#I’ve gotten a ton of cheap stuff from mine
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It’s been a while since I last posted a picture here, but I figured I’d share one now. :-D I’m currently on a cruise with my parents that they got as a sorta graduation gift for me (except that I’m fairly certain I failed my final exam so I’ve not technically graduated yet… oops). Either way, I decided to wear this pretty emerald green (that looks blue with the filters I put on it) dress that I got for less than $10 at a bin store. :-D
(Also, if anyone was unaware, a bin store is a store that has a bunch of bins of stuff that are all sold for the same price. Each day the prices decrease until restock day, when it restarts. My local bin store goes from $15, to $10, $7, $5, $3, then finally $1 before restocking. I either got this dress on the $10, $7, or $5, not sure. I also got my shoes for $1.50 at a close out sale for a Forever 21, so all in all my outfit’s a good deal, which I always love to get. ^-^)
#Sorry for talking about the price of the dress by the way#I just love getting good deals and like talking about it. :-D#Speaking of good deals my dad was able to get $500 off my cruise because he got a coupon from a FB game he plays#So my room was less than $300 for him. Which is nice#GPOY#Hopefully this posts#I tried posting it earlier and it didn’t post…#Sp I had to rewrite the whole thing. Oof#Oh also I once got a wedding dress for $10 at the bin store. I learned later that it apparently retailed for about $300 online#I also got a dual kurig that retails for $190 for $15 once#Seriously if you have bin stores nearby you should check them out#I’ve gotten a ton of cheap stuff from mine#Like seven pairs of jeans for $2 each… though I don’t wear jeans so they’ve been in storage for years#BUT! I still got the deal!#Aha
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Hi everyone! So this was my first time taking part in the @osemanversebigbang but I had so much fun!! I can't wait to read everyone's entries! 💜
Title: Angel Rahimi And The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Lunch Break
Characters: Angel, Juliet, Rowan, Jimmy, Lister, Bliss, two of Angel’s future uni friends (OCs).
Spoilers? Minor spoilers of important events in “I Was Born For This”.
Word Count: 3.6k
Ships: Bicci, one joke about Juliet/Rowan.
~Joan of Arc (Probably)
“I am so fucking tired”
“Right, time’s up, put your pens down.” The exam officer says from the front of the room. I scribble one last sentence before my hand gives out, and I all but throw my pen onto the desk, sighing as dramatically as I can. This week is a fucking nightmare. Exams and assignments are the piss. Fuck uni, I’m ready to drop out. Or drop dead. Either works, honestly.
As I leave the exam hall, I walk past some people from the students’ union. They’re handing out flyers for the Christmas ball next week. My housemates are all planning on going, but my friends and I planned our present swap for that night, so we’re going to spend it eating a fuck ton of snacks and watching the cheesiest Christmas films we can find. I can’t wait, I bought them each a bag of their favourite sweets from the American candy shop, it's going to be so much fun!
But that’s next week. Right now, all I want is to sit at a table that doesn’t have an exam paper on it, and eat something very greasy and very unhealthy. There’s a pizza place just on the edge of campus, run by some of the culinary arts students, and they make the best sauce ever. It’s pretty cheap too, which makes it a favourite for most people, especially at the end of a semester, when everyone’s bank accounts are running low.
I have about an hour until I need to be back in the exam hall, so I take full advantage of the outdoor seating and collapse into a chair after ordering. My pizza is brought out to me not long after, and I breathe in the smell. Nothing has smelt more gorgeous than the slices sitting in front of me. It’s a surprisingly warm day, for December at least, and for a moment, everything feels calm. I can hear a bird singing in a tree somewhere, other students are hanging around campus, most with their noses in their phones or in textbooks, and I actually let myself relax for a bit. I’ve done all the revision I can for this next exam, and I’m in desperate need of a break. I deserve this.
I pick up my first slice of pizza, and bring it up to my mouth. As I’m about to take a bite, however, my phone rings. I put the pizza down with a sigh and answer the phone without looking at who’s calling. Mum probably sensed I wasn’t doing any work, and is calling to check up on me.
“Hello?” I say tiredly.
“Angel, hi! Is this a good time??” I grin at the sound of Juliet’s voice.
“Hell yeah, it’s a perfect time! What’s up?”
“Wait, you don’t know why I’m calling?” Juliet says hesitantly. Shit. What have I forgotten now? I know it’s not her birthday. Wait, is it mine?? I swear exams rot your brain, have I actually forgotten my own birthday?
“No…?” I ask after internally monologuing for way too long.
“Oh my god, you don’t know??” Juliet screeches in my ear, “Angel go look at your phone, it’s urgent!”
Now very concerned, I put Juliet on speaker and, for the first time all morning, actually read the notifications filling my lock screen. I open the Twitter news one, and my mouth drops open in shock.
“Holy shit.”
On my screen is a news article with a headline that reads, “THE ARK’S JIMMY KAGA-RICCI AND LISTER BIRD’S SECRET RELATIONSHIP EXPOSED”, and just below it sits a large photo of Jimmy and Lister, standing outside a pub, kissing. I don’t believe it.
“Holy fu- Hold on a second. Mate, isn’t that the pub by Piero’s house?!” I say, bringing my phone as close to my face as I can, as if that’ll help me see better. There’s a loud shuffling noise on the other end of the line, and then I hear a gasp.
“Oh my god, you’re right!” Juliet says. “Rowan said they were going on holiday, but I thought he meant abroad or something.” I smile at that. Ever since our little jaunt to Kent last summer, Juliet and I have kept in touch with the boys. We even have a group chat now; us and them and even Bliss is in it. I’m so glad we stayed friends.
At first, Rowan was really quiet, and if he did speak he and Juliet would almost always end up arguing, but they’ve been getting along quite well lately. I’m not saying I ship it or anything, I’ve learnt my lesson there, but I have to say, fangirl-to enemies-to lovers would make a wicked fanfiction trope.
“Did you see any of this coming?” Juliet continues. “Surely Jimmy would have said something to you?”
“He said he was dating someone, but didn’t want to give details because they were taking things slow. Well, that and that celebrity phone hacking scandal freaked him right the fuck out, remember?” I say.
"That's
right, he stopped talking on the group chat for like two weeks, didn’t he?” Juliet giggles back. “Well, nevertheless, I’m happy for them. They’re cute together.”
“Yeah, they are.” I grin again. “Oh my god, poor Rowan though! I’d hate to live with a couple, especially a new one! It’d be nauseating.”
“Oh I know, right? And imagine what’ll happen when they have their first fight!” Juliet gasps again. I shudder at the thought.
“I’m muting the group chat when that happens.” I joke.
“Not a bad idea.” Juliet laughs back, then pauses. “Oh, Angel, I’m sorry I’ve got the get going, but do you want to skype later?”
“Yeah, no problem! I’ve got a revision session at 6, but I should be free by 9ish?”
“Sounds perfect! See you then!” Juliet says, and with that, she’s gone, and I’m back to sitting alone with my pizza.
Jimmy and Lister. Holy shit. I don’t think anyone in the fandom saw this coming. Everything has been about Jowan, since the fandom started growing it’s the only ship that ever existed. No one bothered writing fics about any other pairings. The only Jimmy/Lister fics I ever came across were platonic ones, and even they made sure to mention Jimmy’s boyfriend Rowan.
Oh god, I hope they’re okay. The fans got so crazy when Bliss and Rowan’s relationship was exposed. Jimmy/Lister is the final nail in the Jowan coffin. Jimmy must be having the panic attack of his life! I’ve got to-
My phone rings again.
I look down at the screen, and see Jimmy’s name. I take a deep breath, and answer.
“Jimmy, hi! How are-”
“Have you seen it??”
“Yes.”
“Oh god. This isn’t how we wanted to tell you guys.”
“You sure? Because getting caught by the national press worked so well for you last time.” I tease. Silence. Oops, probably not the best thing to remind him of right now.
“Jimmy, you still there?” I say carefully. There’s a slight rustle on his end, which means he probably just nodded. “Everything is going to be fine, I promise. The fans will move on. They already did with Jowan, right?”
“But what if something happens again? Something like-”
“It won’t. You guys have better security now, and you’re doing less public events. You’re going to be fine.” I hope and pray that I’m saying the right things. Jimmy and I have gotten close lately, but I’m nowhere near as good at helping him deal with his anxiety as Rowan and Lister are. There’s more silence, until finally, Jimmy speaks again.
“Okay. Yeah. Yeah I think you’re right. Thanks, Angel.”
“Course I’m right! If there’s one thing I know, it’s fandom drama.” Jimmy laughs, and I grin back. “And don’t forget, you’re not alone in this. This is happening to Lister too, and no doubt Rowan and Bliss will be there to help you. Just talk to them.”
“Thank you Angel, I’ll go do that now.”
“Perfect! Love you Jim, I’ll text you later.” I say, and the call ends.
He’ll be okay. He’s got too many people who love him not to be. I take another breath and put my phone down on the table. As soon as I do, however, it buzzes again, and I see Jimmy is trying to facetime me. Now very concerned, I answer it and hold the phone up so he can see my face properly.
“Jimmy, are you okay, what’s happened??” I ask anxiously, but he looks fine. He looks at me with a confused expression.
“Nothing, I’m just talking to the others, like you said.” He says. It’s only me and him on the call. I stare at him in silence for a moment.
“Jimmy, mate… I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m not any of them” I say slowly, and to my surprise, Jimmy laughs.
“Yeah I know, but I was kind of hoping to have you here, too, if that’s okay?” He says sheepishly. “It’s okay if you’re busy, it’s just that… I don’t know, you’re good with this stuff and you make me feel calm? Sorry, I know that’s a lot to just dump on you.” Jimmy doesn’t look at me directly, and I start to feel tears in my eyes.
“Well damn, Jim, I guess if you truly love me that much, I can stick around for a bit.” I laugh, and quickly glance at the time. “My lunch break is only halfway over, anyway, so I have plenty of time to hang out while you talk to the others.”
Jimmy seems to let out a breath, like he’d been holding it, and grins.
Just as I’m about to start talking again, I hear a ping, and Lister’s face appears on screen, followed by Rowan and Bliss.
“Hey Jimjam, you okay?” Rowan asks, looking as calm as ever. “Oh hey Angel.” He adds. I give him an awkward smile.
“Wait, Angel's here?” Bliss interrupts before Jimmy can answer. “Nice, how’s the week from hell going? Didn’t think we’d hear from you until you’d made it through.”
“Yeah it’s rough, but I’m getting there. This is a welcome distraction though.” I grin at her.
“So you’ve seen the pictures then. They look good, right?” Lister chimes in, before correcting himself. “I mean, it’s horrible they found us, fucking pricks, but you’ve got to admit we look good.”
“You can be so self-centred sometimes.” Bliss laughs.
“Come on Lister, this isn’t a joke.” Rowan chides him.
“Well, I guess he isn’t wrong..” Jimmy mumbles nervously and I see him smile a bit.
“See, Jimmy agrees with me!” Lister argues back at Rowan, who rolls his eyes.
“It’s still not something to laugh about.” Rowan says firmly. “Cecily’s already on damage control, cancelling some events, beefing up the security at others, and giving the tabloids hell. She’s also let your grandad know, Jimmy.”
“Wait, aren’t you guys all down there already?” I ask, confused.
“Nah we got back last night. That picture was taken when we went out for lunch the other day. Took their time printing it.” Lister says.
“Probably needed time to pad out their articles. Seriously, how can they write so many pages about two people dating?” Bliss adds.
“Probably whining about how Jowan is now well and truly dead.” Rowan rolls his eyes again. “Although I have to say, I’m pretty happy about that part.” I cringe slightly as he says that. I will never not regret being one of the Jowan fangirls.
“So Cecily’s already got a plan? That’s good, that’s a bit of a relief.” Jimmy speaks up, looking visibly more relaxed than he had sounded over the phone earlier.
“Yeah she’s got it sorted, so we can start planning our Christmas party!” Lister says, making the others groan.
“Lister what the hell makes you think we should be throwing a massive fucking party right now?!” Rowan says, his voice growing louder. Lister goes quiet, looking like he wants to shrink into his seat, before eventually speaking up again.
“Look, it doesn’t have to be anything big, I just mean… Angel, you’re gonna be in London with Juliet, right? Come over, drag Bliss with you, Jimmy can invite his grandad, Rowan you can bring Jade, and there you go, that’s our party!”
“That’s...actually a good idea.” Rowan says, surprised.
“Yeah, that sounds like fun!” Jimmy adds.
“I’m up for it, Angel, do you think Juliet will wanna come?” Bliss says.
“Hell yeah she would, let’s do it!” I reply with a massive smile on my face. Partying with Bliss and the boys sounds like the best way to spend my Christmas London trip. I’ll make sure to tell Juliet about it when I talk to her later. As I start planning all the food I’m going to bring over, and wondering what the boys’ flat will look like at Christmas, the conversation starts up again.
“You sure you’re doing alright, Jimmy? I can come back home if you need me to.” Rowan says, focusing things on the issue at hand again.
“No no, don’t worry, stay with your family. They’d kill me if I made you miss out on spending time with them.” Jimmy jokes. “I’ve got Lister here, and Cecily’s number if I need it. My head isn’t giving me too much grief right now, anyway.”
“Wait, Lister, you’re there with him?” Bliss asks.
“Yeah, check it out!” Lister says, before picking up his phone and moving. He takes us out of what I think was his room, through a hallway and comes out into a large living room, where we can see Jimmy on a sofa looking at his phone. “Say hi to the chat, Jim!”
Everyone laughs as Jimmy gives an awkward wave to Lister’s phone. Lister then hangs up and launches himself into view of Jimmy’s screen, and the two shuffle about until they’re practically sitting on top of each other, faces
squished together so the tiny phone camera captures them both. I hate how cute they look together.
“Alright, if you’re sure, Jimmy,” Rowan says, smiling for probably the first time this whole call.
“Yeah, I’m sure.” Jimmy smiles back. “This whole situation is terrifying, and I’m more than ready to hide in my room and not see another mad fangirl for the rest of my life, but... if I did that we’d never get to hang out with Angel again.” He finishes, biting his lip as if unsure of whether or not the joke will hit.
“Uh..ouch!” I clap my hand on top of my heart dramatically and laugh, while the others join in. “I’ll have you know I’ve abandoned my fangirl ways. Mostly. Sort of. Okay, not completely but I’m not shipping real people anymore, so that’s something, right?!”
Lister is giving Jimmy a look of what I can only assume is pride for making a decent joke during a time of peak anxiety, Rowan has his head in his hands, probably contemplating his life choices now that Lister seems to be rubbing off on Jimmy, and Bliss still looks shocked that such a joke came out of Jimmy’s mouth, not Lister’s. When things calm down again, I check the time and speak up again.
“Well this has been fun Jim, but I’m afraid I have mad fangirl duties to be getting back to. Shrines to build, fanfiction to write, you know how it is.” I say sarcastically.
“Thanks again, Angel, for being here, and listening. And you’d better be right about that fandom drama.” Jimmy laughs again, although this time I see his smile falter a bit.
“Hey, look at me,” I say, moving as close to the screen as I can without squishing my face on it. “Things will settle down before you know it, in the meantime, we’re all here for you. You’re not alone in this.” Rowan and Bliss nod in agreement, and I see Lister hug Jimmy closer. Jimmy takes a breath and nods as well.
“Thanks Angel. And good luck with your exam. We’ll see you over the holidays.” He smiles.
“Yeah you got this Angel, go smash it!” Bliss chimes in, giving me a thumbs up and a grin. I say one last goodbye to them all, and hang up.
I look back down at my pizza, still uneaten. I need to stop letting myself get distracted during phone calls. I can eat and talk to my friends at the same time. I’m usually a master at it.
“Fereshteh!” I look up again. Either I’m going loony, or someone just said-
“FERESHTEH!” I turn around and see Mollie and Christina barrelling towards me, with the most excitement I’ve ever seen on a students’ face during exam season. They crash into my table and both start talking at once.
“Have you seen??”
“Did you know??”
“How long have they been together?!”
“Oh my god is this why you won’t tell us about what happened in Kent?!”
“Woah, easy on the interrogation! Seriously, you guys need to work on your interview skills.” I put my hands up in surrender and laugh. Mollie rolls her eyes at me.
“So? Did they tell you or what?” She asks again. I roll my eyes back at her.
“You know I don’t want to tell you guys anything about the boys. They trust me, and I’m not going to fuck that up because of some shit a tabloid prints.”
“How dare you appeal to our morality and ethics, we want gossip dammit!” Christina giggles, lightly banging her fist down on the table.
“Then stick to the Twitter pages.” I stick my tongue out at her. Mollie and Christina are two of my housemates, and are part of the Ark fandom. I never planned on telling them about Kent, but they figured out who I was thanks to the pictures of me and Jimmy on the train. I didn’t think you could tell it was me, but fangirls are like master detectives. They figured it out in less than a week. They haven’t told anyone though, they’re good mates.
“So how are you feeling about all of this? Whether you knew or not, having it out in the press like this is a lot to handle, especially after last time.” Mollie says, now in serious mode.
“It is a lot, definitely, but they’ll be fine. They’ve had this happen before and they know what to expect from the fans. I just wish I could be there for them.” I say, sitting back in my chair.
“I get
that, it must suck that you guys are so far apart now.” Christina chimes in.
“I mean it’s not like we ever lived close to each other before. The only reason we even crossed paths over the summer was because I was staying with a friend. But yeah, being away from them all is kind of hard sometimes.” I sigh dramatically, making Mollie and Christina grin.
“Are you going to visit them over Christmas?” Christina asks.
“I’m definitely going to visit my friend in London again, for a day or two, but I don’t know if we’ll be able to see the boys.” I quickly lie. “They cut back on public events but they’re still really busy most of the time. And this,” I gesture to my phone “definitely won’t help.”
“We’ll keep an eye on fandom updates for you, and try to shut any mentions of Jowan down,” Mollie says, reaching across the table and giving my hand a gentle squeeze. I squeeze hers back and give her a grateful smile. I mostly stopped interacting with the fandom after meeting the boys, reading fanfiction, and discussing theories with other fans just feels weird and creepy to do when the people you’re talking about are your friends. So it’s nice that I have Mollie and Christina looking out for them, and doing what I can’t. Christina has a pretty big following on Tumblr, and Mollie’s a Twitter ace, so I trust them to hold their ground with the fandom.
“Okay, you don’t have to give us any details, but genuinely, what do you think of Lister and Jimmy as a couple? Because I don’t think the fandom could handle a breakup.” Christina says after a while, making me laugh.
“Pfft, yeah I don’t think the boys could handle a breakup, either.” I smile. “But honestly? I think they’ll be good for each other. Lister is good at helping Jimmy relax and step out of his anxiety bubble, and Jimmy can help reign in Lister’s chaotic energy. Plus they’re freaking cute together, I mean just look at this picture!” I finish, gesturing dramatically to my phone again.
“They are so cute!” Mollie nods in agreement. “I’m actually shocked no one thought to ship them together before.”
“That’s the Jowan storm, for you,” Christina adds. “Can’t believe we ever shipped that.”
“So gross.” I shudder at the thought. Suddenly the alarm I’d set this morning went off, making us all jump.
“What’s that?” Mollie asks. I check the screen and practically leap out of my seat.
“Oh shit, my exam starts in 10 minutes!” I say, gathering my stuff up as quickly as I can. I say my goodbyes to Mollie and Christina and start running back across campus to the exam hall.
I make it just in time, much to the invigilator’s chagrin, check my bag in at the desk at the back of the hall, and collapse into my assigned seat. The exam starts, and it’s only when it does that my stomach reminds me that I never actually ate lunch. Shit.
I start to silently scold myself for being so stupid, when my mind starts drifting to the video chat with Jimmy and the others. He and Lister looked so comfortable with each other. Makes sense, they've known each other for so long. But even still, Jimmy looked so much happier once Lister sat down with him, and Lister himself practically seemed at home with Jimmy’s arms wrapped around him. I smile at my exam paper.
I’m so happy for them.
#osemanverse#i was born for this#iwbft#bicci#angel rahimi#jimmy kaga ricci#lister bird#juliet schwartz#bliss lai
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Private Money & Self-Storage Investing with Scott Meyers and Jay Conner
https://www.jayconner.com/private-money-self-storage-investing-with-scott-meyers-and-jay-conner/
Scott Meyers shares the world of Self-Storage Investing
Scott and his affiliated companies focus on the acquisition, development, and syndicating of self-storage facilities nationwide. He currently owns and operates over 2,200,000 square feet and over 13,000 units nationwide.
His education organization www.SelfStorageInvesting.com provides courses, tools, life events, and mentoring to help others launch self-storage businesses to enjoy a lifestyle, as his saying goes “free from tenant, toilets & trash!”
His various companies are also very mission-focused and funded the construction of 12 houses in Mexico and the Dominican Republic by taking his staff, partners & other associates on their all-expense-paid short-term mission trips.
Timestamps:
0:01 – Get Ready To Be Plugged Into The Money
1:38 – Jay’s New Book: “Where To Get The Money Now”- https://www.JayConner.com/Book
2:58 – Today’s guest: Scott Meyers
5:44 – How Scott Meyers got started in the real estate business
8:31 – Scott Meyers’ very first storage facility
10:15 – Scott Meyers’ lesson learned on his first storage facility deal
11:04 – What is syndication?
13:29 – Does the storage investing business also offer multiple exit strategies?
17:09 – Get connected with Scott Meyers – https://www.SelfStorageInvesting.com
18:34 – How does the pandemic affect the Self-Storage industry?
22:09 – No business strives unless it’s solving a lot of people’s problems
23:10 – Scott Meyers’ recent projects
25:19 – Best way on starting with Self-Storage Investing business
27:43 – Common mistakes that new self-storage investors make
30:17 – Scott Meyers’ parting comments – “It’s when everybody is running out that you should be, not just running in but understanding what it means to be in the real estate business.”
Private Money Academy Conference:
https://jaysliveevent.com/live/?oprid=&ref=42135
Have you read Jay’s new book: Where to Get The Money Now? It is available FREE (all you pay is the shipping and handling) at https://www.JayConner.com/Book
Free Webinar: http://bit.ly/jaymoneypodcast
Jay Conner is a proven real estate investment leader. Without using his own money or credit, Jay maximizes creative methods to buy and sell properties with profits averaging $64,000 per deal.
What is Real Estate Investing? Live Private Money Academy Conference
https://youtu.be/QyeBbDOF4wo
YouTube Channel
https://www.youtube.com/c/RealEstateInvestingWithJayConner
iTunes:
https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/private-money-academy-real-estate-investing-jay-conner/id1377723034
Listen to our Podcast:
https://realestateinvestingdeals.mypodcastworld.com/11241/private-money-self-storage-investing-with-scott-meyers-and-jay-conner
Private Money & Self-Storage Investing with Scott Meyers and Jay Conner
Jay Conner:
Stir. And you are still struggling to do your first deal because you don’t have the funding and you can’t find the money for your deals, or are you a wholesaler? And you’ve received some assignment fees, but there’s some deals you want to stay in, but you said probably haven’t been able to stay in the deals because you don’t have the money or the funding, or are you a seasoned real estate investor? And you’ve done a ton of deals, but you’re sick and tired of paying high interest rates and you want to be in control of your business and you just want to get some more cheap money really, really fast. Well, if you answered yes to any of those three questions, don’t go anywhere because I’m getting ready to plug you into the money right now.
Well, hello and welcome to another episode of the private money academy podcast. I’m Jay Conner, the private money authority. I’m the host of the show. And I want to welcome you here to the show here on the private money academy podcast. We obviously always talk about private money and getting deals funded, getting money for your deals. But in addition to that, I typically have an amazing guest and expert to join me here on the show. And today is no exception, but before I introduce you to my good friend and expert in this area of self storage, that you’re going to find amazing. I’ve got a free gift for you for just being here on the show. And that is, I just recently released my new book, which is titled where to get the money now, subtitle, how and where to get money for your real estate deals without relying on traditional or hard money lenders.
So here’s the deal folks. I just released this book hit number one on Amazon. And this book was show you. Step-by-step how I went from having no funding from ideals to over $2 million in less than 90 days and how you can get plugged into money as well. We’re not talking about traditional money. We’re not talking about institutional lenders, how to get money very, very fast at super cheap, low interest rates. And I’m glad to send this book to you for free, just cover delivery. You can get the book for free at www dot Jay Conner, J a y C o n n er.com forward slash book. Again, you can get the book, we’ll ship it right out to [email protected] forward slash book. And we’ll get you plugged into the funding for your deals right away. What, as I mentioned, I’ve got an amazing guest and a very, very close personal friend of mine on the show with me today, a little bit about him before I bring him on he and his affiliated companies, they focus in this area on the acquisition, the development and the syndicating of self storage facilities nationwide.
Now, my guests currently owns any operates over check this out 2 million, 200,000, my land’s square feet and over 13,000 units that is gotten nationwide. Well, not only does he do the business, but he also teaches and coaches other real estate investors that want to learn about self storage and how that works. His education company is self storage, investing.com, and it provides courses and tools and live events, coaching, and mentoring to help others launch like you self storage businesses to enjoy the lifestyle. And, you know, as my guest, a good friend is known to say many, many times, get in this business and you’ll be free from tenants free from toilets free from trash. Well, you know, one thing that he and I talk about, and he and I are in a high end mastermind group together, his various companies are also very mission focused. He’s got a heart of gold, he’s got a servant’s heart and he is so far to date. He’s funded the construction of 12 houses, and I’m very, very familiar with this project. 12 houses down in Mexico and the Dominican Republic by taking his staff, his partners, his friends, his business associates on their all expense paid mission trip to do houses for these people. Wow. What a service heart, where that my good friend, Scott Myers, welcome to the podcast.
Scott Meyer:
Hey Jay, it is a good to see you again, my friend, how are you?
Jay Conner:
I am doing fantastic. I know we’ve got a mastermind meeting coming up pretty soon out there in Scottsdale. Are you going to make that one or you don’t know?
Scott Meyer:
I am looking forward to it and I will attend to any, and all of those that will be held in Arizona because now I have a two kiddos that are going to grand canyon university in Phoenix. And so we’re going to be spending a lot of time out in Arizona.
Jay Conner:
Oh, that’s great. Well, Carol joy and I we’ve already got our plane tickets. We’ve got our hotel reservations. So I look forward to seeing you in Scottsdale in just a few short weeks, right around the corner.
Scott Meyer:
Likewise can’t wait. Absolutely.
Jay Conner:
Well, Scott, as I told everybody in the introduction, I mean your expertise, your wheelhouses self storage and self storage facilities, but before we get into that world and your arena, first of all, just tell everybody how you got into real estate.
Scott Meyer:
Yeah. Wow. I think probably like most people out there started with the single family house and I learned from, and many folks on here will this name and a whole lot won’t Carleton sheets, who was one of the grandfathers along with Ron Legrand and some of the others that taught people how to get into real estate. So I followed this program to buy houses, rehab them refund, and some rent them out and then replicate and do that over and over again. So the burn method before it was called the bird method. And so that’s how we got started bought a single family house. This was back in 1993 was the first one that I ever bought. It had an assumable VA mortgage on it, which I don’t think there’s any of those left out there any longer and allowed me to get in and just assume that mortgage with very little experience in the way of even credit history at the time, it was a pretty young guy at the time, as you can tell by my age now and doing the math.
So that’s how it started. And then we moved on to buying up more. We refinanced about two more houses than we need to fix them up refinance and buy more. So we had about 75 in 76 houses and didn’t really have the cashflow and the, the, you know, the freedom that we wanted that Carlton sheets had mentioned in the home study system. So we thought, well, economies of scale will fix this. So we started getting into apartments and buying several complexes around central Indiana, but same thing and just kind of bought us more tenants, toilets, trash headaches, and the business model just wasn’t right for us. We wanted to have time. We wanted the freedom that real estate brings. And so to do that in real estate, that means no tenants, no toilets. So that’s either parking lots or self storage, and you can’t really build a lot of value in, in parking lots.
And then we found, but once I dug into self storage, I realized that, ah, this is, this is a place I need to be. People don’t pay rent. You lock them out and you sell their stuff off and get paid. You turn it around by taking a blower and you blow the unit out with no paint, no carpet, no extensive clean-out or repairs. And once I more, the more I looked into the business, I really saw the light and decided that this is the path I wanted to take. So sold their houses, our apartments, and now we’ve gone just, you know, 100% into self storage made that transition about 2005 to where we are now, today, which is where you mentioned Jay, we, we buy existing facilities. Still. That same model is in place. We also convert industrial buildings, grocery stores, anything that is, can be repurposed into so storage, we’ll buy it and convert it. And then we build from the ground up and we do a lot of this on by partnering and doing joint ventures and then syndicating the private equity, which is where you come in, Jay and you know, all too well, what that looks like and how we can leverage other people’s money and bring them along as limited partners to enjoy in the growth in this incredible business. So I hope that wasn’t longer than what you were looking for, but that’s, that’s my story.
Jay Conner:
No, that was perfect. Well, tell us the story about your very first self storage facility that you got into and, and what lessons did you learn from that first deal?
Scott Meyer:
Yeah, so the F the very first facility that I got into was a, that we were sending out mailers to facility owners, just like we all do in real estate to the asset class that we’re in. And we ran across some business owners and they were getting a business, a divorce. They were partners in a concrete business and things weren’t going so well. And they wanted, they were parting ways. And this facility, they owned together as well. Well, they, as what happens, unfortunately in the worst is the other one, one side wants to hurt the other. And the other one definitely wants to destroy the other one. And so that’s what they were doing. And they were destroying the value of the facility in the meantime. And so what that meant is we were able to get into this a facility for it, was it appraised for $800,000 more than what the selling price was?
And they just had to get out from under the note, because those two had done such a good job of fighting each other, that the bank was about ready to take the facility back. So I partnered, I partnered up with a gentleman. We came in at 50, 50 cash and both on the balance sheet and excuse me, on the loan request and ended up moving forward on this first property, by taking the existing tenants and raising the rates, which they hadn’t been raised in 10 years, we let them manage, well, let me see. We didn’t let her, we freed up her future to pursue other career opportunities and put a kiosk in place because we don’t have to manage these facilities with a person on site. And then we bought the land next door and expanded and built that up and leased that up as well.
So I sold off to my partner eventually. And that leads to, I guess, the second part of your question, Jay, which is what did I learn from this? Well, first of all, I, I understood the power of leveraging and bringing partners in to projects. But I also, the lesson I learned is that I, I really want to be in that manager position. I wanted to have that control rather than 50 50, and it’s not a control issue. It’s just that, you know, once I learned about syndication and moving on to other projects, that I can be the syndicator, the promoter, and the person who is calling the shots, and I can bring in limited partners for sometimes their balance sheets to sign on the loan as well. But mostly for the equity that is, that is required to get into a facility. So that was probably the biggest lesson. And I also learned, sometimes you shouldn’t bring people that are close to you or friends into a business as well. Sometimes it doesn’t always turn out well. Yeah. Yes.
Jay Conner:
I’ve been, I’ve been down that road myself as well. So to make sure everybody understands what you’re talking about, what do you mean by syndication? What’s that look like? And what’s the benefits of it.
Scott Meyer:
Yeah. So in the true sec definition, and I am paraphrasing, anytime you bring two or more people together into a project, and in this instance, a real estate investment where one person is, is active, doing all the heavy lifting, doing all the work, and the other person is bringing money and they’re passive. They don’t have a hand in making decisions or doing any of the project management in a project. Then, then you’ve created a security and then it’s governed by the securities and exchange commission. And so they state that you have to file that, and you have to register with the, depending on the fund or the entity that you set up that has to be registered. So for us, that is a true, so for us, there was one person, as I just mentioned me that I am the promoter. I am the active person on the investment.
Whereas I bring in then a lot of private equity, a lot of limited partners that come into the project. They don’t lend a hand. They’re not involved in the decision making process. And what they’re lending is money into the project. They’re investing into the project with me. And so their role and responsibility is to wire, the funds to close the project. And my responsibility is to do everything else, report back to them, the progress show, the projections and how we are exceeding, hopefully meeting, or if we are underperforming on our projections and then send out to our K ones at the end of the year, because they do become owners of this entity. And they get to participate in the upside as well as in the depreciation as well. So that’s, and I guess a limited sense without getting too far in the weeds, Jay, is, is the definition of a syndication and how we go about approaching the market. Yeah.
Jay Conner:
So, you know, in the world of single family houses, there’s multiple exit strategies. There’s multiple strategies of what someone’s going to do with that property after they invest in it, you know, you can, you can buy a single family house, you can fix it up, you can flip it, you can wholesale houses and, you know, wholesale houses out through other real estate investors. You can buy houses and you can fix them up and you can hold them, you know, for the longterm. So compare self storage to what I just did with single family houses. Are there all these different strategies as to how you can go about the self storage business. And second part of that question is if there are different strategies, how do you decide which one you’re going to do?
Scott Meyer:
Yeah, I’d say property is property. And, you know, in a general sense, and you can do all of the above. You know, we buy them and wholesale them, or sometimes a wholesale without us ever taking ownership or taking deed to the property. You can buy them, you can fix them up, turn around and flip them. You can buy them and turn them around partially, and then sell them off and call it a flip or non you sell them to the next person down the road. That’s going to take it the rest of the way, the way that we do it is typically we’re a longer-term hold three to five years. That gives us time to in an existing facility, really turn it around, raise rates, make the improvements, and reduce the expenses as much as possible to maximize the net operating income and then sell it for maximum dollar, our conversions and development.
You know, those projects take roughly four to five years to either buy a building, say a vacant grocery store and convert it to self storage, and then start from ground zero. And at least it up to 80, 85% occupancy and bring in our limited partners and allow them to have a payday and an exit that is comparable to if they were to invest in any other type of entity, a business over that time, and really focusing on the internal rate of return and the same goes for development. So in terms of an exit strategy, it’s a little more difficult in, in the way that we head into those larger projects with our partners in that we can’t do a 10 31, unless everybody decides to go along with us into the next project, which obviously they’re not going to. So at that point we will sell and that we will take our profits off the table.
And then we will move into the next project for our limited partners. For the most part, they are investing through a retirement vehicle like a self-directed IRA or a solo or a real estate 401k. So they don’t really have those tax consequences at, at, at the exit. We also are looking at in terms of an exit strategy. And I guess to back up a step, you know, Jay, I think you, and hopefully everybody on this call recognizes that you, you should always look at the exit strategy or determine what your exit strategy is before you get into a project. It’s not a good plan to just don’t say, well, there’s a good deal. I’m just going to buy it and figure it out later. You can find yourself, maybe a do not, you know, don’t want her later on down the road, or you sit back and take a look at your empire and you realize what a mess.
I can’t even manage this because I never paid any attention to what I was doing. So every time we hit into a project, you know, we identify if it’s a good deal, are we going to keep it? You know, if we’re going to flip this thing in a year, then we’ve got some, you know, capital short-term capital gains taxes. That’s a consideration. If we own it solely, then we can do a 10 31 into something else on. Do we want to do that three years from now? And I’m saying at any point in time, do we want to do that two or three years from now? Where, what are the interest rates going to be and what our cap rates going to be, and how do we expect the market and the economy? What’s it gonna look like? So we’re, we’re always looking six months a year down the road, five years down the road and anticipating what’s going on with the market, meaning interest rates and our capitalization rates, which is how we value these facilities.
And then overall, does this really fit in our business plan? I suffer like everybody from shiny object itis, and I want to buy them all, you know, if somebody else buys a self-storage facility and develop those one, and I’m going down the road, I was just like, that should have been mine. I should have built that. I should have bought that. And it’s a, it’s a real struggle. But if we get into that, you know, we can paint ourselves into a corner if we get into that situation where we just, you know, every once in a while we have to say no. Yeah, for sure.
Jay Conner:
So just to make sure everybody knows before, anybody’s got to jump off a listing here to the podcast. How can people get in contact with you and your companies, Scott, to learn more about what you do and how you can help them in this area of self storage?
Scott Meyer:
Sure. So we go into self storage, investing.com. That is the mothership, and there’s a links to our other websites that focus on the passive investing side of the business. But self-storage investing.com is really the mothership. And, and this is where we’ve been at this longer than anybody in the business and teaching people the right way to go about investing in self storage. I’m just in hopes that once again, you know, a rising tide raises all ships and so that we want everybody to be as educated as possible to go out into the marketplace before they do this to avoid any mistakes. And then also, you know, that just kind of makes it more difficult for the rest of us, that there are a lot of gunslingers out there that aren’t really doing their due diligence and doing things the right way. So that is our, our main purpose in educating people in the business. Cause it just makes it easier for all of us to conduct business in this incredible niche. Exactly.
Jay Conner:
So if you’re remotely interested folks and connecting them with Scott and his team, that website again is www dot self storage, investing.com, self storage, investing.com. We’re coming out here, hopefully on the other side of COVID and the pandemic and all that stuff. What are you seeing in the self storage industry? I mean, overall nationwide is the industry growing, how has COVID affected self storage?
Scott Meyer:
Yeah. Self storage is on a tear right now. I mean, if you look at the asset classes in real estate, no matter what stat you look at in terms of, you know, which asset class has done well, of course I’m biased, but the stats don’t lie, self storage and industrial are right up at the top. I think data centers may be up there as well. Industrial has done really well with Amazon expanding and, and the supporters of the Amazon and the distribution centers that are now coming down to the smaller market size. And, and as we see, unfortunately, the slow death of retail, the, the industrial side and the industrial sector has benefited greatly and self storage because we are heading into a time where we’re heading into a recession. Again, we also have seen now people come home from work and they had to clear out the dining room, the spare bedroom, the spare of family room, or living room and create a workspace for one of the income earners.
And sometimes too, they also last year during the lockdown, you know, when everybody was sent home from school, the colleges shut down and, and the kids had to put all their stuff into storage again, until they were able to go back. The kids that were in K through 12 came home, and we also had to make room in our homes to do school at home as well. So clearing out more furniture to make all of that happen. And then unfortunately there’s a whole lot of businesses that immediately when, when the lockdown started, it just went under because you know, customers are go figure on the lifeblood of their business. And if they couldn’t do it online, they went under. And so their inventory machinery and furniture, business furniture went into storage. And so, you know, we see this was somewhat of a microcosm of what we see during a recession and self storage really benefits during a recession because businesses downsize and put their things in storage, individuals downsized during a recession, they may have to move in with somebody else, a friend or move back home.
And so their extra stuff goes into storage. And so we, we, we spritz traditionally has always done better. You know, we go up to the right during times people buy more stuff and they store more stuff. That’s the nature of what we do here in this country. And if that’s you on behalf of the industry, I thank you for that mentality in this country. But during a recession, you know, we get the hockey stick effect. And then that’s when banks slow down development slows down of all sorts and then demand for self storage goes up. And so that’s what we saw during the pandemic last year. And 2020 was an absolute banner year for our industry. We have been, we have been contactless and touchless since before it was cool to be contactless and touchless using kiosks to rent a unit, much like a kiosk because self storage, you know, renting a unit is a very low labor intensive transaction that can be done over the internet.
And it can be done by way of a cell phone access to our facility, our software, getting a gate code and even a key fob and access on the phone to access a unit can all be done by way of a smartphone as well. So J we don’t, we don’t celebrate recessions personally, nor my company. We don’t celebrate pandemics for now shakes, but our, our industry, I’m, I’m thankful for the industry that we’re in because we have benefited with a huge wind in our sail, not only during a recession as we’re going to pet into again, but then the pandemic, which kind of accelerated that has really benefited our industry. Well, you know,
Jay Conner:
No business thrives, unless it’s solving a lot of people’s problems. And that’s what, and that’s what you and your company and the industry is doing. I mean, due to the pandemic, you got all this and increased demand for people needing to put their stuff somewhere. And unless your industry comes along and provides a place to put their stuff, then you know, you’re not a, you’re not solving that problem. So it’s what is, so let’s say someone is, and I’ll tell you, it’s the same thing as going on around here. It’s like here in my little area where Carol joy and I live total, total area of only 40,000 people, I know of four brand new self storage facilities that are under construction right now, four of them. And we already got them everywhere. It’s like my lands, people must have a whole, much more stuff. It’s just like, it’s crazy. It’s crazy. How are you? Are you doing new construction these days? Are you still focusing on existing facilities?
Scott Meyer:
Well, a little bit of both, we are, we were really focused on in 2020 on construction. We had some projects already in the pipeline and then also picked up some others from some folks that while we’re just kind of taking the ball the rest the way down the field, some folks that had some stalls due to due to COVID and some funding issues. And so absolutely we’ve been known developing for a number of years. Now, we’ve got the team, we’ve got the experience. We’re in several markets where we know where the demand is, and we just know it’s a business model that we can replicate over and over again, that allows us to look at a market. And, and Jay, if I could, just the reason why we see so many opportunities and why you’re seeing the say, four facilities going up in your town is a lot of folks will think, well, wait, I see these things everywhere.
Isn’t the market saturated. And you know, how can we possibly, you know, have enough demand for this, but, you know, when we go into a market and we’re looking at it in a place that potentially maybe good for developing a self storage facility, there’s a lot of research that goes into that. First of all, our market is really five mile radius. That’s all the further people are going to travel to a self storage facility from their home is about five miles. And so within that five miles, if the facility is the 1, 2, 3, 4 facilities are full, have a waiting list. And the raising rates every three or four months, then we know what equilibrium is in a market. And it’s, you know, anywhere from five and a half to six and a half, you know, five and a half to six and a half square foot per person.
And anytime that we’re below that if there’s only three or four square foot per person, we know that there’s a lot of demand in that market. So that, and rental rates will dictate when we’re going to go in and build. So it’s not a build it and they will come or hope that they will come and just, you know, hope is not a strategy. And we spend millions of dollars on these facilities. And so that is the reason why we’re seeing a lot about construction. And so we absolutely are bullish because of all the factors that I just mentioned that are, that are occurring in the market right now, which is creating a huge surge in demand for storage.
Jay Conner:
If someone is brand new to self storage, and they’re really interested in exploring it and, you know, really want to see if this makes sense for them, what’s the best way for a brand new person to even get started? Where do they start looking?
Scott Meyer:
Well, I think it starts with, with learning so that they know what they are looking for. And so no shameless plug, but we just got a lot of free resources on our website. Again, just to help people, you don’t have to spend a dime on it, just so you know, what you’re looking at and looking for, then begin to seek out if you’re a part of a real estate investor group in your city and there’s people that are in stores and then strike up a conversation. I I’d asked you to ask them to go out to lunch, to pick their brain, but we know that there’s a whole lot of folks that maybe aren’t interested in doing that these days, but if you can strike up a friendship, get into a conversation or even a subgroup, and some of these other real estate investor circles, or online with several meetups around at your area, then that’s the best way to get plugged in and just sit back and be a consumer of the information and to be a student of the industry to know what’s going on.
There’s I was in single family homes for a number of years. I was in commercial real estate being multifamily. And although a lot of that skillset applies and I’m looking at leverage and cap rates and underwriting, it’s a different business. And so to understand the nuances is really key before you take a take that next and first step, and we’ve seen, as you can imagine in our, on the education side of our business, we’ve seen a lot of folks that have taken that first step and they, and they stepped in a lot of do-do and create a lot of mistakes and messes for themselves. And men have come to us to help them unwind it and get out of it or to survive that one, you know, lose the battle, but win the war by understanding what it takes to succeed on the next one.
So, and then temper that with, you know, don’t, don’t analyze too much or, you know, analysis paralysis by analysis and analysis that causes paralysis. You, you, you know, the saying that to spend too much time researching before you do actually pull the trigger. So learn about the business, get some good advisors and mentors around you before, you know, to put some eyeballs on your underwriting and your offers, and obviously the good legal team or, or a, an attorney to look at your contracts before moving forward. Those are probably the best ways to Intuit, to avoid getting into a catastrophe. My
Jay Conner:
Good friend and guest today is Scott Myers, founder of self storage, investing.com. Be sure and check out his website for the free training and resources that he has there. One last question for you, Scott. And that is what are the most common mistakes or some of the most common mistakes that new real estate investors in self storage makes.
Scott Meyer:
Yeah, I’m writing a book on it as we speak, that’s going to be out before long. So I got 101 of them because that’s the title of the book. So I’ll, I’ll focus on how about the overarching one. And that is I think, and perhaps I’m guilty of this, you know, we’ve been teaching and training people how to do this for 16 years. And, you know, we, we, we state that it is a very simple and predictable business model because it’s compared to other businesses. It is, it’s a simpler and predictable business model. You know, we know the numbers, we know the equilibriums and we can go into a, an existing facility or a development project and make our projections and darn near hit our marks and, and beat them almost every time. But so I, I say that I’m, I’m a product of that.
And that is, I think people have heard that enough. And they’ve heard that, you know, this is a simple, less moving parts. You know, you don’t have the rehabs, you know, lock them out. They don’t pay their money and then you just blow it out and you’re done. You move on to the next and all that’s true, but it’s not a hobby. I mean, this is a business and you have to treat it as such and you have to walk the four corners of your business, and you have to understand it before you get in you. As most people know that are in commercial real estate, you make a $10,000 mistake in your underwriting, meaning you miss some expenses by 5,000 and you missed them. You know, they overstated the income for late fees and other things that shouldn’t have been counted. Well, a $10,000 mistake and underwriting is a hundred to $120,000 in value that you would over pay for a facility.
So you need to understand the nuances, how to value them, how to underwrite them before putting offers, in understanding how to analyze the market. And then for gosh sakes, I’m you don’t take your hands off the wheel and assume that this is a mailbox business because no rental businesses, I don’t care who you said listen to, or, or who says it. It’s not, it’s a business and a business needs to be tended. So a long-winded answer to your question, Jay. But the mistake that people make is that they think, and they hear and assume that it is a simple business because it’s simpler than what they were doing before, but it, it means that they have to understand it and they have to tend it. And, and you do have to farm the business once you own it. And constantly be working, looking at ways to grow occupancy, to grow rates and reduce expenses. And that is perpetual, and that is on a regular basis.
Jay Conner:
In other words, folks, don’t start doing this business without joining hips with somebody that knows what they’re doing, right. And of course, Scott Myers is the expert in this arena. Scott final comments and advice.
Scott Meyer:
Final comments change is good to see again, my friend, I can’t wait to, to see each other. I can’t hold that back. And so you always make me smile and I’m looking forward to hopefully getting together and having dinner together as well with you and Carol joy. And maybe we can get that old gray hair gentlemen, to pay our bill next time again, too, that might be nice and fight from that gang. It’s an exciting time to be in a, in real estate. There’s certainly a lot of changes and there’s some potential threats that are out there, but it’s when everybody’s running out that you should be not just running in again and shooting from the hip, but understanding, you know, what it means to be in the real estate asset class and investing the way and where you should be investing. But now it’s absolutely an exciting time to be doing so. So with that, just great to be here. I’m thankful for the industry of the real estate industry and self storage and a happy to help and assist anyone anywhere along the way that we can. And just be kind, just, just choose to be kind how’s that after a long weekend, so far, and it’s only Tuesday, I’ve had some difficult conversations. So how about I leave it with, let’s just choose to be kind to one another.
Jay Conner:
I love it. There you have it. Folks. My good friend and expert in self storage, Scott Meyers, visit him at www dot self storage, investing.com. Well, so glad to have everyone here on the show. I’m Jay Conner, the private money authority wishing you all the best here’s to taking your business to the next level. And we’ll see you right here on the next private money academy podcast.
#Jay Conner#Private Money Lender#Real Estate Business#Real Estate#Real Estate Investing#Real Estate Investor#Real Estate Profit#The Private Money Authority#Flip Your House
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Best Cooking Gifts for $20-$60 Dollars
Hi friends, it’s your nearly useful, almost cool Doc Holligay here, fulfilling a really common series of questions I get around Christmas time (I am not going to say the holidays, I am a Jew but I KNOW I have like 6 Jewish followers, and these questions don’t come in around Hanukkah time) that boil down to: What Do I Get Someone Who Likes to Cook?
So I’ve created a series of gift guides, based on things I think are excellent, in different price ranges, (all are on my blog) for people that could be considered moderate to excellent cooks. People who need a few extra things for the kitchen, but have the basics down. Some of these DO make great basic gifts, but that’s not what this gift guide is FOR.
I get no kickback from any of this, unless specifically marked, and then you have to use my referral code. A lot of these places SHOULD give me a kickback for the years I’ve spent referring them, but they don’t. If I can make one request of you, it’s don’t buy this shit from Amazon. Amazon is a horrible company working to break the back of the American worker, and the least you can do for me is not use them for my recommendations. THEY HIRED THE FUCKING PINKERTONS. Galaxy brain is to try and pick this up from your locally owned kitchen store, as I did with most of these! I bet they’d love to hear from you!
IF this was useful to you and YOU’D like to give me a kickback, check out my Ko-fi!
Lodge Cast Iron 10.25 In Skillet--- $21
If the person you love loves to cook but has never gotten into cast iron, please set them up with this amazing skillet, which is usually the first thing I recommend for first-timers. So many things cook better in cast iron, and it can go straight to the oven!
Wiremonkey Bread Lame-- $28.00
If your gift recipient is a bread baker, this is a really nice gift. If you don’t bake, you may not know what this is: It holds the razorblade so you can make scores in your loaves. It’s a very nice one, made in Connecticut and pays fair wages. Definitely a step up over a raw blade.
Dot Alarm Thermometer ---$43
This is the secret to my success for turkey every year, as well as prime rib at Passover, and it gets a TON of use in my smoker. After this Thanksgiving, my mom declared that she was going to get one too, because it did such a great job of letting you know the SECOND the turkey comes to temp, and also you don’t need to open the oven or smoker! They have a bluetooth version as well--I don’t use it.
Escali Primo Scale-- $40.00
This is the kitchen scale I have, and love, after years of trying to find something that fit my parameters of being small, being bright colored (so it’s easy to find in the kitchen) and having a weight limit of at least ten pounds. It’s also really highly rated for accuracy! Kitchen scales are the bantam standard for baking, but I use it for so many things.
Silpat Liner -- $27.00
I have a tiny one of these that I bought to see how well they work and I kick myself for not buying a full size one, which is what I’ve recommended to you here. Even the stickiest things come off with little trouble. Especially for baking fine things like florentines, this is so useful.
Thermoworks 600D---$29.00 (as of the literal second I am publishing this, they’re having a sale for it at 18 bucks)
Doc, stop just recommending Thermoworks stuff. NO. Their warranties are amazing, and the accuracy of their thermometers is exceptional. After years of using a cheap thermometer that was barely helping at all, I bought one of these, and it has more than paid for itself. I would never go back. 5-6 second super accurate reading.
Spring Loaded Tofu Press-- $50.00
I know what you’re all thinking, and I probably would have thought it too before I used one at a friends’ house. Now I want one more than I can say. Great for vegetarian and vegan cooks, obviously, but also amazing if you need to press water out of anything, so if you’re trying to make eggplant parm, press water out of spinach, etc, this is an amazing go to. It sort of breaks my general feelings on kitchenwares and use, but squeezin those things even with the book method is so onerous that I make exceptions.
Shun Sora Utility Knife-- $60.00
I don’t often recommend Japanese style knives to people, despite them being my preferred style, versus German knives. They’re more fragile as a nature of how they are created and maintained. But people who love them, like me, REALLY FUCKING LOVE THEM. This is the cheapest possible version of my absolute favorite knife. (Full disclosure--I don’t own anything from the Sora line, but my general feelings on Shun lead me to believe it’ll be fine quality) It’s a 6 inch utility knife, which is great for smaller people like me who can occasionally find a Chef’s knife unwieldy, and the blade holds an edge, as long as cared for, longer than average (It still needs to be sharpened. All knives do.) A great way to introduce a cook to a better class of knife. (Without getting into the weeds, buying a block of knives is generally a mistake)
Victorinox Fibrox Chef’s knife-- $48.00
If you prefer or expect you will prefer a German style knife, this is one of the best entry-level choices out there. It’s a great gift for someone with a lot of talent but not a lot of great equipment, as I find, weirdly, knives are one of the last things to be upgraded. I thicker knife that will need more frequent sharpening but is a WORKHORSE you would have to work pretty hard to destroy, I recommend this knife to advancing cooks all the time. I don’t think there’s better for the price point.
OXO V Blade Mandoline Slicer--- $42.00
If your gift recipient has any love of cooking things that require a lot of slicing, this is a must-have. I bought mine used, but this OXO is at a great price point for value and if they decide they want something heavier duty later, they can always pursue it. It’s the kind of thing people don’t realize they love until they own one. They’re also deeply satisfying to use, which I find wonderful as a kitchen item.
I hope you enjoyed these recommendations and stay tuned for the next price point up!
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Whoops, didn’t mean to post this so late. Time’s gotten away from me this week, haha. Anyways, a few ask replies are below the cut!
Aw, I’m glad you’re enjoying the comic! It’s the best feeling knowing that folks are liking what I’m putting out. ^^
And yep, bosses are being done in order! I’ll list them out below with how I’m handling each of them for simplicity’s sake:
King Slime -- Will be mentioned, but won’t appear. Probably defeated by a previous hero? I’m not sure, but Chris won’t be fighting it.
Eye of Cthulhu -- The first boss Chris fights.
Eater of Worlds -- Most likely an on-screen boss fight? I’m debating.
Brain of Cthulhu -- This is a Corruption world, so it’s not included.
Queen Bee -- Mentioned, though cut for time.
Skeletron -- Plot important boss battle!
Wall of Flesh -- Also plot important boss battle; actually one of the first scenes I had figured out for the comic, haha.
Mech Bosses/Plantera/Golem -- These most likely will be fought, but I’m not sure how I’ll be handling them. The Mechs at least are plot relevant, we’ll see about the other two.
Optional Hardmode Bosses -- Queen Slime, Duke Fishron, etc. will be cut for time.
Event Bosses -- Things like the Pumpkin/Frost Moon and so on won’t be included.
Other Events -- Solar eclipse, blood moon, etc.; may or may not be included depending on how the story flows with them.
Lunatic Cultist/Celestial Events/Moon Lord -- again, plot important.
Do keep in mind that the above is subject to some change depending on what I want to include, as well as just what I want to be on/off screen. I never really know how I’m going to handle something until I’m actually writing/drafting/sketching that chapter, save for a few scenes that I’ve had planned from the beginning, haha.
Firstly, 🎉🎉🎉 for 200 followers!!!
And as for the question -- it’s a really long story actually, haha. Hence why I’m putting this ask last.
So, I’ve owned a copy of Terraria on Steam since early 2016; I had bought another game and needed something cheap to finish off the gift card. Spent like five minutes on it, said no thanks, and went on. Opened it again a few years later, played for an hour and got frustrated at the controls/opening doors/not understanding tools and put it down again. I only got into it come 1.4 -- having access to journey mode meant I had a lot more freedom to do what I wanted, and since I had previously played a little, I was no longer totally confused by the game.
I went through my first playthrough pretty much blind, and had a lot of fun! I tend to make up little stories while playing open world games, and since I only started playing Terraria after the NPC happiness mechanic came out, I put a lot of effort into getting everyone little houses with their friends and such. I put in a few dozen hours, had a blast, and that was that.
Because it was my first playthrough, I was mostly relying on the Guide and a boss progression list I had pulled up on my phone to get through the game, though to figure out housing I ended up spending a while screwing around on the NPC pages, and realized...hey! Terraria doesn’t have *much* of a story, but it does have enough content to work with.
And then I spent an evening putting together a 20 page document about the game’s lore and characters because I wanted to share my latest fixation with my partner, but didn’t want to annoy them. I don’t recall if they ever did read it -- I think they did? -- but the point is that I had it, and started playing around with the idea of writing a little fanfic based off of it. I planned a few things out, but didn’t end up writing any of it, and then shelved the idea after a little bit.
After that I went through a phase of doing a lot of commissions to get some money for college shopping, then classes started and I was busy, then I got really into HLVRAI, etc. etc. Finally, someone I used to watch years and years ago on youtube posted a Frankenstein: A New Musical animatic. I said “cool!” and then Frankenstein was my latest fixation. I found someone on Tumblr (@/reanimationstation) who draws a lot of Frankenstein art, saw they were doing a cute little gothic lit slice of life comic, and said...hey, comics are pretty neat! What if I did one? I had been recently thinking about my Terraria story, that could be fun to mess with.
So, I drew a two-page comic with the Guide and Old Man talking about their curses, posted it to Reddit, and got tons of nice comments and PMs from people saying that they really liked it and hoped I did some more. I had mentioned it was part of an old fic of mine (I was still debating picking it back up and writing it at the time), and people interpreted that as there being more to the comic. There wasn’t, but I figured: eh, why not? I’ll go for ten pages, enough to squish in a whole first chapter if I keep it short, and if I don’t like it, I’ll stop. I’d always wanted to do a webcomic, after all. This could be fun.
And you know what? It has been fun! I need to get better at managing my time most certainly, since pages take so long, but it’s also serving as a way for me to actually be forced to improve, haha. I can already see how much my style has changed since the first chapter, just from the weekly drawings! Plus, I really do love the characters, haha. It’s been a good while since I’ve been so passionate about stuff like this, and while I don’t post them, I do pretty often write goofy ficlets about the characters just to work on their “voices” and all that. Mostly about Andrew and Chris, since they’ll have the most screen time, so to speak, but overall whatever my latest silly idea is.
So, yeah! Just a bunch of things coming together in such a way that I ended up doing a comic.
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Old School X is a project interviewing X-Files fanfic authors who were posting fic during the original run of the show. New interviews are posted every Tuesday.
Interview with Vickie Moseley
Vickie Moseley has 252 stories at Gossamer, some of which have also made their way to AO3. She has obviously contributed a ton to the fandom over the years! I’ve recced some of my favorites of her stories here before, including Giving Thanks, Stunned, and a bunch of post-eps for particular episodes, including “Firewalker” and “Pine Bluff Variant.” Big thanks to Vickie for doing this interview.
Does it surprise you that people are still interested in reading your X-Files fanfics and others that were posted during the original run of the show (1993-2002)?
Not really. Well, actually, it has always surprised me that anyone would read my stories even during the heyday of the series, but that’s my self-consciousness talking. That people are discovering The X-Files is not at all surprising and that they are stumbling on fan fic is a natural extension and I find that wonderful. My husband and I never watched Grimm when it was on network TV and we’re currently going through that series, so it’s the streaming-on-demand-there-isn’t-anything-new-on-TV times we find ourselves.
What do you think of when you think about your X-Files fandom experience? What did you take away from it?
Friendships. I have a group of women that I’ve been friends with for over 20 years. Until this year we gathered in person every year. We are in contact on Facebook messenger all the time and a conversation will start up just out of thin air when we haven’t conversed for months! It’s been wonderful knowing these women from all parts of the country (and the world for that matter).
And strangely enough, medical research. My writing tended to focus on ‘injured Mulder’ (or Mulder Torture as we termed it) and I also liked reading that in fan fic. Two years ago this managed to help me in real life. My husband experienced a bilateral pneumothorax (both lungs collapsed spontaneously). One of my favorite stories that I have read and reread is “Short of Breath” by the incomparable dee_ayy. She did some serious research while writing that story and it’s all in that fan fiction. I’m not saying it’s the same as a medical degree, but I knew what was happening, why the doctors where performing certain procedures and it really eased my mind as we went through the whole experience. I never would have known what was going on if I hadn’t read that story so many times.
Social media didn't really exist during the show's original run. How were you most involved with the X-Files online (atxc, message board, email mailing list, etc.)?
Email was the ‘social media’ for the day. That, and newsfeeds. There were two newsfeeds in the beginning: the official FOX website had a message board, and there was one on ‘alt.tv’ which was an internet newsfeed where fans posted spoilers and discussed episodes. The alt.tv newsfeed got tired of the fan fic writers posting stories so a separate newsfeed was formed just for fan fic. EMXC, which was an AOL mailing list, was invite only and somewhat exclusive at first, but opened up to everyone. When the old OSU (Ohio State University) mailing list turned into Gossamer and Ephemeral, the fandom, and fan fic just skyrocketed.
But what you lived for the most, as a writer, was actual feedback. Emails from people all over who read your story. It was nice to get a quick ‘Hey, read this and really like it!’ but the wonderful emails, the ones you kept in folders on your inbox, were the ones that went into detail, sometimes critical, sometimes grammar related, but always showing where you could improve, or where you touched someone. Every friend I have from the fandom started as feedback, either to me or from me. I’m on AO3 and I appreciate ‘kudos’ but I really love getting comments.
What did you take away from your experience with X-Files fic or with the fandom in general?
Confidence in my writing. I learned a lot from other writers. Constructive feedback was a gift! I may never write the great American novel but I don’t think I’m afraid to give it a shot after all my years in fan fic.
What was it that got you hooked on the X-Files as a show?
They had me at ‘aliens’. I’m a sucker for UFO shows. Was front row center at Close Encounters of the Third Kind, read many of the UFO standards, still watch Ancient Aliens on History Channel. I was waiting for The X-Files based on the tiny blurb in the 1993 Fall Preview Guide from TV Guide.
What got you involved with X-Files fanfic?
I kinda got fired from a job I loved and couldn’t go back into that arena for a long time. I was so depressed I was cleaning out my kitchen cabinets. My husband ‘gave’ me the internet for my birthday just to get me out of the dumps. I went straight to ‘yahoo’ and typed in X Files. After reading all the character bios I saw a ‘hyperlink’ (yes, that’s what we called them in 1995) to something called ‘fan fiction’. It was the OSU tree directory of about 100 fan fiction stories. I was instantly hooked.
What is your relationship like now to X-Files fandom?
I still love the show and all the fans I run across. I was not happy with S8 or S9 but I did watch The Truth. I was on Haven for a while during the reboots (S10 and S11) but it wasn’t the same. I’ve got all the seasons on DVD or blu ray and both movies. When I hear from fans, I’m so happy to connect but I don’t go out and look for new stories anymore.
Were you involved with any fandoms after the X-Files? If so, what was it like compared to X-Files?
None. My heart belongs to Mulder ;)
Who are some of your favorite fictional characters? Why?
Captain Kirk, Spock, Captain Picard, Will Riker, Luke, Han, Leia, Poe, Rae, Kylo at the end. I like strong characters but it’s OK if they have flaws. I’d like to see more strong female leads in science fiction (Gammora and Nebula are favs of mine, too). I love Brea Larson’s portrayal of Captain Marvel!
Do you ever still watch The X-Files or think about Mulder and Scully?
Sure. When the Pandemic hit we started going through the series for maybe the 20th time. It’s nice to watch them on a larger TV screen. Kim Manners was a genius with lighting and showing just enough of the ‘monster’. I suspect he will be better appreciated in the future than he was at the time he was alive.
Do you ever still read X-Files fic? Fic in another fandom?
I still go back and read my favorites from XF. I read Blood Ties by Dawn about once a year, the whole series. I go back and read the Virtual Season X seasons. We had some really good stories in those years.
Do you have any favorite X-Files fanfic stories or authors?
Too many to list! Dawn, of course. Susan Proto (I co-wrote with her), Sally Bahnsen, dee_ayy, Suzanne Bickerstaff’s Magician Series was the first (and only) fantasy I ever truly liked! I loved all my co-writers and there are plenty of writers that I wish we’d gotten around to collaborating.
What is your favorite of your own fics, X-Files and/or otherwise?
I’m proud of Out of the Cold because it’s Mulder before Scully. I’m partial to the Flight Into Egypt series because I like ‘righting’ what I thought Carter got wrong in the end.
Do you think you'll ever write another X-Files story? Or dust off and post an oldie that for whatever reason never made it online?
I keep trying! I’m working (have been working for almost a decade now) on a Flight Into Egypt story set at Christmas. Each fall I drag it out of mothballs, write a paragraph or two and get busy doing Christmas stuff. Funny, but it was easier to find time to write when I was a working mom of 6 than as a retired grandma of 3.
Do you still write fic now? Or other creative work?
I’m putting together a cookbook for my kids and grandkids of all our family recipes. It’s not just the recipes, but the stories behind them. It’s a WIP (work in progress).
Where do you get ideas for stories?
I had a book, just a cheap paperback of unexplained events—all true stories, supposedly—that I got a lot of ideas from. Or, like Carter, I would see something in the news and it would turn into a story. One time I had a dream about our Pur water filter and it turned into a fan fic.
What's the story behind your pen name?
My older sister named me because my Mom and Dad let her. I never used a pen name. That’s my real name, you can google me and find out all about me. I used to have a wiki page or so my kids told me.
Do your friends and family know about your fic and, if so, what have been their reactions?
My kids used to tell their friends that ‘Mom is famous on the internet’ as a joke. Most of my friends know. My other life is in politics and the two lives usually don’t cross but once on a campaign I was asked by a reporter if I was the ‘same’ Vickie Moseley who writes fan fiction. If I had lied, that would have been the story—that I lied about this hobby of mine. Like it was something to be ashamed of or I was ashamed of my writing. So instead of ducking the question I said ‘yeah, have you read any of my stuff?’ Fan fiction was not mentioned in the finished article.
Is there a place online (tumblr, twitter, AO3, etc.) where people can find you and/or your stories now?
I’m on AO3 but only a partial list. My website is still up thanks to Mimic.
Is there anything else you'd like to share with fans of X-Files fic?
Back when I started writing (1995) it was a sort of commune. We all loved reading fan fiction, we didn’t want the story to end with the credits. So if you wanted to read, you were encouraged to write, too, so that others had stories to read and share. It was a cooperative arrangement very much like the old Literary Societies back in the 19th Century. I really miss that, so I hope that on some level that is still going on.
(Posted by Lilydale on November 10, 2020)
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Okay! So.
Me, Adora, Entrapta, and Catra went to Dryl. We wanted to see Entrapta’s old place and maybe find some things around her castle. Personally, I wanted to see all the Dryl things. For... history? For stuff that would help me understand what it was like there! Entrapta says she’s not much of a ruler, but I think she can be! At least, if she understood her kingdom. Or... if I understood her kingdom. I still don’t really understand how things work over there. I think maybe there’s heads of industry that sort of just take care of everything? I don’t know. All I know is Bow always goes on about how the Makers there are the best of the best and they always get the best materials really cheap and that he wishes he could go to this Makers Convention there and... it’s a lot. Also apparently there are people called ‘diggerfolk’ who I think are moles?
Anyway!
I didn’t get to learn as much about Dryl as I wanted to. Mostly because the labyrinthian castle is such a headache. Entrapta’s room was cute though.Well, as cute as a room with tons of wires and stuff everywhere can be. I’m sort of glad her room here in Bright Moon is close to mine, because there’s actually this weird hum wherever Entrapta puts her stuff that I’ve gotten used to. But I’m also a little afraid her room here might turn into her room in Dryl. That would be super hard to keep clean. At least it’s not her room in the Fright Zone! Haha! Ha...
Yesterday, we were just looking around the castle again. We stopped in this weird room that had pictures of robots in it. Well, one of the weird rooms with robot pictures in it, anyway. While we were resting, Catra found this secret room that turned out to be a stairway to DRYL CRYPTS. Yes, ACTUAL CRYPTS. For keeping DEAD PEOPLE INSIDE. It was CRAZY. And it was soooo smelly, ugh! Who had the idea to put all the dead bodies in one room!?
But then after Entrapta flirted with this huge suit of armor, it came to life and attacked us! It swung her around by the hair and it looked... really really bad. Adora and Catra took care of it, but it looked like there was this weird... mummy guy inside the armor, moving it around. I think he was cursed? And then after he was defeated, his body just... crumbled. It was so cursed. I don’t want to ever go back.
We’re all in the healing tents now, so I’m kind of running Bright Moon from a cot. Adora won’t stop checking on us, it’s sweet. But Entrapta... still looks pretty hurt. Our healers are working hard to make sure she’s okay. Thankfully she’s been conscious a few times, though! Things will be back to normal in no time, I bet.
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Locked Here for Forever (1/6) Dark!Sabo/Oc/Dark!Ace
(quick note before y’all come at me with torches)
This was a side project I’ve been playing around with while working on updates (THE UPDATES ARE COMING I SWEAR, I SWEAR) I was kinda... possessed? to write this and when it kept coming back to me, I realized I needed to get it out of my system. Doing that made me realize how big it was going to end up being so it’s divided up into parts.
I’ve been wanting to explore a different variety of things. We can say “darker” themes, but I really just wanted to try my hand at playing with characters with honestly manipulative and sociopathic behavior. I’m not going on a limb to say yandere because that term is loose and often made to be thought of with stabby-stabby, stalky-stalky--but I think it can encompass a lot more? Possessive behavior, controlling, but I wanted to really go into manipulative behavior. Sociopathic because it’s not psychotic, it’s functioning and cold and hmm.
(Btw, to each their own, fantasies, kinks, we don’t shame here. But if anyone is ever putting you through what Hoku is going to be put through here and manipulating you into basically mind controlling you and this and that, it is not a healthy relationship and they are scum and you deserve better, drop their ass like a hot fucking potato.)
I decided to use Hoku because this idea originally came from another AU for Memos. (I’m sorry Hoku) Loosely based on the premise from the BL comic, “Points of Three”
It’s here on AO3, if you just want to read there too.
Rating: NSFW
Pairing: Sabo/Oc/Ace (Past! Kid/Oc), Dark!Ace/Oc/Dark!Sabo
Warnings: Explicit Sexual Content, Manipulation (Psychological and Emotional), Past Assault, Past Trauma, Possessive Behavior, Unhealthy Relationships, Use of Aphrodisiacs, BDSM, Dubious Consent, Controlling Behavior, Stalking
Chapter One: Points of Three
“From three points, it can’t ever end. They’ll always pull at one. One is always pulled between them. One point is always trapped between the other two.”
Hoku shoved a pancake into her mouth.
“That’s the idea at least.”
The twenty-four hour breakfast diner was only half busy. A dingy place with wallpaper peeling in places but always clean and friendly. Cozy. The booths had tears at the seams, patched together by other patches. Establishments like this weren’t too popular all throughout their town, but the diner’s all-you-can-eat pancake and breakfast option did the job for their group’s ridiculous appetites.
Crumpled papers were splayed out on their table. Luffy had spilled a bit of syrup onto one of his math packets and it was in the middle of being patted down with water and dried to be somewhat presentable.
Her best friend’s face was currently in the middle of short-circuiting. His attention was waning thin. Luffy’s lips pursed, eyebrows furrowed as he hunched over the papers in front of him, one fork in his hand with syrup dripping from a soggy slice of pancake.
Hoku continued to chew, sick of these studies herself.
“So the answer,” Luffy said slowly. He rubbed the scar beneath his eye. A dumb thing he’d gotten trying to impress a man beyond both their leagues. “Is nothing.”
Hoku snorted. “It’s infinity, dumbass. It never ends.”
“Are you sure?” Luffy said, squinting. “You’re pretty dumb too. I think there’s just no answer. Hey, hey, let’s just leave it blank and then—”
“If you don’t do your half of the group project, Nami’s gonna kick your ass and then she’s going to come after mine,” Hoku said, looking a bit pale at the idea as she slumped forward onto the messy table as well, using her mouth to grab the edge of a pancake off her plate and slowly chew through it. “Dun cwah meh duhm, duhmash.”
“Shishishi, but you are!” Luffy snickered, kicking his feet out and mimicking her position. “We’ll just pay Nami money not to kick our ass and we win!”
Hoku groaned around a pancake at the dangerous word. She made sure strands of her white hair weren’t getting caught in stray puddles of syrup, lazily tugging it back up into a bun. “We’re broke, dumbass. She might be willing to take an IOU, but she’ll collect someday and…”
Hoku whimpered, wishing she could shove her face into the stack of pancakes beside her. “I need a jooooooooob.”
Luffy chewed in front of her, shoveling more pancakes into his mouth. Unbothered. He usually got off on the occasional odd job and Luffy always just had this… way of making things work out when they shouldn’t.
The diner was cheap. So it’d been her source of nutrition the past couple of weeks—aside from Sanji’s loving meal preps and Nami’s fruits constantly being brought back to her dingy apartment. The horrible, cold truth was that her funds were low. Financial aid covered for her classes and materials fine, but existing outside of school came off her savings and odd jobs or freelance work she picked up here and there.
“Maybe I shouldn’t have taken two years off,” Hoku said, squinting at her stack of pancakes as Luffy reached over and started eating them. “Might’ve landed me a better job…”
“Nah, you needed it,” Luffy said simply. “‘Sides, you had tons of fun. You don’t regret it at all.”
Hoku whimpered once more. “Ugh, you’re right.”
Hoku only stood at twenty-one, two years older than Luffy—but after her third year of high school, she’d chosen to leave Japan after her graduation ceremony and head back to her hometown, a small place in Hawaii. She’d decided on a two-year gap, getting in touch with old family friends of her late parents who were essentially relatives and just taking some time to herself after everything and doing a little self-searching but…
Hoku had come back and managed to enter back into college without much of a hitch. She and Luffy were now on the same pace to graduating with Nami and Usopp—if he or she didn’t fail in the meantime—Zoro was going to school part-time for police academy training, Sanji doing the same for his culinary school and full-time position at his father’s restaurant and at least all her buddies were still in school aside from Robin and Franky and Brook.
To be honest, her life was going pretty well so far, aside from finances. It’d been almost a year now since her break-up and the two of them were still on amicable terms and checked in with each other regularly, her friends were healthy and in her life, Shanks and his team were out exploring some new island and there’d be an interview on it soon they could tune into…
Hoku was happy.
But school aside—she was still unemployed and poor. No new jobs had been coming her way as of late and even Law helping her land that job with designing that new program promotion his residency had needed was gone to her rent in a blink.
“Why don’t you ask Torao to help you get a job at his hospital?” Luffy said loudly. “You can be a nurse or something.”
“I’m too dumb to save people’s lives,” Hoku said flatly. “And I’m an art major. That’s like… Telling a cat to go fly.”
Luffy opened his mouth.
“Never mind, stop there,” Hoku shoved her face into the sleek table, smelling the old wood. “You also need credentials to work in a hospital, Lu. Should I find a campus job? There’s gotta be an opening somewhere… Maybe I can see if the amusement park needs caricature artists or something--”
“But you hate that kinda stuff,” Luffy complained. “It’s boring. You’re never supposed to do the boring stuff ya hate.”
“But I’m broke,” Hoku said pitifully. “Maybe my pride can suck up being poor…”
Hoku turned so her chin was flat against the table, looking thoughtful. “Maybe I can gamble my way to being rich…”
Luffy chewed with a little more thought, making a constipated expression—he was really thinking about something.
Her phone vibrated with a little jingle on the other side of the booth. Hoku turned it over, making a little happy noise. They could worry about money later. She hated thinking about this kind of stuff. “Zoro’s out of class. Let’s meet up with him and Usopp for that movie.”
“I feel like I’m forgetting somethin’,” Luffy said, making a face. “Oh, man… what was it…”
“Answer your damn homework and let’s go,” Hoku said, stuffing her leftover pancakes into her mouth and waving her hand to the owner for a check. “Cuh mown.”
“Nothing, right?” Luffy said, about to press his pen in.
“Infinity,” Hoku said flatly, grabbing his pen and scribbling the horizontal 8 in for him. “Never ends. That point is always stuck. Kinda like insanity.”
“Like how you’re crazy.”
“You’re crazy, crazy, now c’mon. Let’s beat Usopp and make him pay for snacks.”
Luffy stuffed all the pancakes into his mouth, rushing out the door with his cheeks full. Hoku slapped their money onto the table and ran out after him, shoving extra napkins into her backpack.
.
.
.
Hoku stared at the last page of her canvas sketchbook with a reluctant frown, a small sigh slipping past her lips.
She’d tried to be as conservative as possible with all the negative space—but this was it. She went through sketchbooks faster than her small funds could afford, but she couldn’t help but always put aside a bit for her work—it’s what you love.
The rest of her art classmates were packing up their things for the day. Stools squeaked across the smooth floors. Easels or clipboards sliding back into place. The model at the center stood up, stretching her arms over her head as their professor instructed them on what to work on this weekend and to finish last assignments up. They’d just finished another open studio and there’d be a big project coming up soon enough… She was going to need to buy the new canvases and oil paints for that… Shit.
Her fingers twitched. Hoku couldn’t help but smile.
She loved what she did.
Even if you’re bad for my wallet.
“Looks like you finally need a new book,” Hoku’s smile dropped, fingers stopping at the edge of her book. The girl beside her leaned over, smiling, “You’ve been needing a new one, haven’t you?”
I don’t even remember your name. Hoku hadn’t bothered. She made a fair enough effort with remembering the names of her classmates, but this one in particular had made it clear where she stood. Wanted to be some high end artist—was on her way, probably, since she’d been showcased in several galas but—
The hidden hint behind her words was clear every time she spoke to Hoku. Blatant. A teasing curl of her lips.
“Don’t you think that’s sad?”
“You’re always using the front and back of each page,” she laughed. “I mean, the drawings are great, but you can afford a new one or two, right? I’ll donate one if you’re that prudent.”
A few eyes glanced over at the easy confrontation. Hoku kept her face even. After this semester, you won’t even matter.
“You can afford the tattoos right,” she continued with a light laugh, tapping the corner of her left eye where Hoku’s heart shaped tattoo was inked in around her eye, smeared at the end. “Just save a bit for a new sketchbook and some supplies while you’re at it. Got to keep up with your studies, you know?”
“I’m sorry,” Hoku said, it was actually starting to bother her now. “What’s your name again?”
Someone’s pencil dropped behind them. He stooped down to pick it up, hiding his face.
Her classmate’s face flushed red. Her eyes flickered, back and forth, assessing the reaction of the people around them. Barely anyone was watching—who cared? They were all here to learn and to hone their skills. No one needed more drama.
Hoku’s lips pulled into a polite smile, revealing baby canines.
“Come on,” she said, laughing with a titter, “It’s been half a semester. It’s—”
“HOOOOOKKKKUUUUUU—” Thin but muscular arms wrapped tight around her shoulders. Hoku floundered for a second, almost tumbling back over her chair at the added weight. The smell of the sun washed around her and Luffy’s hair tickled her cheek, pressing in close as he jumped around, almost ripping her from her seat.
Warmth pressed into her back. Hoku’s shoulders relaxed, everything cleared. Her lips turned upwards into a wide grin.
Luffy was a destructive, bumbling dumbass most of the time—but he could always turn a mood into a better one.
Shanks rubs off on you too much. She thought fondly, a bit of stupid smile curling over her lips. Maybe that’s a good thing.
“Hoku! Hoku! You won’t believe this—come on! Let’s get lunch, I’m hungry. I’ve got awesome news! It’s gonna blow your mind and—”
“Calm down, dumbass!” Hoku snapped. A few of her classmates looked on in amusement. The girl from earlier had already retreated, saving face. Wiser ones started to move their things out of the way. “You’re going to break something again!”
Her professor didn’t mind friends coming in and visiting or sitting in on lectures. But Luffy’s regular presence barreling through the art department was considered a public menace and had to be dealt with accordingly. “I’ve never seen anyone launch themselves off the second floor and bounce around the way he does, so for the love of god please keep him away from the ceramics class—”
“Did you just finish class?” Hoku said, adjusting herself to account for Luffy’s added weight. She walked with a backwards slump, leaning as Luffy dragged along the floor hanging off her while she gathered her supplies.
“Yup! Nami went to go get a table!” Luffy said happily. “Come on, come on, let’s go eat! I’m starving!”
Her stomach rumbled in agreement. Hoku pressed a warning hand to her stomach, using the other to shove her backpack over her shoulder and purposefully shove into Luffy’s cheek. “I’m hurrying, but what were you saying earlier?”
She shoved her stuff into her bag as quickly as she could, flipping her sketchbook closed and turning toward the door. Luffy was starting to clamber up her back and she wasn’t sure she could support him if he decided to test if she could give him a piggyback ride.
“Oh, yeah!” Luffy said, cheek squished against her knuckles. “I think I found a job for ya! And it pays!”
“You found me a job—”
Hoku’s foot tripped over the other, sending them both toppling to the floor in a massive heap of one screech and Luffy’s monkey-like laughter. A student quickly grabbed his easel, jerking it out of the way as they smashed into the ground.
“Shishishi, you’re such a klutz.”
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“If it’s Luffy, it’s probably some weird job throwing yourself off a cliff for fun,” Nami said warningly, neatly filed nails digging into the tangerine in her palm as she peeled it. “You guys are always talking about that explorer—what if it’s doing something illegal or—”
“Throwing yourself off a cliff and getting paid is fine,” Zoro said. He ran a hand through his spearmint colored hair, light catching off his golden earrings. “Just make sure you’re not secretly being employed for some kind of drug smuggling. You’re both idiots, so it’d happen.”
Luffy didn’t even look the slightest bit bothered, simply grinning stupidly to himself as he shoveled food into his mouth. Hoku—a little calmer and more sensible after stuffing her face with the cafeteria’s economically wonderful meal sets—gaped at the two of them in disbelief, blatantly offended.
The four of them were gathered in one of Grand College’s many cafeterias. Usopp was cramming last minute for another exam and should be running over any second. Hoku crossed her arms over her chest, shoving another forkful of pasta into her mouth. Nami leaned forward, setting a peeled tangerine down and smacking Luffy’s grabbing hands away as she set to work on another.
“I would not get involved in something like that without knowing,” Hoku grunted. Turning to Luffy she added, “If it’s drugs, I need to know how much it’s going to pay first.”
Zoro put her in a headlock, pointedly shoving her face into his chest where his nametag from his police training could smash into her cheek. Hoku’s arms flailed around, smacking into his cheek.
“Nah, it’s way better than any of that!” Luffy said, throwing his arms out in excitement. He stopped for a second. “Hey, wait, that sounds kinda fun—”
“Get on with it,” Nami and Zoro chorused.
Luffy grinned, turning to Hoku—who popped her head out over the top of Zoro’s tightened arm—with shining eyes. “Ace and Sabo are looking for someone to help them with this project!”
“Ace and Sabo?” Hoku’s eyes went round. A little box of memories peeled itself open, idle moments, pleasant laughter, warm memories wrapped around little flashes of awkward teenage encounters.
Hoku had known Luffy since she was a kid when his grandfather, a marine, had been stationed over in Hawaii at the time. Hoku’s parents had passed away a few years before that and after moving around, she’d spent some time with Mihawk until Garp swindled her into being looked after with Luffy…
She’d met Ace and Sabo young. When she was nine and they were ten--she remembered fighting all the time with Ace and Sabo being the genial, grinning mediator and those summers and years had been a great time and then she’d left to go live with Mihawk and eventually set up her own place. Their meetings were scattered in between coming to Luffy’s house with the three of them there after school—she and Luffy had gone to the same school for as long as she could remember—it’d gone on until high school, where meetings between them happened on occasion and then Hoku had left.
The two older brothers were great people—amazing even. Funny, easy to be around, always looking after Luffy first and foremost. She and Ace still butted heads and he could flip from a dotting older brother to an absolute menace but it’d been almost three years now since she’d last seen them.
Bright, golden blonde hair. Soot black waves. Hoku huffed over Zoro’s arm, resting her chin comfortably in the crook of his elbow. I wonder if they look any different… I think Luffy posted a picture not too long ago and they seemed well… She’d just never ended up getting in touch with them with everything she’d had going on.
It might be nice to see them again.
“I haven’t seen them in ages,” Hoku said thoughtfully. Luffy nodded his head so hard it almost snapped off. “How’re they doing?”
“They’re great!” Luffy said excitedly. “Never been better, and when they heard you came back into town forever ago, they’ve been saying they wanted to get in touch or somethin’ but they’ve been busy!”
“Your brothers?” Nami said, looking curious. “Isn’t Sabo working for that big designing company right now? The one that works with revolutionary protests through some of their lines?”
“Something like that,” Luffy said. “I never remember the name.”
“You never remember anything,” Zoro corrected. “I thought Ace was working part time as a firefighter. What kind of project would those two need help with? A fire proof line of clothes?”
Hoku looked interested. “That sounds kinda cool.”
Luffy nodded. Nami smacked the back of his head, urging him to continue. “Well, Ace does all kinds of stuff, but he models for Sabo’s work sometimes too. They’ve been doing a specific kinda work for some people.”
Luffy tipped his head to the side. His brows furrowed, crossing his arms over his chest in thought, “I think Sabo said something about… se… celery taste from one of their clients!”
“Selective,” Nami provided.
“Yeah, that! Anyway, one of ‘em wants something special done and Sabo remembered how good Hoku is with drawing and art and stuff!” Luffy said brightly. “I said you’re poor and you need a job—”
“Why’d you gotta say it like that, Lu?”
“And they were super excited and hoping you could help them out!” Luffy said. “See? It’s easy!”
“I’m not going to make your brothers pay me for something like that,” Hoku said, shaking her head in between Zoro’s arm. “They’ve done a lot for me before—they treated me like family when I was always bumming around at your place… I’ll just do it for free, what do they need? An ad? A—”
“Nono, dummy, they said they wanna pay ya because it’s a big job!” Luffy said. “It’ll take a lot of work or something and—ah! I almost forgot!”
Luffy grinned, shuffling around his pants’ pocket before he pulled out a crumpled, balled up paper. He handed it to Hoku, who reached around Zoro’s still loose and comfortable grip to fold it. “Sabo and Ace gave me this last week! It’s their numbers. Said to give them a call or text them if you were down to do it!”
“A week ago,” Zoro snorted. “Nice.”
“But I said we should all get together cause it’s been so long!” Luffy said cheerfully. He grinned, swinging his legs back and forth over the bench. “We can throw a party! Oh, man, we can make it huge and—”
“No parties until after midterms,” Nami said dangerously. “And whatever you decide, don’t forget we’ve got a girls day with Robin next week, Hoku!”
“Right, right,” Hoku said absently, staring at the two differently scrawled numbers—one in neat, even print and a more slurred, harder to read script. Ace and Sabo. “Well, I’ll text them and let them know I don’t mind helping out however. It’s the least I can do since it’s been so long.”
Hoku slumped, throwing herself half over Zoro’s lap. He shot her an unimpressed look and Hoku mimicked a limp fish.
“Maybe I’ll just work in the cafeteria,” Hoku said thoughtfully. “I can sneak meals and they’ll probably feed me too.”
“Sure,” Zoro said. “Like they’d let a klutz like you become a lunch lady. It’s bad enough that eyebrow freak cooks for anyone.”
Hoku made strangling motions at his neck. Zoro just shoved her face back into his lap, folding his arms on top of her head and yawning as she let out muffled screeches.
Luffy snickered. Nami finally relented and offered him a peeled tangerine. He popped it into his mouth and grinned, teeth shining and excitement bleeding into all of them.
“Oh, man, it’s been so long—this is gonna be great!”
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“Contributing to society yet, you unemployed bum?”
Hoku’s face shot up from the second helping of curry she’d been about to shove into her mouth without further consideration. Her face twisted, grumpy and angry—but only in the kind of way that came off as entirely defensive because the words thrown at her were blatantly true and painful, damn it.
“Hey, you jerk,” Hoku snapped, waving her spoon at the asshole in front of her. “When I start making it big, you’re going to eat those words.”
The currently sitting definition of tall, dark, and handsome. Changed out of his hospital gear and classical surgeon attire—because being a heart surgeon with an emphasis in being able to do surgery on just about anything else because he was a genius called for a lot of hours—and dressed in easy jeans and a black turtleneck. The fluorescent lighting of the homey curry restaurant caught off his slender piercing. His dark tattoos peeked out from the rolled up sleeves of his cuffs, the neatly printed letters staring back at Hoku as he held his too large cup of coffee—black as sin because he still had a shift tonight.
Hoku always had to wonder what his patients thought every time they saw DEATH staring back at them on the hands of their doctor before going under on the table. She got away with the snow white hair and tattoos because she was an “artist” so no one bothered her much.
Probably shit their pants. Or just cry.
Doctor Trafalgar D. Water Law did not look impressed.
“Maybe,” he said dryly, “if you don’t eat everything else first.”
Hoku flinched back as though she’d been struck. She shoveled more curry into her mouth, glaring hard at him from across the table.
“I keep asking myself why I hang out with you,” Hoku said. “You’re always taking your time and then when I think we’re going to have a nice time, you find some way to cut me open again.”
Law took a sip of his coffee, “You do it to yourself. And I hang out with you. Not the other way around.”
“That’s bullshit,” Hoku said around her spoon. “And ya know it, Torao.”
The two were about as far from each other on the spectrum as possible when it came to a small world. As a doctor and about three years older than herself—there could’ve never been an excuse for their paths to cross. It just happened one day that her art club had been assigned to help remodel and work with the children of their local hospital and overseeing the entire thing had been Hoku the klutz from her art club and Doctor Law, resident bachelor heart surgeon.
“You can’t paint monsters in the child ward, it’ll literally scare them to death.”
“Are you even listening to the kids? They want a wall of creepy and fun stuff so they can tell stories to each other.”
“You’ll give them all nightmares and it will reflect poorly on their health.”
“I’ll give them all a reason to run and they’re going to be dancing out of this hospital from how fit they are.”
And then there’d been a celebration party for finishing the joint project and Hoku drank a little too much—or maybe she’d just eaten something bad—and then she was throwing up on Law’s shoes.
Hoku had also been the reason why one of his buddies, Penguin, had managed to graduate in their shared anatomy class. Law was also fairly good friends with Kid—fairly because they always talked shit about each other but still hung out—and there’d never been a reason not to know each other anymore.
Besides, even if she told Law he was a bastard and this and that, she genuinely enjoyed his company. He was looking out for her here and there in his twisted, clinical, at times cold-hearted way.
“But no,” Hoku admitted bitterly, slumping back into her chair. Law leaned back in his own, satisfied as he threw one arm behind the chair next to him and watched her in silence. “It’s been months now and I’m just barely getting by on any project I can… Did you know I was thinking about working at the amusement park? Or the pier? I hate water. Why would I even want to spend more time there—”
“You’re afraid of water, you don’t hate it,” Law corrected. “It’s called aquaphobia.”
Hoku mimicked him.
Law kicked her knee under the table. She jerked it back in, nearly jostling their small little booth. Hoku and Law both grabbed their drinks to steady them.
“I mean, I’m not that bad,” Hoku rubbed her chin, shaking her head. “I think I’m one hell of an artist actually… I can go back into mechanics and pick up a job engineering for a while but…”
Hoku let out a small sigh. “No, that won’t work. It’s gotta be drawing after all.”
“Eustass-ya is coming back into town,” Law said, knowing what—who—mechanics made them think of.
Hoku looked up. Her face was neutral, amiable. “Oh, yeah?”
“Mentioned it,” he said. “Don’t know when.”
Hoku hummed. She played with a carrot on her plate and shoved it to the side. Law scowled. She grudgingly scooped it back up. “I’ll give him a call when he arrives. Maybe we can grab lunch or something.”
Law watched her over the rim of his cup. Hoku waved a hand at him. “We still check up here and there. I mean, when it’s not angry texting—but that’s all in good fun.”
Law’s brows creased in a suit-yourself sort of way.
“You can shift gears a bit,” Law said. “Get a teaching degree and why don’t you apply as an art teacher? You’d still get to do what you loved while working on individual projects. Quit when you’re ready.”
Hoku lowered her arms onto the table, her face a little more sober. “That’s… That’s probably the best idea, isn’t it? But I dunno… me? Teaching?”
Hoku laughed. She rubbed the back of her neck, dragging her fingers down the side and staring hard at her warped reflection on the metal table.
“I don’t think…” she said and stopped. Hoku shook her head, “I don’t think any parent would want someone like me teaching their kids.”
Law’s eyes flickered. His expression loosened, brows a little less furrowed, face a little easier to approach.
“Hoku-ya—”
“But you know what,” Hoku started up again brightly, eyes flashing in determination as she grinned, “there was this girl in my class today—making digs about this and that and just wait. I’m going to pick up an awesome job and come in with my regular gear because I’m not an idiot who blows her cash on fancy materials!”
Hoku’s chest puffed out in pride. She grinned, proud as a peacock and tipped her chin high in the air. “Long live homemade art materials!”
“You’re the only one who can get away with that,” Law said. “Barely.”
“I’m so confident I’m going to get a job,” Hoku said. “That I’m paying for dinner tonight.”
Law looked vaguely amused. He let his chin rest on his palm, watching her.
“So if I went ahead and ordered the deluxe beef curry set—”
“I,” Hoku said, using her best bluffing face, “wouldn’t even blink.”
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Law ended up ordering the set to-go. And paying for the meal—he simply stepped over Hoku’s embarrassingly fallen form when she tripped on her way to the cashier—and handed the food to her after dropping her off in front of her apartment before he took off for his night shift.
“Eat,” Law had threatened, rolling up his window and ignoring her cursing and ranting like she were no more than a fly at his car. “Skip meals and I’ll check you into the hospital myself.”
Hoku threw up both her middle fingers, stomping all the way to her apartment door for emphasis. Law’s sleek car waited in the parking lot until her door opened pointedly wide and closed before pulling off.
“I never skip meals,” Hoku muttered, shrugging her shoes off and hobbling into the living room after setting the food down on the counter. “I love eating.”
Her apartment wasn’t a grand thing, but it was a little more spacious for the great price she was paying. Banged up. Creaky pipes and floorboards—but it held, sturdy and true.
The two bedroom apartment had been shifted so one was her actual bedroom while the other was her studio and guest room—she usually ended up sleeping there when she was working late into the night anyway. Photos were thrown up left and right. Stacks of papers and sketchbooks were scattered all over the apartment. A massive poster hung over her bed of a certain red-haired explorer’s greatest and her favorite excursion.
A small television set and coffee table. A sectioned off kitchen with an island countertop. Her sleek, comfy leather black couch which was a gift from Mihawk—
Hoku flopped down onto the couch, sinking deep into the cushions. She let out one long, low groan.
I’m such a loser. Hoku pressed herself as deep into the couch as she could, willing it to swallow her whole and never let her see the light of day again. You were supposed to come back from those two years and be different. You haven’t done anything.
Her phone vibrated against her ass and Hoku lazily tugged it out of her pocket, half-throwing it toward her face.
“LETS TRY THIS PLACE IT LOOKS GOOD!!!!!” Hoku snorted at Luffy’s text, a smiling touching her lips and scrolling down. Usopp sent a photo of Zoro asleep on their couch. Training must be rough. Nami texted her a reminder to make a reminder in her phone for her date with Robin and the three of them. A notice from her professor about the material list for class next week.
“Heard things are turning up for you. Keep me posted.” Robin.
Hoku’s hand shuffled through her jacket pocket. Her fingers closed around the crumpled piece of paper and she carefully smoothed it back out, staring at the two numbers.
Honestly… she only really had good memories of Sabo and Ace. Well, when she and Ace weren’t butting heads or strangling each other about something. Luffy loved them as much as he could love anyone, so they’d always been important people to her too.
Grade school, middle school, high school… Hoku rifled through the mess of memories. Coming over to their house. Running from their grandfather. Crowding by a television. After school runs to the best food stalls… all just classic, simple memories.
Hoku pulled up an empty message, typing in both numbers into a new group chat. Her fingers hovered over the letters, contemplating the kind of greeting that should’ve fit a gap this long… They couldn’t have changed too much, right?
Hoku typed, deleted, re-typed for several minutes before finally hitting send and dropping her phone onto the rug, rolling over and burying her face between the couch cushions. A minute, two, her shoulders went slack and she finally fell asleep.
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Another minute. A beat.
Her screen flickered to life with a response. A calm ten minutes later.
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Hey, Ace, Sabo!
It’s Hoku—haha, it’s been awhile, huh? Sorry for being so shitty at staying in touch. Hope you guys are doing well! Are you still holding the three of you guys together? Ace haven’t lost his head yet dropping dead somewhere? Lu says you guys have been busy.
He finally gave me your numbers and mentioned you had a project you needed help with. Don’t worry about paying or anything, I’d be happy to help out! You guys are like family, y’know? I don’t know how much I can do, but let me know. Let’s catch up. :)
Changed at all?
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Hoku,
It’s so nice to say your name again after so long! Took Luffy long enough. It’s been ages, hasn’t it? Ace and I are better than ever, well, trying at least. I’m so glad to finally speak with you again after all this time. I hope your trip was everything you needed and now you can enjoy a long stay back home. I could go on forever, but let’s save the rest for in person, shall we?
Yes! I’m not sure how much Luffy told you about it, but we’d love to discuss with you further. Face to face. When is the soonest you can meet? Ace is asleep right now, but I’ll let him know as soon as he wakes up. The lug.
Hope to be in contact with you soon,
Sabo.
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Two minutes passed and a second message was sent, accompanied by a warm, smiling face.
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Haven’t changed a bit. Missed you, Hoku.
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Shit. Hoku exhaled, adjusting her tote bag over her shoulder—Luffy had bought it for her on a random splurge, dotted with stars. Her head tipped to the side, as though looking at the beautiful building would change what she was seeing.
A few people walked past her, offering strange looks.
The dessert restaurant was famous. Newly opened, lovely. Two floors with nothing but booths overlooking the city and cozy cafes where people could gather to enjoy all kinds of sweets—for those not as inclined to sugar, they had an array of sandwiches and anything to all varying tastes.
Hoku had been eyeing this place for months now, enviously searching through images online or drooling into her pillow as she scrolled through food bloggers. She and Nami and Robin were supposed to finally try it next weekend when Robin came back from her latest trip…
Lucky me. Hoku whistled, shaking her head as she stepped up to the patisserie and opened the door with a gentle jingle of the golden bell on top. Now I get to go twice.
She’d woken up, creases in her face from where she’d shoved herself between the couch cushions, to several new messages. The only one that’d stood out, neatly typed in a way most people would never text like a letter, and addressed with his name since she didn’t have his number already saved—
Sabo.
Hoku had stared at the message with wide eyes, not quite believing what she was seeing, drool dried to her chin. Hoku’s eyes had brightened and she’d quickly responded, getting even a little excited because—it was Ace and Sabo—they were good friends. I missed them.
It was supposed to be nice--reconnecting with people you hadn’t seen for a long time.
Hoku’s eyes searched the crowds of people gathered together, focusing on the host stand. A host stand for a bakery, damn. Hoku seemed to be on the lesser scale of dress—high waisted shorts with her halter top tucked in—but I’ll be alright. The entire first floor could be seen from the second story where people could make reservations for secluded booths to enjoy their sweets and tea. We should be on the first floor...
Hoku stopped short. She stood there in the middle of the bakery, face calm.
I mean they… Hoku’s eyes slowly scanned over the crowd one more time, doing a thorough comb over. They can’t be… that different right? Am I crazy?
She stopped at every blonde and black haired male, craning her head, shuffling around the bakery and trying to peek around to get a look at different faces. Trying and failing to be as discreet as possible. No freckles. No scar on the left side of his face. Nothing.
Hoku shuffled through her bag, fishing out her phone.
Right time. Hoku checked the message thoroughly. Right place. Meet here… there aren’t any other instructions. Am I just first?
If she remembered right, Sabo was always so punctual… Hoku made a face, turning around on her heel. Should I just go get a table? I’ll just go get a table—
“Excuse me miss, are you looking for your party?”
Hoku’s phone slipped like butter through her fingers. Her foot shot out, trying to catch it and she almost toppled over completely, grabbing the nearest chair and steadying herself.
The host who’d approached her looked horrified, as though he’d almost witness an apocalypse occur right before his eyes.
“Hi,” Hoku said. A few people were looking. She bent down to grab her phone, shoving it into her bag. “I—what?”
“Your party,” the host repeated kindly. “With a Mr. Sabo, correct?”
Hoku stared at the host with round eyes.
He smiled, “He told us to look out for you. He’s already waiting at the table if you’d like to follow me, miss.”
“Oh,” Hoku said dumbly. She straightened out, staring at the host like an idiot. “I… I didn’t see him. Where is he?”
“This way, miss,” the host gathered up a menu and began his ascent toward the steps.
Hoku stared at the stairs. Stairs led to a second floor. The second floor was a fancy floor.
Hoku pressed her hand into her mouth, staring.
Maybe it’s the wrong Sabo?
“Would you prefer the elevator, miss?” the host said, looking worried. “Forgive me—”
“No, no, no, stairs are fine!” Hoku quickly scampered after him. The host smiled, leading the way up the winding staircase the short distance to the second floor. “I just—I thought he was on the first floor. Sorry. Thank you for your time.” Stop talking, you dumbass.
The host continued to smile, leading them past a narrow walkway of several private rooms and booths. You can see everything from here. Hoku eyed the bottom floor, wondering if anyone had watched her flailing around like a mouse. Or a fish. Or just an idiot in general.
They walked a short distance, coming close to where part of the second floor was sectioned off against the railing of the top floor. The other half of the floor opened up with wide glass windows, showing the entire city and the bay across the distance.
This is so nice. Hoku glanced around in disbelief. I can’t imagine the price tags up here, gotta tell Nami and Robin.
A single booth sat at the end of the walkway, pushed to the back. A perfect vantage point of the entire first floor and the breathtaking view on the side—
Golden blonde hair fell a little longer now. It still had its wavy sort of curve, kissing the sculpted, angular line of his jaw. His eyes still had that soft little light to them, curious as he surveyed the menu in front of him. His skin was fair, a burn scar over the left side of his face, around his eye. There was a larger one hidden beneath the neat, cream dress shirt he wore inside a dark, navy blue sweater.
He looked older—more mature, a redefined version of himself, as though someone had simply adjusted the resolution of a good photo, complimenting what already was. Dapper and gentle and charming all at once—
But still, maybe, the same after all.
“Sabo!” Hoku’s eyes went wide, an easy grin touched her lips and she strode forward. Hesitancy lined the back of her steps, careful. Even if we got along fine and were pretty close, it’s still been awhile and—how do you do stuff like this again?
His eyes flickered upwards immediately, finding her with perfect ease. They went a little round, brightening in an instant. His lips turned upwards into one bright, warm smile.
Some small part of Hoku quieted. His eyes were warm, almost hot. He was looking at her like finally, finally, something had fallen into place and it was all right—
Hoku balked for a second, uncertain. Her heart warmed at the sight, a flood of pleasant memories and—
And what?
“Hoku!” that’s really his voice. It’s been so long. Sabo stood from his seat, stepping around the table into the walkway. The host behind them set the menu down, backing off so they could be alone. Hoku almost reached out to grab his arm and ask him to stay, just to have another person here because—why would you do something like that, you’re so weird, it’s just a reunion with someone you haven’t seen in awhile—
Sabo’s shiny loafers stopped a few feet from her. His arms had been raised for a second, but his face quickly shifted with obvious hesitation, waiting uncertainty. His lips pursed, waiting in that dorky expression of his. Brows a little furrowed. Hoku stood there like an idiot, telling her mind to shut up and—
Hoku let all other thoughts melt away. It was Sabo. She knew Sabo. She knew him when he was missing a tooth. This is Luffy’s brother. He’s practically family. She gathered her footing beneath her, steadying.
Hoku stepped into his embrace, meeting him the rest of the way. Sabo’s entire face lit up, eyes warming.
It was a ridiculously...nice feeling, to be looked at like that.
Her arms came around his middle and Sabo’s arms instantly wrapped tight around her in a bear hug, wrapping around her shoulders and holding her snug. He almost lifted her off her feet. Hoku laughed, patting his back as Sabo held her tight for a moment, the smell of his cologne washing over her, smelling like something expensive and roguish. He laughed back into the crown of her hair, air ghosting past her ears as he moved his head to the side then, right by her ear.
“Hoku!” Sabo said. “It’s been so long! It’s so good to finally see you-—look at you! You got taller!”
“Says you,” Hoku snorted, pulling back a bit so she could crane her head up to his face. Her ear twitched. Sabo laughed, loosening his grip around her so she could shift more comfortably in his arms. “Look at ya—who said you could grow this tall, you jerk?”
“You look absolutely wonderful,” Sabo said graciously. Hoku stiffened in surprise. She shuffled a bit backwards and Sabo quickly released his hold on her, letting her back out of the hug. “You do! You let your hair grow out—it looks beautiful.”
“No, I just,” Hoku stopped, pressing a hand to her mouth in surprise. “I forgot how you were. You’re always saying stuff like that—caught me off guard, ya bastard.”
“With a compliment?” Sabo laughed, a warm, breezy kind of sound. Hoku’s lips pulled up at the corners. “You deserve dozens more with how long it’s been.”
“You look great!” Hoku punched his chest lightly with a fist. Sabo grinned boyishly, beaming down at her. “All dressed up too—couldn’t beat that royal look out of you, could you?”
“Decided to embrace a different kind of style,” Sabo chuckled. “I’m not missing any teeth this time, right?”
The image of a beaming, grinning blonde boy with scuffed up shorts, a creased hat and a gap where his tooth was missing—Hoku’s smile widened. Yeah, that’s right. This is Sabo.
Sabo took a moment to look at her, as though he were seeing her again for the very first time. Hoku’s nerves rattled for a second, a chill racing down her spine. You’re just nervous. Calm down, you dumbass. His face visibly softened. The chill disappeared. Eyes warm, he clasped his hands together in front of him.
“I’m glad you’ve been well,” Sabo said softly, smiling. “It really is nice to see you again, Hoku.”
“I’m sorry I was so bad at staying in touch,” Hoku said, brows furrowing. “I should’ve called once or twice to check up on you guys… Luffy told stories every now and then and I guess that always seemed enough.”
“No, we should’ve made more of an effort on our part,” Sabo said. He guided her to the table and Hoku slipped into the seat in front of him. His fingers gently glided over her arm, over her skin, smoothly taking her bag and hooking it over the back of the chair. Hoku blinked, realizing she hadn’t even known that he’d been getting her bag—
For a brief moment, Hoku stilled. A force of habit. It only lasted a second, anyway.
Sabo’s frame towered over her. One hand resting on the edge of the chair where he was releasing the bag, the other steadying himself on the table but—
You’re boxed in.
And then Sabo was gone and she was free and Hoku relaxed even though she never should’ve been tense in the first place.
“I’m sorry Ace couldn’t come, he wanted to see you too,” Sabo said, pulling away with a frown. “He had an important shift today so he couldn’t get off.”
“We can definitely meet up again,” Hoku said surely. “With Lu next time too, catch up like old times. I want to see more of you guys for sure.”
Sabo smiled at her—it almost made her feel as though she were being praised for something. She’d said the right answer.
“Things just got so busy with work and you were in your third year,” Sabo said. He took a seat beside her, brows creased apologetically. “You were seeing someone at that time too, weren’t you? Relationships, school, it all gets so hectic.”
“That’s… yeah, that’s right,” Hoku blinked in realization. Sabo folded his hands together on top of the table, expression soft. Understanding. Kid and I were together and I was focused on spending time with everyone before I left and then….
Had she just forgotten about Ace and Sabo? Enough to not even give her best friend’s brothers a proper goodbye—
“That’s no excuse though,” Hoku said, brows furrowing. Had that really been what happened? Holy shit, Hoku. They’re like family—how could you do something like that? Kid had taken up a lot of her time sure, but she’d wanted to spend that time with everyone because she was going to be gone for so long. “Shit, I’m sorry Sabo—”
“Don’t even think about apologizing,” Sabo said, shaking his head sternly. Hoku’s lips pursed. “We could’ve called you just as easily as you could’ve called us. It’s a two way street. No one needs to apologize here.”
Even if you say that, I’m still going to make it up to you guys. Hoku huffed, leaning back and crossing her arms over her chest in thought. “Doesn’t mean it didn’t suck.”
“Maybe,” Sabo said, a light chuckle. He looked so happy. It was hard not to keep staring at him, to feel happy herself. Infectious. A waiter came and swiftly left behind two steaming mugs and Hoku looked up in surprise. “Sorry! I took a guess at the menu—I’ve never been here before and I got what they recommended and looked the best…”
“No—you’re fine!” Hoku pulled the mug closer to her, eyes growing wide. She instantly grabbed for some sugar cubes and Sabo looked amused. “This is their apple tea, right? Ah, I’ve been wanting to try this, nice call.”
“Thank goodness,” Sabo seemed to deflate in absolute relief, melting down into his seat. Hoku snorted, staring at him in disbelief. “Sorry, I got worried for a second I ordered something awful--still like apples, huh?”
“Enough,” Hoku said. “My favorite is still—”
“Longan,” Sabo said.
Hoku blinked in surprise, looking up from the steaming cup in her hands.
Sabo smiled. He pulled his cup—coffee or an espresso by the smell of it—closer toward him. Sabo reached for the sugar jar. “I always think about you when I see them in stores—it’s such a weird fruit to choose to eat on your own, so I remember the time you had us all try it and—”
“Lu choked on the seeds,” Hoku’s lips curved fast into a grin, “I know what you mean. I always remember random things because of people too. You start to link people up with the stuff and places in your life.”
“Exactly,” Sabo said with a warm smile. He dropped a cube in, picking up the small spoon and starting to stir, slow and easy. “Come on, tell me all about it—how was everything? Luffy said it was something like a… soul searching experience?”
“Sort of,” Hoku laughed, pushing her hair back over her head and holding it there for a second. The apple tea smelled amazing. “I wanted to get in touch with some old family friends, help fix up the town I was born in… just spend some time there. It’s home, you know?”
Sabo looked openly curious, taking a sip of his coffee. “Are you thinking of settling there?”
“Oh, no, nothing like that,” Hoku shook her head, rubbing the back of her neck. “Settling is a tentative word anyway. I love it here to much and all my friends are here, you know? I like my apartment and what I’ve got going fine.” Just minus a steady income.
“That’s true,” Sabo said, looking thoughtful. “There’s just so much here… It’d make more sense.”
“Mhm,” Hoku said. “But it was nice. I needed it. It helped me with a lot of sorting out and growing, I think.”
“The growing I can agree on,” Sabo said warmly. Hoku made a face. “You’re lovely, Hoku. You’ve always been.”
“Stop,” Hoku laughed, wrapping her hands around the cup. It warmed her palms. “I mean, I can talk about my trip and stuff, but what’s been going—”
“Wait,” Sabo said, looking surprised. “You said apartment—are you living off campus?”
“Yeah, like Lu,” Hoku said. “They’re apartment was too crowded, even though they offered a room, so I found my own place.”
“Ah,” Sabo said. He dropped another sugar cube into his coffee. “With your boyfriend?”
Hoku smiled softly. Her eyes dropped down to her tea, staring at the murky red color. Nowhere near the bright, flaming red— “Your hair’s like hot cheetos.” “Keep talking and I’m going to shove you out of my car.”—“Ah, no, nothing like that. Just me. We actually broke up about… a year ago now?”
Sabo’s face shifted instantly. His brows creased, spoon pausing in the air. Apologies flooded his eyes, mouth opening in quick understanding that he’d just asked something like that—but Hoku waved him off, shaking her head and hand in turn. “No, no, don’t even start. We parted on good terms. I was supposed to only be gone a year, but I decided to stay longer and we had a bit of a falling out and yada yada.”
Hoku smiled, earnest, “But we’re still good friends. No drama or anything.”
“Still,” Sabo said, brows creased, looking ashamed. “I’m sorry for asking so insensitively like that. You don’t just go barreling through past relationships—sorry, Hoku. I didn’t mean to bring up any bad memories—”
“There aren’t any,” Hoku said.
Sabo dropped his spoon into his coffee, starting to stir again, slow, “That’s good. It seems like you both handled it well, then.”
There really weren’t. Even with all their fighting and butting heads, they always sobered up and acted out of each other’s best interests when it came down to it. He’d wanted her to come back—come with him—and she hadn’t known what she was looking for—
Don’t think about that now. Hoku shook her head. This is a different occasion.
Hoku’s mouth opened, eager to shift gears—
“Why’d you decide to stay the extra year?” Sabo questioned, stirring absently. Hoku looked up. Her tea was starting to cool enough now so that it wouldn’t burn her tongue.
“I just realized a year wasn’t enough to find what I was looking for,” Hoku said. “It got hard, making the decision cause I missed everyone so much, but it was a good one. I think it helped.”
Her gut twisted. Had it? She might’ve had a great time—gotten to see Shanks with his surprise stay, Mihawk came and they explored the island her mother had loved, her friends visited—but had it? Here she was now, still moving through life, still going about things but had it—
Changed anything?
Hoku thought about the lack of jobs. Thought about Law’s suggestion to switch gears. Am I even doing things right? Kid slipped into the back of her mind. Yeah, they hadn’t ended on bad terms, but had her decision even been a right one? Had there ever been a reason for them to—
Quiet black gloves, a soft underside of leather, touched her hand. Hoku jumped, eyes dropping down and realizing she hadn’t even noticed Sabo’d been wearing gloves. That’s new. Her eyes flickered back up and she realized his face was creased in worry, eyes watching her openly. “Hoku?”
Shit. “I’m sorry,” Hoku said, pulling her hands back. Sabo’s hand dropped onto the table and he glanced to it for a moment before looking back to her. Hoku used one hand to grab her cup, the other pushing her hair back out of her face from habit. “Got lost in thought—what’d you say?”
“I’m just glad you’re back,” Sabo said. He pulled his hand back, letting it rest in his lap as he brought his cup back to his lips. “Hopefully to stay. Have you had a chance to do everything you’ve missed since coming home?”
“Oh, plenty,” Hoku said, slumping in relief at the change in topic. Think happy. Think Sabo. Don’t worry about the other stuff. He doesn’t need that. Or deserve it. “The lot of losers has been making sure I do.”
“I can imagine with them,” Sabo said, looking amused. He let his cheek rest onto one hand, using the other to twirl his cup. “Luffy always talks about you guys when we meet up. Took him long enough to finally get us in touch again.”
“That’s right!” Hoku clapped her hands together. Sabo blinked. Smiling like a lost puppy. “The whole reason for this—Lu said you guys needed help with a project right? What is it? I don’t know how much I can do but I’ll try my best—”
“So you only came today because of that?” Sabo mused, tipping his head to the side, resting on his hand. Strands of wavy blonde fell a bit onto the side of his face. “I thought we were catching up.”
Hoku paled, her jaw went slack. “No—oh my god—no. You guys don’t have to pay me—I won’t let you pay me. I just wanted to help—”
Sabo’s laugh broke through. Breezy, curling past her ears. Hoku stumbled over her words, stopping as his gloved fingers hid only parts of his bright smile. “I’m sorry, I’m just teasing. You’re still so easy to tease.”
Hoku’s mouth opened and closed like a fish. She settled back into her seat, rubbing the top of her head. “Ah, jeez. You’re awful, Sabs.”
Sabo’s smile widened behind his fingers. His eyes were impossibly warm and Hoku stopped, staring. “What? You keep looking at me with that dumb smile—”
“I was wondering if you’d call me that again,” Sabo admitted, eyes softer now, still so, so warm.
Hoku blinked. She laughed, “You could’ve just asked. I’m sure other people call you that too. You’re so weird.”
“Maybe,” Sabo agreed, looking amused by her choice of words. “Hoku, what have you been up to aside from—”
“No, wait,” Hoku waved her hands, halting him.
Her eyes were on the table. Sabo’s eyes flickered briefly. He pulled his hand away from his mouth, adjusting his comfortable position to sit back in his seat. Hoku glanced back up to him to see a patient smile. It’d felt like the poor guy had to direct this entire conversation, Hoku didn’t even realize how much he was guiding it.
“The project,” Hoku said. “That first. I keep getting all twisted up with you. There’s too much to talk about. Let’s do that first.”
“Alright then,” Sabo said, a little laugh to his words. “It’s… Well, it’s less of a project and more of a personal request from a client of ours for a… specific piece of artwork.”
“That seems simple enough,” Hoku said, her hands curling around her tea to finally take a sip. “But last I heard, you and Ace are doing different kinds of work—is there a reason why they went to you?”
“There is,” Sabo said with a nod. He reached a gloved hand out across the table. Hoku blinked, curious, but Sabo waited patiently.
Hoku pulled her hands away from her tea. She limply poked Sabo’s gloved hand. The blonde laughed, shoulders shaking with the motion. “No, see, I’m not sure if you’re familiar or if Luffy told you, but I’ve been working with a designer company for a long time now. A close coworker and friend of mine designed these.”
“Oh, that’s right!” Hoku said, feeling a little stupid. The brand was labeled neatly, tucked away to not be too flashy on the inner seam of the glove. “Liberator, right? So the client met you two from this?”
“Catching on quick,” Sabo praised. Hoku’s cheeks flushed a bit and she rubbed the back of her neck. Sabo smiled warmly, “Sure enough, both of us are nowhere near a more… artistic sense of experience. I’ve been working and Ace models from time to time, but our client approached us from that line of work. We’ve been helping them out with their requests and they had a more specific one this time. They wanted a portrait. Or a series of them, to keep.”
Sabo sighed, leaning back in his seat. He laced his fingers together over the table. “It had us both stumped for awhile, to be honest. It seemed doable, but we didn’t know who to go to for something of this nature—but then we remembered Luffy mentioning you were back and town and he said you’ve been running into awful luck with work—”
Hoku sank lower in her seat, “How much did he say about that?”
Sabo’s face didn’t hold a hint of judgement. There was a fond sort of pity and understanding, he winced on her behalf, “You seem to be struggling quite a bit financially is what we got from it.”
Hoku grumbled to herself. Damn it, Luffy and your dumbass, big mouth. “Listen, it really isn’t that bad—”
“Don’t worry,” Sabo said, “I won’t pry. I want to. But I won’t. It’s not fair to come barging into your life after all this time and tell you whatnot just because.”
“I know you guys wouldn’t mean it like that,” Hoku said, feeling horribly touched at his words. And… relieved. He’d said exactly what she’d been hoping to hear. “You just care. You guys have always been sweet on those you care about.”
Sabo rubbed the back of his neck this time, looking sheepish. “It’s nothing like that—”
“No, no, it is,” Hoku said. “But anyway, forget about money. Keep goin’.”
“Well, it still has to do with money, actually,” Sabo said. “We both wanted you instantly because we love the way you draw—you’ve always been amazing at it, no matter what it was.”
Hoku’s chest flooded with unrestrained pride. She sank lower into her seat, covering her forehead with one hand and biting her lower lip. “I—I still have a lot to work on—”
“Hoku, look at me.”
Hoku followed the instruction, startled.
Sabo’s face was stern. His eyes held her in place, brows creased in that little way to show how earnestly he meant what he was about to say. “Hoku, you’re an amazing artist.”
Hoku grabbed her tea cup. Sabo opened his mouth, eyes flickering quickly with something—but she already brought it roughly to her lips, a bit sloshing over as she took a long, hard sip—it was delicious—and swallowed.
A bit dripped down her chin. Hoku laughed, a little too loud, flustered and embarrassed and yeah, it’s nice to hear all that but it doesn’t make it any less—I dunno. She was always shit at stuff like this. “Okay, I get it, you like the drawings—what’s the job—”
Sabo’s expression looked lost for a moment. Hoku blinked, realizing he seemed entirely zoned out. His eyes were following something on the corner of her chin and Hoku stopped, quickly rubbing at the tea that’d spilled down her chin—
“I’m sorry,” Sabo said, blinking back into focus. He ran a hand through his hair, pushing it out of his face for a moment and then smiling at her. “I didn’t catch that. I lost my train of thought this time.”
“No, you’re fine,” Hoku said. “We’re even now.”
Sabo stared at her for a second before he said, a bit soft, “You’re awful at listening to directions, aren’t you?”
“A bit,” Hoku said. Sabo’s fingers curled around his cup. “Keep going about that client. Needed an artist. What’s next?”
“Ah, yes,” Sabo folded his hands back together onto the table. “Well, we figured we were killing two birds with one stone by asking you. Help you out with your situation, and secure the piece we needed for this request. We’ll need you twice a week for an entire month, starting as soon as you can. It’ll only be in the evening, and we can work around your school schedule, but when you come in, how long it runs for may vary each time. We can supply any materials you’ll need, canvases and all, and all you’ll have to do is just draw.”
“That sounds…” Hoku said, “Really well-thought out.”
Sabo smiled, “We tried to be thorough with our planning to make sure everything went smoothly.”
“I… I don’t see any reason why not,” Hoku said, blinking. “You just need me to draw specific pieces—what is your client looking for? It sounds like there’ll be a model or a specific scene in mind. And honestly, Sabs, don’t even worry about the payment—I’d just like to help you guys out.”
“I have to insist you take the pay,” Sabo said, shaking his head. “It isn’t coming from Ace or I, honest. It’s directly paid from the client. And I have to say, they do pay rather handsomely.”
“Then you guys should keep the money,” Hoku protested. “I really can’t—”
“You’re the one doing the work,” Sabo said. “I have to insist.”
“But if they’re a friend of yours, I don’t want to make them pay,” Hoku said. “It won’t be too much trouble. I might not even be up to their standards—”
“Our business is strictly professional,” Sabo reassured. Fingers folded neatly together, sitting on top of the table. “You can take the pay, it really isn’t—”
“I’m not going to do the job if you guys are gonna pay me.”
Sabo stopped. Hoku’s face was set, stern. Sabo stared at her for a long, long minute, hands still folded so neatly in front of him and eyes quiet—
Sabo smiled, his face was playful, “Still as stubborn as ever.”
“Enough about money,” Hoku said. I’m sick of thinking about it, honestly. “What are they looking to have drawn? It doesn’t sound like it’s something off the top of my head. What’d they have in mind?”
“Ah, well,” Sabo looked a little thoughtful this time, contemplative. He seemed to be working through his words before he faced her evenly, an air of professionalism coating his friendly demeanor. “I don’t doubt your skills in the slightest, Hoku. I remember you’ve always been fond of drawing people too…”
Hoku waited, holding her cup in her hands. I’ve been taking forever to drink this thing. I keep getting distracted.
“I have to ask though,” Sabo said, “are you well acquainted with drawing anatomy?”
“Sure,” Hoku said, the cup at her lips. She’d assistant taught an anatomy drawing class. “All ranges. You’re right, people are usually my go-to for focus.”
Sabo leaned forward onto his elbows. His hands were interwoven together, placed over the lower half of his face. His expression was neutral.
“Nude models as well?”
Hoku nodded, not missing a beat. She’d dealt with the initial embarrassment of drawing nude models years ago from earlier classes. At the end of the day, it bled into a kind of intrigue to figure out how well you could draw people, at their rawest, at their most bare—it was intimate, and you wanted to make it beautiful. They all had the same body parts at the heart of it—when it came to her pencil and paper, there was nothing else to think about except the drawing. No strings attached.
I mean, Hoku felt an inch of heat creep up the back of her neck. It colored the top of her ears. It’s not like I’ve never been naked with anyone before… either…
Sabo watched her over the top of his fingers.
“I won’t scream or run out of the room if I see boobs or someone’s junk,” Hoku said flatly. Sabo’s lips turned up at the corners, holding back a laugh. “I’ve done nude shoots plenty of times, so don’t worry about that.”
“That’s good,” Sabo said, “See, our client is looking for something of a more… intimate nature.”
When you’re undressed like that in front of anyone, it’s already something intimate. Hoku nodded, following along.
“It’ll be an entirely private affair,” Sabo said evenly. “Closed quarters. Our clients are trusted people. Strictly business. You won’t have to worry about having your name attached to anything either, unless you’re particularly proud of a piece and want to use it for anything.”
His reflection in the dark cup of coffee couldn’t be seen, less than half full. Hoku’s reflection warbled back against her tea.
“You’ll only have to draw,” he said. “The time frames will range though, forgive me on that.”
Hoku shook her head, “You really have nothing to apologize for, honestly.”
Sabo smiled over the top of his hands. “There won’t be any given cues. They’re looking for something… natural. Whatever catches your eye in the moment it all happens, you choose what you’d like to draw. Whatever stands out to the artist should be worth something, after all.”
Free reign. Hoku nodded thoughtfully. She’d done some works like this before—almost like hiring a photographer, but looking for someone to draw it instead.
Sabo let out a loud sigh. Hoku looked up, curious. His shoulders had slumped, face visibly relaxed as he offered her a sheepish smile. “I’m sorry. Working this out with you has lifted a huge weight off my shoulders. You have no idea how much you’re helping us out with this. We… we really needed the help.”
I’ll do my best. These guys have always been nothing but kind to me. Hoku straightened.
“When do you think is the soonest you can start?” Sabo questioned.
“Whenever!” Hoku said eagerly. “I’m in school Monday through Thursday, but classes end way before the evening. I’ll let you know if anything comes up.”
“Today’s Wednesday,” Sabo pulled out his phone, opening up his calendar. “Will Friday be too soon? The timing is perfect since it’s the first of the month…”
“No, that’s totally fine,” Hoku said, nodding. “I can do Friday.”
“I’ll text you the time and address then and further information,” Sabo said cheerfully. He turned his phone over face down onto the table, focusing back on her. “You can send me a list of anything you might need and we’ll have it ready.”
“I have a lot of my own supplies,” Hoku said. “Maybe just let me know if there’s specific size or style your client is looking for. Charcoal, ink, graphite—”
“Classic pencil should do,” Sabo said easily. “They’re not too picky.”
“Will the client be the model?” Hoku said.
“Ace, the client, and myself,” Sabo answered cleanly. “Poses will range. The entire thing will be a bit like… a simulation, if you will. If there was a moment where something stood out and you couldn’t capture it, we have cameras recording in the room on all sides, so just let us know after it’s done and we can send you the tapes.”
Ace and Sabo… Hoku’s brows furrowed. Her gut shifted a little. That… That might get a little weird, won’t it? Drawing them naked is kind of weird.
“We really needed the help.”
“Will any of that be a problem?” Sabo asked gently, brows furrowed in worry.
Hoku’s stomach twisted a bit more.
You’ve drawn your friends in all kinds of ways before. Hoku reminded herself. You helped your classmates with their own projects—you’ve drawn people you know really well nude and different and all kinds of different things—it’s just that. No strings attached. It’s not really intimate at all.
“None at all,” Hoku said.
It was just another job. Pencil and paper. Nothing more.
“And Hoku?”
She looked up. Sabo’s face was earnest.
“If there’s ever a moment where it’s too much, you want to quit, or you just don’t feel comfortable,” Sabo said gently. “You can leave whenever you want. We understand. If you can’t handle it, don’t worry. It’s completely up to you.”
“Can’t handle it?”
“I’m sure I can handle it,” Hoku said, ignoring the old, bitter memory. The tightness around her throat. The sound of water rushing all around her. “Don’t worry.”
Sabo smiled.
.
.
.
Hoku flopped down onto the train seat, knocking her head back on the reinforced glass. The business man beside her didn’t even look up, eyes falling heavy with sleep. Same, man, same.
She shouldn’t be tired. The rest of the meet-up went… amazingly. They stopped talking business and just caught up like old friends. Hoku laughed a lot, ate a lot, constantly being fed this and that as Sabo ordered with reckless abandon—“But it all looks so good!” and when she’d tried to run to the cashier to pay because that’d been her plan all along—she was left staring at the smiling host from earlier as he held up Sabo’s sleek black credit card.
To be honest, she’d felt completely and utterly spoiled. A feeling that always had her on edge and made her feel funny because—I don’t deserve shit like this. Sabo had kindly offered to drive her home, but she had to put her foot down there—and even then that’d been a fight until Hoku had just booked it to the station, waving over her shoulder at a laughing Sabo left behind.
“We’ll meet up before the session starts on Friday with Ace to finalize some things.” Hoku lazily tugged out her phone, scrolling through the new messages. “Give you guys plenty of time to catch up and then get right to work.”
One month. Hoku pulled up her calendar. Aside from school and the impulsive or random hang outs with everyone—ah, gotta drop off food for Law—she had nothing planned. Because you’re an unemployed loser.
She could do this. It seemed easy enough. The only thing that didn’t sit right with her was the nature of how Ace and Sabo would be, but it was possibly they wouldn’t even be nude. Maybe someone wanted a beautiful drawing with two handsome men—yeah, I can do something like that.
It gave her something to do. Keep herself busy. Even if she didn’t take the pay, at least she’d be working.
A notification popped up and Hoku paused for a second before sliding it open. The photo opened up from the art platform she used to post new works and keep herself posted with—
This month’s. Working on the next.
His work was edgy. As always. The sleek slabs of metal had been made to look a chrome silver—they caught off the light, reflecting back the opening jaws of a monster made of his own creation but—
It was awesome.
Hoku stared at the new project. The train rumbled beneath her feet, shifting occasionally.
“Stick to your cars.” Hoku typed out finally, posting the comment with a face. She looked forward, the train fairly busy with other people all heading home from long days and late shifts.
She needed to get moving too.
Her phone lit up in her hands. Hoku smiled, pulling up the message. Luffy’s eager voice through the texts bled through instantly.
“HOW DID IT GOOOOOOO????”
“GREAT.” Hoku typed back. “GONNA HELP THEM ON FRIIIIIIDAAAAAAAY.”
Incoherent, misspelled words came back. Hoku stared, waiting for something to understand until a video was sent. She glanced around, lowering her volume in case and opening up the video.
The camera was violently shaky. Luffy was obviously running—his feet the only thing in view. The phone lifted up to where Zoro and Usopp were lounging on the couch and it looked like Sanji was in the kitchen—
“GUYS!!!!” Luffy’s voice shouted. The man beside her jumped. Hoku winced. “HOKU’S GETTING A JOB! SHE’S NOT A LOSER ANYMORE!”
Hoku slapped a hand over her mouth to stop her laughter. Usopp fell off the couch, startled from his doze. Zoro tipped his head back. “Bust out the booze.”
Sanji popped out from the kitchen, looking hurt. “Hoku honey, I said you could work at our restaurant—”
The video cut out with Luffy shoving a thumb up into the camera.
Hoku smiled, staring at her screen for a long time, holding it in front of her.
She could do this.
She had to.
.
.
.
“We’ll meet an hour before the session starts.”
Hoku stepped into the sleek, polished elevator. The apartment complex was unnervingly nice. She remembered muddy hills. Dangerous forests. Creaky houses and three loud boys. This—one of the clearly nicer apartment buildings in their city—wasn’t what she was used to seeing. Ace and Sabo were clearly doing really well.
“We’ll be doing this at our apartment. This is the address and the code. We have a… studio of sorts for this type of work. Everything will be prepared beforehand so don’t worry about having to arrange anything.”
Hoku adjusted the collar of her blank white t-shirt, tucked into the waistband of her light washed jeans. She pulled her bomber jacket tighter over herself. Her bigger canvas bag was slung over her shoulder, all her supplies shoved in.
“Is there a certain way I should dress?”
“Perhaps nothing too… flashy? Just make sure you’re comfortable. No real dress code. You’ll be working for what might be several hours.”
Hoku’s fingers reached out, pausing at the button. Ninth floor.
Nine wasn’t a really lucky number by her books.
“Our client has already been informed, so don’t worry about anything. You’ll need to stay on the quieter side though, if that’s alright. Your station is positioned nicely in the room so you can move and get whatever angles you need.”
Hoku hit the button. The floor numbers lit up as the elevator lifted her to the apartment.
“We’ll start officially at nine.”
The wall gave way to glass. Hoku glanced to the city lights, flickering and shifting across the streets.
“You can have a moment to do anything you need before we begin. We won’t be able to stop once we start.”
The doors to the elevator slid open. Hoku stepped out, realizing with wide eyes that the entire floor was reserved for a single apartment. How big is this place?
Double doors waited at the end of the hallway.
Hoku shifted her bag and walked toward it, humming a bit to herself. Wonder if Ace is still annoying.
“We’ll walk you through anything else before we start. Answer any questions.”
Hoku stopped in front of the pearly white doors. She stared at it for a second, the tune dying on her lips. Something churned in her gut. A funny feeling.
It’s just another drawing session.
“Thank you again, Hoku. You don’t know what this means to us.”
Hoku knocked firmly against the door. She waited, shoving her hands into her pockets. This’ll be good for you. You need this change of pace. And besides, you get to do it with two good friends—
“You’ll be helping us, a lot.”
Hoku heard muffled footsteps on the other side of the door. A lock, two, slid out of place. The door opened inwards and Hoku looked up.
Eyes like charcoal. A little gray—almost silver in linings. A constellation of light freckles dusted over his cheeks. Sun-kissed skin. Soot black hair that framed the sharp line of his jaw and the familiar smell of something smoldering—like burning pine or with a little more bite to it—
Still a little roguish looking, wild. Still had that grumpy crease to his brows—
Portgas D. Ace.
Ace stared at her for a second and then promptly shut the door in her face.
Still a little piece of shit—
“What’s the password?” Ace said, muffled behind the door.
Hoku snorted. She kept her hands in her pockets.
“I guess I’m not wanted for the job,” Hoku answered. “Thanks for the interview anyway—”
The door swung open. Ace’s hand shot out, grabbing the back of her jacket just as she was turning. Hoku choked, arms flailing as she was roughly tugged back into the entrance of the apartment.
Ace’s bare foot shot out around her, kicking the door closed and twisting one of the locks between his toes—what the fuck you actual monkey—and then he was turning her around to face him.
Hoku spat her hair out of her mouth. Staring.
He had a shirt on for once. Tucked into a pair of black jeans.
That stupid, boyish grin split across his face, showing his always oddly sharp canines and making crinkles show up around his eyes. That dumb, happy, dorky grin—
Hoku’s heart did a funny thing, the kind of thing that reminded you just how much you missed someone and hurt you for not making an effort to see them sooner because—
“Hey, shooting star,” Ace said, voice deep and light all at once, clearly filled with mirth, “How’ve you been?”
“Hey, dumbass,” Hoku said, unable to stop the wide smile on her lips and not even trying to. “Been awhile, huh?”
Ace’s face soured at the name. He grabbed the back of her head, shoving it straight into his chest. Hoku let out a muffled squawk. Her hands shot out, smacking at his arms, but Ace promptly clamped them down firmly in a bear hug around her and lifted her off her feet. “I think you forgot who you’re talking too. Who said you could get that cheeky, huh?”
Hoku let out muffled curses against his shirt, getting a mouthful of cologne and cotton. Ace turned around, about to haul her out of the entryway until Sabo’s head peeked around the corner.
“At least let her take her shoes off,” Sabo said. Ace looked down to where Hoku was already struggling to shove her sneakers off with the other foot despite her constrained form. “You know how she is about that.”
“I have to make up for two years worth of contact,”Ace said simply, without any regret. “It starts now.”
“Make sure you let her breathe first,” Sabo said, amused. “Or you’ll lose her before that.”
Ace relinquished his hold. Hoku almost fell back, tripping over her shoes still half on her feet. Ace grinned, a deft finger sliding through one of her empty belt loops and stopping her from falling onto her ass. He tugged her back onto her feet and Hoku shot both hands out, steadying herself. Her eyes darted around, frazzled and flustered for a second before her face shifted into a deep scowl.
“I don’t miss any of that,” Hoku said darkly. “No wonder I never reached out to you.”
“No, you’re just awful,” Ace said. “Look at you. You look like you’re about to cry. Should’ve called if you were going to miss us that much, shooting star.”
“I look like this because I almost died from cotton suffocation,” Hoku snapped. Ace used one finger to dig something out of his ear, turning away from her. Nope. Didn’t miss him at all. Not one bit.
Hoku thought about tumbling down hills and climbing up trees and their stupid faces popping into classrooms and--
She sniffled. Nope. Not one bit.
“You’re still as grumpy as ever,” Ace said. He yawned, shoving his hands into his pockets. “Sabo said you got nicer, guess he was wrong.”
Hoku tossed her shoe at the back of his head. Ace yelped, turning around with wide eyes and grabbing the back of his head in pain. “You hit me!”
“I’m about to kick your ass too,” Hoku said, waving her other shoe.
Ace’s lips split into a wild grin. He turned, raising his hands to tackle her. Hoku readied her shoe, taking in the healthy, lively look in his eyes and the bright teeth and—
Her shoulders couldn’t help but slump a bit. Her brows softened. “You look good.” I’m glad.
She and Ace had always butted heads the most. Fought the most. Tousled with each other the most—but Ace had also been the one she couldn’t help worrying about from time to time because he’d been such an angry brat as a kid and—
Ace looked as though she’d slapped him silly. He stared at her, jaw stupidly slack and then his cheeks flushed a dark red. He slapped a hand over his mouth, stumbling back one step and fumbling for his words as he rubbed the back of his neck furiously.
“You can’t just say stuff like that,” Ace said hotly, “Aw, jeez—you’re cheating—”
“You’re such an idiot,” Hoku laughed, dropping her shoe and stepping into their apartment.
See? Hoku let any lingering, stray doubts fade away. Easy and comfortable. You’re going to be fine.
Immediately the space opened up to a massive living room. A shining coffee table in the center, sleek and new. Windows opened up to a massive view, curtains currently pulled open to showcase the entire city. A long, comfortable looking couch and a separate recliner. A book shelf, neat and organized. Sabo. A shiny new television screen and set and the space opened up to a massive island that shifted toward a giant kitchen—
“How much are you guys making?” Hoku squawked. Sabo chuckled and Ace grinned, crossing his arms over his chest with a puff of pride. “What the hell happened to leaking ceilings and broken drywall—did you rob a bank while I was gone?”
“Being awesome pays,” Ace said with a cocky grin.
“Our work leaves us comfortable,” Sabo said. He appeared at her side, clad in a navy blue turtleneck and black pants. He set down a pair of house slippers for her and smiled up at her. “Seems like you two are already catching up like you’d never left, and I hate to interrupt…”
“Ah, shit, it’s already almost time,” Ace glanced to his watch and back to the door. “Good thing we got everything set already.”
Sabo nodded. Hoku stepped into the slippers. Nice fit. The blonde offered to take her bag, but she waved him off. He curled his fingers back to his chest, looking amused.
“Do you want anything to drink?” Sabo offered kindly. “Take a seat on the couch, we can go over last minute details before we start.”
“No, I’m fine,” Hoku said, swatting Ace’s hands away when he playfully tried to herd her toward the living room. Sabo’s eyes flickered above her head toward Ace and Hoku made her way gingerly toward their living room. “Thank you though.”
“Take your jacket off if you’d like,” Sabo said. “The room might get a bit warm.”
Her jacket was making her a bit more comfortable, if she had to be honest. Purposefully not doing it seemed a bit rude to a second kind request from Sabo though. Hoku dutifully started shrugging it off and she almost jumped when two hands came on either side of her arms, pulling her jacket away from her with a gust of warm skin and heat.
“Still as jumpy as ever,” Ace said above her, teasing.
“Think I can’t take off my own jacket?” Hoku said, pointedly shoving her arms the rest of the way past his fingers.
Ace snorted. “You trip over air.”
Hoku scowled, turning away as her fingers slipped from her jacket sleeves. Ace pulled it away, watching her back.
He handed it to Sabo, who took it with nimble fingers, folding it once and laying it over the back of one of the dining chairs.
The long, leather couch was tempting, but Hoku wisely opted for the love seat placed in front of the coffee table beside the gas powered fireplace. Ace took a seat on the couch, throwing one arm casually behind it and getting comfortable while Sabo walked over to the two of them, taking a seat beside his brother as he set two water bottles down.
“I brought my bigger sketchbook,” Hoku said. “Just in case. But Sabs said you guys had the drawing table set up so I’ll work directly onto the paper and just let me know if your client wants it finalized on a better sheet.”
Ace took one of the bottles, unscrewing the cap. His eyes turned sideways to Sabo, “You two already went over everything, right?”
Sabo nodded, crossing one leg over the other and folding his hands together on top of his knee. “For the most part. You remember everything I told you, right Hoku?”
“Read it over a couple times just in case,” Hoku said. She ticked off her fingers. “Quiet as a mouse. I’m no more than just an observer after all, right? Pick a shot that stands out the most to me and draw that. There won’t be any guidance. Keep it all confidential for the client’s and your guys’ sake. Comfy clothes…”
She’d already silenced her phone. Pulled her hair back into a ponytail to maintain an air of professionalism for their client…
Sabo smiled, lids a little low, pleased. “Good job, Hoku.”
Hoku smiled idly at the praise. “Nothing to give me credit for—it’s a job. It’s the least I should do.”
Yeah. Hoku thought resolutely. You can do this. You’re helping a couple friends out.
Ace watched her over the top of his water bottle. His eyes traveled down the half-heart tattoo over her eyes, dipping to where her t-shirt showed a bit of her collarbone where a smattering of petals were tattooed over her shoulder.
“Any new tattoos?” Ace questioned curiously. Sabo glanced to him, pausing mid-way to grab his bottle.
Hoku didn’t look up from checking her materials in her bag, “Maybe one or two. You still got that gang of yours on your back—”
“Our client should be here in a few minutes,” Sabo turned to Ace. His brother’s expression shifted briefly before settling, head dipping a bit in a nod. “I know you’re a bit behind on catching up, but that is your fault for forgetting to call off.”
“It was last minute!” Ace complained.
Sabo glanced to the expensive looking watch on his wrist. He slipped a thin, flat looking box out of his pocket and casually pressed a button, watching it for a moment before he put it back into his pocket. Ace’s eyes flashed back to him briefly, but his attention swung back to Hoku, whose face had turned a bit constipated as she held up her phone.
“Sorry,” Hoku said, a bit sheepish. “Uh, blame Luffy?”
Ace grumbled without real menace, folding his arms across his chest. Sabo smiled well-naturedly, turning his focus back to Hoku.
“As I said, we already briefed our client on everything,” Sabo said. “So don’t worry. She won’t be surprised. You’ll be in your space and we’ll be in ours and you just have to do what you need to do. Don’t worry about anything that happens either—t’s all been discussed. Just focus on what you’re doing.”
Hoku felt the curiosity from earlier stir. She set her bag down on top of her lap. Ace tipped the bottle back, taking a long swig as his adam’s apple bobbed with a swallow. A bit of water dripped down his chin, past his throat.
“You said it was like a simulation,” Hoku said. Sabo waited, listening, “Is it… Is it going to be like acting something out? Like a play or a scene she’s looking for?”
“You want to see for yourself?” Ace questioned absently. Dark eyes watched her over the top of his bottle, clashing with his light voice—
Sabo shot Ace a chiding look, lined with a bit of bemusement. Ace shrugged.
Hoku’s eyes were on her memo book, scribbling a note to herself in. Look for a good moment. “Hired an artist, not a model.”
“Mmm,” Sabo rubbed his chin, curling his fingers beneath it as his eyes flickered in thought. “Acting something out… You could say it’s something like that. As I said before, it’ll be on a more intimate affair, so I hope you won’t be startled—”
“I won’t,” Hoku promised. She’d already braced herself by going over old sketches of different poses and angles in her nude studies and drawing sessions—she was expecting some of the ‘worst’ in a sense, and reminded herself that it was just—
Another drawing.
Even if you know these guys like brothers, she thought a little limply. Just wash it out of your brain later.
“Perfect,” Ace said simply. “Then there shouldn’t be anymore problems, right? Let’s get started.”
Sabo shot him an amused look. Ace clapped his hands together, locking them behind his head in an easy posture. Hoku nodded, gathering up her bag. “Lead the way—”
“Hoku?”
Hoku stopped. She looked back up at Sabo. “Yeah, Sabs?”
Sabo’s lip twitched. Something flickered through his eyes, concealed beneath gentle amusement and a hint of fondness. He leaned forward, making sure their gazes met.
“I just wanted to remind you again,” Sabo said, warmly, he seemed to wait a bit. Hoku turned fully to face him. He continued, “If any of this seems too much for you or gets too uncomfortable—we can stop. We don’t want to ruin anything or make things weird if this makes you uneasy—”
“I’ll be fine,” Hoku said, smiling brightly. “Don’t worry.”
“If it does get too much though,” Ace added. “Maybe hold off on saying anything till after. I dunno if Sabo told you yet, but it’s hard to stop once we get started—”
“Don’t worry,” Hoku repeated, shaking her head. “It won’t.”
“Then,” Sabo said smoothly. He stood up to his full height and Hoku adjusted her bag. Her eyes dropped to his hands, realizing he was wearing gloves indoors—for the drawing session? “Any other questions before we start?”
Hoku ran over all the instructions twice. This whole thing seemed a little more edgier than she was used to, intimately professional. But it was just another drawing session at the end of the day, right?
Sabo walked around the coffee table, even steps stopping beside her. He lowered a hand to her back, guiding her toward the hallway politely. Ace remained on the couch, watching them with half-lidded eyes as they turned toward the specific hallway—
Hoku snapped her fingers, looking up at Sabo. The brothers turned to her curiously.
“I know you said I had free reign,” Hoku said, eyes wide with realization. “But is there a specific… I dunno, look she might be going for? A moment in this whole thing I should pay attention too or keep an eye out for…”
Sabo tipped his head to the side, considering his answer. Ace tipped his head onto the back of the couch, fingers laced behind his head.
A slow, lazy smile curved over his lips. His canines peeked through. Ace’s expression was satisfied and amused all at once—as though he’d just told the greatest joke in the entire world.
“Probably,” Ace said, “the climax.”
.
.
.
The room—the studio—was massive.
The entire room fitted like a master bedroom. It seemed the entire apartment had several different rooms, using up the large amount of space granted by being the only room on the entire floor of the complex high rise.
Fitted with only two doors—the one they’d entered through and another door on the right that seemed to lead into a bathroom. The room itself was wide.The walls were wood and dark in color. Low, warm colored lights were fixed into the ceiling. Sleek wooden floors fitted with a nice looking rug right in front of the main attraction.
A single bed.
A big bed. King sized. Plush, neatly folded duvets and silk sheets. It was a dark red in color, not too bold or flashy, prominent. It didn’t stand on a classic bed-frame, instead, raised up from the ground with a wooden step that went around it, making the bed seemed fixed into the floor. A dark, leather cushioned headboard sat behind it, tucked beneath heavy pillows.
There was a lounge chair in the opposite corner, a fancy looking recliner. Night stands were nestled on either side of the bed. One more beside the chair.
Paneled sliding doors to the left promised a closet. Hoku was still taking in the entire show of the room because—it was kind of daunting, really. She tried picking out with a more eager eye good angles, the colors contrasted darkly and richly, so she’d have fun with shading and contrasts but—
Intimate. Hoku thought about Sabo’s description. Definitely seems to be the right word.
She couldn’t help but wonder if this was the classic go-to for all their shoots. She kept calling it a room in her head because it’s what it looked like—but Sabo had said it was studio. It was possible they moved it around and changed it to whatever they needed to fit their client’s demands.
Her work station was nestled in the corner of the room. Almost it’s own little world. It was quite a good distance from the door. Sleek desks arranged for maximum workspace, though humbly recluse from everything else in the room. There were folded up light fixtures and equipment Hoku recognized for photoshoots propped up in case she wanted to change anything. Her work space was a very, very nice looking drawing table, fitted with a light and grooves for her materials, a slot for the paper and—
Hoku stood behind the desk, setting her things down. She played with the back of the chair—it was a roomy thing, arm rests. Wheels on the bottom so she could spin and move it around—
“Perfect view,” Hoku realized, staring at the bed from where she’d be sitting. Of everything.
She glanced up to the ceiling, noticing what looked like paneled boards. Light fixtures behind them? Hoku turned her head, noticing the reinforced hook fixed into the center of the bed’s ceiling. They must move things around after all for different shoots—
“Are you all set up?”
Hoku jumped, nearly knocking into the desk and falling over it. Her head snapped over her shoulder and Sabo blinked in surprise right behind her, pressing a few gloved fingers to his lips. “Oops, sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you.”
“No, you just—” Hoku shook her head, laughing a bit as she tugged a quick hand through her hair. Sabo’s eyes followed the action briefly. “You’re like a ghost. I didn’t even hear you.”
“Ah,” Sabo’s lips turned upwards in amusement, lowering his hand beneath his chin. “I know what you mean. Ace and Luffy are always so loud, it makes you seem quieter than you are.”
“You look comfy,” Hoku said, eyeing the dark navy robe Sabo had changed into. Kept the gloves on though.
“I’m used to this,” Sabo said with an easy smile.
“Seems like it,” Hoku agreed, taking a seat in the chair. She adjusted it briefly, spinning it around once. Sabo’s brows quirked, looking as though he were trying to hold back a laugh. “Neat studio you guys have set up here. You’ve got a whole thing going, huh?”
Sabo hummed, playing with the back of her chair. “When it became apparent we’d be doing this fairly often, we figured it was wise to make the investment.”
“Private modeling sessions,” Hoku mused, leaning back in the chair. Sabo crossed his arms over the back of the rest, leaning his head onto them as he watched the top of her head. “You know, considering how good looking you guys are, I bet companies would be paying big bucks to have a couple sessions.”
“How much would you pay?” Sabo questioned behind her.
Hoku pursed her lips, pretending to think deeply on the subject. “I doubt I could even afford an hour.”
Hoku laughed, smoothing out her paper and leaning forward toward the desk. She tugged out her pencil case, flipping it open. “My art teacher would kill to have you sit in for a class—”
Her chair shifted. Sabo had pushed it forward a bit. The desk came close to her, not touching, but keeping her nestled tightly between the wood and the chair behind her. Hoku’s hands instantly shot for the edge of the desk, catching herself briefly—
“For however long you’d like, whatever you’d like, a session for you,” Sabo said, his voice was light, breezy. Easy. Not a hint of anything else. There would be no reason for there to be anything else.
“Would be free.”
Sabo’s shadow was light against her desk. Hoku stared at it for a moment, feeling strangely, quietly—was that feeling even really there? Did she really feel that for a second? No, no you didn’t. Why would you feel like that when—
It’s just them.
“So then,” Hoku said, turning her head over her shoulder with a grin. “I could have you two dressed up however and in whatever ridiculous pose I wanted—”
“I do look better in colors that compliment my hair,” Sabo said cheerfully. “And I like—”
“Navy blue,” Hoku jutted a pencil at his robe.
Sabo’s smile was so bright it almost hurt to look at. Something funny twisted in her gut. “Ace will be coming in with our guest in a second, remember everything I told you?”
“Mhm,” Hoku nodded. “You won’t hear a peep out of me. Won’t even be here.”
Sabo fondly ruffled the top of her head, “Good girl.”
Hoku scowled, swatting at his hand. Sabo chuckled, pulling away from her chair while giving it a bit of a spin as he walked from her station toward the bed. Hoku couldn’t help but hope he at least had something on under that robe because—
Luffy, this might be one of the weirdest things I’ve ever done but I swear to god I’m washing it out of my brain when this is all over. Hoku turned her eyes to the paper, already starting to sketch out the design of the room since she’d be aiming for something to take place on the bed. I’m going to do everything in my power not to have to draw your brothers’ dic—
No, don’t even worry about it. Hoku shook her head. No other thoughts. They’re just bodies. You just draw. There’s nothing else involved in it.
Easy.
The door clicked open.
Sabo turned slowly, standing directly before the bed.
Hoku looked up.
She was lovely.
Long, dark hair curled into waves against her back. Her nails were neatly done, manicured and colored like wine to match the tight, form fitting cocktail dress that showed off all her curves in all the right places. Her skin was a light, healthy tan. Her body was nice. Hoku could see what angles she should draw from immediately from how well her legs moved, long and lovely beneath her dress that barely hit her mid-thigh—
Her lashes were long and curled. Her lipstick matched the color of her dress. She looked older—probably somewhere around Law’s age. Ah, but his type is far away from women like this—
She stepped further into the room. Hoku realized she was still wearing her shoes—black heels, strapped up to her ankles. Her head held high. She walked with purpose. Hoku instantly felt a clear wall erected between them—Hoku was Hoku—this lady, this woman, was exactly what girls aspired to be. Beautiful, mature, seductive.
Sabo offered her a warm, polite smile. The woman’s eyes lowered, half-lidded and dark. Hoku watched her throat quiver with a swallow. Her pretty nails tugged at the hem of her dress briefly. Sabo hadn’t even moved.
The air in the studio shifted. It felt heavy.
Hoku held her pencil loose in her grip, uncertain for a moment, waiting.
“You’re late,” Sabo said, politely, “Hotaru-san.”
Hoku only froze for a brief second. That weird flinch you did sometimes when you thought someone was about to say your own name.
Hotaru’s lips pursed. Full. She bit her lower lip, eyelids fluttering and then her gaze turned quickly to Hoku.
Hoku flinched, gripping her pencil. Should she introduce herself? Thank her? Greet her? Her eyes darted to Sabo in a moment of panic, but he hadn’t taken his eyes off Hotaru.
“You don’t have to speak to her. Or interact with the client. Just do what you need to do.”
Hotaru’s face shifted. Clearly unhappy. A pout followed on her lips and Sabo looked amused as she strode further into the room. Heels clicking against the wood. Hoku waited with her pencil ready, a little nervous until she spotted Ace stepping into the room right after her, still in his clothes from earlier.
The door closed behind him with an audible click. His fingers smoothly twisted a lock into place.
Hotaru shuddered at the sound, breathing a little heavier.
Hoku swallowed. She hovered over her paper. Ace’s dark eyes caught hers from her station and he offered her a small smile, throwing her a wink.
Her shoulders slumped in relief. Hoku forced herself to relax. That’s right. They said it was like acting—they’re just models. You’re just drawing. Don’t worry about anything else. It’s just a job.
What are you getting so nervous for?
“You didn’t say she was going to be a girl,” Hotaru said finally. Her voice was high, her lips pursed in annoyance. Hoku’s eyes went round in worry. Sabo tipped his head to the side and she strode forward toward him, hands on her hips. “I told you how I—”
“You didn’t even take your shoes off,” Sabo said. Hotaru stopped completely in her tracks. His voice was even. Calm.
It could be heard.
“She was that eager,” Ace said behind them, walking forward with his hands in the pockets of his jeans. Hotaru’s face flushed dark in embarrassment, mouth opening and closing. “Came rushing right into the apartment.”
Ace stopped right behind her. He kept his hands to himself. “Why don’t you tell Sabo what you asked me to do when you came in, hmm? How I took off your jacket. Where you wanted to do it because you couldn’t wait.”
Sabo took a seat onto the edge of the bed. It’s risen level still left him lowered, but it didn’t feel that way at all—
A throne.
Hoku’s fingers twitched. This is a good shot—should I draw this? Her eyes flickered to her paper, ignoring the sweat that had gathered at the back of her neck. The nervousness that tugged at her fingers despite how steady she held her pencil.
It’s like acting. It’s a roleplay. They just need to get in character. The client must want something like this—
Hoku swallowed.
How… How far is this going to—
Sabo set his gloved hands on either side of him, leaning back onto his hands as he watched Hotaru in silence.
Hotaru bit her lower lip. Her cheeks were flushed a dark, cherry red. She turned her head to Ace and then to Sabo and she quickly spat out, “Fine—Fine, I don’t care. I just—Sabo, please—”
“Take your shoes off.”
Hotaru flinched, looking desperate. Ace didn’t move an inch, face set into an easy, uninterested look. Sabo didn’t seem interested in repeating himself a second time. Hotaru floundered for words.
Sabo smoothly slid out a thin, rectangular shaped box from the pocket of his robe. Hotaru shuddered, eyes growing round and fixed entirely on that little box.
Sabo set it calmly at his side, moving his hand from it.
Hotaru bent down. Her fingers quickly worked at her heels, tugging desperately at the straps and chucking her heels into another direction of the room. Ace looked amused behind her and Hoku’s eyes followed the heels, sketching them into the corner of the image. Giving herself something to do.
“You just have to watch.” She paused at the memory of Sabo’s words. “Closely. Pick which scene you think will be the best.”
Hoku’s brows furrowed and she hesitantly looked back up.
“There,” Hotaru said. She took a few steps and then she hit the floor on her hands and knees. Hoku stared with wide eyes. The woman crawled forward, her tight dress hiking up higher on her thighs with each movement. “I did what you asked, Sabo.”
Sabo remained silent, perched on the bed in front of her. Hotaru crawled up onto her knees in front of him and Hoku darted back to the paper. This isn’t a bad shot. Shows power and an attempt to overthrow. But Ace isn’t doing much in it—
“Look at you,” Hoku looked up at Sabo’s clear, resounding voice. It was directive. Her eyes dropped to Hotaru who bit her lower lip, eyes needy as she gazed at Sabo.
He kept his hands at his sides. Those blonde locks fell a bit into his eyes, framing that sculpted angle of his jaw.
He looked completely and utterly—
In control.
Hoku held her pencil tight, chanting a mantra in her head.
No one is even naked yet. She reminded herself. You’ve drawn worse before. This is some… powerplay or something. It’s an act. Calm down. Why are you—
“All worked up?” Sabo questioned lowly.
Hoku flinched for a second before she relaxed. He’s not talking to me. I don’t exist right now.
He raised a hand. Hotaru’s eyes followed every movement eagerly. Gloved fingers curved beneath her chin, raising her head up to look at him. “You normally put up such a fight. I could touch you and you’ll just roll over, won’t you?”
Hotaru’s eyes flashed. Her cheeks flushed but her hands rushed forward and Sabo’s eyes darkened. She fumbled for the bind holding Sabo’s robe together, pushing forward on her knees toward him. Her breasts pushed up against his legs.
Sabo simply watched in silence, as though he were watching a child try something in vain. A hint of amusement in his gaze. It was—
Condescending.
“Aren’t you the same though?” Hotaru said hurriedly. She tugged Sabo’s rope free and she pushed aside the folds of his robe. “You’re acting all calm and collected—but, but you want it too, don’t you? Look at you!”
Sabo’s chest opened up. Taut muscles. A defined ridge. Hoku’s eyes couldn’t help but move to the inch of his side that was exposed. His scar peeked through. Her heart clenched for a second at the memory of how he got the horrible burn—
His muscled abdomen dipped. Hotaru was almost panting at this point, eyes desperate as she fumbled around, licking her lips and the folds of his robe moved apart and—
Hoku’s eyes dropped down and she balked.
She’d drawn people nude dozens of times now. She knew what belonged where. She wasn’t—she wasn’t a virgin. She wasn’t bumbling and stuttering and a blushing idiot when she saw these things—usually when the pencil was in her hand and the paper beneath her—her mind even became almost clinical. It was another limb. Another part to draw—
Memories rushed forward. Her throat went dry. Hoku’s cheeks flushed red with embarrassment and her eyes instantly trained themselves hard on her paper, refusing to budge.
But this was—but he was—that—
Her gut twisted sharply, unsettled. Hoku’s throat went dry. She kept her eyes on the paper, on the paper—
“You won’t get freaked out or anything right?” Hoku flinched. But this is different. This feels—
Wrong. Weird. Private. Intimate. Imposing. Intruding.
She… She knew Ace and Sabo. She’d played with them as kids. Had funny, weird, awkward moments when they were teenagers—seen them with missing teeth and dumb grins—
But this is different.
“See?” Ace’s smooth voice, teasing, flooded the room. “She can’t even handle it.”
Hoku’s head snapped up instantly. Her cheeks hot but—No, no, that’s not it. I’m sorry, I’m not freaking out—
Hoku froze. Ace’s eyes were on Hotaru, a smirk on his lips. Sabo looked vaguely amused, leaning back on his hands as Hotaru panted on her knees in front of him, hands on his thighs and—
It’s just a drawing. Hoku said. She shut her mind down. Shut everything else out. You took this job. It’s not weird. It’s human. It’s intimate. It’s a scene. It’s like a play. Just draw the scene. Just draw. She gathered her footing back beneath her.
Hoku turned her eyes fully onto the scene unfolding in front of her.
Sabo’s length stood out from the folds of his robe. Hard. Erect. Revealing the muscled, toned top of his thighs. Hoku refused to study it in any more detail, keeping her eyes trained on Hotaru’s face. Hotaru shuffled forward, pressing herself flush between his legs. Sabo’s expression didn’t even flinch or shift. Neutral.
Professional.
There. It’s just another… Hoku’s neck felt hot. She felt a little queasy. Don’t think about whose that is. It’s just another body part.
“See?” Hotaru said breathily, lashes fluttering. “Look at you, baby. Look at how hard you are for me. This did something for you too, didn’t it? You liked this.”
Sabo watched her. Expression void. His eyes were dark and Hotaru pressed a kiss to his thigh. “Normally I have to work so… so hard to get you like this for me… I knew I did something for you. Aren’t I a good girl?”
Hoku’s gut twisted.
Sabo’s erection was hard. Swollen at the tip. Ramrod straight. Hotaru pressed another kiss to his inner thigh, as though seeking permission. Sabo didn’t even flinch despite the physical reaction, expression calm and collected. His lids were lowered, eyes dark and unreadable from where she was.
“You’re so big,” Hotaru said. Hoku’s ears went hot. Please stop. Oh my god. “So thick. You’re perfect, Sabo. I want it so bad. Please, let me make you feel good—”
Her hands inched up his thighs. Sabo watched in almost cold silence.
“What did it?” Hotaru panted. “The dress, baby? The shoes? The hair? I tried to do everything you told me to—was I too bad? What’s getting you off this time? What’s turning you on that I didn’t do before—”
Ace’s hand shot out like a snake. He fisted a handful of those thick, curly locks, tugging back sharply.
Hotaru yelped. Hoku jumped, almost hitting her knees into her desk. Her heart raced in her chest.
“Look at you,” Ace chuckled, dark, throaty. Hotaru moaned, hands flying up to where Ace held her by her hair. “Who said you could run that filthy mouth of yours? You’re so desperate, aren’t you? Crawling all over him like that—you’re dying for it.”
“Please!” Hotaru pleaded. Her cheeks were hot. She tried to turn around to Ace, hands flying to the button on his jeans. “Please! Touch me—anything—please! I’ll be good. I’ll do whatever you want—”
Ace let her get far enough to unbutton them. She unzipped his pants, trying to pull him free from his confines.
Her work stationed seemed miles away and still not far enough. The room was hot—the air was heavy.
Should I be doing this?
Her eyes dropped to her paper.
“We really needed the help for this job.”
Job. It’s just a job. It’s an act. Job. Job. Job—
“Look at me.” Hoku’s pencil almost slipped against the papers. Sabo’s voice left no room for disagreement and she glanced up.
He’d thankfully readjusted the folds of his robe. Leaning forward with one elbow on his knee. His gloved hand covered the lower half of his mouth, holding it there as he watched Hotaru in heavy, shuddering silence.
Hotaru watched him, chest rising and falling with each breath.
“Are you in any place,” Sabo said softly. “To be making demands?”
Hotaru shuddered.
“We’re all here to do this for you,” Sabo said. “And you go and run your mouth like that… is that anyway to repay us?”
Hotaru shook her head desperately, eyes wet. Her cheeks were such a dark red, panting heavily.
Sabo had complete hold over her.
Absolute control.
Sabo reached over for the little box. His thumb hit a button softly.
The reaction was instant.
Hotaru tossed her head back, writhing with her hair still in Ace’s loose grip. Her legs shuddered, jerking this way and that. Hotaru moaned, back arching. She bucked into the air once, twice. Ace and Sabo watched in silence as the low hum filled the room.
Hoku pressed a hand to her mouth. Her eyes were wide at her paper. Her face flushed red in embarrassment and she folded in on herself. That’s—That wa—Earlier—
Suck it up, you wimp. It’s just a—
Sabo hit a second button.
“Oh, god!” Hotaru cried. She panted, chest rising and falling and her entire body twisted about, lashing this way and that as she tried to find some kind of purchase, any kind of relief for the pleasure coursing through her body from the little device. “Please—oh, please! Let me come, Sabo. Please, please—”
Hoku filled her head with any other thought. It’s just—this is just porn! This is literally just porn—Usopp! Usopp and—that time you walked on Usopp in the shower—
“You think she deserves it?” Sabo questioned curiously. Looking at Ace over the top of his fingers.
Hotaru’s pitiful moans filled the entire room. Ace gave her head a little pat, watching her squirm. “Why not?”
“Please!” Hotaru gasped, back arching sharply. Hoku flinched. “Sabo! Ace! Please! I’m so close—”
Sabo hit the controller. Hotaru moaned. Her feet skidded across the floor, the humming cutting out completely. She whimpered, hips bucking upwards uselessly as the convulsions ceased and Sabo leaned back onto his hands.
“Take it out.”
Hotaru’s eyes snapped open wide. Hoku choked. Isn’t that a bit harsh—
“Some people are into that.”
Hotaru’s lips trembled. She looked up at Ace pleadingly, but he merely carded his fingers through her hair, offering her a low smile. His canines peeked through. Hotaru whimpered, spreading her legs open as she lowered her hand down to her tight dress. Sabo watched her, hand resting over the lower half of his face, eyes shaded darkly.
Hotaru’s fingers disappeared beneath her dress. She tossed her head back onto Ace’s thigh with a moan, spreading her legs apart. Her eyes kept themselves on Sabo, seeming to hope it’d get him moving.
Sabo remained motionless.
Hotaru let out a little whine. Her fingers tugged and then a ribbon and a thin cord came out, followed by the egg shaped vibrator—
Hoku focused on her paper. She had the entire room sketched out in vivid detail. Shaded in and everything. She had enveloped forms but no real figures. No pose—
“Good girl,” Sabo praised. Hotaru shuddered, watching him hopefully. “Now on your feet.”
Hotaru’s lips parted in desperate protest. Sabo’s face was cold. Unrelenting. Her mouth fluttered shut and she whimpered, slowly gathering herself on wobbly knees and walking toward him like a newborn fawn.
Ace followed behind her, stopping at her back. His fingers dipped into his back pocket, pulling out a foil package. He handed it to Hotaru over her shoulder, slipping it into her hand.
The proud, confident woman that had walked into the room just moments ago was nothing like what she had been. Her knees quivered. Her hair was disheveled. Her lips wet and red from all her biting and Hoku could see the slick shine to the inside of her thighs where her dress had hiked up almost completely and revealed she wasn’t even wearing anything beneath.
She was at their mercy.
Hoku’s eyes flickered to the door and back to her drawing. The events transpiring were leading to one finale. I shouldn’t be here. I shouldn’t be seeing this—
“It’s just a simulation of sorts.”
Too raw. Too vivid—
“Sabo—”
“Alright,” Sabo said. Hotaru’s eyes brightened, a kind of desperate Hoku had never seen on anyone before. Not in a situation like this. So… pitiful? “If you want it, then you do the work.”
Hotaru’s lips quivered. She looked about to protest for a moment and Ace stepped closer, hands coming around her sides and dipping low where Hoku couldn’t see.
Hotaru jerked. She moaned, nodding her head rapidly. She struggled with the condom for a second, ripping it open and then she quickly stepped between Sabo’s legs. He shifted further onto the bed, the first move he’d made in what felt like ages. Hotaru followed after, unrolling the condom. She placed it between her lips and her head ducked down.
Hoku turned back to the paper, starting to sketch out the forms onto the bed. There. That’s it. You don’t have to watch the specifics—get the feeling of it.
Hotaru’s lips fell over Sabo’s heavy tip. She licked a long stripe up the side of his length, following a heavy vein and finally moving the condom back between her lips. She took his head into her mouth, moaning just at the fact that she was finally, finally getting closer to what she wanted. Sabo looked almost amused above her, robe pooling down around his elbows as he leaned back and let her work, not moving a finger.
Hoku’s eyes landed on the vivid scar against his left side. The way it carved up his ribcage to his shoulder. She drew that part carefully, softly, on the form that was starting to give more shape to Sabo. She thought about the scar. Focused on that.
Hotaru moaned around him. Wriggling her hips impatiently. Ace knelt on the edge of the bed. He swiftly pulled his shirt off. Muscles rippled across broad shoulders, traveling down to almost slender hips.
His hand reached down, tugging his pants down lower on his hips. He pulled his cock free from its confines, hard. Precum gathered at his tip. Heavy, hot in his hands. His finger dragged across the slit, moving around the heavy head. His slickened hand dropped down, starting from the base and slowly working his way up.
Ace’s head tipped back, barely breaking a sweat. His eyes seemed focused on something else, working almost lazily at his own. Sabo watched Hotaru continue for a second longer, the condom fully sheathed over his length as she pressed kisses to the tip and bent lower—
“That’s enough,” Sabo said. “Go on.”
Hotaru eagerly clambered forward. She panted, reaching up and struggling to unzip the top of her dress. Ace seemed to take pity on her for a second, tugging it down swiftly and she tugged it low, letting her heavy breasts free as she groped desperately at herself. Hotaru twisted one of her nipples, rolling her breast and gazing heatedly at Sabo.
“Am I doing it right?” Hotaru begged. “You like this, right, Sabo? Tell me, please.”
Sabo leaned back on his elbows, calm and collected.
Hotaru groaned in desperation. She readied herself, lining up with his tip and she shot him another heated look, lips quivering, waiting.
Sabo simply blinked, watching in silence.
Hotaru turned, cheeks flushed. Hair clung to her cheeks, to her lips as she let her back face Sabo and she faced Ace. His hooded eyes watched her, inclining his head as he worked at his cock and Hotaru whimpered.
Hoku didn’t watch. Couldn’t watch. Her ears burned.
Hotaru’s blissful, desperate moan flooded the entire room like a siren as she sank low onto Sabo’s length. She took him in entirely, taking him all the way to the hilt as she slotted her hips over his and braced herself on his thighs.
“Oh, oh, oh,” Hotaru repeated. She lifted herself up and slid back with a lewd slick. Hoku winced. “Yes. Yes. Finally—Sabo! Sabo, you feel so good. Baby, you’re so big—so big, so hard, so good. Come on, help me—ah. Sabo, help me—”
Hoku realized just how much a prude she must be after all. Even—even during sex, she’d never been able to utter anything like that-—
Sabo shut his eyes for a second. He tipped his head back, golden strands shifting around his chin. The most of a reaction Hoku had seen so far. She focused on that, ignoring what was transpiring in front of her and how—
Intimate this is—
She remembered every sensual thing she’d ever drawn. She’d drawn sex before—intimate depictions of models—it’s just that. It’s just people.
But no matter how hard she tried—isn’t this too much? She’d never done anything like this before. Panic seized her. She’d never witness something so personal like this where it was happening before her and making her feel so, so—
Uncomfortable.
Hoku froze.
“If you ever feel uncomfortable—”
“If it’s ever too much—”
“Can’t handle it?”
She swallowed. Her throat went dry. Hoku’s eyes hardened and she shoved her pencil to the paper. No. No it’s not. It’s not too much. I’m not uncomfortable. You can do this, Hoku. You have to. So what if it’s new—it’s just different. You wanted to change and try new things—
“Why don’t you put that mouth to use?” Ace said huskily.
Hotaru’s eyes fluttered open and she crawled forward eagerly. Ace was on his knees, hand slipping from his cock and sliding back behind Hotaru’s head. She lifted her hips desperately, bringing them back down onto Sabo’s over and over again, chasing the feeling each time.
The sound of skin on skin. The air heavy.
Hotaru opened her mouth obediently. Ace’s grip tightened on the back of her head and he pushed forward past her lips. His head tipped back, eyes shutting at the feeling before he rolled his hips back and thrusted forward, fucking himself with her mouth.
Hoku couldn’t help the wince. I don’t think I could ever—
Hotaru moaned. Pleasure lined every crease of her face. She worked desperately with her mouth, letting Ace fuck himself as he liked while she moved, Sabo not lifting a finger as she rode herself on him as fast as she could. It was rough, it was desperate and almost pitiful and yet she looked so pleasured—
Hoku’s fingers twitched. I could draw that. Ace was in the picture now. It was obvious the client wanted something like this depicted—it’s just like people who write harlequin novels or direct porn. Just draw it.
You’re not involved.
The single sentence seemed to free Hoku from every other thought. That’s right, you’re not involved. She wasn’t part of the picture. She was safe here behind her station. Look at it from perspective. She had no reason to feel anything else but—
Professional.
Hoku pressed her pencil to her paper, ready, at ease. The faces started to blur and sharpen. She saw bodies. Movement. A scene unfolding.
That’s all it was.
Hoku’s pencil started to move rapidly. She watched the scene less and less, glancing up and down back to it. She had her mold now. She didn’t need to think about anything else. Her mind focused on the drawing and nothing else. The sounds fell deaf around her ears, the actions—
Hoku drew.
Dark eyes watched her from beneath blonde waves. His gaze was heavy, dark. Sabo’s lips twitched and he let out a small sigh through his nose, leaning back onto his elbows as he watched Hotaru get off, riding him with reckless abandon while she took Ace in all the way to the back of her throat, moaning each time.
The perfect picture of nothing but carnal desire. Lewd. Filthy. Raw. The vivid fantasy of any man’s dreams.
Sabo’s eyes narrowed. His lids lowered. Not even watching the moving body riding him like her life depended on it. His gaze remained trained on the only figure out of his reach.
For now.
Ace’s eyes flickered up at the soft sound. His fingers were threaded through Hotaru’s hair, meeting his brother’s gaze over the top of her head.
Ace glanced to the side, watching the way Hoku worked, glancing to them with unfocused eyes and back to her work from beneath his hair. She was seeing them but not seeing them. Watching but not watching. Zoned out as she drew.
Disconnected.
His brows creased slightly. Ace’s grip on the back of Hotaru’s head tightened. He thrust forward with a little more force and she moaned. Loud. Shameless. She worked herself desperately, chasing her high as she came down over and over again on Sabo’s length, grinding her hips, twisting this way and that.
Hoku felt the drawing start to come together. She worked on the details around Hotaru’s face, shading in softer areas, trying to capture the look. Her body curved, meeting both Ace and Sabo so she didn’t worry about anything else. Hotaru was the most exposed.
Ace watched Hoku. His fingers threaded harder. Hotaru moaned desperately around him. His lids lowered. He watched her eyes flicker to and fro, watched her mouth move soundlessly, followed her lips, the way her tongue peeked out as she worked harder at something on the paper—
Ace shut his eyes. He grit his teeth. Heat pooled, fast and molten in his stomach. Hotaru worked faster, bobbing her head up and down while she sloppily lifted her hips to come crashing back down.
Hotaru popped off suddenly, lips bruised and swollen. She panted out desperately with a keen, “Come for me, Ace—”
Sabo pulled her down hard onto his length, driving himself deep into her. Hotaru’s voice cut off with a high, stuttering moan. Her eyes went wide, face flushing with pleasure and Ace grabbed the back of her head, muffling her moans as he thrusted back into her mouth.
Ace’s breathing quickened. His eyes darted back to the desk. More labored. Sabo’s eyes flickered to him. Ace bowed his head, thrusting faster and harder into Hotaru’s mouth without mercy. Tears peeked out from the corners of her eyes, moans punched out with every shift of his hips.
Hoku adjusted his expression based on the sound. Already far, far away from what was unfolding in front of her. Focused on the drawing. The room slipped back into a studio. The bed another prop. The people forms to draw.
Sabo sat up. Hotaru moaned around Ace’s cock at the shift, moving her hips erratically to chase the deeper feeling he’d done just seconds ago, trying desperately to imitate the pleasure he could give her—find it for herself—
Useless.
Sabo’s gloved fingers slid around her waist. His fingers found the swollen nub, working it fast and quickly between his fingers. Hotaru’s eyes went wide and she keened, swallowing around Ace’s thick cock as he fucked her mouth and tears and drool dripped down her chin—
Hoku barely blinked, figuring everything was starting to come down. The room would slip from its high. Her hand worked faster at the drawing. Almost there. Finish up.
You can do this.
Hotaru’s entire body shuddered. Her eyes rolled into the back of her head. Sabo’s textured fingers rolled a few more times expertly over her clit, stroking it as her hips jerked. She clenched hard around him, trying to tug him over the edge with her. Not knowing how far back at the starting line he still was.
Sabo’s eyes were hooded. He let her ride it out with another sloppy jerk of her hips and then gently, sweetly, patiently guided her twitching hips forward and off. His cock slipped out, still fully erect. It pulsed, heavy and hard. He felt each hot throb beneath the slickened condom and he sat up further as Hotaru fell forward toward Ace.
Hotaru choked. The muted sound muffled as Ace grabbed the back of her head and held her there. He let out a low, ragged breath, barely a groan. He shut his eyes tight, bowing his head low as he came.
Hot spurts filled her mouth and Hotaru’s throat bobbed rapidly, working to swallow it all as she shut her eyes tight. Her hips twitched. On her hands and knees as the bitter taste flooded her mouth.
Hoku erased a part of Sabo’s expression. It didn’t quite fit. She reworked at his eyes, focusing on finishing.
Ace’s fingers unthreaded her hair. He sat back on his heels with a breathy exhale.
Hotaru’s lips slid off him with a wet pop. She breathed, ragged. Her face was flushed a dark red with pleasure. Sweat rolled down her neck, past the swell of her breasts. Her hair disheveled, clinging this way and that. Dress creased. Her entire body shook with effort. A bit of thick white trailed down the corner of her mouth.
Hotaru weakly looked up, eyes wet and hazy. She started to turn over her shoulder. “Sa… Sabo… let me… help you—”
Ace’s large hand slid over her eyes. Hotaru shuddered, letting herself be pulled back into his lap and flush against him. Ace’s free hand snaked around her hip, slowly running a teasing trail right back down to her throbbing, wet heat.
Hotaru sucked in a sharp breath. She moaned loudly, tossing her head back. Eyes covered by Ace’s hand. “Ah, baby—again?”
Sabo leaned back against the cushioned headboard. His fingers nimbly tugged off the slickened condom, tossing it to the side of the bed. He pulled his glove off with his teeth. His hand tugged a small bottle off the nightstand with familiar ease, popping the cap and lathering up his fingers.
The blonde exhaled a long, heavy sound. Sabo relaxed back, slowly wrapping his fingers around the base of his cock. It pulsed beneath his slick fingers, throbbing.
Hoku glanced to his expression for a second and burrowed down into the desk, not even watching any further. It sounded about done—I’m almost done here too.
You can do this.
Ace slid two fingers with ease into Hotaru. She moaned, writhing in his lap, legs opening shamelessly despite the stimulation. Ace kept his hand over her eyes, nudging her legs open a little further as Sabo slowly started to stroke himself, watching.
“Want to help him get off?” Ace whispered by her ear. He nipped at her neck and Hotaru nodded desperately as he continued to pump his fingers in and out of her, working her to a second high. “Repeat what I tell you to say like a good girl.”
Sabo’s fingers slid from the base to the head, shifting. He ran a thumb over his slit, eyes following the soft top of white hair flickering in and out of his view. Pinning her in place.
“Sabo,” Hotaru said, listening to Ace’s heatedly whispered words. She gasped, breathy. “Sabo, I missed you so much.”
Sabo let out a heavier exhale. His teeth worked at his bottom lip. His hand tightened around his cock.
“I’m sorry I was gone for so—ah—so long,” Hotaru panted. “I’m sorry—” Ace shoved his fingers harder into her, hitting home. “I’m sorry! I won’t—Ace! I won’t… I won’t leave again!”
Sabo groaned. Hoku worked faster. His most… The most reaction from him this entire time.
She blocked everything out. No other sound slipped past. Completely in her own world.
Deaf.
His cock throbbed harder. Sabo shut his eyes, letting his head roll back as he worked faster, harder, pumping himself over and over again. His lips moved. His teeth ground together.
Ace whispered into her ear, thrusting his fingers up.
“Ah! A-Ah… Please,” Hotaru repeated. “Please… I wan… I wanna feel you. Missed you. I-ah-I’ll be good… so… so… teach me!”
Sabo’s breath quickened. His hand worked faster and faster. He screwed his eyes shut tight, muscles growing taut. Sweat rolled down the side of his chin, past his neck.
“I’ll do whatever you say,” Hotaru babbled. “I won’t ever leave again—oh, god, please—”
Ace shoved his fingers, hitting Hotaru’s spot repeatedly and she cried out the heated words whispered into her ear—
“I’m yours, Sabs!”
Sabo stiffened. His back arched. He tossed his head back against the headboard and shuddered, a low, sweet groan escaping his lips.
Hot spurts of come splattered onto Hotaru’s thighs. Painting them white. She panted, chest rising and falling rapidly as she sank back into Ace’s grip. Ace casually slipped his fingers out of her, wiping them off on the bed sheets as he pulled his hand off her eyes.
Sabo struggled to catch his breath for a second. He reached up with his other hand, pushing his hair back from his face. It slicked over the top of his head, remaining there. He inhaled and exhaled slowly before his eyes fluttered open, glancing to Ace as he watched his brother set Hotaru down on her side, a panting, blissed out mess.
Their gazes met. Ace and Sabo watched each other for a moment before their gazes swung to the side of the room.
Hoku stopped. She stared at the drawing that had finally come to life in front of her. Her eyes went round in disbelief, almost in awe.
For a moment—everything else fell away.
The studio, the people—she’d done it. You did it! Hoku, you did it! You finally made something new—
You handled it.
Pride flooded her chest, desperate and unbidden. The small achievement. This strange, harrowing finish line in the midst of something she didn’t realize she’d started—but you did it. See? You just needed to tune everything else out—
You’re moving.
Ace brought one leg up, resting an arm on his knee. Sabo tipped his head to the side, his hand covering the lower half of his face, hiding his mouth and the way his lips were turning—
Hoku touched the drawing. You did your job. You did it. You’re moving again.
The circumstances wild, crazed. She couldn’t think about anything else except that it finally felt like she was moving again and out of this rut.
Two pairs of eyes, hooded and smoldering stared back at her from the drawing, mimicking the pair watching her just over the top of her desk. Across the room.
The path beneath her feet started to shift. Hoku happily ran forward, eager to be moving.
She didn’t notice the fences sliding up on either side of her.
Didn’t notice the signs pointing where to go.
Didn’t know where she was going. Just happy to be going. Happy to have a destination again and not knowing—
There was no escape.
#Memos#Hoku#Memos AU#Portgas D. Ace x oc#ace/oc#Sabo#Portgas D. Ace#Sabo/Oc#Dark!Ace#Dark!Sabo#Ace/Oc/Sabo#trafalgar law#eustass captain kid#monkey d. luffy#tumblr messed with my italics srry
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P-MINUS - 2019
Where are you from? And what’s your first memories linked to hip hop?
I’ve lived all over - Belgium, Germany, Ohio, Missouri, the Virgin Islands, San Francisco, and now Los Angeles. But I spent the most years, including high school and college, in Missouri, so I feel like that’s where “I’m from.” I first remember hearing hip hop while living on St. Thomas (in the Virgin Islands) and the three songs that started me on this journey were “I Need Love,” by LL Cool J, “You Be Illin’” by Run-DMC and “Fight For Your Right To Party” by the Beastie Boys. I must have heard them on the radio, so that would have been 1987 - the year of my hip hop birth. In 1988, I moved back to Missouri and a neighbor of mine had a ton of rap tapes so I’d borrow his tapes all the time or listen to them in his car on the drive to school. I believe that the first tape I ever bought was Schooly D’s “Smoke Some Kill” (1988).
What got you started with Atak Distribution, how and when did it begin?
Fast forward to 1994 - I had graduated from college, where I had been the Hip Hop Director at the school’s radio station, and moved to San Francisco where I began an internship at Gavin, a music magazine that curated Top 40 lists for radio programmers. Somehow through that job, I met DJ Stef (editor of the Vinyl Exchange) and started writing record reviews for her. And on one fateful day, I received a copy of Sacred Hoop’s “Demo” tape for review and I thought it was the freshest thing in the world and in 1996 I officially became an underground hip hop junkie.
Were you a hardcore music collector before you started Atak?
Before Atak, I had a decent cd and record collection, full of ‘90s “golden era” major label releases, but hardly any tapes and barely anything considered “indie” or “underground.” Back then I wasn’t a collector, just a music fan, because all this incredible music was just sitting at the record stores for $12.99. I shopped a lot at Amoeba and Rasputin’s and a few other smaller stores in the Bay area, plus a few record labels and artists would send me promos for review.
How did you choose what would be in your catalog? How did you make contacts with the artists?
Starting with Sacred Hoop, I was certain that this amazing group wasn’t getting the exposure it deserved, so the seeds of Atak were first planted. I then started soliciting for more submissions through the Vinyl Exchange and some other Bay area rap magazines, such as 4080. I think that the Hoop started spreading the word, too, because I soon started getting tapes from the likes of FTA, Megabusive, San Francisco Street Music, Jedi Knights Circle, 99th Demention and others from the South Bay and SF. Somewhere in there, I met up with the Mystic Journeymen, bought some tapes from them, and was eventually exposed to Berkeley and Oakland artists such as the Living Legends, Hobo Junction, Zion-I and Illa Dapted. If I liked your tape, it would get in the Atak catalog. The first printed mail-order catalog had 12 tapes in it and the very first tape sold was Mystik Journeymen’s “Escape Forever” on August 10th, 1996.
Was the mail-order a full time job or did you have other occupations (studies, other job?)?
During the first few years I had several jobs: the Gavin internship became a paid job, I worked at a grocery store and then later at a vegetarian cafe. Eventually, since my rent was cheap and I was starting to sell more music, I was able to do Atak full-time. All the storage and shipping was done out of my bedroom.
Did you have many overseas/international customers and what role did that play in the business?
It looks like I started getting my first international orders (from Finland!) in 1997. I don’t know how they found out about Atak, but they were serious fans of West Coast underground so word spreads fast amongst those folks. Fans in Finland, Australia, Canada and Japan were my strongest supporters, with a few folks in France and Germany, too. This was before I started selling online, so these folks were trusting me with their cash and money orders and I will be forever indebted to them. Through these customers, I was exposed to international hip hop and eventually started selling music from the likes of Ceebrolistics, the Sebutones, mcenroe, Mary Joy Recordings, Muphin and the Hilltop Hoods.
What was the « peak » year in terms of sales and in terms of quality of music?
After a year or so of mailing out catalogs and setting up tables of merchandise at shows, Atak finally got online with the help of one of my earliest customers, Todd (aka Vic aka Celph Titled), who was extremely active on hip hop message boards, and he really helped spread the word around the U.S. and the world, so Atak started getting more non-Bay area music in the catalog and I started getting orders from everywhere. I think that the music quality was strong start to finish. I was listening to everything before I put it in the catalog, and if it wasn’t dope, it didn’t get in.
Did you ever wanted to make Atak a bigger thing, like UGHH or such?
There was a time in which I would have loved for Atak to get really big, because it was all so much fun - all the shows, meeting the artists, hearing a ton of new music, even the packing and shipping was fun for me. But in hindsight, it is clear that I was better at being a huge fan of the music rather than being a savvy businessperson. At the point in which digital music started taking off, I didn’t have the technical knowhow to adjust accordingly, and a big part of me still simply loved selling physical copies. As a fan, I didn’t want everything to go digital, but as a businessperson I should have dived in headfirst to keep up with the other big websites. I admired what the other sites were doing, and what friends like Shane (aka Kegs) was doing with Below the Surface - putting out records, putting on shows, opening a brick-and-mortar storefront. But part of me liked keeping things small and simple, but that clearly pushed me into smaller and more obscure corner of the online hip hop biz and eventually bumped me out of it altogether.
You did some cd-r reissues as well as a couple of mix-cds. Any temptation of launching a proper record label (as in: « new release, no reissue ») at some point?
I’d been wanting FOREVER to start a label and put out records! I made a feeble attempt to put out an Atak compilation in the late ‘90s, full of all the folks that were in my catalog at the time. I was able to get maybe 7-10 crews over to my house one night to talk about it, but since I had no idea how to really put it all together, I ended up getting one original song, from Nitrous Ox, out of that great big idea. More recently, I’ve been hoping to help folks put out releases but nothing has materialized just yet. Nowadays almost everyone is really good at getting this stuff done themselves, so I’m happy that they are taking control of their destinies and getting their music out to the world.
Can you give us your personal Top 5 favorites in your sale catalog? Also one that you think was dope and didn’t have the recognition it deserved?
In no particular order, I’ll list a few of my favorites, but I’m obligated to mention Sacred Hoop’s “Demo” (aka “Sacred Hoop” aka “Runny Poop”) first since that tape inspired everything. I was also thrilled to be able to pick up indie music from the Hieroglyphics (“Hiero Oldies”)and Saafir (Hobo Junction’s “Limited Edition Compilation”) since I was such a fan of their major label stuff. I really liked Red Tide’s “Rogue MCs” tape. Disflex6’s self-titled debut (aka “1984”) was great. The Kracken’s “Abstract & Cognac” left me wanting much more. The Sebutones’ “50/50 Where It Counts” blew my mind! Early stuff Dose One and Why? showed me that hip hop had no boundaries. This is an extremely abbreviated favorites list - as I look back through my old catalogs, I realize that I loved them all. It was all so new and so fresh and I think these artists all deserved more recognition than they got. I’m glad that I could help expose them a bit but I wish I could have done a lot more.
Did you developed friendship with artists/crews over those years and do you have interesting stories/ anecdotes linked to that?
My anecdotal memory is terrible so I’ve sadly forgotten a ton of great stories, fantastic show moments and hilarious conversations. Looking back, I should have kept a journal or taken a million photographs, because we all had so much fun and did so much back then. But, luckily for me, I’ve been able to keep in touch with a few of my very favorite people, emcees Luke Sick (Sacred Hoop/Grand Invincible) and Roughneck Jihad (Third Sight), and producer Deeskee (who has probably produced more songs in the Atak catalog than anyone else). And luckily for everyone else, all three of these guys are still making incredible music, more than 20 years after giving me tapes to review. A few weeks ago I got to hang out with The Grouch for a bit and he gave me a copy of his “F...the Dumb” double vinyl, 20 years after I first sold that tape in the catalog.
Why (and when) did you stopped Atak?
Atak started to slow down around 2004. I had recently moved from the Bay area down to Los Angeles, gotten married, bought a house, and started another job that was able to pay the bills more reliably. I was still getting orders and submissions from new artists, but wasn’t able to give Atak the focus it required to really push new artists and releases. I didn’t have time to go to many shows anymore, and all my hip hop buddies were still up in the Bay. I had ambitions to reboot the website, but then my web host got hacked and I had to shut down the site...and then I never got it back online. I eventually moved my inventory onto some other online platforms and kept selling, but for the most part, Atak was done. I’d like to take this opportunity to apologize to the artists who submitted music around this time. I was getting some great music but just didn’t have juice to do anything with it.
Any thoughts on the evolution of hip hop? What about the the come back of the cassette? Is it possible that Atak would make a comeback in the future, in some form or another?
Tough question, because I don’t keep up with much truly “underground” music anymore, so I really hope that there are a ton of dope kids putting out dope music out there, and I’m sure there are plenty of them. I love 90’s hip hop so much, both major label and my Atak stuff, that that is what I still listen to the most, digging in my records, tapes and cds or bumping music in my car. I agree with most true heads that a lot of today’s hip hop is junk, and though I’m happy to see rappers get big and make money, I’d much rather that it be good, original and compelling hip hop. I’m stoked to see everyone buying and releasing tapes again, because of my love for the physical copy (though I agree that a free or cheap digital download is an essential part of that sale). And in regards to Atak’s great big comeback, I don’t think it will happen - it would require too much time and energy to do it right. But if I can still help out a few people, promote a few records, maybe even sell a few for my old pals, I’m happy to contribute.
A specific question from the homie Age: do you still want to reissue that Hi-State album?
I bugged my man Mr. E about that tape FOREVER and at least he finally put it up on Bandcamp (https://eightarrow.bandcamp.com/album/hi-state-project-demos-n-shit-vol-1) and we chatted about putting out a cassette reissue. I’m sure he wouldn’t have much trouble selling a short run of 100 tapes, so I’ll remind him about it. But I’m happy that fans can at least take a listen or buy it online.
What do you think was the most special in the 90's underground scene, and do you believe something like that would ever happen again?
I’ve never really tried to analyze that scene, but in retrospect, I bet that a lot of these emcees, producers and deejays were inspired by all the incredible major label releases that kept pouring out in that decade. So much quality hip hop was coming out and it was easy to see on “Yo! MTV Raps” and BET and the good stuff was even getting on the radio! It was everywhere and it was so damn good! I’m sure that these kids just wanted to be a part of that magical time, and a lot of the underground music was super fresh, too, because it wasn’t easy to make beats and put out cds - they had to commit to it and create a whole scene and they had to be dope to do it. Granted, I’m a old nostalgic rap dude now, but I don’t think the major or the underground scene will ever be that saturated with fantastically innovative, powerful, creative and inspired hip hop. Nowadays there isn’t enough inspiration in the scene for there to be an onslaught of great new hip hop like there was for me back in the days. There will always be a lucky few who can inspire themselves to be original and make great music, and hopefully these kids will get a chance to be heard.
Interview conducted by Kaliyuga Pro & Pseudzero with a bonus cameo by Age, february 2019.
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ReMarkable Tablet Review
The ReMarkable tablet has gotten a lot of reviews, but in most cases the device was reviewed by tech reviewers. They weighed the device against others, listed the specifications, battery life, and other technical aspects.
I wrote a similar review, and never posted it because it was just my take from the same technical angle. I think what people want to know is whether this tablet will be a purchase they'll regret. If you're reading this, you may have already tried an iPad, Windows Tablet, or Android tablet with a pen stylus, or several.
I'm about ninety days into owning mine and haven't once regretted the purchase. My spouse and I both bought one, and carry them almost every day.
Here's what I did when I bought mine.
Scanned in the residual pages from all my physical notebooks, and put them in a box. Turned the scans into PDFs, and loaded them onto my ReMarkable.
Exported my active OneNote notebooks, the active ones, to PDF, and loaded them onto my ReMarkable.
Loaded everything PDF or ePUB that I use, or might use, onto the ReMarkable, and organized everything into folders so it could be easily referenced.
I made certain there was no reason to use anything but my ReMarkable Tablet. I wanted to see how long it would take before I broke out my physical notebooks in frustration, or preferred carrying a stack of paper to the ultra-light tablet device. Weeks later, none of that happened.
My printer sits unused, my physical notebooks are still in the box, and I carry the ReMarkable everywhere. Some of that is owed to the preparation and time I took setting it up, and my own ability to adapt to new devices. The lion's share of the credit goes to ReMarkable for making a really nice device.
Value
You're probably asking yourself, is it worth the 500 USD price tag?
I fill a lot of notebooks, and I like to buy Moleskine specifically. I burn through a ton of pens, and I prefer the expensive variety. I don't print a lot of stuff, but when I do it's hundreds of pages at a time. I've got a good set up for that, and my printer is both ancient and cheap to maintain. It sort of evens out between the two.
500 USD is probably 3-4 years of notebooks, pens, and printing costs. Because I write for a living, I'd put my usage at the extreme end, so if you're buying the ReMarkable to save money on paper and ink, it probably won't do that for anyone but the most prolific annihilator of tree-based products.
The 500 USD is being paid largely for two things. The first is the convenience of having all your documents and handwritten notes in one place. The second is for the cloud storage feature that comes with the tablet, and the peace of mind that your things are backed up to the cloud. Being able to check any of my handwritten notes with my phone is keen.
If you have ever used your phone to take pictures of handwritten notes so you had them with you, the ReMarkable is probably for you. If you are carrying around a lot of paper, notebooks, and pens, and it's draining to keep track of all those extra things, the ReMarkable will be a luxury worth the price tag.
A Few Technical Matters
The device does get regular updates. I've downloaded two since receiving mine. Each has fixed bugs and helped stability.
In troubleshooting the device in the rare instance where it has frozen or had a glitch, plugging it in to charge usually clears the issue or allows the device to reboot. I've had precious few instances where this has happened. Usually, I can just hold the power button to reboot it, or it restarts on it's own.
When it's out of battery, and you plug it in to charge there's no indicator light or other sign that it's taking a charge like most devices. There's no battery meter animation that pops up on the screen to let you know it's charging, or similar. That said, this device charges very quickly, and when I've been out of power I'm back up and writing again in 20-30 minutes.
Page turning and rendering in documents varies depending on the graphical complexity. If it's just text, the pages will turn seemlessly, with little or no load time. If you're reading a 300 page game book with background images, pictures, and other graphical elements the tablet seems to handle it well, but set your expectations accordingly.
The ReMarkable seems to load whatever page you're on, and as many pages in both directions as it can buffer. With a simple text document, it might be able to hold the whole thing in memory. With a more graphically intense book, it might be 3-4 pages in either direction. If you're reading at a normal speed, you probably won't notice, the table will load pages as you go.
If you're trying to rapidly turn pages or you select a specific page, expect 5-6 seconds of load time while the table renders the page you selected, and as many pages in both directions as it can buffer. I thought this would be annoying, but I don't tend to jump around books too much, and the preview images in the page selection view are pretty decent.
Handwriting
Writing with the pen is flawless. I've used virtually every pen stylus technology there is going back a decade; capacitive, EMR, AES, MPP, the works. Tilt and pressure sensitivity are spot on. There is no parallax or offset, and the textured surface of the tablet and soft nibs of the stylus make this feel exactly like writing on paper.
It taps so heavily into my own cognitive automaticity with regard to using paper I forget it's not paper sometimes. When I first got it, I'd stare curiously at the device, forgetting I need to press a button to start or turn to a new page. My brain would want to turn the physical page, but there wasn't one, so it'd throw a fault.
Weeks later, whenever I have to interact with real paper I tend to dislike it. It's like using a computer with a touchscreen and then having to use one that isn't. You'll tap the screen anyway because that's what you're used to. Real paper is inconvenient to me now because I can't easily erase or move elements around like I can with my ReMarkable.
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On Deadline: Chase the Story
Previously
Jamie was drowning in paperwork. Every square inch of his desk was piled high with files, old newspapers, reports — I thought I could see an AP Stylebook and a copy of “The Elements of Style” peeking out of the mess. “You’ve been here three weeks. How do you already have this much junk?” I asked, passing by his desk on my way to the kitchen.
His huge frame was dwarfed by the mess. “Life of a city reporter.” He stood up and peeked over to my own desk, a few rows over. “How’s yours so clean?”
I shrugged. “Travel light, travel far.” Other than my photo gear, I had never been one to horde or collect material items; I lived in my skin, and expressed myself though my work. My one concession to personalizing a workspace was a small potted cactus that sat in the corner of my desk — it had been suggested to me that having a plant to care for would help me stay focused and calm.
“Can I get you a coffee?” Jamie asked; he was moving to stand himself.
“I’m on my way out. I have to be at city hall in 30.” I held up my travel mug. “Just getting a refill.”
“Well, want to get a slice later?” I eyed him speculatively, but at the first sign of reluctance he continued: “I want to pick your brain about the MacGregor story.”
“My last assignment’s at 7.”
“I’ll be here late,” he grinned at me. I reflected that he must know that his grins could make me do anything he wanted. “And I know the best spot in town.”
Alfonsi’s was a worn-down little dive that seemed like it was straight out of a Billy Joel song. It was unfashionably vintage, filled with oak benches, burgundy vinyl seat covers, cheesy Italian-themed wallpaper and mass-produced oil paintings depicting scenes from other Italian restaurants. It was late, nearly 10 p.m., and the place was only sparsely populated. We sat down in a huge booth that could’ve fit six, and Jamie promptly ordered a whole pitcher of the only cheap beer the place had on tap.
“What do you want on your pizza, Sassenach?”
I raised my eyebrows at the nickname, but didn’t comment. “Please say you don’t want anchovies.”
“What’s wrong with anchovies?”
“They’re spiney and gross, for one thing.” I wrinkled my nose in disgust.
“They’re great with mushrooms and onions, but I can be persuaded in other directions.”
The waitress materialized with the beer and two chilled glasses; she poured us each a glass with a flourish and then reached into her apron for her order pad.
“Pepperoni and green peppers?” I queried Jamie with a tilt of my head.
He nodded. “Eight-cut round, please, with pepperoni and green peppers,” he ordered. As the waitress walked away, he smirked at me. “You order pizza like a 5-year-old.”
“What 5-year-old likes green peppers?” I gulped at my beer. Despite its cheapness, it was refreshing; the alcohol hit my empty stomach and warmed my insides. I turned to business: “What’s up with the MacGregor story?”
If he was disappointed by the change in subject, he didn't show it. “So.” He took a deep breath, winding up to begin. “Alex MacGregor breaks into Fort William, gets into Captain Jonathan Randall’s office, and steals a laptop, a few other valuables and a handgun. He’s arrested practically on-site, and sent to jail. Alex insists he’s innocent, it goes to trial. He’s convicted, mostly on Randall’s testimony. And now he’s dead. So, why the hell was Randall visiting him in jail?”
I shrugged. “Trying to help scare the kid straight?”
“Except the kid was already on the straight and narrow, or, as straight and narrow as kids from Cranesmuir can be. I checked out his record; other than a few tickets he was as clean as his mom says.”
“You didn't believe her?”
“Like Dougal says, ‘If your mother says she loves you, check it out.’”
“I had a prof in j-school who said that all the time.” I smiled in memory. “Have you gotten anything from the coroner?”
He rolled his eyes in frustration. “Coroner isn’t releasing the full report, just the findings summary. Cause of death was definitely asphyxiation due to hanging. There were some vague references to contusions and abrasions, which holds with what Alice told us.”
“How about murder? It’s not like police don’t kill people and lie to cover it up.” Jamie held up his hands and gestured to say maybe, maybe not. “Official police findings?” I asked.
“They’re still investigating, or so they say, and won’t comment on open investigations. It could be weeks or longer before we get anything from them.”
“Sounds like a lot of dead ends.”
“It’s dead end after dead end.” He sighed, his forehead wrinkled in worry. “This is my first big story. I want to really get it.”
I took another sip of beer, and then fiddled with the glass in my hands, pondering. My glass was still about a quarter full, but Jamie picked up the pitcher and topped me off, and then filled his own. “Have you talked to the army? If Randall’s suspect, look in his closet.”
His eyebrows shot up. “I haven’t. Bet I can ask for his service records.”
“FOIA the shit out of them if they push back,” I said, consideringly. “What about Alice?”
Jamie opened his mouth to reply, but at this juncture the waitress appeared with plates in one hand and a giant pizza in the other. She deftly passed out the plates and then plopped the pizza on the table, and served slices. Jamie promptly started shaking an absurd amount of red pepper on his slice, fanning it to cool. I gingerly sprinkled bit of parmesan on mine, and after it scorched my fingers, grabbed my knife and fork and cut my first bite.
“Really?” Jamie asked, amused.
“You’re not going to have skin on the roof of your mouth for a week,” I warned as he took a huge bite.
He grimaced as if in pain, but gamely kept chewing. As he swallowed, I felt his foot nudge mine under the table, and then hook around my ankle. He leaned across, and with a warm smile, said, “You could kiss it better for me.”
I kicked him with my free foot, dislodging my ankle and tucking my feet under the bench. I leaned back, and took another drink of beer, hiding a smile behind my cup. Cheeks flaming, I eyed him as sternly as I could manage. “Did you think you could scam me into a date?”
“If this is a scam, it worked like a charm.”
“Inappropes, dude,” I said, but I grinned at him in spite of myself.
He shrugged, as if trying to make room for himself in a slightly-too-small shirt. “Well, if you insist on talking business,” he paused for dramatic effect, and took a drink of his own beer, “what about Alice?”
“Alice MacGregor?”
“Yeah, you were about to tell me something about her before the pizza showed up.”
“Oh!” Relieved to be back on professional ground, I easily found my train of thought from before. “Have you talked to her about getting the full autopsy report, or Alex’s prisoner file? They’ll release stuff to next-of-kin they’d never give to a reporter.”
“And then if she gives it to us, we’re in the clear.” He considered this, munching on his slice. “She’s lawyered up, but she still might talk to me. She took a shine to you.”
“You might be better off convincing the lawyer.”
“Ah, Ned Gowen’s an old friend of my grandfather’s. He’d be no trouble.”
“Ned’s the lawyer, I take it?”
“He’s everyone’s lawyer, around here. I’ll talk to Dougal; he’ll be able to win him over.”
“Have you talked to Alex’s friends? Other people in the neighborhood?”
“What for?”
“Who knows. Could find out anything. I’d be trying to figure out why Randall took such an interest in Alex, and what other rumors are out there. If you want to gain these people’s trust, you have to be there, ya know?”
And there it was: the one truth I knew about journalism; I knew it in my bones. It was different for reporters; they could get the story after the fact. People could tell them what had happened, and they could make the reader feel as if they were there. Photojournalists didn’t have the luxury of catching the action later, they had to be in the middle of it, witness it firsthand. It was the truth that had taken me around the world and into the danger of war zones, and had somehow led me here.
By the time I was three slices in, the pitcher was empty and we had parsed everything we knew about Alex MacGregor and his death. Jamie had housed four, and was contemplating slice number five. He scowled at it, rubbing a hand on his flat stomach, but then went for it. “It’s so good,” he said, almost regretfully, between bites. I chuckled at him, and reached for the check. Jamie was faster, though, and whisked it out of my grasp.
“Hey!”
“I got it,” he said. “Don’t worry.”
I rolled my eyes at him. “I’m paying half.”
“I’ll expense it.”
“Who the fuck gets to expense dinner? Everyone gets mileage only.”
“Fine, I won’t expense it. But you gave me a ton of good advice, let me say thank you and buy you some damn pizza.”
“Nope. Not happening.” I stared him down, pulled out my wallet, and waited.
“Ugh, fine. It’s 20 bucks each, with tip.” I smacked the cash onto the table with a flourish and slipped back into my jacket. Jamie wrapped a scarf around his neck and zipped up his hoodie. “You’re a stubborn one, Sassenach.” He nodded his head toward the door.
“You better believe it,” I said, sliding out of the booth and following him out.
My tiny sliver hatchback was the only car in the parking lot; Jamie’s motorcycle was more than a few spaces beyond it. “This is me.”
He was right in front of me, and so close I could smell the faint whiff of beer and… had he used a breath mint? I leaned in, brushing my arm into his side. “Yeah,” he said, “thanks for…”
“Of course. I’ve chased enough stories to know how it goes.” I shrugged. Keys in hand, I gestured towards my car.
“Claire?”
“Yeah?” I turned back, and he closed the gap, taking my arm in hand and pulling me to him. I raised my face, and he kissed me, hot and fast. I tangled my hand in his sweatshirt and kissed him back hard, blood singing in my veins. One of his hands was in my hair and the other reached around my back and started heading south. Despite the chill of the early spring night, I was suddenly burning hot, and wanting.
The kiss ended as suddenly as it began. We stared at each other for a moment, stunned with what had just happened. But then I squeezed his arm and stepped away into the night. “See you later.”
Alone in my bed, I stared at the white ceiling in the dark. I had left my husband and my friends and my home and my job so I could be unmoored from the earth. If I could leave those things behind, I could leave anything. But Jamie made me want. He made me want to be present. He made me want to stay. I reached for my phone, the blue light flashing in the darkness, and texted Joe: “I’m going to need you to talk me out of doing something stupid.”
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1 - 200 I WANNA KNOOOW 😊💕
Took all day, but she answered mine so I’ll answer her’s ❤️
200: My crush’s name is: Shawn Mendes ofc
199: I was born in: Wisconsin, USA. Date: Aug 26
198: I am really: Passionate about music, caring, and shy until I get to know you
197: My cellphone company is: Sprint
196: My eye color is: Brown (sometimes hazel or green, but usually brown)
195: My shoe size is: Depends on the shoe. I range from 6 to 8.5
194: My ring size is: 6
193: My height is: 5'1" (yeah ik I’m short but I like my height lol)
192: I am allergic to: idk, but I have seasonal allergies
191: My 1st car was: Haven’t gotten it yet
190: My 1st job was: babysit I guess (if that counts)
189: Last book you read: Sherlock Holmes
188: My bed is: a futon at my dad’s and a normal bed (? lol) at my mom’s. They’re both comfy
187: My pet(s): 1 dog, his name is Koby
186: My best friend: Is amazing and I love her so much. She’s helped me through a lot.
185: My favorite shampoo is: Head and Shoulders
184: Xbox or ps3: Xbox
183: Piggy banks are: Cool. I still have one and I just emptied it for the Shawn Mendes concert lol
182: In my pockets: don’t have pockets on my pants rn
181: On my calendar: School events, vacations, college stuff, and weddings.
180: Marriage is: beautiful when you see two people absolutely in love with each other
179: Spongebob can: give me a crabby patty. Seriously. I’ve been waiting since I was 5
178: My mom: Annoys me sometimes, we don’t agree on certain things, but I still love her.
177: The last three songs I bought were: Havana by Camila Cabello, Kiwi by Harry Styles, and It’s a Vibe by 2 Chainz
176: Last YouTube video watched: makeup videos lol
175: How many cousins do you have?: 9
174: Do you have any siblings?: 2 younger brothers
173: Are your parents divorced?: yes.
172: Are you taller than your mom?: We’re the same height by she argues that she’s taller
171: Do you play an instrument?: Clarinet, violin, piano, ukulele, and guitar
170: What did you do yesterday?: spent all day with my school’s marching band and ended up looking like neopolitan ice cream because i got so burnt
[ I Believe In ]
169: Love at first sight: idk
168: Luck: yes
167: Fate: yes
166: Yourself: YES OFC
165: Aliens: yes
164: Heaven: yes more or less
163: Hell: yes more or less
162: God: yes more or less
161: Horoscopes: idk, I occasionally read mine
160: Soul mates: idk
159: Ghosts: yes
158: Gay Marriage: YES 🏳️🌈
157: War: fuck no
156: Orbs: maybe? Idk what they are
155: Magic: idk
[ This or That ]
154: Hugs or Kisses: depends. Hugs i guess
153: Drunk or High: neither. You can have fun without alcohol or drugs
152: Phone or Online: both
151: Redheads or Black haired: both
150: Blondes or Brunettes: both. Honestly hair color doesn’t matter
149: Hot or cold: both
148: Summer or winter: summer but like winter is beautiful too (i just don’t like shoveling)
147: Autumn or Spring: both
146: Chocolate or vanilla: chocolate
145: Night or Day: both lol
144: Oranges or Apples: apples wellllll oranges no both (IM SORRY FOR BEING INDECISIVE)
143: Curly or Straight hair: curly
142: McDonalds or Burger King: McDonalds
141: White Chocolate or Milk Chocolate:both
140: Mac or PC: Mac
139: Flip flops or high heels: Flip flops for everyday wear and heels for events
138: Ugly and rich OR sweet and poor: sweet and poor
137: Coke or Pepsi: Coke
136: Hillary or Obama: OBAMA!!!
135: Buried or cremated: idk
134: Singing or Dancing: both
133: Coach or Chanel: Coach
132: Kat McPhee or Taylor Hicks: idk
131: Small town or Big city: Both
130: Wal-Mart or Target: i like both but I shop at walmart more
129: Ben Stiller or Adam Sandler: Adam Sandler
128: Manicure or Pedicure: Manicure
127: East Coast or West Coast: hard choice
126: Your Birthday or Christmas: hmm
125: Chocolate or Flowers: which ever
124: Disney or Six Flags: Disney only because I’ve never been to six flags
123: Yankees or Red Sox: Red sox
[ Here’s What I Think About ]
122: War: I think it is dumb. Fighting over cultural difference shouldn’t happen instead it differences should be embraced. Who knows how many different wars there will be in my future let alone my future children’s.
121: George Bush: I honestly don’t have one
120: Gay Marriage: Everyone should be able to marry whomever they love. Why does it have to be voted on whether they can get married or not? Just let them live, be loved, and be happy.
119: The presidential election: It amazes me how he was elected. I am team Hillary. I have my opinions and you have yours. I respect that, but I’d rather not share mine.
118: Abortion: It is 2017, almost 2018, and women still don’t have control of their own bodies. I’m pro-choice. Abortion should be given as a choice to women. My mom had an abortion before she had me because she was really ill.
117: MySpace: haha never used it so don’t have an opinion about it
116: Reality TV: yeah it can be fun to watch but honestly what’s the point? Everyone’s own lives are hectic too
115: Parents: Some are great, some are bad. Some are controlling, some don’t care enough.
114: Back stabbers: I’ve dealt with many of you, but it’s your fault that you lost out on a great friend. Hated you guys for a while because I thought we were good friends, but I’m thankful toxic people like you are out of my life.
113: Ebay: is the shit. I got a crap ton of barbie clothes for my dolls when I was younger from there. Haven’t gone on there for a while tho
112: Facebook: the go-to app for when parents are around. That’s the only most censored app I have that I go on when they’re around
111: Work: wish I had one because all of my friends are making money, but once I get one I’ll wish I didn’t have a job so I can have more free time. It’s not like my parents will let me get a job anyways.
110: My Neighbors: Never really talk to any of my neighbors at my dads or my moms. Pretty sure they get annoyed with how loud I play my music
109: Gas Prices: i remember when it costed $5 or $6 a gallon. Please stay at $2.35
108: Designer Clothes: hella cool but also hella expensive. Thankful for cute cheap stores because I’m about to be a broke college student
107: College: thankful for the opportunity to get a higher education, but it’s always super expensive. If more jobs require a degree, why can’t we just make it more efficient to get a degree with less money? But that’s also too much to ask for
106: Sports: I like watching it and playing it is also fun.
105: My family: My parents divorced had me go through shit mentally and physically. (no they didn’t abuse me, their divorce was just difficult) I hope one day you two will stop acting like children and not beat down the other parent when we spend the night at your house. But I know it won’t ever end. I’m thankful my younger brothers won’t remember your divorce and they’re what keeps me going.
104: The future: I can’t wait to see what you hold. I can’t wait to go to college. I can’t wait to go into my career choice. I can’t wait to meet that special person. I can’t wait to start a family. I’m just excited for you
[ Last time I ]
103: Hugged someone: An hour ago when I put my brothers to sleep
102: Last time you ate: idk 2-3 hours ago
101: Saw someone I haven’t seen in a while: a year ago
100: Cried in front of someone: yesterday
99: Went to a movie theater: 2 years ago
98: Took a vacation: idk if you count it, but my school trip this past spring
97: Swam in a pool: 2 years ago
96: Changed a diaper: 4 years ago
95: Got my nails done: I think I was 7? Idk I do my nail myself now
94: Went to a wedding: 12 years ago
93: Broke a bone: never broke a bone
92: Got a piercing: I got my ears pierced before I turned 1 and I got my nose pierced on my birthday last year
91: Broke the law: idk
90: Texted: like 5 min ago
[ MISC ]
89: Who makes you laugh the most: my brothers or my best friend Kate
88: Something I will really miss when I leave home is: Brothers or my doggo
87: The last movie I saw: Boss baby
86: The thing that I’m looking forward to the most: going to college, interning, and getting a job in my career (Ik it’s 3 things but I’m excited lol)
85: The thing i’m not looking forward to: Moving away from loved ones
84: People call me: Mia
83: The most difficult thing to do is: Forgive someone who hurt you badly. Like truly forgive them
82: I have gotten a speeding ticket: never gotten a speeding ticket
81: My zodiac sign is: Virgo
80: The first person i talked to today was: My dad
79: First time you had a crush: 5 or 6 and it was on Zac Efron
78: The one person who i can’t hide things from: idk, maybee my best friend
77: Last time someone said something you were thinking: Yesterday
76: Right now I am talking to: my internet besties ❤️
75: What are you going to do when you grow up: something in the music industry
74: I have/will get a job: whenever my parents let me
73: Tomorrow: I will get up early, ride on a bus for 3 hours, and march in a parade
72: Today: I cut my hair short AND I FUCKING LOVE IT
71: Next Summer: I will try to spend as much time with my bestfriend before we leave for different colleges
70: Next Weekend: I get to spend with my best friend
69: I have these pets: Beagle- Eskimo cross
68: The worst sound in the world: whining when they don’t get what they want or smacking gum
67: The person that makes me cry the most is: honestly whoever cries in front of me I will cry with them
66: People that make you happy: Family, my dog, and my friends
65: Last time I cried: yesterday
64: My friends are: honest and caring
63: My computer is: an old macbook pro but it still works and I love it
62: My School: is full of fake people and drama
61: My Car: Don’t have one
60: I lose all respect for people who: lie, cheat, and treat people like they are less than them
59: The movie I cried at was: I can’t remember but I think TFIOS
58: Your hair color is: brown
57: TV shows you watch: Shadowhunters, Raven’s Home, Jane the virgin, Riverdale, and others I can’t remember
56: Favorite web site: Tumblr or twitter
55: Your dream vacation: big city in new york with my best friend or toronto with my grand parents/aunts
54: The worst pain I was ever in was: during my parents divorce
53: How do you like your steak cooked: medium rare
52: My room is: boring, cozy, and a little bit messy
51: My favorite celebrity is: Shawn Mendes, duh
50: Where would you like to be: Somewhere where I can say “I finally made it"
49: Do you want children: Yes!! I can’t wait to have kids
48: Ever been in love: I don’t think so
47: Who’s your best friend: Some beautiful, crazy, weird girl named Kate i guess (let’s see if she reads this later)
46: More guy friends or girl friends: I have more girl friends than I do guys, but I wish I had more guy friends
45: One thing that makes you feel great is: music
44: One person that you wish you could see right now: My grandpa
43: Do you have a 5 year plan: I guess yeah, but it’s very loosely planned
42: Have you made a list of things to do before you die: no
41: Have you pre-named your children: thought of names, but not planned them lol
40: Last person I got mad at: idk
39: I would like to move to: Cali, New york, by my grand parent in canada, and where I am now
38: I wish I was a professional: something in music
[ My Favorites ]
37: Candy: Sour gummy worms or cinnamon bears
36: Vehicle: Jeep
or Range Rover
35: President: OBAMA
34: State visited: Illinois or Florida
33: Cell Phone provider: Sprint
32: Athlete: Jose Bautista
31: Actor: Rupert Grint
30: Actress: Zendaya, Lucy Hale, or Emma Watson
29: Singer: Shawn Mendes or Selena Gomez
28: Band: R5 or 5SOS
27: Clothing store: Ross or American Eagle
26: Grocery store: Walmart
25: TV show: Shadowhunters
24: Movie: HARRY POTTER SERIES
23: Website: Again, tumblr or twitter
22: Animal: doggies or dolphins
21: Theme park: no clue
20: Holiday: christmas
19: Sport to watch: Baseball
18: Sport to play: Baseball or volleyball
17: Magazine: Vogue
16: Book: The Mortal Instruments Series
15: Day of the week: Friday
14: Beach: Clear water in FL
13: Concert attended: Illuminate tour (on Aug 6th, 2017)
12: Thing to cook: Pasta anything
11: Food: chicken alfredo or pasta anything or anything really I’m not picky
10: Restaurant: Chinese restaurants
9: Radio station: idk
8: Yankee candle scent: idk lol that pumpkin one??
7: Perfume: Signature by Shawn Mendes or Bombshell by VS
6: Flower: Pink hibiscus
5: Color: aqua
4: Talk show host: Ellen Degeneres
3: Comedian: Jo Koy, Kevin Hart, or Gabriel Iglesias
2: Dog breed: honestly any breed
1: Did you answer all these truthfully?: of course 💕
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Get to know me tag game!
I was tagged by @tenebies! thank you!! ♥
also I lost internet connection for a couple of hours last night while I was doing this so I’m posting it now instead
Rules: Answer these 92 statements and tag 20 people.
LAST:
1. Drink: pepsiii
2. Phone call: uhhh, when I ordered chinese food the other day lol
3. Text message: to @starpendle!
4. Song you listened to: River in the Desert ♫
5. Time you cried: this morning, I didn’t have a nice dream last night
HAVE YOU:
6. Dated someone twice: no
7. Kissed someone and regretted it: no
8. Been cheated on: no
9. Lost someone special: yes
10. Been depressed: pretty sure I have it but haven’t been properly diagnosed
11. Gotten drunk and thrown up: I don’t drink
LIST 3 FAVORITE COLORS:
12-14: Sky blue, mint, pastel pink
IN THE LAST YEAR HAVE YOU:
15. Made new friends: yes!
16. Fallen out of love: no
17. Laughed until you cried: yes
18. Found out someone was talking about you: yeah but just work nonsense
19. Met someone who changed you: no
20. Found out who your friends are: ??
21. Kissed someone on your Facebook list: no
GENERAL:
22. How many of your Facebook friends do you know in real life: all of them but like haven’t been on facebook in almost 6 years lol
23. Do you have any pets: yes! one kitty named finn. there are 2 other kitties here but they aren’t mine and their names are rie and tomo
24. Do you want to change your name: nope
25. What did you do for your last Birthday: saw moana with a couple of friends and we couldn’t decide where to eat so we ended up at ikea lmao
26. What time did you wake up: around eleven
27. What were you doing at midnight last night: playing persona 5
28. Name something you can’t wait for: episode ignis
29. When was the last time you saw your mom: uhhh 2012
30. What is one thing you wish you could change in your life: motivate myself to change things
31. What are you listening right now: watching friends on tv
32. Have you ever talked to a person named Tom: yes
33. Something that is getting on your nerves: I’m still being petty about automata lmao
34. Most visited website: tumblr and twitter probably
RANDOM INFO:
35. Mole/s: oh jeez I’ve never counted but I have a ton. there are 3 on my face, like 7 I can see on both of my arms. I’m sure there are more tho lol
36. Mark/s: even more of those lmao, most noticeable one is probably the one on my left hand from when I got a second degree burn
37. Childhood dream: I wanted to be a vet
38. Hair color: dark brown
39. Long or short hair: I just got it cut a couple of weeks ago so now it’s short
41. What do you like about yourself: my eyes
42. Piercings: 3 in my right ear and 5 in my left
43. Blood type: I have no idea lol
44. Nickname: Nat, but I’ve missed being called Nats so I’ve asked newer friends to call me that if they want~
45. Relationship status: single but also marrying Ignis
46. Zodiac: Sagittarius
47. Pronouns: she/her
48. Favorite TV Show: I rarely watch anything new on tv these days, friends, law & order svu and south park are pretty much always on if I’m watching it though
49. Tattoos: nope
50. Right or left hand: right hand
51. Surgery: had a hernia when I was 4 and eye surgery when I 6/7
52. Hair dyed in different color: got highlights before
53. Sport: did ballet?? kind of??
55. Vacation: I’ve never really been on one
56. Pair of trainers: a what now??
MORE GENERAL:
57. Eating: my diet is basically anything that is cheap/filling because I’m too lazy to cook an actual decent meal lol
58. Drinking: I don’t drink anything with alcohol. recently I have become addicted to the caramel frappes at mcds
59. I’m about to: I was gonna start FFXII but I’m tired, so I might just play some botw before bed
61. Waiting for: pay day
62. Want:
63. Get married: as someone who can’t even picture themselves in a relationship, I don’t see it happening lol
64. Career: I’m.....lowkey trying to get into something now but it’s mostly a pipe dream atm
WHICH IS BETTER:
65. Hugs or kisses: hugs!! I like giving big bear hugs~
66. Lips or eyes: eyes
67. Shorter or taller: don’t really care
68. Older or younger: older I guess
70. Nice arms or nice stomach: I don’t care about this stuff tbh I’m just gonna skip the rest lmao
71. Sensitive or loud:
72. Hook up or relationship:
73. Troublemaker or hesitant:
HAVE YOU EVER:
74. Kissed a Stranger: no
75. Drank hard liquor: no
76. Lost glasses/contact lenses: I only wore glasses when I was a kid but don’t remember losing them
77. Turned someone down: yes
78. Sex on the first date:
79. Broken someone’s heart: I highly doubt it
80. Had your heart broken: somewhat
81. Been arrested: no
82. Cried when someone died: yes
83. Fallen for a friend: no
DO YOU BELIEVE IN:
84. Yourself: no
85. Miracles: somewhat
86. Love at first sight: no
87. Santa Claus: no
88. Kiss on the first date: depends, but yeah
OTHER:
90. Current best friend name: don’t have one and never really liked the term tbh
91. Eye color: blue
92. Favorite movie: LotR: Fellowship of the Ring
tagging: @applegumi, @natszume, @starpendle, @ecruzm, @sorariku, @elliejoys, @cetras, @nyaanko, @sephhiroth, @kaineh, @mickeyblades, @datamarluxia, @2b6o, @kishou, @kirschtein, @fangmich, @zacksoldiers, @antheise, @castleoblivions, @shepplo
as always feel free to ignore!
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Reading Meme
(Sorry for taking forever on these, guys...! I got tagged for a lot of memes at once, and this one is long. I apparently have a lot of things to say about books... who knew?)
Tagged by @theticklishpear. Thank you again!
(Tag-ees, btw, don’t feel obligated to read my long rambly answers if you just want to copy/paste the questions.)
1. Which book has been on your shelves the longest?
I have a picture book of St George and the Dragon whose illustrations are BEAUTIFUL (it’s this one). Technically hasn’t been on MY shelves longest - a while ago I found it in our shelves of books from when my brother and I were kids and repossessed it because I love the art so much.
2. What is your current read, your last read and the book you’ll read next?
Currently in the middle of Rosemary and Rue by Seanan McGuire. Also in the pile are The Edge of the Sea by Rachel Carson (whom I love) and Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea: Why the Greeks Matter by Thomas Cahill (which is ...okay, but more of a slightly-more-opinionated refresher on what I learned in college than anything new). I’m also most of the way through a reread of Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman (one of my favorite books).
Last thing I finished was Shadowheart, the last book in Tad Williams’s Shadowmarch series. (It’s not without its problems, but overall I really enjoyed that series. It’s got the ensemble-cast-and-unlikely-heroes thing going on.)
I’m not sure what’s next. Fiction might be American Gods by Neil Gaiman or Aftermath by Chuck Wendig... or I might need to keep going with the series and track down the second October Daye book. We’ll see when I get there. Nonfiction - been meaning to start The Rise and Fall of Ancient Egypt by Toby Wilkinson or Writings from Ancient Egypt (translations from original sources, by the same). But I also have a book about pirates off the coast of Virginia my mom got on a recent trip to Jamestown... and a book about the Silk Road I happened upon in Barnes and Noble the other week, which MIGHT have edged its way to the top of the list... (this is why I’m all for brick-and-mortar bookstores. Search algorithms are great, but they don’t accomplish quite the same thing as wandering the shelves.)
3. Which book does everyone like and you hated?
Ehh, I’m not sure what “everyone” likes, but a lot of the series my high school friends loved I could never get into. I remember really liking the first Wheel of Time book, but got bored of the series pretty quickly after the first one. Same with Terry Goodkind’s Sword of Truth. I tried to like Dragonriders of Pern, but didn’t get far with that one either. And I hear the series gets better after the overenthusiastic-Tolkien-fanboying of the first book, but I really didn’t enjoy The Sword of Shannara.
Oh.. and I never read any Discworld JUST because in high school I knew a guy who EXTOLLED ITS VIRTUES TO THE HEAVENS. Constantly. Now that I’ve learned more about the series and the author I will definitely have to read some someday, though.
(I’m not a big fan of most “~Literature~” either, Pear.)
4. Which book do you keep telling yourself you’ll read, but you probably won’t?
I don’t know. My TBR list is pretty ridiculous, and anything’s possible, so I hate to relegate anything to “probably won’t read” status. Finishing A Song of Ice and Fire might be close. I received the whole series as a birthday gift from a friend (long before the TV show existed), read the first two back-to-back at a time when I really wasn’t in a great place, and got burned out on the grimdark rocksfalleveryonedies of it all. I did enjoy the books, and I’ll probably dive back into it someday, but it’s not really high on my Fun Things to Read list right now.
I also come home with an armload of unexpected finds every time the local college has a charity used book fair... most of which end up sitting on my shelves for a long time, still unread...
5. Which book are you saving for “retirement?”
Nothing really, but I’ve got a big stack of novels from Japan that I’ve been saving for “once I’ve brushed up on my kanji” - since reading is excruciatingly slow when I have to look up every other word. I’m being optimistic and not putting them under the “probably won’t read” heading, though.
6. Last page: read it first or wait till the end?
noo, wait till the end! I will confess that sometimes I’ll flip ahead if I’m at a really slow point, or I know I don’t have time for another chapter but can’t quite bring myself to put the book down yet... but I’m trying to get better about it. I always regret it when I accidentally spoil the book for myself.
7. Acknowledgements: waste of ink and paper or interesting aside?
There should ABSOLUTELY be acknowledgements. The ones that involve stories or interesting background info are cool, but even the ones that are just lists of names 110% should be there - they’re for those people, not the reader, and after all the sweat and tears that go into putting a book together they deserve that place of honor.
8. Which book character would you switch places with?
When I was a kid this question would always trip me up - it would be so cool to be a character in the books I read and have awesome adventures... but at the same time, being in a book-world would mean giving up all the other book-worlds... unless you had access to an interdimensional library and spare time for reading while you weren’t busy saving the world...
If I’m being honest, though, I’d probably end up being Ged from A Wizard of Earthsea. I can relate pretty intensely to a lot of his journey.
9. Do you have a book that reminds you of something specific in your life (a person, a place, a time)?
Quite a few books remind me of a certain school librarian who was always ready with a recommendation and frequently asked the student library aides what books the library should add to their shelves. She was really cool.
10. Name a book you acquired in some interesting way.
My copy of the first Harry Potter book was given to me (right after it was first published in the US) by a good friend whose last name happened to be Potter.. along with a message that said “Wow, Harry Potter has such a cool name! I wish I had a cool name like that! OH WAIT...!”
I also seem to inherit a lot of manga from friends who want to free up shelf space.
11. Have you ever given away a book for a special reason to a special person?
I give books as presents a lot, so nothing specific really stands out. For some reason I keep losing copies of The Silmarillion to people I lend it to who never return it...
Come to think of it, I gave a copy of Howl’s Moving Castle to one of my students in Japan before I left - since she’d been doing extra English language work just for fun, and she was a fan of the Ghibli movie.
12. Which book has been with you to the most places?
I don’t know, offhand. This might be more a Question #9 story, but I remember reading Shadowmarch during downtime between classes in the teachers’ room of my schools in Japan. The other teachers kept exclaiming over how HUGE the book was (~800 pages in mass-market paperback). In Japan novels are pocket-sized - words in Japanese take up less space to print than English, they use thinner paper, and they separate books into Part 1/Part 2 etc if they’re too long.
13. Any “required reading” you hated in high school that wasn’t so bad ten years later?
The Hobbit, actually. I’d read it probably in middle school/jr high or so and thought it was kind of silly and childish. Then when it was assigned representing the fantasy genre in high school lit class, I was annoyed enough that I didn’t bother rereading it - just skimmed it well enough to answer test questions. Once I’d read The Lord of the Rings and gotten into the Tolkien mythos I could appreciate The Hobbit a lot more.
14. What is the strangest item you’ve ever found in a book?
In used books and library books I’ve found bookmarks, old receipts, the usual stuff... I think I found a pressed flower once or twice. A friend of mine used to hide money in her books (to be found as a surprise for herself later, after she’d forgotten about it), so once in a while I’d borrow one and find a random $10 bill or so in it. (I left them there, of course!)
15. Used or brand new?
Either one. New is good for supporting authors, but my town has a really good used book store that I’ll check for older series.
And Book Off (huge Japanese used book chain) is a thing of beauty. So much manga is published so quickly over there that people don’t tend to hang onto their tankobon copies once they’ve finished reading them (they don’t have the space to keep them all), so you can get a ton of books for really cheap. I spent way more shipping them home than I did buying the actual books.
16. Stephen King: Literary genius or opiate of the masses?
I haven’t read much Stephen King, apart from The Gunslinger (which I wasn’t really a fan of at the time) and his On Writing. I admire his work ethic, at any rate.
17. Have you ever seen a movie you liked better than the book?
I think there have been a few, but I can’t think of them now. I grew up with the Neverending Story movie, so I was a little thrown off when the second half of the book continued in such a different direction, but I liked them both. The book doesn’t have quite the same place in my heart that the movie does, though. And I enjoyed the Shannara Chronicles TV show a lot more than the first book in the series (see #3 above), but I haven’t read the specific books the show was based on, so I can’t really say there. (Though “Elessedil” still makes me cringe every time I hear it...)
18. Conversely, which book should NEVER have been introduced to celluloid?
oh god. The Scifi Channel Earthsea miniseries had me laughing-slash-crying within the first five minutes, it was such a garbage fire and breathtaking masterpiece of missing the point. I remember having a similar reaction to Disney’s version of The Black Cauldron, though that was a much longer time ago, and that was less bewildered rage and more a disappointed “what did you do to my Prydain?? And what is this talking schnauzer?”
19. Have you ever read a book that’s made you hungry, cookbooks being excluded from this question?
Not that I can recall. For some reason reading about Tom Bombadil’s always makes me want bread and honey, though.
20. Who is the person whose book advice you’ll always take?
Hah, I don’t know. The friend who gave me the Harry Potter book was a huge influence on what I read as a kid, but I lost touch with her a long time ago, so I don’t know what she’s reading these days.
Tagging: @possiblyelven, @taskitron, @whitherling, @arionwind, @december-soulstice, @byjillianmaria, @eggletine if you guys want to do it!
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april 25, 2019
It is a beautiful day out, and it reminds me a lot of living in Ogden last year in my apartment with my ex. Right now last year, I would probably be sitting outside in the back yard of the building with my cat, some weed, an energy drink, music, and a strooong mixed bevy. We went through a solid amount of liquor there; in fact, it’s the only time employees stopped checking my I.D. anywhere for anything requiring one. And that statement includes two Ogden liquor store locations, as one closed earlier in the day than the other, I frequented both. I tried my best to drink through almost as much alcohol as my ex, seeing as I was paying for it all myself, and it would always be gone any time I left the apartment for work or to go see my friends or family. My pleading with him to stop using all my money on getting fucked up was always to no avail, and I continued to buy the alcohol because what I was going through was too much to face up to sober. I was working my ass off every day only to be more behind on bills, and the fighting between us was relentless, giving me almost no opportunity to diffuse from my overwhelming work week. I was caught in a sick cycle of being harmed and attempting to self-sooth in extremely unhealthy ways. I was missing many facets of myself and still believed I could catch up somehow, but that was not possible under the circumstances I chose to remain in.
He hated the music I ever tried to play when he was around – even stuff we used to enjoy together would anger him and I would be forced to retreat to avoid conflict. I often lied in bed alone with my headphones over my ears just trying to escape from my current reality as it was one of the only methods I had left that hadn’t been totally destroyed by him. He did his best to take everything he could from me and then some.
It’s been over two months since we parted ways this time, and every day away from him is a gift I choose to give myself to honor my true identity and innocence that I know is still buried deep in my heart, underneath all the layers of bullshit and pain I have endured. Yesterday was difficult. I got a ton of things done on my to-do list, but I still felt terribly empty and depressed inside. Nothing was wrong, yet I struggled through every single thing I embarked on throughout my day. I have been accustomed to that since childhood, as my depressive condition developed at a pretty early age, but I usually had someone or something to blame for any given bout of sadness I faced. Lately, the concept that my state is not due to more than my head and hormone chemistry has been making more sense, but it does not make it any easier. Often it can be confusing, distracting, and frustrating.
Today I woke up in a much happier place. Riding the waves of manic depression is a challenge I accept, as I know myself and love myself the way I am. This is a challenge that those around me do not always see as okay, and that in itself can be difficult as well. I believe that is why I attributed many of my adolescent mood swings to situational things and also why I masked it much more back then. I by far prefer my brighter self, but that’s just not always what I get. My dad used to always tell me growing up that every day is a choice and only I could determine the outcome. To an extent this is true, but I think I took it too literally and was always very hard on myself when my perfect expectations for myself and my time didn’t always turn out perfectly.
I have learned recently that I tend to be too hard on myself in general, and it’s okay to give yourself a break sometimes, or even a lot of times. Life is not simple or easy. But I live for the quiet moments of simplicity and peace I find in between the crushing reality that is this existence. So far today I have already enjoyed many of those moments, and I have a hell of a lot more contributing forces to thank for that than solely myself.
I am a lover; I have a lot of love to give and it always hurts me deeply when it is not received well. For that reason, I am blessed to have people in my life who have continued reaching out to me even when I stopped reaching back, for I was occupied drowning in an ocean I jumped into knowingly and alone. I am a creator; I always have been and always will be. I am also blessed to have found a new occupation where I continue to pursue my passion of artistic creation. The others I have gotten to know there have fully embraced me and my many levels of crazy-girl, and I am so lucky to feel home and accepted at my job.
This new life of mine has not come easily or without a cost. I spent far too long in a place I didn’t belong to learn I could never make it work the way I hoped. I allowed my ex to take the life out of me bit by bit as he left me covered in scars and bruises over small things that never amounted to the pain I bore from the results. Time stopped moving for me as I struggled to survive and make sense of my unthinkable daily reality. I thought I was doing my best to continue on, but truthfully I was only moving backward.
He would always tell me places aren’t haunted; people are. I think he held onto a lifetime of darkness that wasn’t necessarily his to keep. I think he craved more than what he felt or saw in the light, so he chose to take what he could of it and change it, warp it, and trade it in for cheap fronts. There was never really any amount of innocent blood available to give him the power he pretended to yield and lied awake at night afraid to admit to himself he lacked. Feeding the lie only made him weaker. But he still held power over me. I never understood his disdain for everything that made me happy until I admitted to myself that he wasn’t happy and couldn’t stand for me to be. I missed when I could bring something to him and not be immediately shut down with negativity.
A couple of weeks ago I gave myself a little St. Peter’s cross on the inside of my left knee. It was the first tattoo I did on myself; all of my previous stick & poke practice had been on him. This new symbol on my skin is a reminder that I’m a badass bitch who doesn’t need to take shit from anyone ever again. I am full of brightness and life; I cannot watch that light be put out again for someone else or by my own doing. I don’t want to be so broken like that; I’m already fucked up enough. My cross means I’ve been to hell and back and I can’t forget the struggle I underwent to come out alive. If I was still with him, I’d be covered in different marks right now than ink and scars; I’d be wearing fresh bruises and scratches from his hand. I wouldn’t want to be around anyone I love because it hurt to see the pain in their expressions as they noticed I wasn’t okay.
I always trusted his light-hearted darkness for some reason. He was covered in upside-down crosses himself, and took every opportunity to explain to those asking that it wasn’t an indicator of satan, but of a feeling of unworthiness and worthlessness. I still feel sad when I think of how I completely shut down for him and how long it took me to begin picking myself back up. All the love I still have to give could have been completely wasted on someone who would never receive it. I am alive and going forward despite all of this. I’m getting better at moving on and not doing so solely by blocking it all out unhealthily with reckless behavior. I am grateful I am finally growing again as a person and not just floating by.
“I can’t turn back
I love until it hurts
and every blessing feels just like a curse.
If you stay and help me cope,
you’ll see me fly
into the sun
into their vacant minds
to seal their fate
time after time.”
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I've found myself looking at my relationship with my sister in a new light and wondering how to deal with drawing a line. I get along better with her than anyone I've ever met, but it really struck me how her anxiety reaction really conditioned me in a way that makes me walk on eggshells and focus on accommodating her above all else. I feel bad because I can't blame her for her anxiety but she can get somewhat abusive when she can't communicate what she needs and I don't know how to help her.
that’s really rough, thanks for talking about it. that definitely sounds like a situation you truly can’t do much about, if anything, it’s just a test of your character. i admire your perseverance. this might be way beyond your means, but it seems possible that some kind of joint counseling might be in order, to try to help her develop some better communication skills, and help you figure out how to put your foot down in a healthy productive way. i’m just speculating, though, that sounds really difficult.
i hope you won’t feel offended when i downshift into something much more casual. i’ve been obsessing over it and can’t think of what to do but vent. i’m struggling with this situation where i guess i COULD just say “you know what, i love you, but being friends with you takes away more energy than i get back.” i’m just kind of unwilling to do that, yet, and i don’t have a lot of experience separating from a friend in whom i still have a lot of emotional investment. ordinarily, i cut difficult people out way before they’re close enough to me to cause even slight problems; the only really dramatic rifts i’ve ever co-created were in romantic relationships. i’ll probably delete this in a bit, since it doesn’t really serve anything here, but for now i my erupt.
this dear friend of mine has really serious ADD and a complex of other problems for which she is medicated and sees several different mental health professionals. almost every time we interact, i have to think very deliberately about how she’s not ignoring me or taking me for granted or being argumentative or making laborious requirements of me on purpose, she has legitimate problems focusing and prioritizing, or noticing when she’s being destructive. we BASICALLY get along great; she’s extremely lovey dovey with me to the point of adulation, and we’ve shared a lot of hard times and personal secrets, so i know the relationship itself is real, even during the times when i can’t seem to get her respectful attention. it’s curious because she’s really pretty successful due to her genuine talent and charm, but once in a while she’s so disorganized and demanding that i think HOW COULD YOU HAVE POSSIBLY GOTTEN TO THIS PLACE IN YOUR LIFE.
here are a couple of good examples of what it can often be like to know her:
- she cuts my hair. i pay full price, as an actual customer, for this service, and it’s invariably complicated and maddening. i don’t want to stop going because she’s the only stylist i’ve ever been satisfied with, and also it would definitely cause emotional problems between us. but, she rearranges her schedule on me constantly, up to the very last minute, to the point that i’m standing around her neighborhood killing time and watching my phone to find out if and when i’m going to actually be seen. most recently, to try to avoid the usual problems, i emailed her more than two weeks in advance of the 26th, by which date i NEED to have my hair cut for a wedding. she told me to text her instead. i repeated the question via text, and she asked me repeatedly if i’m available saturday. i reexplained that, no, that would be a week and a half too early, i need it as near to the 26th as possible. she told me she’ll be out of town around then, but she’ll give me her latest availability. i never heard back. a week later my fiance texted her to ask if she can fit us both in for an appointment close to the 26th. she told us that she’s “waiting on a confirmation” from someone else (even though i had asked her a week prior), and then offered us “wednesday”. he asked if she means the 17th or the 24th. we didn’t hear anything for the rest of the day, even though the 17th was in less than 24 hours. at midnight she finally replied that she meant the 24th–exactly what i asked for in the first place.
- the following event, which could have taken two minutes, took place over about two weeks: she was working on a writing project. i offered to read it and give her some friendly feedback, if she wanted. she passionately insisted that she could NEVER take advantage of my talent for free, that she MUST pay me. i reminded her that i’m not a real editor, and i was just being friendly, but she INSISTED. so i say ok, what would you be willing to pay for this? she said she CAN’T decide what to pay me, I HAVE TO decide what my services are worth. i suggested that we could just trade for haircuts, but that was deemed to be too unprofessional for this imaginary reward she thinks i deserve. inventing a rate was difficult because i don’t deserve a professional rate, and i don’t even know what it would be. so, hypnotically embroiled in this stupid conversation, i did all this research and this fake math, and came back to her with a rate. she dramatically declared that she CANNOT afford it, and is therefore unworthy of my illustrious services. at this point i’m sitting there thinking…how the fuck did i get into this? all i did was offer to read her thing if she wanted a fresh pair of eyes. now i’ve spent two weeks negotiating and doing this pointless research project, just to build myself up to something that i’m not and don’t want to be, only to have her like sort of grovellingly fire herself from the situation because she’s so undeserving or whatever. of course, she wound up trading me haircuts. once the writing finally started, any time i gave her notes, it was a nightmare. if i was critical, she wouldn’t really buy my suggestions. if i was encouraging, she’d borderline call me a liar, as if i were ripping her off, and angrily insist that i be “brutally honest” and “tear her to shreds” etc. at that point, i would re-remind her that i’m not an editor, and it sounds like she knows what she needs–a real editor. eventually she let me off the hook, but almost only because she backburnered the project indefinitely while she works on something else.
this makes it sound like all i have to do is not get involved in anything vaguely professional with her, but it’s more pervasive than this. like, i’ll ask if she wants me to bring anything when i come over, and she’ll ask for a couple of small snacks, but then when i show up with them, she spins out into this thing about how i’m SO WONDERFUL and she feels SO BAD that she MADE ME bring her food, and her solution is to try to force me to keep the food, which was very cheap and which i don’t even want. i’ll have to argue with her about it intermittently for the rest of the night, and there’s nothing i can do to convince her that having this insane fight, about something i volunteered to do, is a much bigger inconvenience than the $3 i just spent on cliff bars for her. i suppose i could simplify all this by saying she’s the kind of person who will ask if you’re mad at her or something, and you say you’re not because you’re not, and then she’ll ask you again and again until you really ARE angry, at which point she thinks she was right all along. my fiance has noted that she doesn’t behave this extremely with him, and we often suspect that she’s instinctively recreating dramas that took place between her and her mother, or her and her ex-girlfriends or something, and i just happen to be a really good proxy for whatever the story was there. being tolerant of her makes her suspicious of me, but if i get aggravated, then i’m being untrue to myself, and getting wrapped up in some sort of mythology that isn’t actually about me.
she is fundamentally an exciting and affectionate person; she has tons of admiring friends, and interesting people always want to support her projects, for good reason. i value her friendship, and i don’t THINK i really want to part ways with her. however, i also don’t think she has the emotional stability to have a constructive conversation about her behavior (especially when she really craves for me to hate on her or something), and i haven’t seen her demonstrate an ability to change and control her behavior anyway. being the kind of person i am, i constantly fantasize about tying her to a chair and describing all the stuff that she does, how it doesn’t help her, and how it negatively impacts our relationship (and i’m sure many of her other relationships), and just totally deprogramming her with my brilliant logic–but of course that’s all complete nonsense. since i’m the one with control, i think i just have to train myself to stop getting so wound up and trying to envision how to “fix” her. i don’t even have to see her more than once a month, sometimes not even that often. i gotta get a grip.
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