nothing now. Everything in vain.’”

“You really don’t need to read them!” Shang Qinghua tells the kid. “It’s fine. It's totally fine.”

AN: This is mostly here to up the tension, but it’s also here to try and give insight into this being and relate them more to the “Death of the Author” and the “Seeing is Believing” themes.

I also saw the phrase “If I go blind, so does the world” while I was browsing a list of riddles for D&D campaigns and I was like, “THAT’S SICK, I’M USING THAT.” Really brings the “an eye for an eye” and vengeance vibes. (The riddle was longer than that one phrase, but the answer was “the sun”.)

The top of the temple reveals one massive room that looks like someone was alternatively scratching their insanity into the walls and tearing chunks out of the interior design with their bare hands. Overtop of the rubble is that eerie overgrowth. There’s a fine layer of water over the floor. At the center of it all is an incredibly enormous desk, cracked in half, with a robed skeleton sitting behind it, slumped over the top. It’s a little too large to be an ordinary human.

Plus, its skull is a little too long, probably to accommodate the third eye socket in the forehead. There’s something gleaming softly yellow in the third eye socket.

“Is… there water dripping from its eyes?” Luo Fanli whispers.

“It looks like it…” Peerless Cucumber whispers back. “Like it's crying…?”

“Still…? Is it dead or not?”

“Holy shit,” Shang Qinghua thinks, slightly nauseated. “System, bro, the worst bro I’ve ever known, tell me that we have not been swimming in a three-eyed skeleton’s magical undead tears or something this whole time.”

The shitty, no-good System stays unsurprisingly silent.

AN: Okay, so the idea here is that this being was someone who recorded history and shared their knowledge freely. This being had the ability to discern the truth of a person - they were extremely perceptive. (The Weeper is either female or doesn’t have a gender, by the way.)

The Weeper met the Garden Master at some point. The Garden Master was an asshole, a liar, arrogant, etc.. The Weeper and the Garden Master clashed badly, until the Weeper sent the cleansing flood that nearly destroyed the sect and the Garden Master essentially had to flee to a personal abyss.

The Garden Master sent the plant as a final “fuck you” to the Weeper. The plant caused the Weeper to slowly go mad. The smashed tablets and destroyed temple are the Weeper’s work. The Weeper (not in a great state of mind) had the temple closed themselves once they realized they and their work had been corrupted. This was a “you destroy my (embellished) reputation, I destroy yours (and your entire life)” plot by the Garden Master.

The idea behind the tears is the whole “water is cleansing” thing. The Weeper tried to clean away the madness using their magical water-related abilities... and it actually worked for a long time. But eventually the madness began to overpower the effects of the magical water. The Weeper’s tears are from frustration and helplessness at losing control.

The water inside the temple combats the plant’s physical effects. Also stabbing the root killed the plant and essentially broke its mental/spiritual powers.

Unfortunately, to get the fuck out of here, they have to go back through the temple. But hey! That’s still a lot better than an extended hike through an underground, haunted desert in darkness! The battle with the now-dead plant caused its growth to writhe around the temple. The vines need to be hacked through sometimes as they travel down through the rooms of broken shelves and shattered tablets.

“So much history lost…” Peerless Cucumber murmurs.

“He still thinks of himself as a reader - an observer, a visitor, separate from the flow of fate.”

AN: This is... absolutely based on the Heart from the Dishonored franchise. But this sort of item didn’t originate with Dishonored and I need it! It’s a surprise/mystery tool that will help us later!

The Eye isn’t exactly a mind-reading object. I mean, it kind of is, but it works in a very specific way that I’m looking forward to getting into.

From there, their path back out of the natural maze is even more careful and stressful than before, now that the Huan Hua Palace Sect cultivators are actively looking for them rather than the temple. It’s slow-going and stressful and silent, except for when the Weeper’s Eye presses too close against his chest.

“He is afraid that if he starts screaming, he will never stop,” it tells him, when he’s looking at a pale-faced Peerless Cucumber, as they fly over a particularly deathly-looking drop.

“Oh, me too, bro!” Shang Qinghua thinks. “Seriously! Tell me something I don’t know!”

AN: Having Shang Qinghua be totally unimpressed by an object like this was very funny to me. He’s the author! He’s a transmigrator! He knows these people well! He already has insight into their situations.

Shang Qinghua groans, but supposes that Peerless Cucumber would have at least been disguising Liu Qingge from the back. “You tell them that you were tracking thieves who stole something from Cang Qiong Mountain Sect,” he says quickly. “Rule of embarrassment! Admitting something that makes us look bad to a rival makes it sound true. Don’t tell them what was stolen and act really offended if they try to poke into Cang Qiong business. I’ll come back as soon as I get these two out!”

Liu Qingge nods and launches forward into the fight.

“We’re just leaving him?” Peerless Cucumber says, as they do exactly that.

“I’ll get changed and come back ‘looking for him for urgent sect business’ as soon as I’ve dropped you two off in the last town,” Shang Qinghua says. “I’m really good at acting stressed and confused, and at desperately needing an unstoppable wandering Liu Qingge back at Cang Qiong Mountain Sect immediately. Now let’s go! Let’s go! Mission isn’t over yet!”

AN: Shang Qinghua is, at heart, a liar. I love him.

#tossawary updates #tossawary svsss #pride is not the word #tossawary commentary

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blackteaandbones · 3 years

Text

This scene has been rattling around in my head as part of a grander fic for ages, and tonight, out of the blue, I got the irresistible urge to write it down. It’s very rough and mostly unedited, but I had fun writing it, so I’ll share it here in case it might be fun for anyone else. No idea if I’m going to do anything else with it or not yet.

Clarke/Lexa

Winged Clarke AU - Basically, what if the sky people were actually sky people (genetic experimentation, mutation, whatever, this is rough, okay?) and instead of leaving Earth, had formed their own clan, loosely allied with the mountain.

*******

The commander was leading another hunting party.

Clarke watched her from the safe vantage point of a very tall, very leafy, tree. Trikru hunters had a bad habit of shooting trespassing Skaikru on sight. Their bows were small, but the arrows were poisoned. Even a scratch could kill. Clarke shouldn't even be here. The boundaries were clearly marked, and the penalties for crossing them well known.

But Clarke had a problem, and that problem was going to get her killed.

“You know she's going to shoot you, right?”

“Shhh!” Clarke hissed at Wells, perched on the branch beside her. They would have been sitting ducks if not for the protection of the canopy. Wells' wings were black against the silvery bark and green foliage and Clarke's were bright white and gold. Neither of them were dressed for camouflage either. The light, tightly woven fabric of their smocks and trousers was perfect for lazing around in their mountain-top aerie, not so much for sneaking around in Trikru territory. Clarke would have worn something more appropriate, but then she would have had to explain why she was in scout gear, and that wasn't a conversation she wanted to have with her mother.

“This obsession is embarrassingly one-sided. She doesn't even know you exist.”

That wasn't exactly true, but it might as well have been, and they both knew it.

Wells was the only person Clarke had ever told about the unexpected storm that had blown her off course when she was barely fledged, and the Trikru net-trap that had snared her when she tried to land. The last thing she had expected from the scrawny, big-eyed child who found her hanging helplessly from a tree in a tangle of knotted rope was mercy. Trikru were the monsters in every story their parents told them about the ground. Clarke had been sure she was about to die, but instead of killing her the girl had used her tiny child's knife to cut Clarke free and let her go.

Clarke had flown away with her life and a hopeless crush on a nameless stranger who grew up to be the feared and ruthless Commander of all twelve land-bound clans.

She doubted the other woman remembered their one meeting as fondly as Clarke did. Or at all.

“If you really want to die today, there are less pathetic ways to do it.”

“I agreed to let you come,” Clarke reminded him.“I didn't say you could talk.”

Wells snorted. “You didn't agree to anything. I followed you.”

“You're free to leave at any time.”

“And let you die alone?” Wells shook his head. “Sorry, I need to be there to say 'I told you so' right before she skewers you on that fancy sword of hers.'”

“Hah, ha.”

The Hunters were on the trail of a pack of Reapers. Clarke and Wells followed at a safe distance. If Wells had actually asked, Clarke would have struggled to explain why she kept coming back. Skaikru wasn't directly involved in the war between the Land-bound clans and the Mountain, but their treaty with the Mountain meant the other clans had condemned them as traitors and spies. Clarke shouldn't be anywhere near Trikru territory, but she could never stay away for long.

They smelt the Reapers before they saw them. Reapers fought in a pack, but beyond that very little of what made them human remained. The commander's group outnumbered them, and they were experience hunters. It should have been a rout, but before they could fall on the ragged group, an ominous horn blared in the distance.

Everyone froze.

And then a second pack of Reapers came boiling out of the trees, followed by a rolling cloud of poisonous green smoke. Clarke and Wells took off in a flurry of feathers. Acid fog was the Mountains weapon. Skaikru may have been their allies, but the fog didn't discriminate, and there shouldn't have been any Skaikru in that part of the forest. They rose to a safe height above the tree tops, and Clarke backwinged in place, waiting for the Hunters to break cover. The acid was coming from the North, and the Reapers were in the East. There wouldn't be time to fight through them before they got caught in the fog. South was the cliffs. So their only way out was back the way they came, to the West.

A second horn belled through the trees, and another blanket of fog started trickling in from the West.

Wells doubled back when he realized Clarke wasn't following him. “Clarke? We have to go, now!”

Clarke didn't answer him, searching the trees below them for any sign of the Commander.

“Clarke!”

There. A small group ran out of the trees towards the cliffs. Clarke swooped down before Wells could stop her, landing in a tree at the edge of the forest. She couldn't leave until she knew she was safe. There was still a way out, a rapidly narrowing path West along the cliff, between the forest and the drop off.. The Commander's group was nearly there, but then more Reapers fell on them from the trees. Clarke watched with her heart in her throat as the commander put herself between her hunters and the Reapers, drawing their attack down on her and leaving the others a clear path while she was forced back, step by step towards the cliff until the fog rolled in and cut her off.

First one Reaper, and then another fell under her sword. She took the last one out with a backhand cut across the knees and then kicked him over the edge. But by then the fog was all around her and closing in fast. One one side, Trikru, on the other, Reapers, and neither of them could get through the acid to save her or finish her off. Clarke could see her evaluating her situation, and when she looked thoughtfully over the cliff edge, Clarke knew exactly what she was thinking.

Wells landed beside her, turning her around to face him with a hand on her shoulder. “Come on, there's nothing you can do now.”

Clarke shrugged him off. “She's going to jump.”

“So what?” he snapped. “Clarke, I know she saved you once, but that was over ten years ago! And you were kids! You don't owe her anything.”

Clarke ignored him.

The rest of the hunting party was shouting and pointing, trying to find a way around the fog bank that had separated them from their leader. The reapers were jeering and laughing from the other side, shaking their weapons and stamping their feet, sharpened teeth bared in sickening grins. Clarke's stomach turned. She couldn't watch this.

“Hold this,” she unbuckled her small travel bag from the belt at her waist and shoved it into Wells' hands.

“What are you doing?”

Clarke opened her wings with a snap. “Don't follow me.”

“There's nothing you can- damnit Clarke!” Well's wild grab for her missed, and Clarke threw herself out of the tree before she could change her mind. The wind blowing down from the mountain lifted her up above the fog, but the rising gas still burned in her nostrils. She pulled her scarf up over her nose and flew higher, heading for the cliff.

The Commander was still there, balanced on the edge where the crumbling ground met the sky. She was nearly obscured by the fog, but her cloak was a bright slash of red against the acid green that surrounded her. Arrows sliced through the sky. The reapers had spotted Clarke. She heard a whistle and a thunk, and one of them dropped like the stone that had smashed into his temple at terminal velocity from a well-aimed sling.

Wells still had her back.

Clarke was going to owe him big time after this.

She flew faster. There was no time to take evasive action. Her only choice was speed. She took a deep breath of clear air and dove through the encroaching edges of the fog, hoping she could make it through this with most of her skin intact. It was, without a doubt, the stupidest thing she had ever done. And she didn't care.

She couldn't let her die.

She wouldn't let her die.

Burning feathers had a very distinctive smell. Almost there. A spear tried to skewer her, and she tipped her wings to avoid it, losing precious time. There was a shout from the hunters. Clarke heard the word Skaikru, along with what she could only guess were several variants of let's get her!

She really wished they wouldn't. She was trying to save their infamous leader here.

The last thin curtain of fog cleared and then she was staring into familiar bloodshot green eyes that widened in disbelief in the split second before Clarke folded her wings and dropped, reaching out to catch hold of whatever straps and edges of leather armour she could wrap her hands around before slamming into the commander and carrying them both off the edge of the cliff.

It wasn't falling. Quite.

Clarke beat her wings against the added weight; trying desperately to slow their decent. Her shoulders and back burned, and pain shot through the muscles keeping them aloft. Even the biggest and strongest Skaikru couldn't fly with more than a light pack or the smallest child. They just weren't built for it.

Clarke wasn't particularly big or strong, but she was stubborn.

Her passenger only struggled for a moment before going limp. Clarke appreciated that. This was hard enough without flailing limbs to contend with. She really appreciated the lack of a knife in her gut too. Stabbing your ride when you're several hundred feet in the air might be a stupid idea, but there was no accounting for instinct in life or death situations, and Clarke was the one who'd done the grabbing. She was very glad the commander wasn't that dumb, and not only because it was currently keeping her insides knife-free.

She would have been really pissed off to find out she was in love with an idiot.

The ground was coming up a good deal faster than Clarke liked. She ignored the aching protest of her wings, flaring them out to catch the air in a last, agonizing bank before they hit the dirt together and rolled, landing in a tangled mess of bruises, burns and broken feathers.

#clarke/lexa #clexa fanfic #Clexa #My writing

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shinyatiny · 3 years

Text

Flower Crown - yungi

Chapter five: Exchange glances

_____________________________

The entire village was busy as the townsfolk prepared for the festival. People had decorated the numerous streetlights with glorious-looking red lanterns, and as it was already noon, the lanterns illuminated a noble path all the way to the arena. It was like a personal red carpet for anyone who was headed there. The children were throwing flower petals on the streets to welcome the honorable guests to the village, making both Jongho and Mingi smile with adoration.

Some of the villagers greeted Mingi as the pair waltzed through the crowd of people. He tried giving them a polite nod back but failed miserably, awkwardly smiling as he gave up being polished. Jongho laughed at Mingi's stiffness, gaining a grumpy huff from him as a response. "The town's very lively today." He muttered, subconsciously gripping Mingi's hand tighter as he lead him through the thick crowds of people. It usually didn't take much time to reach the huge fighting arena but considering the streets were filled with people from all over the continent, it was harder to get there. "I've never seen so many people in one place. Where I come from, houses are scattered everywhere on the mountains."

Mingi stared at Jongho's (rather muscular) back for a hot second before answering. "Oh yeah! I forgot the whole berserker clan lives on the mountains." He pondered as the corners of his mouth quirked up a little. "Isn't it cold up there?" He cocked his head to the side, eyes shining in fascination towards the other's race.

The berserker hummed, thinking of a fitting answer, his other hand in his pocket. "No, not really. I guess we're built to withstand cold weather. But hot weather, that's something I dislike quite a bit." He admitted, a sweet smile on his lips. "It makes my skin dry."

"Oh? I've never read about that." Mingi mumbled, kicking a small rock on the ground. "As I said, I've never seen a berserker before so this is a big deal for me. I've only read about your kind from my books." He mentioned with an adorable pout as if he was embarrassed he didn't have much knowledge about Jongho's people.

"You've read about berserkers?" The other quirked up an eyebrow as if Mingi could see it. He slowed down because of their heated conversation, figuring out talking with Mingi wasn't bad. "I'm intrigued now. What have you learned?" He grinned, looking over his shoulder.

The elf let out a breathy chuckle, covering his mouth with the palm of his hand like a fine lady of sorts. "Well for starters, berserkers have horns on their head and it's their most distinctive feature after their huge size. Although it seems you aren't really the model berserker out there. Even my father didn't realize." He added. Jongho nodded nonchalantly, anticipation written on his features as if he was waiting for something to happen. And when Mingi finally asked the burning question, Jongho got silent immediately.

"Why don't you have horns, by the way?"

Like a deer caught in headlights, Jongho froze in his steps, staring right ahead at the huge shadow of an arena. Mingi's eyes widened as he realized he had asked a question he never should have. His eyes found the gravel path under his feet and he gently took his hand out of the tight grip Jongho had it in. "I — I'm sorry I shouldn't have asked! I-"

"It's fine, Mingi. Don't worry about it." Jongho assured, turning around to look at the taller elf behind him. He noticed how uncomfortable Mingi looked at the moment, guilt filling his stomach, making him feel worse. His eyes found the hand he had been holding onto just a minute ago. Mingi was keeping his fist close to his chest as if he was afraid to move. "I'd rather not talk about it here. It's a lengthy and saddening story and I believe it'd be better if I were to leave it for next time." He lowered his gaze towards the ground. "Sorry."

"It's fine! I'm okay with that..." Mingi bit his lower lip, guilt washing over him like an enormous wave, getting rid of the happy thoughts in his mind instantly. "I apologize for making you feel uneasy, Jongho. That was never my intention." He mumbled, taking in a sharp breath. "I can see this topic brings you bad memories, so let's change it, shall we?" He faked a smile, rubbing his markings through the silky shirt. "I believe I was talking about what I had learned about berserkers from my books."

"Y — yeah."

"I know berserkers are known for not expressing their emotions too often. They rely on their own strength more than their emotions and I guess that's understandable in some aspects." He explained as if Jongho wasn't a berserker himself, a small but excited smile on his features. "Although I must admit, you seem quite different from what the books have described." He muttered to himself quietly, wishing Jongho didn't hear him, but he did. "Anyway, those are some of the things I've read about your kind. I don't want to keep the other contestants waiting, so maybe we should resume our walk there."

"You aren't wrong about the whole 'known for not using their emotions' thing. I guess we use our brains less than others and use our heads instead." Jongho added, slowly turning around and taking his first step towards the arena, again. "It's harder for some. For example, I don't have a hard time with it most of the time, but there have been days when I have shut down entirely and haven't talked to anyone. No one really knows what causes this but I guess it's the class. Berserkers are like that, and no one really questions it."

Mingi lingered behind Jongho as he took some more steps, lips pursed into a thin line as he carefully listened to every single word. Some of the townspeople made way for them when they realized it was the prince and waved at him. Mingi looked down in embarrassment, almost halting in his steps when a hand grabbed his. He looked up to see Jongho holding his hand once again in a tight grip, a smile tugging at the corners of his lips. "Can we hurry up?" Mingi said shyly, accepting the warm hand. "I dislike crowds."

"Of course," Jongho said, gently showing his gummy smile to the taller elf. He decided to ignore the bad memories and focus on Mingi's mood which had decreased tremendously when he had mentioned Jongho's missing horns. Of course, he felt bad for making Mingi feel that way, but how could he have known Mingi was going to ask something like that. "I'll take a detour so we can get there faster, okay?" He glanced at the other over his shoulder, his smile wavering as he saw Mingi's crestfallen expression.

"You don't need to do that. Just get me out of here, please." Mingi pleaded with a whimper, begged which made Jongho's heart drop instantly. Even if they've known each other for less than a day, the berserker didn't like seeing someone get uncomfortable because of him.

"I know, but I figured you'd want to see the other fighters. You'd see what you're going against in a few hours." Jongho explained while cocking his head to the side a little. "It would be the perfect opportunity to gain some information about the contestants in my opinion." He said nonchalantly, giving Mingi a stiff nod before grabbing his hand again. "Come on, we gotta hurry."

"Okay, fine."

°❀°

And there it was, the fighting arena, big and majestic in size. People were lined up by the huge metal gate, two guards with sharp, long spears standing on both sides, preventing the people from barging in. Mingi and Jongho wandered closer to the gates but kept their distance from the group of people since they weren't attending as spectators. The berserker glanced at Mingi and gave his hand a reassuring squeeze. "It's grander than I remembered." He hummed, gazing up at the huge arena up ahead. "I wish there was something like this on the mountains. The only entertaining thing I can recollect regarding my childhood was a playground I visited as a kid." He laughed, a warm smile plastered on his lips.

Mingi cocked his head to the side, a frown engulfing his peaceful expression. Every time Jongho has talked about his time on the mountains, there's been this melancholic feeling in the air, like something was completely missing. Although the way the guard talked about it didn't seem too concerning, it rang some bells in Mingi's head. "Oh please, I'm sure there's something you cherish about that place." He smiled, trying not to show his inner thoughts to the other. He didn't want to worry Jongho, after all. "I mean, this village isn't interesting either. There's only this large arena in the heart of the town and that's about it. Some petite workshops here and there and the rest are residences."

As if something triggered a memory in Jongho's mind, he went quiet for a minute. Mingi noticed the way he almost withdrew from the conversation, looking for an answer on his expression. The berserker seemed to be in a completely different world for a second. After a couple more minutes Jongho had seemed to gather his thoughts and smiled which resembled a fake smile to Mingi. "I wish I could tell you." He finally stated, turning his gaze away from Mingi and glancing at their surroundings in thought. "Could you stay here while I question the guards?"

"O- of course," Mingi said, stuttering as he was still processing Jongho's answer in his mind. That just proved he had no idea what kind of person he was. He was completely in the dark about the other's past and if he was being completely honest, it made him slightly afraid. The fact that he had been so comfortable around Jongho frightened him quite a bit, it felt like they had known each other for a long time, like he had known Seonghwa. But in reality, they've known for less than a day. "I'll wait here until you return, go ahead, yeah." He smiled awkwardly, still held by his thoughts.

Mingi watched as Jongho made a beeline to the guards, his fluffy red hair bouncing as he walked. The people in the line yelled at him, furious that Jongho had casually walked past them and was now the first in line. Mingi could only watch and observe from the distance as the guard and Jongho conversed.

"Mingi!" An awfully familiar voice boomed from behind him. Seonghwa had come to see him.

Mingi beamed when he realized it had been his dear friend who had approached him. The pressure in his chest calmed down even if it was temporary, Seonghwa's presence affected him and he couldn't deny it. Even if it was for a few minutes, the world around him seemed to calm down and all he could focus on was his friend who was warmly smiling and patiently waiting for an answer. "You came!" Mingi grinned, waiting for Seonghwa to initiate something, a reaction, something. And when Seonghwa simply smiled brighter at his tall friend and he wrapped his arms around Mingi's torso, he grew worried. "Seonghwa?"

The older elf hummed next to Mingi's ear, causing goosebumps all over his skin. "I'm sorry you have to do this, Mingi." He mumbled, arms tightening around Mingi's waist. The said elf sighed and leaned into the hug, giving Seonghwa time to collect his thoughts in peace. The topic sure wasn't anything cheerful. "Your father's in the wrong here, for making you go through this. Fuck, I should've prevented this from occurring." He hissed, fists gripping onto Mingi's silky shirt.

"Hey, you're not the cause of this, Hwa," Mingi mumbled, running his hand up and down Seonghwa's back in a calming manner. The other only sighed in contentment as he relaxed more into the hug. They didn't care about the stares they got anymore, the situation was too intimate for anyone to stop it. "Please, don't condemn yourself because of my shitty life. It's not your fault, not in a million years."

A dry chuckle left Seonghwa's lips at Mingi's remark. He pulled away, hands still on Mingi's hips, just for good measure. "I know, dear. I know." He sighed, closing his eyes with a pout. "I just — I don't want you to get injured. I'm aware there are healers there when the competition starts but what if something happens and even they cannot heal you? What if you lose an arm o-or a leg or something? I could never forgive myself..."

And when Seonghwa was done with his rant, Mingi giggled, he fucking giggled. When Seonghwa was worrying his ass off, his friend brushed all of the thoughts away as if he was some kind of a god. "I'm not going to get hurt, Hwa-"

"Promise me. Promise me you won't get hurt, please." Seonghwa whimpered, looking straight into Mingi's brown eyes. "I'd rather not dwell in guilt... Mingi, I've known you for years and years, you getting hurt would — it would break me. I don't know if I'd survive with the guilt, knowing I could've prevented this all from happening. So please, tell me it's going to be alright and promise me you won't get hurt out there."

Seonghwa was desperate, that was clear. To be honest, Mingi was a little moved because Seonghwa clearly cared dearly for him and treasured him as a friend. It made him happy. But this was something he couldn't promise even if he wanted to, the opponent is always unpredictable whether he liked it or not. There's no way he could know their next move, he wasn't a mind-reader. "Seonghwa... you know I can't promise you that..." He murmured, looking down at the gravel path under his feet. "The opponent is unpredictable, I don't know what they're capable of doing. And you know I'm not an expert in combat, I suck, to be honest. I don't even know what I have to do out there! How the hell am I supposed to fight in front of everyone; in front of my father when I have no idea what I'm doing?"

"I'm sorry you have to go through this," Seonghwa pursed his lips together, taking Mingi's hand and pressing his lips on the soft skin. Mingi widened his eyes in surprise but didn't comment on it. Seonghwa must be distressed about the whole competition. "Just know I'll be watching you in the audience among the others. I'll stop the fight if I see you getting hurt, with force if I have to." He smiled sadly, letting go of Mingi's hand. A thousand words were said without speaking with that simple gesture and Mingi understood every single one. "Were you waiting for someone?" Seonghwa asked, letting the heavy topic finally go.

"I — yeah. I was waiting for my guard to come back." Mingi smiled awkwardly, glancing at Jongho who was still chatting with the other guard. "He went to talk with the other guards. I guess he had something to ask from them." He hummed, keeping his eyes fixed on Jongho's figure. "You know, he's an interesting guy, I must say."

Seonghwa tilted his head to the side, waiting for Mingi to continue. "How so?"

"He's not from our village; he's not an elf, Hwa," Mingi stated nonchalantly, a sigh leaving his lips. He didn't expect the awestruck expression in Seonghwa's features when he turned to look at him. "What? As if there aren't any other species walking around town right now. He's just someone I never thought could join my father's forces, that's all."

As if he had just heard a huge secret, the silver-haired widened his eyes in disbelief, eyeing Mingi as if he was asking if what he had said was true or not. "You're kidding." He murmured. "How the hell is he a guard if he's not an elf? You know very well your father doesn't allow anybody to join his ranks, don't you?"

"I'm aware of that, yeah." Mingi sighed. "But I know what he is; he's a berserker-"

"He's a what now?!" Seonghwa interrupted with a restrained yell, eyes wide as plates. A member of the berserker clan living among elves wasn't what he was expecting at all. It was unheard of. "Mingi, that's extremely dangerous, you know that right? And how do you even know he's one of them? He doesn't even have horns and he's shorter than you." He questioned, a confused expression on his features as he observed Mingi's look.

"He told me," Mingi answered quietly, glancing away from his friend. "And how do you even know of this stuff? Have you met him before?" He countered, a similar expression to Seonghwa's on his features now. "You seem to know a lot about berserkers, Hwa." Seonghwa was about to reply but Mingi beat him to it, ignoring the irritated look on his friend's face as he continued to speak louder. "In any case, I don't think Jongho's dangerous. He's proved himself to be calm and collected, so in my opinion, there's nothing to be worried about."

"Mingi, a berserker in an elf village is unheard of! It's a long way to this village from the mountains, you know that. He would've had to walk for months to reach this village. Do you think he'd be that desperate to join your father's forces? Because I don't, there's no way that's the only motivation behind his leave." Seonghwa said with his jaw clenched. "I don't think you understand how grave this situation is, Mingi."

"I-"

"What're you guys talking about?" A familiar voice called out. Mingi sighed and turned to look at Jongho who was running toward his with a wide grin, waving his hand like a child. "Mingi, I know where we have to go now! The guard said the waiting room is there, in that big building next to the arena." He stated, pointing at a semi-worn-out building in the distance. The building's grey, moss-covered walls created a haunting picture in Mingi's mind and he sure wished the building would look better on the inside. The furniture better be nice. "And who's this? Is he your friend?" Jongho cocked his head to the side, an innocent pout on his lips.

Seonghwa huffed and looked away from the red-haired, sticking close to the taller elf. "I'm Seonghwa, Park Seonghwa." He said sternly, gripping onto Mingi's left arm. "I own a local jewelry shop here." He added, ending the conversation right there. Jongho blinked in confusion, slowly nodding with pursed lips. It seems Jongho hadn't realized Seonghwa's annoyed mood yet, and that's what Mingi was fearing.

"Oh! I don't think we've met yet." Jongho smiled brightly, his gums showing. Seonghwa hummed, looking at the hand in front of him, contemplating whether to shake it or not, but he didn't necessarily fancy being impolite. "Uh, Choi Jongho. That's my name if you didn't know it already. I don't know if Mingi mentioned me when I was talking with the other guards." He explained, a blush dancing on his cheeks out of pure embarrassment.

"No, he mentioned you, just not your name," Seonghwa said calmly, nibbling with his dangling earring. The piece of jewelry was one of his own creations; a silver crow with a blue jewel as its eye. A few years back, Mingi had mentioned it looked pretty on him and since then he's been wearing it almost every day, hoping to get some kind of a reaction out of the younger elf. "I heard you're not from around here, Jongho," Seonghwa raised an eyebrow, eyeing the berserker up and down.

Jongho's lip twitched, a look of horror replacing his features for a split second before it was replaced with a worried look. "I-" He started, worriedly glancing at Mingi's direction as if asking for help. "Yeah you — you could say that." He stuttered, scratching his nape out of awkwardness. "Did — have you heard anything else about me?"

Seonghwa snickered, finally letting go of Mingi's arm, a serious expression replacing his previous one. "Just the fact that you aren't an elf." He said. Mingi opened his mouth to say something but decided against it, grabbing Seonghwa's hand, feeling the several rings around his fingers. Seonghwa glanced over his shoulder at Mingi, his full attention on him and him only. "Mingi?" He asked, voice turning soft as if a switch was flicked just now. "Is something wrong?"

"Please, don't force the topic on him..." Mingi mumbled, some extra incoherent words leaving his lips in a rush. Seonghwa nodded gently, shifting his glare to Jongho. "Hwa, the festival should be beginning shortly, I have to go."

"I understand," Seonghwa mumbled, wrapping his arms around Mingi's waist one more time to hug him. The hug was swift, but it warmed his heart and calmed him down. Mingi smiled at the older's touchiness, accepting every little hug and kiss that was presented to him. "Be careful, Gigi. I'll be watching you." Seonghwa said, a smile decorating his lips wonderfully.

" I will," Mingi giggled at the cute nickname, unwrapping his arms around Seonghwa's torso. He looked at Jongho who was awkwardly watching the two interact with pursed lips. "Come on Jongho, let's go. You said you know the way to the waiting room, didn't you?" Mingi chuckled.

"Of course," Jongho said hastily, sprinting to his side immediately. "This way."

"Alright," Mingi smiled. "Bye, Hwa. We'll be seeing each other after the festival."

"Yeah, see you."

°❀°

Jongho pushed the heavy door open, a creak following it. It lead them to a hallway that was lit by the same red lanterns which were hanging from the streetlights. It wasn't anything special, just an ordinary hallway, a long one. But compared to the moss-ridden walls, the inside was much nicer. "Well then, shall we go?" Jongho raised an eyebrow, nudging the other playfully on his shoulder. A small yelp left Mingi's lips at the nudge but he brushed the thought away with a roll of his eyes.

As Jongho closed the wooden door behind him, Mingi observed the hallway, seeing a few people talking up ahead. The closer they got to them, the more Mingi began to realize they weren't from his village, the more he began to realize they weren't elves, to begin with. He halted in his steps, frozen in place as he watched the group interact with each other. What gained his attention was the unusual color of their hair; bright, royal blue. He had never seen anyone with blue hair before, at least not in his village and it intrigued him. It also made him fearful.

"What's he staring at us?"

"I don't know, ignore him. He's a weirdo."

Mingi hadn't even noticed that he had been staring at the group. What made him realize was the sudden silence in the hallway and the countless whispers sent his way. With a blink, he looked away from the group and turned to Jongho who was watching with narrowed eyes, observing the unknown people. He glanced at Mingi who seemed to be unsure of the situation himself and pushed the said elf behind him. "Are you guys going to compete in the festival?" He called for them, gaining their attention. Mingi widened his eyes and was ready to silence him but Jongho kept going. "If not, I have to kindly ask you to leave, this place is for competitors only."

This was one of the moments Mingi would like to bury himself in a hole and disappear from sight. He didn't want to cause any problems and Jongho had seemed to notice his distress as well, placing a hand on his shoulder for reassurance. "Maybe it's not a good idea to pick a fight with those guys, Jongho..." Mingi whispered behind the berserker, gripping onto his shirt for comfort even though he was towering over him because of the height difference. "Jongho-"

"Who are you to tell us that? Are you a competitor yourself Mr. muscle man?" One of the men laughed slyly, leaning against the wooden wall. "You look lost yourselves. Do you need help finding your way out? Out of this village perhaps?" He said with a lazy smirk. This made Jongho's lip twitch in annoyance and he sure hoped it wasn't visible because he was boiling with anger inside.

"Oh, I'm not the one who's fighting, prince Mingi is," Jongho said with a smooth grin, pointing at Mingi who was standing behind him, nervously biting his lip, almost drawing blood from it. If he could've, he would've loved to show them their reaction when he had mentioned Mingi's title, but oh well. "It's his first time being here, so obviously, seeing new people makes him nervous."

The man who had laughed shut up quickly, pursing his lips together and spewing something that seemed to be countless curse words. "Sure." He rolled his eyes in irritation, glaring at Mingi before ignoring the pair completely. Jongho laughed silently, taking Mingi's hand and leading him to the right room on the left. The elf followed put behind him and looked around the building in awe.

When they reached the main building Mingi was breath-taken by the interior of the waiting room. For starters, it was gloriously decorated with wine-red wallpapers with golden flowers embedded into it. Two huge pillars that were at least 4 meters tall stood before him, looking grand as ever. The room was bustling with life, people everywhere. It didn't tone down his anxiety at all and even Jongho seemed to pick up on this, leading him towards a less-crowded corner. Although the festival was only beginning, everyone was already seated at the long tables, glasses full of what looked (and smelled) like their finest grape wine.

Their attires were something Mingi was blown by, majestic and noble-like. He felt rather small in everyone's presence but ignored the gut-twisting feeling in his stomach and focused on the scent of wine and food in the air. Some of the guests had noticed the elf prince and his guard, eyeing the pair from afar like they were something unknown to them. The hall got fairly quiet when they settled down on some benches next to the wall, everyone's attention thoroughly on Mingi and his companion.

The elf gulped down the lump in his throat, looking down at his shiny black shoes for comfort (of course this didn't really help). Cocking his head to the side, he whispered something to Jongho so quietly even the berserker didn't hear him. With a silent curse, he spoke a little louder. "Why's everyone staring at us?" He whisper-yelled, a bead of sweat forming on his neck. "This definitely isn't what I had expected. I hope it won't be like this when we get to the main arena."

"Ever considered they might be staring because of how you look, Mingi?" Jongho countered, whispering back. Mingi widened his eyes looking down at his outfit in confusion as if there was something wrong with his attire. "You look excellent, don't worry. I think everyone's staring at you because you look too fancy for this event. They're jealous." He grinned lazily.

"Me? Too fancy?" Mingi said, a crease forming between his brows. He switched his gaze from his pants to Jongho only to see him smiling widely at him, small crescents forming in his eyes. It almost, almost melted the iceberg of nervousness in his heart, but not entirely. Despite the warm aura Jongho radiated, Mingi couldn't help but feel a little on edge about the whole situation. He never wanted this in the first place as he was forced to compete by his father's orders. Seonghwa's words made him even more nervous. "They can stare all they want, I don't care. It's not like I look terrible." He grinned back, trying to contain the disappointment in his heart.

"Right, of course-"

"I will not let you fight with that outfit! You look hideous, disgusting!" A sudden, loud voice resounded in the hall. Everyone turned their heads towards the abrupt noise at the door, Mingi and Jongho included. "Your piercings are a disgrace here, I won't tolerate something this sickening here, get out of here before I'll throw you out myself!"

"Come on, this?" Another voice, a deeper one responded, a hint of playfulness in it. "You're saying this is hideous? Do you not have an eye for good clothing?"

"I'm saying this outfit of yours isn't pleasing to look at. As I said, it looks terrible on you." The previous man yelled impatiently. Mingi had spotted the yelling man at the doorway, shouting at someone tall, very tall. "Yunho, please go change your outfit into something more traditional, I beg of you." He pleaded, stiff shoulders slumping down in defeat when the other only shook his head. "You're going to compete in that?"

"Why of course I will. Why wouldn't I? I want to fight with style, Mr. Daesung. I'm sure you understand." The man named Yunho declared, quirking up an eyebrow as the corners of his lips lifted upwards. "Also, who are you to boss me around? I don't live in our village anymore so why would I need to follow those silly rules?" He said, leaning against the doorway. "I'm here to have a little fun since the chief sent me an invitation letter, that's all. Now if you'll excuse me, I'll go sit somewhere more peaceful." He added with a wide, warm grin.

Everyone's eyes were glued on Yunho's figure as he stepped into the awkwardly silent hall, looking around for an empty seat someplace quiet. Mingi, too, was watching the unknown man, but something more interesting piqued interest in him; his outfit.

This man named Yunho was drop-dead gorgeous. Mingi could've sworn he saw something shimmering under the see-through shirt he was wearing. Yunho's outfit seemed to gain attention from the other guests as well considering what he was wearing was nothing like the traditional outfits everyone else had on. It was closer to Mingi's outfit which made him glad he wasn't the only one with taste. Jongho seemed to ignore the commotion as he was leaning against the wall with his eyes closed.

And when Yunho seated himself on a wooden chair situated on the opposite wall, his silky shirt shifted with his movements. Mingi's eyes went wide when he saw the other. Yunho's gorgeous markings reached from his back all the way to his toned stomach. The dark tattoos gracefully complimented the golden piercing on his belly which made Mingi's heart race for some reason or another.

Then it happened. A smirk, a simple smirk from him was able to set Mingi's cheeks aflame and he wasn't sure if it was a good thing or not. It probably wasn't since the stares he got from Yunho were more intense than the ones his father gave him this morning.

For the first time in a while, Mingi was completely flustered because of someone, and that someone was Yunho whom he didn't even know.

#ateez #yunho #mingi #yungi #ao3 #ateez yungi #jongho #ao3 writer #writer #fanfiction #ao3 author #elves #fluff #cute

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let-it-show · 3 years

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Bless This Happiness We Found

I wanted to write a little something for Anna’s birthday! Simple questions bring about her thoughts and well, just something nice. I didn’t really edit it because I’m very tired, and didn’t want to be much later with it. Title is from the lyrics out the outtake song “Home”! Can easily be read as Snow Sisters or Elsanna :) --- "What do you want for your birthday?" Anna opened her mouth to answer, but as soon as she did so, she found she had no answer. "I-I don't know." "What? There must be something!" Olaf gave her a concerned look from his place on their red and white checkered picnic blanket. They'd decided to have lunch together on a beautiful summer day while Elsa took a meeting with a couple of farmers in town. Anna would have attended, and she even tried, but with her birthday the following day Elsa had told her she was to take the week off. Anna protested of course, and they almost fought about it. All she wanted to do was spend time with Elsa! Spending time with her sister was her favorite thing in the world! At the same time, it was easy for Elsa to convince her - she hugged Anna and kissed her freckled cheek, telling her just to trust her.

At first Anna had wondered if Elsa was planning some grand event, and she didn't know how she felt about that. She loved Elsa making a big deal of her birthday, she really did, but what would require a week off? If Elsa was planning a huge party, she didn't know that she was ready for whatever was coming.

However as the days went along, she found herself relaxing. She'd been so invested in being the second queen of Arendelle, so invested in leading, that she'd found...well, she lost parts of herself that came back as she relaxed. She felt them as she leaned back on the blanket, clad in the beautiful dress that Elsa had given her years prior during the first birthday in forever. Her hair hung free, resting on her back. "Nothing comes to mind Olaf," she finally answered. "I know I'll get some things, Elsa has given me a different dress every year and-and you know her, she spoils me! I know you and Kristoff have been whispering..." She smiled at him and he chuckled. "...Mattias carved me that duckling last year, and I saw him working at something the other day."

"Oh." Olaf leaned back as well and looked up at the blue sky above them. "I guess if you know you're getting so many gifts, it's greedy to ask for them! Elsa must feel that way since she gives away gifts on her birthday each year."

Anna stared up at the sky as well. When had she last spent lots of time outside the castle with Olaf, just staring at the sky? There were no clouds for them to find shapes in, but she didn't mind that. "Elsa just loves to make everyone around her so happy...so do I! But her birthday is during that time of year, so it makes a little more sense." Elsa had begun to let Anna join with her in planning the gift-giving each winter, and Anna loved it. She loved her sister so much.

"Elsa doesn't have to give gifts to make anyone happy. Neither of you do," Olaf commented. "I'm happy right now! We haven't done this in a while."

A grin broke out over Anna's face, her gaze still on the sky. "I'm happy too."

"Hoo hoo! Queen Anna, you look so happy!"

Anna paused on her walk through town, having spent time with Olaf until he dozed off. Actually, she stayed for a little while, until her foot fell asleep. She kissed the top of the little snowman's head before deciding to go on a very leisurely stroll, something she hadn't done in a while.

She was usually with Elsa, so she missed her, but it was still lovely - especially when a friendly face greeted her. "Oaken! Hi! How are you?" she asked, making her way over to his kiosk. She could never quite pin down how his business worked. Sometimes she wouldn't see him in town for a while and he'd be in his store where she'd met him years ago. Other times, he'd be peddling remedies for stress relief and offering massages to various Arendellians.

"Very well thank you! Tomorrow's your big day!" he said with a smile and a wave from his place behind his counter. On display he had flowers, sunhats, and bottles of...of mysteries. She wasn't sure.

Anna bounced closer though. She hadn't chatted with him in a while, not having proper time. "Yes, it is," she said with a laugh. "You always remember!"

"How could I forget your birthday?" he asked, and reached for what was a surprisingly huge pile of sunflower bouquets, pulling one wrapped in an orange ribbon. "Let me give you some flowers to start your day with!"

"Oh, thank you!" Anna squealed. She was never able to turn down sunflowers! She took them with a smile as she bounced on her heels, and then buried her face in them. Her love for sunflowers was almost an obsession, and she never put together quite why, other than being bright and sunny. They just made her so happy!

"You're so welcome! But I'm sure you have grander birthday wishes, ya? What have you asked for this year?" He placed his palms together and tapped his fingers against each other, an excited look on his face.

"I haven't asked for anything, I don't really know what I'd want!" Anna replied, her eyes closing as she remained in her flowers for another few seconds.

"Oh no? Nothing at all?"

"Nope!" she answered brightly.

"Oh!"

When Oaken failed to follow up with anything else, Anna opened her eyes. "Is...is that weird?" she asked, somewhat confused.

Oaken chuckled. "No, no. Well...yes. Usually people want something for their birthday! Even if it's not a material gift, they want something! Are you sure there's nothing you're looking for, Anna?"

Anna sighed. She really couldn't think of anything. She had a wonderful life in the castle, and was surrounded by everyone she loved. Most of all, she had Elsa! She couldn't wait to see her again that evening when she knew the meeting would be over. What was she supposed to ask for? "Not really...I know I'll get gifts tomorrow and I'll love whatever I receive, but I don't want anything in particular. As long as nothing bad happens, I'll be happy." That was the truth. She half wanted to say that she hoped for a day where no one wanted to follow mysterious voices and the earth stayed calm, but those would be strange things to say just for the sake of conversation.

Life had been fairly normal. There'd been no disruptions, just days of being a ruler of a kingdom, which could be tiring. Elsa handled it impressively.

Oaken watched her for a second, and then a light chuckle escaped him. "Well, then I'm very happy for you Queen Anna," he said simply, and Anna knew he meant it.

The time to see her sister was drawing closer and the sun was beginning to leave its place high in the blue sky. Anna had made some small talk as she walked, and eventually she found herself in front of the statue she'd had dedicated to their parents. She shifted her sunflowers in her arms as she looked up at them, chewing her lip. She couldn't really remember a truly happy birthday with them, which was somewhat sad. Sure, they celebrated it with her and gave her presents and dinner and there was a very minor celebration in the castle.

And every year, Elsa's door stayed closed without Anna understanding why.

"Good afternoon, Your Majesty! Or perhaps it's good evening by now."

Anna was taken from her thoughts by a familiar, smooth, calming voice. It was a voice she was always happy to hear, and she turned slowly to face Mattias as he approached. "Evening, I suppose. Hello Mattias!" she replied, not bothering to correct him - he knew it was more than okay for him to just call her by her name. He preferred to use her title though, and she respected that.

"How are you doing? Enjoying your week off?" he asked her, continuing forward and stopping beside her to look at the statue.

"Oh, yes, very much. It's been wonderful. It's strange not doing all my meetings and not being in the study but...well, it's also so good to...um..." She felt a little strange telling the hard-working man that it was nice to have less on her shoulders. Even if it was the truth, it seemed a bit awkward to say that to Mattias, dressed in his guard uniform, patrolling like he always did. Anna could tell it brought him a sort of peace.

He glanced at her, a hint of amusement in his face. "It's fine to say you're enjoying not working. From all I've learned about you, it seems being a Queen of Arendelle was never exactly in your plans."

"Oh!" she placed her hand lightly on her chest, laughing nervously. "Well no, it wasn't - I don't, I don't hate it! I don't even dislike it. I just miss some of my life before."

"Understandable," Mattias said with a little nod.

Anna took that as encouragement to continue. "I had responsibilities before! I helped around town and when Elsa would stop being so stubborn I would do what I could with her work. Then we had time to be with each other. That's kind of how it is now, except, I have to be a little more involved because of my title...we still have fun though! And I see her every day since she returned from the forest!"

Mattias glanced at her again, before turning to face her completely. "So despite the change, you're happy? Really happy?"

"I...yes, I am," Anna answered in a small voice. "Why do you ask?"

"Your birthday is tomorrow, correct?"

"...Yes?"

Mattias smiled, letting out the air of almost quiet laughter as he regarded her. "I know birthdays can be a time of reflection, of thinking about what we've accomplished in life. At least, I did that every year in the forest. Anyway, finding you out here looking at the statue of your parents drove me to ask."

Anna felt her shoulders relax - she hadn't even known she'd been tense. Mattias had such a way with his words, so able to calm her when she needed and providing a sense of comfort she hadn't felt from an older male figure in her life in years. Someday she'd have to show him just how much she appreciated him. "I see. Yes, I was thinking a little, mostly about my birthday and how happy I am to have everyone here. My birthdays used to be very lonely, but now..."

"Now?"

Anna shrugged a little. "Well now, things are better than I could have ever thought. I have Elsa, I have my family - that includes you - and I get to do good for my kingdom. I don't have to do it alone. It's a lot of work sometimes but...but then I have days like these, where I can walk around the town and everyone says hi to me. Everyone knows me and no doors are closed. I do what I can to help them, and they support me." She was very, very happy.

Mattias didn't answer right away. He kept smiling, and looked back to the statue. "So...what do you want for your birthday, Your Majesty?"

"Oh..." Anna laughed, she should have expected it. "I can't think of anything. I've tried several times today and just couldn't. There's nothing I could ask for."

"Nothing at all?" he asked, but he didn't sound disbelieving.

"Nothing at all," she responded quietly, looking up at the statue. She didn't follow it up with anything else, just regarding her honored past, though in a way it felt like she was looking at two strangers. In that moment it didn't bother her. She wasn't feeling alone.

When she finally approached the castle a little while later, Elsa was crossing the bridge to meet her. She was in her green dress that she'd made years ago - she had been wearing it all week. Magic dresses rarely had to be laundered, it appeared.

"Anna!" Elsa threw out her arms as she greeted Anna with a huge smile. It was like they hadn't seen each other in months when it had been just hours. Elsa hugged her with such intensity too and she always did that.

It was a hug that let Anna know she'd never be pushed away again, and she melted into it as her bouquet dropped the short distance to the ground. She returned the embrace eagerly. "Oh Elsa! I missed you!"

"I missed you too. The meeting lasted forever...have you had a nice day?" Elsa asked, still squeezing.

"It's been a lovely day. But you know, I wish you'd been at my side," Anna told her quietly.

Elsa finally released her, only to run her palms down Anna's arms to take her hands, holding them down between them. "I would have liked that too. Tomorrow I will be, my schedule is cleared just for you. We can do anything you want. What would you like to do for your birthday?"

It was that question again, though framed differently. Her answer was still the same. "I don't know. Nothing in particular."

"Nothing...? Surely there's something that would make you happy?" Elsa asked, tilting her head a little, the tiny snow diamonds in her hair sparkling despite the setting of the sun.

Anna almost laughed because of how-how dear Elsa looked in the moment, so ready for an answer, so ready to please. How could she ask for more than that? Standing on the bridge, hands joined, while Elsa's gaze met her own - after a day of seeing friends and knowing she was somewhere that so thoroughly loved her.

She squeezed Elsa's hands and leaned forward until their foreheads touched, her sister face so close to her own. "I am happy, Elsa." She watched the beautiful smile that spread across Elsa's features, something she always loved to see. Yes, she was sure of what she was saying. "I am very, very happy."

#Frozen 2 #Frozen Fever #fanfic #Anna #Elsa #Olaf #Oaken #Mattias

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thestraggletag · 3 years

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Three Appointments and a Wedding

AN: Hi, @magicalgiven it is I, your Secret Santa! If I’m not mistaken we are both Argentinians in which case commiserate with me over the fucking hot weather we’ve been having. Because it fucking sucks. It was a pleasure to be your Santa, and I’m sorry this fic didn’t get smutty. I tried to add as much spice at the end as I could. It was challenging but fun because the accidental engagement prompt has been done a lot in the fandom so it was nice to try and put my spin on things. I hope you like it!

Prompt: Accidental engagement and consequences.

Summary: Mr Gold would do anything to help his only son plan his wedding, even if it is getting mistaked for the groom over and over as his crush gets mistaken for the bride. Over and over.

Rating: PG-13

He reminded himself that Bae had been clear about his distaste for a big wedding, and Emma as well. As far as they both were concerned they were better off with a simple civil ceremony and a honeymoon in Florida. But Emma’s parents insisted that their only child, their little princess, marry in style, so something grander was decided upon. He had to admit he hadn’t put up much of a fight. He did not have a lot in common with the Nolans- no matter how much David insisted on treating him like best mates whenever they met- but he did agree with them on the wedding. Bae was his only son and he wished to make a fuss about his wedding as well.

So he couldn’t really say no when Bae called to ask him to please take his place at a catering appointment in Portland. He had been summoned to a surprised meeting with a client that was a rather big to-do at his job. He did something related to web design that he couldn’t for the life of him understand, but it allowed him to work from home most of the time and stay in Storybrooke, so he was glad to be of assistance if he needed it.

He arrived at the catering business with a bit of time to spare, introducing himself and letting the person checking the appointment know he was waiting for someone. Not Miss Swan, because apparently she also had urgent business that could not be delayed- she did work in law enforcement, so there was a small chance she wasn’t lying to get out of “boring wedding stuff” as she kept calling it right in front of her mother and likely to annoy her. He had been told she would send Miss Lucas as a replacement, since she knew her way around a menu. He did not look forward to it, though perhaps he could amuse himself with trying to figure out how to raise the subject of the diner’s rent being due next week over talk of canapes.

“Mr Gold, you got here before me!”

He turned around, a part of him recognising instantly that charming Australian lilt. He looked slightly down to find Miss Belle French, the town’s librarian as of three years. She was dressed, as always, rather charmingly, and looked less out of place in the city than in their small town.

“I hope you haven’t been waiting long. The original plan was for Ruby to fill in for Emma, but Granny’s arthritis started acting up so she had to stay and help at the diner. Oh, please don’t tell Granny I told you that or she’ll never forgive me.”

He recalled she was an old friend of Miss Swan’s, from before she came back to Storybrooke, back when she was living in New York as a bit of a rebellion against her parents, doing bounty hunting work of all things. They had been roommates while Miss French went to NYU for her master’s in Library Science and worked at an antique bookstore. He knew only because he knew the bookstore and thought it smart to hold onto that piece of information. Book restoration and re-binding wasn’t his specialty, so it was nice to know of someone he could consult with if the need ever arose.

“Your secret’s safe with me, Miss French. I will even abstain of using the information against Granny the next time she tries to overcharge me for coffee. I hope you understand what a sacrifice that is.”

She laughed and he tried to pretend he didn’t feel overly smug about it, turning instead to open the door for her.

“Oh, Mr Gold, I see your fianceé is here! Lovely to meet the future Mrs Gold.”

He fumbled, his brain too caught up in what had just been said to register the small step on his way. He righted himself just as Miss French stammered a surprised denial.

“Oh, right, I apologise for assuming you would change your name after marriage, Miss Swan. Please, follow me.”

The man, a strongly-accented Frenchman, if his ears did not deceive him, swept past them and deeper into the shop, forcing them both to follow. The back was a rather nice dining area, small but with lots of windows to let in natural light. It was right next to the kitchen, but it still felt private and quiet. They were ushered into a table already prepared for them and served a sample of entrées along with a card detailing the ingredients of each one.

“Well, I suppose it’s an obvious mistake to make, and it would be unkind to correct him, he’d be mortified. I hope you don’t mind playing the would-be groom for a day, Mr Gold. At least we get some nice food out of it.”

“It’ll make a nice change from Granny’s overpriced lasagna.”

She slapped him gently on the arm, trying to conceal her smile, and he was surprised at how nice the gesture felt. Not many people touched him, and less with that sort of uncomplicated ease. He was glad that Miss French felt comfortable around him.

“So, what type of food does Miss Swan enjoy?”

“You should really begin calling her Emma, you know. And me Belle, none of that Miss French nonsense. This is not some nineteenth century pretend engagement, you know. I hope we can consider ourselves a modern pretend couple.” Miss French- Belle- smiled at him over the rim of her water glass before taking a sip. “As for Emma, she likes bar food. If it was up to her we’d serve peanuts and fries for entrées and burgers as the main course. I understand her parents talked her out of it, so perhaps nothing very fancy, but tasteful at the same time.”

He had given up on the day that morning, thinking it would be spent trying to make awkward conversation with a confrontational Miss Lucas, glaring daggers at him from across a rather small table because he dared charge rent for the property her grandmother rented from him. Instead he found himself discussing food and wine with someone he was infinitely more fond of and could not even muster enough grumpiness later in the evening to snark at Bae when he called later at night to thank him for subbing for him.

“It’ll be the last time, pops, I swear.”

The week after the catering appointment Bae called him in a panic to beg him to go for him to the florist appointment, also in Portland. He swallowed a few choice words learned in his youth in Glasgow, closed his shop and drove to the address Bae texted him. He was somewhat less surprised than before to find Miss French there, sitting on a bench outside the shop and reading a book. Something niggled at the back of his head but when he greeted her and they got to explain their presence he realised it made a bit more sense. Miss Swan’s job was a bit emergency-heavy and Miss French was the daughter of a florist, so it made sense to send her as a replacement.

She knew her stuff, as he could tell almost as soon as they set foot into the shop, to the delight of the old, red-haired florist that handled their appointment. The librarian engaged her in a rather interesting discussion on the meaning of flowers and the importance of harmonious scents, something he had never considered before. They spent a rather lovely hour touring the greenhouse and browsing through the catalogues, with Miss French- “Honestly, Arran, it’s Belle, you agreed!”- making a game out of it, picking something and having him guess whether it was a choice for Miss Swan’s wedding or a reflection of personal taste. He learned from it that Belle liked blue as much as her outfits had already implied and that she loved hydrangeas, thought them elegant but soft.

“Too soft for Emma. She likes bold colours and is not fond of traditional flowers, so I was thinking perhaps something with bougainvilleas? They have such lovely deep pink colour, almost red. What do you think?”

It was a bit intoxicating, the smell of the flowers, the heat of the shop and Belle French talking about flowers with a passion that stirred something in him that had nothing to do with centerpieces or boutonnieres. It wasn’t until they were out of it, inhaling the crisp evening Portland air, that he realised the florist had mistaken them for the engaged couple as well, and neither of them had made any effort to correct her. Well, that would’ve been rude, he reasoned. No need to put the old woman in the spot.

The morning of the cake-tasting appointment he had woken up with the knowledge that he was likely to get a “surprise” call from Bae begging him to “fill in” for him at the cake shop, and he could not even bring himself to feel angry about it. The wedding was, after all, a rather rushed affair, seeing as to how it was not what either the bride or groom had planned for, so allowances had to be made for the couple. That or they both were trying to punish their parents for pushing on them a grander event than the one they had wanted in the first place.

On his way out of town he passed by the library, insisting he would drive Miss French who was, surprisingly, filling in for Miss Swan again. She didn’t seem to mind yet another disruption into her schedule.

“I love Storybrooke, but I don’t mind admitting that it’s nice to go out to a big city every now and then.”

The bakery that would make the cake- one of the few that would accommodate the short notice of the order placement- was located in Bangor, which seemed to merge big-city vibes with small-town charm. The bakery itself was lovely, with a white and beige storefront and a myriad of colourful treats on display. It smelled strongly of vanilla and chocolate inside, and there was a dreamy, romantic sort of quality to the decoration. They were ushered into a warm, cosy room where they spent the next hour and a half tasting different cakes, one better than the next.

“Emma is a bit chocolate obsessed, so I’m leaning towards the chocolate champagne one. It was delicious.”

He tried not to replay in his mind the way she had moaned at the first taste of that one, eyes closing in absolute bliss.

“I still can’t believe that little urchin had me fill in for him again, so I’m not even considering his tastes. My vote is for the strawberry shortcake.”

Belle frowned, idly liking some frosting from her fork. His left hand tightened around the napkin on his lap.

“Isn’t Bae allergic to strawberries?”

“Exactly.”

The librarian laughed, which he was rather surprised by. Very few shared his rather dark sense of humour, most found the content and his delivery of it rather off-putting. He tried not to preen at the idea.

“Might want to hold on in killing him until after the wedding. After all, we have invested quite a few hours into the preparation already. Feels more like our wedding, in a way.”

He choked on a rather lovely piece of red velvet cheesecake, fumbling for his glass of water to try and wash it down. He realised the danger he was in, all of a sudden, perhaps too late. His crush had been safe when he had not had much of a chance to interact with the librarian and get to know her. But spending entire days with her had changed things, giving his feelings depth that he did not entirely appreciate. His instinct of self-preservation was urging him to do something. Say something mean or cutting, or close himself off. Perhaps invent some business emergency and leave, letting Belle figure out on her own how to get back to town. If she was cross with him, if she hated him, if she decided to keep his distance, he would be safe.

But, surprisingly, he found that he was rather tired of feeling safe, and of pushing people away.

“You know, we didn’t do half-bad in the end, all things considered.”

He turned around, tearing his eyes away from his son and his new wife trying to waltz. He was sure someone was filming it, anyway, and he’d get to tease Bae about it later. Belle looked absolutely stunning in a Halston dress, an architectural number in navy blue with a champagne-coloured lining that peeped from the folds of the skirts and a bit of a train in the back, the hem landing above the knee at the front and below it at the back. It was a far cry from what most women were wearing, in particular the friends of the mother of the bride, but it was exactly what he had expected from her: bold, flirty, and the slightest bit of out place in a small town, without really seeming to realise. Her lips were a lovely deep, dark red and smiling wide. At him, of all people.

“Yes. The flowers do look splendid, Miss French. You have quite an eye for it.”

She hooked her arm through his, looking admonishingly up at him.

“It’s Belle. Unless you’ve decided I cannot call you Arran anymore.”

If he were stronger, he would politely insist on calling her Miss French, thus gently reestablishing their more formal dynamic. It would be safer, certainly. But he found himself unable to muster the energy for it. It was a happy day, and he was ecstatic as the father of the groom should be. Seemed like the occasion to do what he wanted and not necessarily what he thought was best. Indulge a bit.

“Belle, then. I rather like how you pronounce my name, seems a shame to make you stop.”

Her eyes widened, and so did her smile. He tried to remember how many glasses of champagne he had drunk, but could not recall. He had indulged there too, but that was only because he had been sitting next to David Nolan for dinner and he had kept trying to talk to him about sports. He had made the mistake of trying to discuss the UEFA Super Cup, but that had only led to ten minutes of David Nolan referring to football as soccer and displaying no understanding of the rules of the game.

“So, how’s the proud father? Was it all you hoped it would be?”

He looked around. The venue was lovely, a manor outside Storybrooke that was used exclusively for events like weddings and such, with extensive gardens and lovely, broad balconies. The Nolans had secured the place, seemed they knew the owner and had been able to pull some strings. It was decorated a bit like an enchanted forest, in shades of silver, gold and bold touches of bright pink and dark blue.

“Well, Bae remembered his lines and didn’t step on Miss Swan’s train at any point so the wedding has exceeded my wildest expectations.”

He glanced again towards his son, dancing something a bit more lively with Emma and looking infinitely more at ease doing so. They truly suited each other, and he was glad of that. Glad that Bae would know, hopefully, nothing but love in his family he meant to build for himself.

“It’s a lovely song. Would you care to dance?”

A tricky question, since the answer was both a resounding no and a desperate yes, but he merely pointed towards his cane as a way out. It seemed he was not the only one emboldened by drink, however, if Belle’s flashing eyes and red cheeks were anything to go by.

“Oh, come on, just some gentle swaying. We could go outside, if you don’t wish others to see. It’s a bit stuffy in here anyway.”

There was no way for him to deny her, nor did he wish to anymore. He let her lead him out, into one of the terrace-like balconies attached to the ballroom, and wrapped her arms around his neck, prompting his own to wrap around her waist. They soon fell into a slow, easy rhythm, lazy and yet strangely exhilarating. He felt loose and tightly-wound at the same time, and could not decide whether he liked the feeling or not.

“It really is a lovely wedding, by the way.”

“Yes, I think we did rather well, all things considered. Certainly more than what Bae deserved, taking into account how little he worked for it.”

She tugged on his hair, he assumed as a way to chastise him. It had rather the opposite result, sending a jolt of fizzy pleasure up and down his spine.

“You rather enjoyed it, admit it. And I did too. In a way it’s sad that the wedding has happened and our outings are at an end.”

She looked up at him from beneath her lashes, teeth worrying her lower lip the slightest bit. He got the feeling that there was something he was not seeing or sensing, some signal he was not quite deciphering. But it was getting rather difficult to think, with the champagne in his veins, and the feel of Belle in his arms and the way she smelt like orange blossom.

“You look lovely, by the way.” He realised he hadn’t told her, and it seemed like a major oversight. “Stunning, really. Gorgeous. Too good to be wasting your time out on the balcony with me.”

What the fuck was wrong with him? When had he lost complete control of his bleeding mouth?

“Don’t say that. I like spending time with you. A lot.” She bit her lip again and he wondered if his blood pressure could take it. “Actually, I was hoping we could spend more time together, if you wished it.”

There was no mistaking the flirty turn of her lips, or the coyness dancing in her eyes, even to an expert in self-denial such as him. He tried to form words to reply to her, something along the lines of “Yes, please” or “Is it tomorrow night too soon?” but his vocal cords were suddenly useless, and in a sudden panic that she would interpret his stupid silence for a rejection of her advances he leaned down, pressing his lips against hers. He felt her stiffen in his arms for a second, saw her eyes widen in surprise, but the next moment she was pressing back against him, tipping her head back to better capture his mouth with her own. She took absolute control with a quiet, fierce determination that he found incredibly erotic. He was happy to reciprocate, to tighten his arm around her waist and open his mouth to her, his left hand tightening around the handle of his cane with something that felt like petulant frustration at not being able to simply drop the damned thing hold her properly, perhaps delve a hand into her hair, feel if it was as soft as it always looked.

She seemed to read his mind, for she maneuvered them clumsily towards the rather tall balustrade. He eagerly leaned against it before dropping his cane in the nick of time to catch the librarian’s leg, which sought to wrap itself around his waist. Her obvious, undisguised want was disarming, making him forget himself in a way he had never allowed himself to-

“Papa, what the fuck?”

“Belle!”

Both him and Belle startled, with her regretfully taking a few steps away from him, leaving him to notice the chill in the air. When he glanced at the entrance of the balcony he saw his son and Miss Swan, looking radiant in her Vera Wang dress and also, bizarrely, quite smug.

“Hey, Bae, didn’t see you there.”

His accent barely made the words intelligible, but there was no helping that. He always lost control of his brogue when he was nervous.

“Clearly!” Bae sounded shrill, more child than man. Reminded him of the infamous temper-tantrums the lad had thrown once upon a time. “How could you? At my own wedding?!”

Fuck, he was right. He had been caught fucking making-out and almost doing God-knew-what just a few bloody steps away from his son’s wedding reception. What was the matter with him?

“I mean, why couldn’t you wait? I had almost won the bet!”

What?

“You only had to last until after the wedding! I was so close, pops! And you were doing so well!”

“Yes, yes, it’s all very sad. Now remember, Bae, you promised at least two dances with Regina’s sister. At least she’s unlikely to hit on you at your own wedding, so there’s that.”

Emma smiled up at her new husband, kissed his cheek, turned him around and directed him back towards the ballroom with a not-so-gentle smack in the ass. She smiled, gave Belle a thumbs up and an “atta girl” and walked out of the balcony, closing the French doors behind her.

“What the fuck was that?”

#rumbelle fic #rumbelle #magicalgiven #Rumbelle secret santa #RSS 2020 #rumbelle secret santa 2020

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yeahinoticed · 4 years

Photo

Trimberly Pirate AU

There are Very Many ideas in my head. If you’re interested in them, take a look at my feeble attempt at fic writing below.

Perhaps they were fated to meet, or maybe it was simply chance. Either way, there was no turning back. Their story was an inevitability - its movements as sure as the tides themselves.

A Pirate AU wherein Trini is a notorious pirate captain, and Kimberly just wants to be free.

Read it on AO3 here!

She had never expected to be here. Though Zack’s plans were wild to be sure, she had to concede that more often than not, they worked. Still, she’d rather it was him in her place. But as great a strategist as he was, Zack was terrible at keeping his cool. His excitement was likely to get the better of him, and if it happened here, it would spell the end of their careers - and most probably their lives. They just couldn’t risk it. Trini fiddles with the gaudy looking brooch pinned to her lapel. It looks like any other - a brassy little trinket engraved with a crown, vibrant red gemstone studded proudly in its centre. They’d picked it up in Havana last year, not long after their first success. Trini had been adamantly against spending their newfound gold on such frivolous things, but Zack would insist it was a token of celebration, a small purchase he’d treasure forever. It was hard to say no to such blinding enthusiasm, so she’d simply rolled her eyes and turned away, which he’d obviously taken as approval. Trini thought he’d get bored of it and sell it at the next port for some other shiny thing, but true to his word he’d held on to it, and the cocky grin he’d worn when brandishing it at her this morning had her reconsidering their partnership. Nevertheless, it was becoming useful now, so she supposed she couldn’t really fault him.

She’d always thought such things were kind of tacky. Blatant shows of wealth and title weren’t really her style. They make you stand out. And in her line of work, standing out makes things a whole lot harder. Yet here she is, clad head to toe in a flashy formal ensemble. The mustard coat, the breeches, the stockings, the dastardly wig and feathered hat - the whole lot. The frills of her shirt tickle her neck and hands, a constant irritation in the back of her mind even as she peers up at the garish manor before her. Rendered cream walls, framed by extravagant trimming reflect the bright midday sun so brightly that they almost glow. The dark gravel path up to the manor is edged with smooth stones, dividing it from verdant garden beds which are somehow both calculated and unruly at the same time. At the base of the path, two uniformed guards flank an ornamental wrought iron gate. Its bars twist intricately to resemble thorned roses, and its top edge is studded with spikes. They glare at her, suspicion evident in their faces, hands gripping their rifles ever so slightly harder - imperceptible to an untrained eye. She understands their wariness - while her linen garments give the impression of status, she isn’t their typical wearer - no woman is. Trini might be accustomed to the blade, but it was time to put her sharp tongue to use.

“State your business ma’am”.

“Isn’t it quite obvious, good sir?” she replies. The accent doesn’t come easily to her, and if the guards notice, they give no indication of it.

The one who had spoken looks to his comrade, visibly apprehensive. It was a difficult situation for him. If he gave the wrong person trouble, he’d be out of a job before evening. Yet he couldn’t simply stand aside, for then he wouldn’t be doing his job at all. He hadn’t signed up for such dilemmas. He sighs.

“Your invitation?”.

“This is all hardly necessary” Trini remarks as she slips the folded letter from her inner breast pocket. The guard scans it over, thumbing the seal that identifies its sender. When he scans it a second time, his eyebrow quirks.

“Forgive me ma’am, but you don’t quite look like an ‘Oliver’ to me”. His partner scoffs at this, before clearing his throat and making to smooth the collar of his regimental red coat, directing his gaze somewhere in the distance. Trini replies without missing a beat.

“My father was quite set on the name before I was even born. Though I do wish someone had talked him out of it, I don’t very well mind being named after my grandfather”.

The guard squints at her, before his frown eases in thought. Her reasoning wasn’t completely out of the realm of possibility.

“Very well, Miss Bennett. I’m sure Governor Hart will be glad for your arrival. I apologise for the inconvenience. I do hope you enjoy the party.”

At the guards nod, Trini makes her way through the gate.

“It’s quite alright, I get it all the time”.

---

As she steps into the main hall, Trini is struck by the atmosphere. A low chatter echoes off the stone floors, intermittently joined by the soft clanking of cutlery. She can still hear the familiar whispers of the ocean in the distance, beckoning her back sweetly. Around her, the guests are dressed much the same as she is. They converse with false smiles, many holding silver goblets filled with what she can only assume is a fine wine. A guard stands at the foot of the main stairs, rifle up against his shoulder. She passes another who stands at the entrance to the dining room. There were more than she thought there would be. How bothersome. She isn’t two steps into the room when the idle noises of the manor are joined by the gentle moan of a violin. A grand wooden dining table is set against the main window, adorned with an assortment of food, though she’s sure it normally resides front and centre. As tempting as it looks, it's not what Trini is here for. She lets out a quiet chuckle. Zack would’ve been right squiffy by the day's end, if he’d come along. The people in the room begin to pair up, swaying slowly to the violin’s song. While she’d prefer not to partake, she’s sure to arouse suspicion just standing here - and she’s not sure she could hold a real conversation without giving herself away.

Trini glances around the room. Standing by one of the large windows is a woman in a silken, rose coloured dress. She’s strikingly beautiful, with her dark brown hair in an elegant updo. It catches the afternoon light in a way that steals Trini’s breath for a moment. She’s about to look away, find someone else, when the woman turns, meeting her eyes. After a pause, the stranger smiles faintly, tilting her head in silent questioning. Rats. With one deep breath, Trini slips back into her persona. It was time to dance.

---

Kimberly Hart has attended many a party in her twenty three years. Her father’s parties, his friends’ parties, his enemies’ parties. It was expected of her really. Don a pretty dress, be receptive (but not too receptive) to her potential suitors. Gossip idly with girls who have far too much time on her hands. She didn’t mind it, most of the time. She had to admit though, it could get a little boring. This was her father’s third ‘dance’ of the year and it was only February. He had to keep up appearances of course. How else would his peers know of Port Royal’s thriving trade if he did not celebrate it with fine wine and finer appearances. Even so, Kimberly could only tolerate the advances of so many men. Nobles, with promises of glamour and comfort back in the motherland. Merchant sailors who weave tales of wealth and adventure that seem just a little too crafted to be true. Naval captains who think their pride and ranking should have her swooning at their feet with nary another word. Every so often, there’d be one or two who would have her attention. Whose silk tongues and vibrant eyes would draw her in, if only momentarily. But she’d find soon enough that her biting wit was never appreciated for long, and the smooth talking would always give way to frustration. It seemed she was simply a prize to be won, a hill to be conquered. Bragging rights. Quite frankly, she was sick of it.

And so, Kimberly finds herself standing by the front window of the dining room, eyes ensnared by the gentle ebb and flow of the waves upon the beach. Her mother used to tell her stories of the ocean - stories far grander, far more fascinating than those of her suitors. Stories of sleepless nights in raging storms. Of brilliant new lands and people and creatures. Of days spent in song and nights spent in stupor. She’d always wondered what it was like out there, beyond the confines of her father’s estate and everything it represented. Would she go? If given the chance? The thought is at the forefront of her mind when she feels the familiar pressure of a set of eyes, trying and failing to be inconspicuous. Turning quickly she seeks them out, finding a woman who seems just out of place. She’s wearing an embroidered suit, woven linen in a yellow far too green. The hair of her grey wig is pulled into a ponytail beneath her feathered tricorne. Her attire is interesting, yes, but Kimberly does not recognise her. She recognises most of her father’s guests. She feels her lips twitch upwards at the woman, holding her gaze from across the room.

Something flashes across her watcher’s face, gone too quickly to identify. The woman strides towards her, light on her feet. There's a vague slant to her hips, an unfamiliar swagger that Kimberly thinks might betray some unknown truth. What secrets were held in her small frame? She presents her hand, palm upturned. “May I have this dance?”.

Kimberly takes her hand, finds it unexpectedly rough and calloused, but gentle. As if their union was a cue, the music picks up, the rest of the band joining the violin as its pace hastens. They begin to dance a casual rigaudon, Kimberly following the stranger’s lead. She waits for her partner to address her, watches her eyes flick about the room. They’ve stepped around each other three times before Kimberly breaks the silence. “The strong silent type then?”

As if only just remembering where she was, the woman’s eyes snap towards her. Her brows knit together. “Pardon?”.

This was unusual. Kimberly’s suitors would usually rush to fill silences, trying desperately to keep her eyes upon them. It seems her current partner barely cares for her existence. “You haven’t spoken a word to me since you asked me to dance”. She’s surprised at the venom that laces her words - it hadn’t been intentional.

“I’m quite sorry madam”. With a turn, they dance in the reverse direction. “I was simply admiring the Governor’s manor. It’s quite beautiful. Have you been here before?”

Kimberly almost stops dancing. She searches the other woman’s face for any sign of jest, finding nothing but honesty and vague inattention. It was absurd to think a guest to this party would not know her name, though she supposes it could be possible. Her irritation fades quickly, replaced by a mounting curiosity. “My family is close to the Governor’s”, she lies.

Her partner’s only response is an idle hum.

With their next step, Kimberly’s eyebrow quirks. She pulls the woman into a twirl under her arm. “And you are?” she inquires.

Seemingly startled by the movement, the other woman stumbles slightly, before regaining her footing and resuming their dance. “Bennett. Oliver Bennett”, she replies firmly. Pulling Kimberly into a twirl of her own, she smirks. “Merchant extraordinaire”.

Kimberly mulls the name over. Oliver Bennett. It sounded vaguely familiar, but any recognition she might have had was fleeting - as out of reach as a feather in the breeze. Though the woman had said it quite confidently, it had a strange sort of inflection. In fact, now that Kimberly thought about it, the woman’s accent was unfamiliar. It sounded vaguely English, but her words were more rounded, had a rich and intriguing depth to them, like they were dripping with such experience that it bled into their very sound. Kimberly’s stomach dips in a way she’s sure could be addicting. She returns her attention to Miss Bennett, only to find that her eyes are once again fixed elsewhere. She follows her gaze, finds it trained on the staircase in the entry hall. With a tilt of her head, Kimberly drapes an arm over her partner’s shoulder, pulling her closer with every step. “Extraordinaire, hmm?”.

The woman drags her eyes back to Kimberly’s and holds them there for a long moment. Her smile turns upwards. “You sound surprised, Miss…”

“Clarke”, Kimberly supplies, flinching internally. It had been the first name to enter her mind. She banishes the thoughts that surround it. Not now. “It's not every day I meet a woman merchant” she admits. “You’ve piqued my interest Miss Bennett”.

Though it seems the other woman’s attention is now firmly upon her, Kimberly makes no move to increase the distance between them again. This close, she can see the depths of colour within the other woman’s eyes, reflecting the light of the setting sun. They glint with unspoken secrets, not unlike the pieces of foreign jewelry often brought by traders upon the tide. Promises of a world much larger than anything Kimberly had experienced.

“Some would say my methods are...unconventional”. The merchant’s words bring her out of her reverie. They serve only to deepen her curiosity.

“However do you mean?” Kimberly presses.

“Trade secrets, Miss Clarke - I can’t simply give them away”, she replies with a wink. “But I have to be smart you see”. Another twirl brings their faces impossibly close together, and she whispers her next words carefully. “There are pirates out there you know”.

Kimberly is about to press further, when the sharp ringing of the town bell cuts through the manor, signalling another day’s end. The music begins to fade, and the woman detaches and spins away from her with a sly smile, disappearing amongst the meandering throng of people moving from the dining room into the entrance hall. She scans the small crowd, but any traces of the woman’s yellow coat and devious grin are gone as swiftly as they had come. It's only once she turns back to the window that Kimberly notices how fast her heart is beating.

#trimberly #trini x kimberly #kimberly hart #trini not kwan #trini kwan #trini gomez #Power Rangers #power rangers 2017 #pirate au #liketheocean #art #my art #sketch #sketchbook #this might not be the most engaging story #its more a diary of my headcanon #which involves a lot of descriptive writing #painting pictures with words eh?#i am more familiar with the picture medium after all

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divinity-infinity · 3 years

Text

MAG π: Gallery

Statement of Josh Wheeler, regarding an art gallery.

Inspired by this post by @sexchangelingcastiel, I wrote my own original statement about it!

Content warnings: large spaces, disassociating

See this also on ao3! Link is in the source

I don't understand abstract art, nor the people who appreciate it. They're just color and lines and shapes all randomly splotched onto something and called "art". A child could make some random paint splatters on paper and to me it would look the same as those abstract artworks hung up in galleries. I don't see how people could look at one of those splotches of color and lines and call it art and see some deeper meaning in them. They just don't make any sense!

Or maybe it's just me. I've always had trouble looking into the deeper, hidden details in art or poetry or writing, to me it's just at that. No metaphor for this, no symbolism for that. Trying to look further into something just confuses me. Besides, it's not like I'm going to be an art curator or art historian or literature analyst, so why should I bother reading into things?

But I had to go to that weird abstract modern art gallery. Not my fault. A close friend, Spencer, wanted to go and apparently I was the only one in our friend group who had a schedule clear for the day.

I wasn't planning on doing anything that day and was bored out of my skull but I really didn't want to go. However, as a Good Friend, and perhaps to see if This Time I could finally see into art and figure out the meanings of them, and maybe to get to spend some time with him, I went.

It was a small building. A collection of abstract art from various artists all over, curated by Mx. Halley Hiraishi, some painter they know that's apparently slightly known in the world of art, mostly digital art. Not that I'm undermining his artist abilities, I really just don't know them due to lack of ~artistic knowledge~.

Anyway we went inside and were greeted by Halley Hiraishi themself. He even offered to tour us around the gallery themself. Of course Spencer obliged. They asked us to call him Hiraeth.

He gave us a bit of information about things we looked at for a bit, typical art gallery stuff. I couldn't really get into their explanations having no knowledge of art appreciation or anything, but Spencer seemed to be really interested and listened intently.

I found myself wandering around the room a bit while Spencer and Hiraeth had a lively conversation about the meaning of some sculpture made out of old book paper, something about how the book supposedly contain supernatural power and someone repurposed the book into a sculpture to nullify its effects and to represent how humanity is ever evolving and trash can be art or whatever.

They didn't seem to notice me not-paying attention and I instead looked idly at the different displays. I made sure though to turn back every so often just so I wouldn't get separated from my friend and our guide.

I don't know why but the paintings with their swirls and spirals and patterns, they sort of had a kind of hypnotizing effect about them. Like they were those optical illusions designed to trick the eye. I couldn't stop looking at them.

When I did pry my eyes off of the displays, I realized that Spencer and Hiraeth were no longer in the room. I must've gone into another room without realizing it.

I turned back to where I came, but got into yet another room. In this place the sculptures and paintings seemed slightly bigger somehow, and figured maybe they just sorted the different areas by size.

Still, I tried to go to other areas of the place, that I just knew led back to the entrance, only to lead right into another room. All while the paintings and sculptures and art, and even the room, seemed to grow bigger. I realized that I was in fact lost, which shouldn't even make sense considering the small size of the building.

I didn't know how long I've wandered in those ever increasing rooms and art, but at one point I was in a room so large, like the floor area of a mall at least. The paintings were massive, bigger than murals! My mind just spun thinking about how Hiraishi could have even painted or sculpted or collected such things.

I figured I shouldn't go anywhere else if the rooms were only going to get larger, so I sat down and tried to think of what to do, or maybe to tell myself that I must be dreaming, this wasn't real.

It shouldn't even make sense, I mean for a small building it shouldn't have been able to fit all those rooms that got increasingly larger. All while I was just walking on the same floor! I wanted to think that for some reason there was this shrinking illusion that was supposed to be some performance art that made you think you were shrinking, but no, the doors were still sized for me to fit in, for a human to fit in, and the windows-- yes! The windows! I thought at that point that I could maybe climb through the window and get out.

But as I went to look out the window, all I could see was the cityscape, so miniscule it could be compared to that of a map. I couldn't jump off a height that high, and even so, from what I know I was walking along the first floor all this time! How would I end up so high up? And even then the building was about four stories high at most! There shouldn't be a reason for a four story building to have the fourth floor at this height!

I didn't know how long I was in that room. It was just me staring at the tiny details of the painting now in front of me, getting lost in those splotches of paint that didn't make sense. I thought that if Spencer were with me he'd probably say something like, "we're just the size of a small spot of paint and the bigger picture is so massive. From this perspective it almost seems like a comparison to how small life is and how unimportant things are; they're always part of a grander picture. How unimportant a detail is from our tiny perspective. It didn't matter, how small we all are, how insignificant as a small speck in a place of art."

I would've been surprised that for the first time my mind tried to look at a detail and gave it a meaning, but during that time all I could think about was how much I missed Spencer.

He would've enjoyed trying to insert and shove metaphors into every single bit, trying to give meaning and identity to something so abstract and meaningless, if they were there but me? I hated every second of it, couldn't stand the place and its little metaphors and abstractions that messed with my head.

I tried to go through the door I once came through and once again in the hope that I would finally end up back in the small space of the building I once entered, only to end up in a room whose size was so huge I couldn't fully comprehend its size. I felt like the size of an ant in a large, human sized room.

I wanted to scream, I wanted to yell in frustration and so I did. Didn't even make an impact; the room absorbed it in. The room was nothing but a void of paintings.

And then I saw it, out of the corner of my eye, a figure stepping into a yellow door out of sight! It even seemed like it was Hiraeth who went in there, and I would've followed except...the door seemed to be part of a painting, a massive one that's also been left to dry. The crisp and clear image of the door seemed to be out of place for an abstract, but I saw it! Someone used that door! I went up to the painting in question...and tried to touch it.

At first all my hand felt was the thick acrylic paint. Yellow and black - the handle was painted black - but then I felt something metallic underneath that felt like an actual door handle - so it wasn't an illusion! - I turned the handle and felt the door open up slightly and in my desperation to just get out of the place I flung myself there. I felt myself collide with a wall of paint but I just had the strongest feeling it would get me out of that void.

And it did. Next thing I know I was being woken up by Spencer and Hiraeth looking over at me worriedly. I was sitting near the painting I think I went through, now normal sized and untouched. I want to believe it was just some dream, that perhaps I fell asleep and collapsed, but here's the thing - I was mostly covered in still wet acrylic paint.

While Spencer seemed a bit perplexed as to how I got covered in paint, Hiraeth seemed to be unfazed by it and simply offered a tip that acrylic can wash out of clothes as long as it's still wet. I was still a bit confused by it all and simply did what I was told.

At some point a few days later I tried to explain what happened. He apologized for giving me a rough time but I really didn't care. He seemed to have a good time there and I told him that that's what mattered.

Anyway, about the whole experience thing. While we both had a conversation that we ultimately chalked up to a dream, we still couldn't explain the paint thing, and so he suggested I go here, tell my story for maybe an investigation or whatever you guys do with stories. I just want to get it all behind me.

#tma #the magnus pod #the magnus archives #the vast #the spiral

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alonelily · 3 years

Text

Long Ago and Far Away

“Oh, look how beautiful that one is!” She turned to find his eyes on her instead of the sky.

“Yes, quite beautiful, I think.”

She fought a smile, half embarrassed, half pleased, but didn’t avert her eyes from his until he blushed and pointed at the staging area.

“I think they’re about to fire the big one, you don’t want to miss it.”

Read on Ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27625520

—————

Her eyes followed another of the lights as it ascended high into the sky, anticipating the moment when it would reach the end of its trajectory and explode into a burst of light. She wasn’t disappointed as the small ember finally set ablaze and rained deep purple and bright silver into the night sky. Although she had seen fireworks many times before—the highborne could not hog the sky for themselves after all—she couldn’t help the small gasp of amazement that escaped her at the beautiful sight.

Down in the city, the sound of the celebration could be heard in between the booms of the rockets, and if she took her eyes off the marvel in the sky, she could just make out the movement of the happy crowd, the pulse, the beat of them, although individual faces and bodies were too far away to distinguish. The people all gathered in the streets, on the squares, and on the balconies to watch the grand display, but the best view was to be had here, atop the hill on the field just outside the vineyards. They had snuck out here, just the two of them, and if it weren’t for the festivities occupying everyone’s attention, they surely would have been shooed away by now. Shady characters such as themselves hanging around the prized vineyards were typically frowned upon.

Her eyes widened as an especially gorgeous piece lit up the night.

“Oh, look how beautiful that one is!” She turned to find his eyes on her instead of the sky.

“Yes, quite beautiful, I think.”

She fought a smile, half embarrassed, half pleased, but didn’t avert her eyes from his until he blushed and pointed at the staging area.

“I think they’re about to fire the big one, you don’t want to miss it.”

She squinted toward the city, unable still to make anything out beside the general sway of the crowd. Still, his guess proved correct as moments later a larger rocket soared into the sky, the promise of it capturing the attention of the celebrants below and throwing the night into utter silence for the endless minute of its climb. Then, just when it seemed it would continue its ascent forever, it exploded in a grander show of colour than any of the ones before it. She didn’t look away from the sky until the last of the small lights had rained down and fizzled out into nothing. Only then did she lay back on her companion’s coat, which he had spread out underneath them when they first settled here. Beside her, he followed, and she turned her head to face him.

“I think this is my favourite night of the entire year.”

“If you would like it, I would light the sky for you every night of the year,” he whispered. She frowned.

“If it were every night I don’t think it would be as special anymore.” Slowly, she saw him reach out his hand to brush a stray piece of hair out of her face.

“Some things are just as beautiful no matter how many times you see them.” His index finger hovered over her cheek for just a moment, causing her to shiver, before he seemed to remember himself and retrieved his hand. Down in the city, some people were starting to return to their homes, while others remained stubbornly, unwilling to let the festivities end just yet. She exhaled shakily before taking a deep breath and looking up at the now unlit night sky.

“And here I was comforting myself that at least you wouldn’t grow tired of seeing me all the time once you go away.” She made sure to show the laugh in her voice to let him know she was joking.

“I could never grow tired of seeing you. I’ll visit as often as I can, you know. Although I’ll still miss you.”

“Hm, but after meeting so many fascinating people as you’re bound to find there, I’m afraid you’ll be terribly bored by me.”

“Never!” he raised himself up on one elbow and looked down at her smilingly. “Fascinating people are entirely overrated. They’re long-winded and due to being so fascinating, all conversations must always revolve around them and their accomplishments. You’ll likely find me at your door every weekend, dying to have a conversation with a real person.”

“A ‘real person’, is it? That’s a very kind way to call someone dull!” He laughed at her mock outrage.

“Stop it, you know very well you’re not dull at all! If anything you’ll be the one annoyed at seeing me too often. After all, you’ll be achieving enlightenment and spiritual fulfilment at the temple, and I’ll be the one coming to bother you all the time with ridiculous stories of the highborne and their antics.”

“I don’t know about enlightenment. From what I understand, the novices are usually tasked with scrubbing the floors,” she laughed.

He gazed down at her, eyes gliding over her face and smile softening to a secret little thing. Her breath caught at the intensity of his look. She had mostly been joking, but the brilliant gold of his eyes spoke to the promise of a destiny far greater than she could ever hope to grasp. He would come to travel places she could never follow, learn secrets she would never know. She would never be anything but a lowborn priestess—and if it weren’t for the sadness of knowing it would part her path from his, she would be quite happy that way—while he was destined to advance in his field, to rise in the ranks of society, despite his low birth.

Slowly, as if afraid she would evaporate at his touch, he placed his hand at her waist and leaned down to plant a soft kiss on her lips. He knew of course that they were headed in different directions, just as well as she did. But he could be stubborn when he wanted to and evidently he’d set his mind to rebelling against prophecy, to aiming that great destined power towards the very constraints that came with it. He was convinced he would succeed, and she’d never known him to be a quitter. But somewhere within she still knew the day would come when even his stubbornness would not be enough to keep them together. One day, he would forget about her, and she would be left to pine for someone forever out of her reach. She entangled a hand in his hair and deepened the kiss. That day was not yet here.

#world of warcraft #illidan #tyrande #night elf #before the sundering #suramar #wow #illidan stormrage #tyrande whisperwind

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mrstifastrife · 4 years

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Why I Shipped CloTi Based Off of Advent Children

Before I start, I figure that I should add some background to explain why I chose ACC in the first place and not any other installation. I don’t know if the “Keep Reading” will show up, but know that my reasons start after the 5th paragraph and the line break.

So I was born in 1999, 3 years after the release of the original Final Fantasy 7 game. I didn’t really grow up on video games. I had a PS2, a PSP, and a Nintendo, but I normally played the games that were popular for younger children at the time. My only source of Final Fantasy was through Advent Children due to exposure from my sister. Based solely off of that, I was under the impression that Final Fantasy was a series of movies following different story arcs. Final Fantasy 7 was the only one that really stuck out to me story-wise.

I should add that I am caught up on the story of Final Fantasy 7 by watching gameplays, of which include FF7 OG, Crisis Core, and Dirge of Cerberus. I have also finished playing the first installation of the Remake, with full intention of completing it throughout.

Let it be known that much like many others, I was a very impressionable child and most of what I loved back then still carries on to this day. CloTi, or as I see people calling their ship now “The Stargazers” (which I love), was probably one of the first, if not the first, ship that I had ever become obsessed with, as I’m sure many of you have as well with any of the FF7 ships (which I fully support despite not being an avid fan). Perhaps some of my statements may be biased, so if you do not agree with what has been said, that is okay. We are all entitled to our own opinions. Also, most of what I say has most likely not been proven, but it is a post about my personal opinion and experience with FF7: ACC.

Without further ado, here is why I shipped Cloud and Tifa together based off of Advent Children. Remember that these are my personal opinions and that this is my personal interpretation of the movie. There will be pictures as well because I will never get over it!

1.) Cloud and Tifa have their own little family together.

When I first watched the movie with my sister, I actually thought Cloud and Tifa were a couple that was struggling to make amends, not only with each other, but with the past. While my perspective of this movie may not be accurate, this was what my mind interpreted back then.

Even if Tifa and Cloud weren’t married, even if Marlene and Denzel weren’t related to each other or the latter two biologically, they were still a family. They were all each other’s home. Did Cloud find solace in Aerith’s church while he suffered with geostigma? Yes, he did. She was a big part in his life, just as much as she was a big part in everyone else’s lives. Does that mean Cloud doesn’t value Tifa, Marlene, or Denzel? Absolutely not, and that will be explained in another point I will make.

Tifa and Cloud may not have been together in ACC, but you have to admit that their relationship was fairly close to domestic if they were living under the same roof providing for each other and two children. Even if they were just two friends, they essentially carried the responsibilities of a married couple.

Also, might I add that every couple runs through problems, so the idea that they couldn’t be together for having disputes is invalid. Not to bring up personal experience, but my boyfriend and I are in a very loving, supportive, and healthy relationship. Despite that, we still have arguments and moments of vulnerability.

BONUS:

(Peep the picture of the four of them + the flowers for Aerith and Zack I’m assuming!!)

2.) The little ways Cloud cares for Tifa and Tifa cares for Cloud.

A lot of people liked to believe that Cloud didn’t care about Tifa, or anyone else, in favor of Aerith because he stayed at her church while he had geostigma. I have to admit that my first time watching, I was under the impression that Aerith and Cloud were in a relationship before she passed away and that he was trying to move on from her with his new family. (Disclaimer: The first time I watched the movie, it was out of context and I had no idea it was a continuation of a game until after I researched it).

HOWEVER, upon watching it over and over (as it was my favorite movie back then), I started to see that he may have had feelings for Aerith or a special connection to her, like he did with Zack, that made it hard for him to move on because he personally felt responsible for their deaths. I will not dismiss that Cloud most likely had feelings for Aerith, but that does not mean he cannot move on with Tifa or be with Tifa otherwise. Same way that people like to argue that Aerith could move on from Zack with Cloud, right? Do we see how it can be contradictory to say that but not allow it for Cloud with Tifa?

Anyway, I digress.

If Cloud didn’t care for Tifa, or anyone else for that matter, why would he bother listening to voicemails? The excuse that he only does for delivery jobs seems a bit dismissive of Cloud’s character. Yes, he seems cold and distant, but he cares for people, even if he doesn’t say it out loud. You’re purposely ignoring his character development if you choose to use his aloofness for the sake of your ship.

Think about it this way: there’s a voicemail to Cloud from Barrett that’s basically updating Cloud on how he’s doing. Cloud wouldn’t have bothered to listen to it if he didn’t care. Which brings me to the point that he wouldn’t have listened to both of Tifa’s voicemails all the way through if it was just for the job either.

I know this post is meant to talk about how I ship Cloud and Tifa, but I have to add in the fact that Cloud does care for her despite what others may think. Just because he ran away and just because he doesn’t call her back, it doesn’t mean that he doesn’t care for her. Have you ever felt so guilty about something that you felt like you didn’t deserve anyone’s company? In Cloud’s case, he shut people out because he cared so much for them that he didn’t want them to get hurt by him or be burdened by his guilt or his geostigma.

ALSO, the CloTi church scene??? I’m talking about that in the next point, but that’s a major giveaway of Cloud’s feelings for Tifa and in this case, how much he cares for her.

As for Tifa, her way of caring for Cloud is more obvious because her personality is more transparent. I’m not saying Tifa is known for being completely forthright, but in comparison to Cloud, she is more direct. For example, the voicemails I mentioned earlier: she asks him how he’s doing and she tells him to be careful.

(Voicemail #1: “You got a call from Reno. He’s in Healen. Says he’s got work for you. Cloud, how have you been?”)

(Voicemail #2: “Reno called again. He says to hurry, and he sounded kind of strange...Be careful, okay?”)

She may be upset with him for running away from his problems but she’s not heartless and she still cares.

I want to add as well that she adds each line almost like she’s expecting a response. Yes, she sounds defeated in the beginning when she mumbles, “He’s not here anymore” BUT the way she leaves voicemails makes it seem hopeful that one day he will answer her phone call back. I know, I know, it’s a little heartbreaking, but it’s evident that she’s not going to give up on him even though he’s been running away from her and their family.

Also can we talk about her and Marlene in the church when she replies to Marlene’s “We can’t [go home]! Cloud’s not here yet!” with “I know, sweetie. I miss him too.” THIS MOMENT just screamed family to me. (I do have to admit though, I wish Denzel wasn’t left alone, but his story arc was well worth it.)

Last but not least, I know Tifa’s lecture ends in her getting upset with him (which I get into later), but at the very beginning, before Cloud tries to pass off the children to Reno and Rude, she’s very gentle and hopeful. She wants to fight with him but becomes doubtful that they’re a real family after a lack of response. HOWEVER, Cloud still admits to them being family after, although, it’s included with him admitting his shortcomings.

(Tifa: “We can help each other, I know we can. [No response from Cloud] I guess that only works for real families.” Cloud: “Tifa...I’m not fit to help anyone. Not my family, not my friends. Nobody.”)

If you’re upset with Tifa over how she responded to Cloud later on in this scene, you need to look at it deeper in context and take into account their conversation when they first wake up (the one I mentioned above), where she’s concerned for him and trying to help him.

I know there’s more scenes where they show that they care for each other, but please bear with me because this part was just their little moments and I’m getting to specific scenes where they express their feelings for each other in grander, more obvious gestures.

3.) THE CHURCH SCENE.

THIS SCENE IS SO IMPORTANT FOR CLOTI SHIPPERS. I really don’t think I have to explain its significance, but I’ll just dig a little deeper since I’m sure this is one of the biggest scenes for CloTi in ACC.

If you don’t think that he cares for Tifa, you missed the entire part of the movie where he sees her at the church and runs to her. I thought that was a really pivotal moment because it was ONE of the first times in the movie where he expresses any other emotion besides indifference. (I’m emphasizing “one of the first times” because 1.) his face changes when Rufus references Marlene and Denzel and 2.) right before Tifa fights Loz, he has a flashback of Zack and feels anguish/regret)

When I was younger, and of course now, this scene was so important to me. From the beginning of the movie (at least out of context when you watch just the movie like I did), you're given the impression that Cloud doesn’t care much for anyone on the surface of the planet with how indifferent he is. When he sees Tifa semi-conscious on the floor, however, he’s straight up terrified that he may have lost someone precious to him like he had countless times before. The look on his face says it all.

If Tifa wasn’t at all important to Cloud, he wouldn’t have had such an emotional reaction to seeing her unconscious. He’s quick to call her name, run to her, and pick her up. This is the woman he wanted to be a hero for and this is a woman he swore he would protect, but when it came time for it, he came late. Imagine the feelings he has swirling inside of him at this point.

I am by no means romanticizing the anguish that Cloud is feeling at the sight of Tifa hurt, I just think that this scene is very telling of their relationship at the current time. He took so long to get to her that he was almost too late. Unfortunately, I think that this scene made him feel like he was even more of a burden, which was why he was so willing to run away before going to the Forgotten City for Marlene and Denzel.

Also, we know now that the flowers shown in this scene are a symbol of reunion, as explained in the Remake. It’s unfortunate that the first time they are reunited in the movie, Tifa is injured and Cloud suffers a geostigma attack, but given their situation, this scene is just a perfect representation of the hurt they’re feeling at seeing each other.

(CAN WE TALK ABOUT HOW THEY’RE FACING EACH OTHER BY THE WAY?)

4.) After Cloud gets a “lecture” from Tifa, he starts to understand the error of his ways and it becomes a stepping stone for him to confront his feelings.

Let me start off by saying that Cloud waited for Tifa to wake up, instead of leaving her while she was unconscious. Does that seem like something he would do if he didn’t care for her?

Tifa’s words mean more to him than one can comprehend. If you think that she too harsh during the scene where she’s telling him not to live in the past, you have to realize that when she was hurt immensely by Cloud leaving, so she shouldn’t be expected to act like nothing happened at all. I don’t know how long Cloud had been gone for (because the timing was not specified), but it was long enough to leave an impact not only on Tifa, but Denzel and Marlene. She’s not only speaking for herself, she’s speaking on behalf of the others in their family that were hurt by his actions. You can’t blame her for being upset either because Cloud was telling Reno and Rude to save Denzel and Marlene instead of stepping up himself.

I hope you realize that Aerith and Zack didn’t want Cloud to keep feeling guilty over their deaths. If they were able to, they would be having this same conversation with him (which they did, might I add!!! Aerith quoted “Dilly dally, shilly shally” herself!!!) Yes, he is allowed to grieve for as long as he wants. Feelings are complex when you lose people close to you, but does that mean he can abandon his family at a time when they need him too? I know he also left because he felt he would be a burden because of his geostigma, but the conversation I’m focusing on is “Which is it? A memory or us?”

With all my rambling, you’re probably wondering “Why is Tifa getting upset with Cloud one of the defining moments of CloTi for her?” Well, my answer is that this whole conversation is just so raw and real. I’ve always been a sucker for domestic and realistic couples, where either character isn’t afraid to be honest with their partner. (SEE: Jackie Burkhart and Steven Hyde, Amy Santiago and Jake Peralta, Crowley and Aziraphale, Leslie Knope and Ben Wyatt, and SO many more) It cannot be said that Cloud wasn’t being honest with Tifa because she was the first one he admitted all of his thoughts to. He opened up to her first, which helped him later on to confront his inner demons. Notice how he was able to talk to Aerith after he talked to Tifa.

Before you decide that Tifa is insignificant to the plot of both OG and ACC, remember that she is the reason that Cloud retained all his memories through the Lifestream and for ACC, as I mentioned before, she was the reason he was able to be honest about his thoughts, which helped him slowly come to terms with Aerith and Zack’s deaths, along with the insecurities about himself. She’s making him admit it and put it out there, so that it isn’t stuck inside himself.

A lot of you may have seen this as another reason to hate Tifa, for putting Cloud in his place, but this made me love her even more. Instead of allowing him to continue moping, she reminded him that he can’t be stuck in the past. Cloud needed that wake-up call more than anything.

Imagine if his geostigma hadn’t been cured. His last moments would be of him wallowing in his guilt instead of living life to the fullest with the people that were trying to be there for him.

That’s why I thought this scene was so important for CloTi. It was eye-opening and real and it reminded Cloud that there was more to life than himself.

5.) The fight with Bahamut Sin where Cloud acknowledges Tifa’s “dilly dally shilly shally” shows that he really took her words to heart and actually used it to confront his inner demons.

I know that the two scenes mentioned above were probably the most notable CloTi scenes in ACC, but let me bring this one up. In terms of favorites, this by far surpasses any other scene in the movie. Not just because of the CloTi content but because it’s when the group comes back together to defeat Bahamut Sin (and yes, I’m including how Aerith was there to give Cloud a boost as well!!)

Why is it my favorite? Let me break it down for you.

So Cloud comes at the last second to rescue both Tifa and Denzel. As Tifa hops onto the back of Cloud’s bike, he responds, “Sorry that it took me so long.”

Why is this important? Because it’s in response to Tifa saying, “You’re late” when he found her at the church. He never got to say that to her with everything going on, but during one of the most important battles they had and after forgiving himself, he immediately references it without a second thought. This scene just shows that he’s starting to take every lesson thrown at him to heart. Not just Tifa’s, but Aerith’s, Vincent’s, Marlene’s, and even Reno and Rude. He’s starting to acknowledge his mistakes and take responsibility for them, and most importantly, he’s not running away anymore.

Cloud: “Marlene will be safe. I took her home.”

Again, another reference to the church scene. Whether it was intentional or not, his first words to Tifa were a reply to her when she calls for Marlene.

THEN, it ends unprompted with Cloud saying, “I feel lighter. Maybe I lost some weight. All that dilly-dallying.”

I feel like I don’t have to explain that one. Who’s the one who told him that in the first place? Of course, he would bring that up to Tifa because she was the one who said it and believed in him all along.

I know, I’m probably overreacting from this scene, but I think it’s just powerful to have heavy references to the church scene because there were so many unspoken words between them at the church scene. So many missed moments and unfulfilled promises that were lost after Cloud ran away. He may not have made up for it, but by acknowledging her pain, he’s actively trying now. Even though things aren’t perfect, progress is just as important.

I always thought the message of this movie was moving forward, and forgive me if I’m reading too much into this, but I always interpreted geostigma as trauma.

How is everyone able to move on from all the repercussions that came from fighting on the planet? How is EVERYONE able to move on healthily from Aerith’s death? How can Cloud cope with Zack’s death? What happened to Sephiroth, Loz, Kadaj, and Yazoo when they failed to move on from the bitter feelings they felt? How is anything going to be solved if you aren’t able to move on and forgive yourself?

I personally think that even in the OG FF7, I had the belief that Tifa and Cloud had strong feelings for each other (that surpassed Cloud’s feelings for Aerith), but that’s my opinion of course. Even so, if the argument is that Aerith was meant to be the love interest for Cloud in OG FF7, I don’t see why ACC couldn’t be him moving on with his family after everything that’s happened. I keep hearing that “Aerith is allowed to move on from Zack because he died and she needs someone too,” but does that mean Cloud is forced to live in perpetual guilt, sorrow, and longing for her? I personally think that’s a major reason why ACC was created: because Cloud has every right to move forward in his life without feeling guilty and that’s okay (and I’m not just speaking in a romantic sense either). It’s obviously not confirmed that Cloud and Tifa are together in ACC because Square likes to keep it ambiguous, but the numerous times I’ve watched it, I’ve always just been under the impression that they were.

However, romance aside, I really think this movie is a great addition to the FF7 compilation. It deals with acceptance, forgiveness, coping, and moving on.

Anyway, I don’t know if any of this post makes sense, but I wanted my first post to be an explanation on my CloTi stance, especially based on one source that I consistently go back to. Please hop in my ask box with your thoughts on ACC, CloTi, the Seventh Heaven family, etc.

Any hateful comments will be addressed with accordingly, and may be deleted.

I don’t remember if Tumblr is anything like Twitter, where the names show up despite not being tagged, but please let me know! I’ll censor names that don’t have to do with CloTi if it’s clogging up posts for other ships or people.

Let it be known that I am NOT an anti for any character in the FF7 compilation other than Hojo.

All love is welcome!

#cloti #cloud and tifa #advent children

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