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canonicallysoulmates · 4 years

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Last week Jensen was on Rosenbaum’s podcast, this week it’s Jared’s turn. Just like with Jensen’s I recommend checking Jared’s out it is for free on youtube, I will be linking to it at the end of this post, and I also recommend checking out his first appearance on Rosenbaum’s podcast.

While Jensen’s appearance was recorded in the beginnings of the boys Vancouver quarantine, Jared’s was recorded a little more recently after the boys had resumed production and when they were starting on the final episode nonetheless if you are looking for information regarding Supernatural and/or the final epis you will not find them here, Jared actually didn’t talk much about the show. He did however open up about some topics including his arrest.

Of course, they are two different people whose interviews were done at different moments in time and who got asked different questions but this had a very different feel from Jensen’s; while Jensen’s felt more interview like, this felt very much like a conversation between two friends who’ve known each other for years....the majority of the time.

Here’s the thing, and some of y’all are not gonna like me for this....while the conversation had its deep moments and Jared opened up about some personal stuff it felt to me like a more open version of how he is in conventions. Which is not a bad thing! But it’s not like last time where he was, imo, a version of himself that only those in his circle might get to hear. There was some fuckery people, okay? There was some fuckery and we will be talking about it.

I am going to put a disclaimer here, just in case, that this post is not going to be G*nevieve friendly. Or friendly towards her and Jared’s “marriage”.

Before we get into what Jared said and talked about, I do want to take a minute to acknowledge and say condolences to Rosenbaum and his family, one of his sisters recently passed away after being sick pretty much her whole life.

I also wanna say real quickly that something that I really like, and I would say even respect, about Rosenbaum is how open he is about things and listening to the intro of this “episode” made me realize why it is that he gets his guests to open up so often; I think it’s because he himself is open about his struggles and his issues and he is free of judgement so if you confess to something stupid he’s not gonna judge you for it, he’s also willing to cut things out if his guests ask him too so his guests know they can talk to him and he will understand and not judge them and will respect their privacy and cut something out if they ask it of him so they can talk freely.

Okay, after all that let’s get into what Jared said and talked about in the podcast. FYI, much like in the Jensen post, from here forth Rosenbaum will be referred to as MR for convenience.

- The conversation starts on what I considered to be a funny note with Jared talking about his infrared sauna blanket which he travels with that is such a weird item to travel with I can’t with the white richness of it all but hey we all got our quirks 😂

- After that the conversation turns pretty serious and deep, he talked about Sadie and having to make the decision to put her to sleep. He was tearing up talking about it, and I’m not gonna lie I myself was crying - hell I’m tearing up as I’m writing this not just because I can’t handle seeing this man cry but because I know what he’s talking about, I know that pain, I know what he meant by Sadie looking at him like it was time for her to go, I know what it’s like to be in that room with a beloved pet as they’re taking their last breath...I have had to put two of my cats to sleep in the past and it’s the most difficult and heartbreaking decision one sometimes has to make as a pet owner. 😔

- Something I like about when MR and Jared talk to each other is that they have very similar personalities in some ways and they’re good friends so when they’re talking it very quickly turns into two friends talking to one another which means the conversation is all over the place. In a good way. They got into a conversation about living in the moment and how social media and cell phones can affect that; I, personally, found it fascinating. I love hearing them discuss their different POV’s about these types of topics.

- And here’s where we get to the fake. I’m writing this post at an extremely late hour but I’m determined to get it up before I go to bed and I really wanna go to bed, so I’m gonna try to get through this as fast as possible so strap in cause there’s a lot of bullshit to quickly wade through in this section.

Jared starts praising the fuck out of G like this man was going for it, he was really pilling it on nice and thick. So, there I am watching this with my eyes about to roll right out of my skull wondering what was up with all the fuckery cause there’s being civil and a gentleman and then there was this when a light bulb goes off above my head 💡: When this was filmed, he already knew she had been cast to play his wife on Walker, he probably figured out that by the time this aired either the news would have already been out or would be announced soon so he’s hyping her up in the only way he knows how which works anyways cause the character she’s playing is his wife and her likability is in part going to rely on people overlooking her bad acting and the nepotism to focus on her being married to Jared in real life cause people love when irl couples work together even more when they’re playing a couple. From what I’ve seen it makes people less likely to call out a lack of chemistry cause then they feel like they’re insulting the couple.

He hypes her up using the same script he and Jensen have used in the convention circuit for years when it comes to praising the wives complete with classics such as ‘i’m never home so i never knew she did so much’ and ‘i ask her what i can do and she tells me to take out the garbage’. Nothing new is added to the script, he doesn’t go into details about what makes her amazing or about “all she does” he just pretty much says over and over that she’s incredible and does so much, if he meant it and she really does “so much” why not go into detail? It’d be so easy of him to say something like ‘oh, she’s always making us healthy meals and trying out new recipes’ which can be backed up by her insta because during quarantine she did a bunch of insta stories about cooking and checking out recipe books like goddamn Jared if you’re gonna lay it thick at least put in the effort even I could hype her up better and I don’t even like her.

It all comes off as very insincere, have y’all ever seen somebody talk about the person they love? You can tell in their voice, in their eyes, some even get a fond little smile. It’s actually quite cute to watch but there’s none of that here, even when he mentions G giving birth there’s no emotion there’s no sincerity, it’s like he’s saying all the right things but he doesn’t believe them. It reminds me off- have you ever had someone, maybe it’s a friend or a romantic partner or whatever just someone who you’re introducing to somebody else or a group of people and you really need them to like this person you’re introducing so you start to sell them meaning you just start singing their praises to an over the top extend as if you were a car dealer trying to boost up their merch? Yeah, it’s like that.

I don’t believe for one second that she volunteered to go with him to Van so he wouldn’t be alone like Jared go to somebody else with that story 🙄

I did have to laugh at some parts cause he was laying it on thick as if I didn’t remember and know that he looked miserable in almost all the pics G posted of him from quarantine right from the beginning, and being all ‘she doesn’t have any time for herself’ well clearly she found some time cause she does her little yoga collabs, she’s had her little photo shoots, she’s done a bunch of sponsored ads, she did her clothing collab with Kohl’s, she started a book club clearly she has the fucking time to do things for herself and pursue hobbies. He also said with three kids he didn’t have time for himself which I found funny because I don’t know if y’all remember this but early on in the quarantine Jared and G did a livestream and in it he mentioned several times that he was using his time for phone calls and even way too seriously said he was handling cabin fever by hiding and letting G handle the kids so....

It’s also an interesting contrast between what Jensen said in his podcast appearance because while Jared tried to make it sound as if G had no time for herself and like that’d be impossible with three kids, Jensen pretty much said the opposite, he said that he and D would sometimes take the kids and entertain them so the other one could have some space to do their own thing, and even gave an example of settling the kids with a movie so the parents can have their own space at the same time.

- Moving on from that fuckery, the rest of the conversation was very deep and interesting. He talked about going to therapy and once again mentions being afraid of fucking up his kids, but adds that he’s come to realize that no matter what he does he’s gonna fuck up his kids anyways cause that’s what every parent does even if they’re amazing. This is a statement that I very much agree with it doesn’t matter how amazing a parent is they’re gonna make mistakes and fuck you up.

He talked about his anxiety and his depression and how he doesn’t like to say he suffers from it because it makes him sound like a victim he prefers to say he deals with anxiety.

This is gonna sound so weird but I loved something Jared said about death, MR talked about his anxiety and he said that his psychologist told him anxiety is always in the backseat and a. that is so true I think pretty much anybody who suffers from anxiety can tell you that it’s always there but b. Jared mentioned that he head somebody talk about death the same way, that death is always in the passenger seat but they become a friend. I know for some this might sound concerning or macabre but personally I think this is the best way to think about death not as something to hate but as a friend who is always besides you and that doesn’t mean you’re in any rush to welcome its embrace but it does mean you don’t fear it.

He said that now a days if he wakes up and doesn’t feel anxiety he’s like ‘what’s wrong?’ which honestly relatable af

And I am paraphrasing btw, this is the cliffnotes version of a very deep in-depth part of the conversation between him and MR starting when they’re talking about therapy the whole thing is very interesting I’m not doing it justice.

- Towards the end of the podcast Jared opened up about his arrest. He said he has no real recollection of what happened, he doesn’t know if maybe he was drugged or just got black out drunk but he doesn’t remember the fight he just remembers up to the point of going to his friends bar. He has seen the security tapes of that night, saying he didn’t recognize himself due to the way he was acting. He thinks perhaps because he has been jumped before that maybe he acted on instinct to fight back. It is not something he is proud of and he doesn’t make excuses, he knows he fucked up. He also says he has not drank since then.

I am very proud of him for opening up about this, and for either quitting or limiting his alcohol consumption - quite honestly I’m not sure if he has full on stopped drinking or if he is just limiting himself to only once in a blue moon cause I do know people, hell I am one of these people, I don’t drink 99% of the time but if it’s a special occasion or I’m just chilling with someone I know and they’re having a drink I might have one or a sip or two so technically I don’t drink so I don’t know if maybe that’s what he’s decided to do or if he’s quit alcohol forever, either way I’m very proud of him. I’m proud of him for opening up about this and for talking about his mental health and therapy.

With the exception of some fuckery he really did open up about some things and I highly recommend giving it a listen/watch because when it’s the real him talking it’s a very insightful conversation.

Inside of you | Jared Padalecki

#anti genevieve #not even sure what to tag this as and frankly #i am exhausted #so proper tagging will have to wait for my brain cells to come back #also yes i am aware it is wednesday shush just pretend it's tuesday cause i worked too hard on this to wait till thursday to post it okay?#when i come back after hopefully sleeping more than an hour we'll start our regular wednesday programming #mine #annianvi

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just-a-8th-dreamer · 4 years

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“Unstoppable” | Soyeon

Request : “ Hi since you said I could request I’m gonna I’m just too weak for soyeon omg I’m not sure how this works it’s my first time, could you write a scenario where soyeon is self conscious because she’s had enough of online comments and cries when she gets home to her girlfriend. Please with lot of skinship. Thank you!! Have a nice day :) “

It was 2:00 AM and Soyeon was still working in the studio, trying to make her new song perfect while she was adding some lyrics. Exhausted, she rested her body in her seat and her demons came back again. She started to look at people’s comments on her computer and as a vicious circle, she couldn’t stop reading.

(G)I-DLE isn’t a real group, It’s just Soyeon and her friends.

Nobody asks why Shuhua has no lines in their songs ? Because Soyeon write them and she clearly hates her.

Soyeon is self-centred, she keeps all killing parts to herself.

What about ‘Oh My God’ lyrics and MV ? This is so offensive!

It was almost 4:00 AM when she decided she had enough of all of this. She frowned, her heart pounding in her chest as If it was going to explode, her anger overwhelming her as a devouring fire. Why people couldn’t just see their group as a band of artists ? Why the public could’nt focus on the art in their songs and performances instead of searching a way to harm them ? Soyeon shoke her head and decided to come back to your flat, putting on her hoodie before slamming down her computer’s screen.

She needed to see you, to feel your warmness, to let herself relaxing in your arms. You were her girlfriend, her shining star. You were her rock and strength, giving her the good energy to work and stay stable in her very busy life. Inside her, she felt the insatiable need to have her other half half by her side at this moment as If nothing on earth could calm her down, dark thoughs spreading in her mind. You were her antidote and she wanted to be freed from this poisoned anxiety as soon as possible.

When she entered your flat, she discovered the living room in the dark and she knew you were sleeping. Of course It was almost dawn and she couldn’t blame you because she told you not to wait for her this time. Too many times she was working till the middle of the night and you were always there waiting for your girlfriend; sometimes with a cup of tea, under a blanket or sometimes already asleep on the couch. She wanted to throw her bag on the floor but she didn’t, not wanting to wake you up as she thought you were sleeping in your bed with the door open. A ghost of a smile appeared on Soyeon’s lips when she noticed the bowl of rice and fried chicken you left for her because you knew she never ate when she was concentrated on her work.

Skipping her meal, she directly came to your bedroom to find you asleep in her big shirt and wearing a volley-ball short. She could see every details of your beauty thanks to the moonlight and she couldn’t resist to sit on the bed, stroking your hair. You slowly woke up, shivering under her touch and when your eyes met hers, your lips turned into a smile.

“You’ve worked late again” you said with a sleepy voice, sitting in your bed to face her. “Did you eat something ?”

A sad smile appeared on her lips but she quickly hid it as you were taking her wrist, absentmindedly caressing it with your soft fingers.

“I didn’t. But I will. Did I make you feel lonely ?” she asked, feeling guilty to leave you because of her obsession with perfection again.

You shoke your head, smiling at your wonderful girlfriend to reassure her.

“The girls came for dinner so I cooked with Soojin before Yuqi begged us to play karaoke.” You explained. “She then started to fight with Shuhua as always because she lost the game while Minnie was recording them. See, I didn’t feel lonely.”

“You should control your best friend sometimes” smiled a little Soyeon. “She is not as cute as she seems”

“Yuqi doesn’t like to loose so when she does I can’t do anything.” you answered. “That’s why I came next to Miyeon to look at the clothes she bought when whe went shopping today.”

You let out a little sigh.

“You have finished promoting ‘I trust’ and all the members are resting and having fun. You should do the same, love” you finally told her, stroking her hair.

She lowered her head, pursing her lips and you instantly noticed the half angry half sad spark in her eyes. This is when you took her chin in your hand to make her look at you.

“Jeon Soyeon, what aren’t you telling me ?” you asked her, seriously.

She suddenly crashed into your arms, wanting to feel you close to her, tears flowing from her eyes as she hid her face against your chest. She couldn’t handle it anymore, she had enough of those haters and harmful comments about her and her group. This was too much. Every comeback was a reason to attack the leader of (G)I-DLE and she couldn’t keep it to herself this time. Especially because she has worked hard to write the songs on the album. She had put her heart and soul in ‘I trust”, she had exposed herself and the fact that her work was taken as garbage by a lot of people was destroying her.

You had never seen her like this and the desperation you had noticed in her eyes was breaking your heart. You tightened your embrace around her, letting her express her feelings through her tears before kissing the top of her head.

“They say I’m self-centered !” she screams, totally mad but still crying against you. “And that I use the members to shine brighter than them !”

In front of her deep anger, you let her talk about the online comments she had seen, rubbing her back to comfort her while she was overwhelmed by her tears. Each hating comment she told you were having you shaking your head and clenching your teeth. You were trying to stay still but you were the one feeling your wonderful girlfriend trembling against you because she was exhausted therefore It was very difficult for you no to defend her. You knew her. She was a sleeping volcano. If something made her mad, nothing would happen at first and one day, suddenly the lava would spurt out. You wanted so badly to protect her from herself. From being this demanding about herself as she was an eternal dissatisfied when It came to her. But you couldn’t protect Soyeon from everything and you knew it when you started to date her after Unpretty Rapstar. At least, you were there for her now, her arms holding tighlty your waist while you were constantly kissing her hair on different spots.

“Last time, they said to Soojin that she was ugly” she said with venom before hitting the bed with her fist. “She came back to us crying”

Softly, you took her hand in yours, making her violence stop and you put some kisses on each one of her fingers.

“You know that hating comments aren’t the truth” you replied with a gentle voice. “And Shuhua defended her on a VLive”

She pulled away a little to see your face while hers was red because of desperation and tears then she sat to face you, her hand still in yours. She used her other hand to harshly dry her teeth but you stopped her, drying them gently with your thumb.

“They say ‘Oh My God’’s lyrics are offensive.” she let out, calming herself down a little because of your fingers caressing her thigh exposed by her denim short.

“So what ?” You replied instantly, your face becoming serious.

She looked at you for a moment before shaking her head, silent but still upset.

“You are a wonderful leader, you take care of the girls as If they were your family. You know that you’re not self-centered. You know that you love Shuhua as a little sister. You know you buy them some gifts after every comeback to let them know you are proud of them.” You said, putting her hair behind her ear. “And they know that too. You don’t have to worry about it.

Because she was going to say something, you raised your hand to make her stop.

“I’m not finished” you declared, smiling a little. “Okay ?”

A ghost of a smile appeared on her lips as she understood you reference to ‘Uh-Oh’’s ending part.

“About your talent, I won’t apologize for this but you are the best rapper of this generation.” You started to say with honesty. “ Your rap is clear, fast and sharp. You have a beautiful voice, you know how to sing, you have wonderful dance skills. Plus, you are writing your songs, you are directing music videos, you are searching for new and interesting concepts. Come on, baby, those comments should’nt harm you because you are too talented and hardworking to let people tell you what you are or what you have to do.

Hearing your words, your girlfriend’s eyes started to shine as tears disappeared and her confidence seemed to come back progressivly.

“You are unique” you declared, staring at her lovingly.

Her lips turned into a smile as she was feeling overwhelmed by your love and she squeezed your hand a little.

“No one does all of this like you do” you continued. And I’m sure of a thing ; in ten years, when people will talk about you they will still consider you as one of the best artist in the world.”

Tears rolled again on her cheeks but you were the reason and It was nothing about sadness. Your words melted her heart and they were feeding her with happiness and confidence.

“You can do whatever you want with the girls” you told her. “You fit everything and you are all more than talented. It’s just the beginning of your career and you’re already one of the best girl group in Korea and overseas. Don’t be harmed by the comments because you are self-sufficient”

She shoke her head with a smile, trying to contain her tears and you took her face in both of your hands, locking her irises in hers.

“You are unstoppable, Jeon Soyeon” you finally said.

She couldn’t resist anymore and she suddenly pulled you closer to her to hug you tightly, crying of against your neck, deeply touched by your words.

“What have I done to have a wonderful girl by my side” she just whispered as her love for you was overwhelming her.

You laughed a little, tightening your embrace around her and she put a kiss under your ear.

“I know I’m not easy to live” she said, still in your arms.

“ Soyeon...” you started to contradict but she put a finger on your mouth to keep you silent, pulling away to look at you with her deep cat eyes.

“Don’t mess with me” she joked with her acute voice, forcing you to let her talk.

You couldn’t help but smile, tilting your head on the side. Her face expression became amused and you were happy to see this part of her again.

“Then, If I am this wonderful It means that in ten years, you will still be here with me” she teased you, biting her lip. “I think you should start worshipping me like a goddess from now”

You hit playfully her shoulder with your fist and she kept laughing.

“Who do you think would propose to the other first ? you asked.

“Me of course, I have a more developped sense of fashion and It’s important for the rings” she teased again before running away as you got up to catch her.

“How dare you !”

You were playfully running in the living room, laughters filling the room and when you finally succeeded to catch her, you both fell on the huge and soft carpet next to the sofa. You were in your girlfriend’s arms, resting your head on her chest when she kissed your forehead.

“I love you more than anything babygirl” she finally said, her words having a deep meaning for her, her confidence and happiness rebuilt thanks to you.

#gidle #gidle scenarios #soyeon #soyeon scenarios #minnie #miyeon #soojin #yuqi #shuhua #girl group #girl group scenarios #kpop scenarios #(g)idle #(g)i-dle #gidle reactions

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thetriggeredhappy · 4 years

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angst&hurt/comfort, where scout is anxious and doubts his skills, so he tries to calm himself by holding/hugging/whatever his plushie (or something else, idk), whilst someone is trying to get to him, to make him confess what is bothering him? idk if you wanna make it a ship ir maybe dad spy, ily -🦂

oh dude you already KNOW dad!spy hours are 24/7 up in here. welcome to “projecting RSD onto Scout TF2 episode 85″

Stupid summer, stupid break, stupid losing streak. Stupid everything.

Usually Scout was excited about breaks. A week or so of getting to be off work, heading home to visit family or going on a road trip or whatever was happening. It was nice, he loved it. But this time they had explicit orders from their boss not to go anywhere or do anything. To stay on base or to go specifically exclusively to the store in the nearest town for food or whatever. He hated it. The base was too small to hang out in for more than a few days at a time. He hated it.

And not to mention that they’d finished off work on a bad note. A day of losses turning into a week of losses, half the team scrambling to try and pull together enough to get one last good push in before the break and the other half deciding to just accept the loss and do better once they got back.

And every day after battle Soldier would single out someone who wasn’t on top of their game and lecture them. And all week, instead of going for the people who were largely slacking off and not breaking their necks to try and get them some actual wins, he went after Scout, who was so frantic that he kept making stupid mistakes.

And he just... usually he argued about it, and got in a fight with Soldier, but he just... didn’t have the energy for it. The day was over. They’d lost. And Scout knew it wasn’t entirely his fault, but it kind of felt like it. Maybe if he’d tried just a little bit harder, pushed himself just a little further, he could’ve gotten the rest of the team motivated. Maybe they all would’ve picked things back up and tried too. But he couldn’t do it.

It was frustrating. He knew his job, beyond what he did on the field, was trying to keep morale up. He kept music playing, he was always up for hanging out or playing a few hands of poker or headed into town with someone to get shitty fast food. And he tried really hard to be funny and to keep things lighthearted, tried so fucking hard to keep spirits up. And he knew if he said anything about it, pointed out how literally like all of his time was spent trying to make sure everyone was feeling okay, it would...

He didn’t know. Maybe they’d just tell him off for being whiny or whatever. Maybe it would stop working so well, if they knew he was always doing it so extremely on purpose, so intentionally. He didn’t know.

But at that moment, he was feeling so much like utter garbage that he knew he had to just avoid the team so he didn’t drag the mood down further. Usually they didn’t really miss him anyways, other than idly asking if he’d gotten into any trouble while he was off doing “whatever he did”. All he knew was that him feeling like shit around everyone else would just make them feel bad too. And it was break anyways—maybe they’d just end up feeling better on their own. Especially since he wasn’t around to interrupt them.

He had plenty of food in his room, mostly chips and candy bars and stuff like that, stuff he didn’t want the guys stealing. And he’d totally share if they asked, for sure, but for that moment he was mostly just digging through the hoard for himself and doing not much of anything else.

He felt like kind of an idiot, sitting alone and eating his feelings like some kind of angsty teen in a movie or the chick in the romcom who just got broken up with. But there was nobody there to ridicule him except himself. And he did, but... the point stood.

A few days passed like that. He had food, he had the little bathroom connected to his room, he had comics to entertain himself. He slept a lot, mostly. Felt like garbage. Read some comics. Ate chocolate about it. Slept some more. He left a few times to do a few assorted things—called home like he did every week, went into the common room late one night to grab some of his records back so he could listen to them.

At one point, he got a knock on his door. He didn’t answer, couldn’t seem to find the energy to. A second knock when the first was unanswered after about twenty seconds. He still didn’t move.

The next day, another knock. This one was accompanied by words. “Scout? I know you’re in there,” Spy called, sounding annoyed.

To be honest, Scout was pretty sure he didn’t have the energy to deal with whatever Spy was about to lecture him about. So he just rolled over.

“You’ve missed every team meal for almost four days. You’re being rude,” Spy declared.

Scout reached off the side of the bed and picked up a plushie that had fallen down. It was a big, chunky pig, and he’d won it when he and Pyro had gone out to a fair and he’d knocked the ball toss game out of the park. Pyro had taken three of the plushies he’d won, and insisted he keep the fourth for himself.

He felt like even more of a dumb baby, sitting there cradling a stuffed animal like he was scared to head off to his first day of kindergarten, but he was already too tired and filled with vague unrest for it to get to him much.

At some point he heard a heavy sigh and the clack of fancy shoes moving away down the hallway, and Scout relaxed.

Twenty minutes later, a knock.

“Scout, let me in,” Spy said firmly.

“Fuck off, Spy,” Scout snapped.

“Scout, if you don’t open the door, I’m going to,” Spy declared.

“Bullshit.”

A heavy sigh, and then a few moments later the door swung open.

“What the fuck?” Scout asked, lifting his head to glare towards the door as Spy stepped inside.

“I know how to pick locks, Scout. You know this.” Spy squinted to try to get used to the light, the blinds having been drawn. “I’m turning a light on.”

Scout just grumbled, dropping his head back into the plush pig. In his periphery, the light was indeed turned on. There was a beat of silence.

“I brought a plate from dinner. I was concerned you would get scurvy, since you now apparently have the diet of an eight year old child who was given a hundred dollars and left unsupervised at the grocery store,” Spy said dryly.

“I don’t want your fuckin’ handouts, Spy,” Scout muttered, muffled.

“It’s not a handout, it’s the fact that I refuse to have anyone on the team besides me whose teeth are falling out. Take the food.”

“Fuck off.”

Spy sighed again, and after a moment he moved to put the plate on the bedside table. Scout prickled at the proximity, but didn’t give him the satisfaction of looking up.

“I noticed that while you haven’t been at dinner, you still took the time to leave a thumb tack on my chair. Usually when you do that it’s because you’re angry with me. What exactly have I done?”

“I’m not mad at you, I’m just mad,” Scout grumbled.

“You know, it’s very childish to refuse to look at someone when they are trying to talk to you.”

“Guess I’ll just keep being the dumb idiot kid of the team then, huh?” Scout snapped.

Silence for a moment. “Scout. You’ve locked yourself away in your room and refused to come out again for several days. I know that something is wrong. The team does too—they’re starting to worry.”

“That might just be the most obvious lie you’ve ever fuckin’ told me, Spy,” Scout practically spat, and was glad to have his voice muffled, because suddenly it went a little tight.

“Is it that hard to believe that perhaps your teammates care about you?” Spy asked, a little sharply.

“It’s me, in case you haven’t noticed,” Scout said next, getting his voice back under control. “People don’t hang around me on purpose. They put up with me. And then they stop putting up with me at some point.”

“That’s not true,” Spy said, tone leaving no room for argument, but Scout elbowed some argument in anyways.

“All seven of my brothers, every fuckin’ date I’ve ever been on, the standing ban sayin’ I can’t go in Engie’s workshop or in Heavy’s workspace down by the boiler or the infirmary unless I’m actually seriously injured—“ Scout listed off, ticking off on his fingers, keeping his face hidden. “My own fucking dad decided he couldn’t fucking stand me and I was two years old, Spy, what the hell does that tell you? I’m an annoying little piece of shit and that’s all I’m ever gonna be and then one of these days I’m gonna die for real out in this hellhole desert and ain’t a single damn person out here will have ever even bothered to learn the name that’s supposed to go on my gravestone.”

Dead silence in the room. Scout’s arm fell back down by his side. His voice was shaky when he spoke again.

“Nobody’s ever even asked,” he managed. “Demo’s real name is Tavish, Heavy’s real name is Mikhal but his sisters call him Misha. And plenty of you guys get asked about it all the time but you don’t wanna say. And nobody’s ever even fuckin’ asked me.”

Silence for a few more seconds.

“I’m a whole person,” Scout said next. “I’m really into sci-fi. I’ve read every mainline issue comic book ever published after ‘35. I know how to cook and draw and I know the all the stats of every person on every major league baseball team. I was in theater in high school between track and baseball season in the winters and I and got a lead role on some Shakespearicles thing before it got cancelled because of budget cuts. I bet you didn’t even know that.”

“I didn’t,” Spy admitted.

“And why would you? Who the fuck cares? It’s just dumb scrawny idiot Scout, who the fuck cares what his deal is? He can barely do his job and read any word that’s over four syllables, who cares what he does? He ain’t nothin’ today, he must never have been somethin’ in the first place.”

“Scout—“

“Tell me I’m wrong, Spy,” he snapped, voice cracking down the middle.

“You’re wrong. Scout, what’s going on?” Spy asked, and his voice sounded closer, like he’d taken a knee. “What happened?”

He understood, logically, that telling Spy damn near anything was a bad idea. He sold information for a living. But logic hadn’t ever been much help to him, and anyways, he was pretty sure he was about to break down either way, and he could either cry like a dumb little baby and Spy could go to the rest of the team and tell them about stupid Scout and his crying for no reason, or he could at least sort of maybe a little bit sound justified and a little bit less completely unhinged.

“We lost all week because I fuckin’ suck at my job, and we don’t get to go off base for some goddamn reason, and I miss my family, and I—“ God damn it, he hoped to at least get to a second sentence before he broke, but here came the waterworks. “—and I know the team doesn’t give a shit, and if they even noticed they probably think I’m being some idiot baby, and I’m just so fuckin’ tired of all of this, alright? I’m just so goddamn exhausted, all the time, and no matter what I do I can’t make my own stupid, shitty, broken-ass brain shut up, and I...”

There was a hand on his shoulder, now. For some reason that’s what unstuck the sob in his throat.

“And I just miss my mom,” he managed, and sobbed again. “And I know that just makes me a stupid fucking baby—“

“Scout, it doesn’t,” Spy said firmly.

“Bullshit.”

A sigh, less exasperated than the others. “Scout, I miss my own parents. Often. Heavy writes to his mother, the Bushman calls home once a week and stays on the phone for an hour at a time. Do you think they would do that if they didn’t miss them?”

Scout couldn’t seem to find his voice, and just sniffled a little.

“If anything, it’s good that you miss your mother. You are appreciating her now, while she’s still part of your life, rather than later on when she’s gone. That’s a good thing.”

“Here I am cryin’ over dumb shit—“

“The fact that you’re even capable of tears shows that you haven’t completely sealed yourself off from your emotions like several of our testosterone-puppet teammates. I’m fairly certain that Medic surgically removed his own tear ducts. I think Soldier is so dehydrated that he’s incapable of it. And rather than sweat he needs to cover himself in liquid-like food products or else he’ll die of heat stroke.”

Despite everything, that made Scout laugh, just a little. More of a hiccup than anything else.

“Admittedly, you have greater social needs than several of our team, and they need to take breaks. Not just from you, but from everyone. It’s part of being human, everyone requires some amount of time alone or else they start losing their minds. But that doesn’t mean that they don’t care about you—value the things you do for this team, even. Every time someone would like company when going in to town for any reason, they always ask me where you are. And you’ve given good film recommendations to everyone except for the Sniper.”

“Guy hates movies,” Scout defended weakly.

“You keep recommending horror films. As it turns out, he is a fan of romantic comedies.”

“Fuckin’ what? Seriously?”

“I was shocked too. His complete lack of taste in all areas of his life continues to amaze me.”

Scout scoffed at that. A beat of silence.

“What I am saying is that the team doesn’t simply put up with you. You’re impossible to simply put up with, you take up too big a part of everyone’s life here. Instead, they must like and respect you.” A pause. “And your father must have truly been an idiot. Anyone with two eyes would be proud of the challenges you’ve faced and overcome with all of the disadvantages you’ve been dealt over your lifetime.”

Scout sniffled, wiped his eyes with his forearm, finally managed to look up at Spy. “Anyone with two eyes? You sayin’ you’re proud of me, then?” he asked, even if it was a little shaky.

“I feel no strong emotions,” Spy deadpanned.

“Alright, nevermind about earlier. That’s the most obvious lie you’ve ever told me.”

Spy rolled his eyes, standing, brushing off the knee of his suit.

Scout looked at the plate, made a face. “Aw man, what the fuck, is that asparagus? Is Medic back on trying to make us eat healthy again?”

“The Engineer cooked it, stop complaining and just eat it,” Spy said, quickly falling back into his role of naggy just on the near side of patronizing.

“C’mon, it couldn’t have been like, mashed potatoes or broccoli or somethin’?”

“You always douse those things in salt and butter. That combined with the energy drinks means you’re going to get a heart condition before I do.”

“Just get the fuck outta my room, Spy,” Scout huffed, putting the stuffed animal aside and moving to pick up the plate and utensils.

“Very well. And go talk to Demoman at some point, he’s been whining about nobody wanting to go get fast food with him for two days,” Spy said as he walked to the door. “And you can’t borrow my car to go.”

“Fuck you, Spy,” Scout said flippantly, waving him off.

“Fuck you too,” Spy said just as casually, and made sure to close the door behind him.

#tf2 #team fortress 2 #dad!spy #shut up me #my fanfiction #everybody talks #unrelated to this fic but requests might be a little slow for the next few days. life just got real busy for me

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ella-se-vuelve-loca · 4 years

Text

Chapter 20

Grand Masterlist

Series Masterlist

I hope y’all don’t hate me after this chapter 😬 might need some editing though..

Previous Chapter

Johann’s P.O.V.

“Johann, do you really think that was wise of you to do that? Imagine how Joel is gonna feel when he sees that video.” Emilia said into the phone. “Do you think he’s gonna like seeing you all up on his – ”

“Hey, they’re not together anymore and besides, she agreed to be in it! It’s not a big deal.” I sighed.

“But think of your friendship. You could’ve gotten any other girl and you picked her – his ex… do you see what I’m saying here?” She asked as I rolled my eyes. Why can’t people be on my side for once? “Okay, I’ll admit that choosing that song maybe wasn’t the best choice, but it was last minute and she was there! It’s all innocent, I swear! It’s just acting.”

“I still don’t know how I feel about you being with her all the time. She was with Joel and now she’s kinda with you.. it’s just weird I guess. I know you said that you wanted to be a friend, but you’ve been pretty insistent of wanting to be with her more and more.”

“Emilia – ”

“No, seriously listen. You could be getting into some shit with our friend and I don’t want to be in the middle of you two fighting.”

“Everything is fine, we’re not fighting.” I sighed. “You know what? I gotta let you go. I’m on the road right now.. let’s just finish this conversation later.” I said bye to her and hung up the phone, tossing it off to the passenger seat. Today’s (Y/N)’s birthday and she’s invited me to her place for a little picnic. She said that didn’t want anything big but to just have a few people over and have home cooked meals outside. I never really knew what Joel saw in her when they were together, but now I’m starting to see it. He picked someone who has some similar qualities as him.

She’s not all bad, I actually quiet enjoy her company from time to time. I don’t love her, God no. If I had to choose between love and my singing career, I’d be working with the best artists right now and getting a platinum album. I want a spotlight on me and be the topic everyone is talking about. If I have to blackmail Joel to get me more followers, then so be it. I want what he has… I want more.

I parked the car outside her place and saw someone walking up to her doorstep and started knocking. I walked up to him and saw he had a little bouquet of flowers in his hands as he waited for someone to open the door. “Uh.. hello?” I spoke to him as he turned around. “Hi, is Ms. (L/N) in?” He asked. “Uh she should be inside. Why?” I crossed my arms over my chest.

“I’m just here to deliver these flowers.” He held them up and looked around her front yard. Who ordered them? I didn’t bring a gift, so I’ll just have to take these and say they were from me. “Um.. uh.. oh! Those – those must be the flowers I ordered a little back. You can just hand them to me, I’ll take ‘em in.” I smiled and held my hands out. “I’m the uh.. the boyfriend.” He raised his eyebrow at me and slowly shook his head, sighing. “Here.” He handed them to me and mentioned over to his truck.

“I got a bunch more flowers to deliver and I don’t have time to argue. You have a good one.” He tipped his hat and started walking away as I looked down at the bouquet in my hands. Who ordered these? I was about to look through them to see if there was a note somewhere until someone opened the door.

“Oh, hey! You’re here.” (Y/N) chuckled and opened the door wider for me to come in. “Yes, I am! And.. I come bearing gifts.” I handed her the flowers and saw her face lit up with a smile. “I had these picked specially for you.”

“These are my favorites.. how did you know?” He held them up to her nose and inhaled the sweet scent. “I uh took a guess.. felíz cumpleaños.”

“Thank you, Johann. That’s really sweet of you. You shouldn’t have.” She stepped off to the side as I walked into her place. “I’ll go and put them away. You just make yourself at home, I’ll be right back.” I nodded and slowly walked around her living room. She has a couple pictures hanging on the wall and a record player that was softly playing some music.

I continued inspecting the photos until I saw someone awfully familiar in one of them. On top of a table, sat a photo of her and Joel making a silly face at the camera. What is this even doing here? I thought she was getting over him? “You done with your lurking?” I heard a different voice come into the room as I pulled away from the pictures. There stood a woman leaning against the wall as she glanced at me, her eyebrows raised.

“Ha yeah I was just looking, is all..” I cleared my throat as straightened my shirt. “I’m Johann.” I smiled. “I know, we met at Christopher’s cookout a little while back.” I snapped my fingers and nodded. “Oh, yeah! That’s right.. my bad. I have a foggy memory at times.” I chuckled as she slowly walked closer and looked at the photo of (Y/N) and Joel.

“She hasn’t taken that photo down.” She said. “Yeah, I was just thinking about that. Why hasn’t she put something else up? I thought she was over him?”

“If she wants to put that photo away, she will. She’ll do it in her own time.” Damn, what’s got her panties in a twist? “Judging by your tone, I would have to guess that you don’t seem to like me very much.” I turned my head towards hers as she nodded. “Then you’d be right, Sherlock Holmes.”

“Can I ask why?” I raised an eyebrow as she chuckled. “Why? Bothered that somebody else doesn’t like you?”

“More so that I don’t know the reason.” She glanced around for a second before responding. “I guess that’s for me to know and for you to find out.” I rolled my eyes and chuckled. “You don’t know a thing about me, sweetheart.” I heard someone start walking closer to us as she whispered one more thing to me before we got interrupted. “Just know that everything you do comes back around to bite you in the ass.”

“Hey, Andrea?” I heard (Y/N)’s voice come into her living room. “Can you help me get some of the food out? I need help.” She laughed.

“Yeah, of course!” She smiled before giving me a side eye, walking towards the kitchen. I turned to look at the photo again before I felt anger slowly rise inside of me at the thought of Joel still having something I’m trying to take. It got me thinking about who sent those flowers to her house. I need to check if they left a note somewhere inside.

They came out of the kitchen with plates of foods in their hands as they started walking out to her backyard. “Do you girls need any help?” I asked. “No, actually, you can just – ”

“That’d be nice.” (Y/N) cut her off as I smugly smirked at her friend. I walked over to her and took the food off of her hands and started making my way outside. “Thank you.”

“It’s no problem.” I walked towards the table and set down the plates, looking around. I was hoping for this night to go smoothly, but it seems like (Y/N)’s friend has it in for me. I’m not too worried about it though because what can a girl do?

(Y/N)’s P.O.V.

We were currently sitting down watching a movie through a projector while eating some snacks that we bought specifically for this occasion. I didn’t want to watch any chick flicks or anything romantic, considering how my sucky love life is. Johann sat oddly close to me though, but I brushed it off thinking maybe there just wasn’t enough room for him to see the screen.

I’m not usually one for huge parties. Just sitting out in my backyard with some food and drinks is definitely enough for me. I tried to pay attention to the Avengers movie playing, but my mind drifted off to why Johann is slowly, but surely, leaning closer and closer to me. I could feel his body heat radiate onto me and I’m sure my pulse quickened when his arm now rested around my shoulder.

What is going on? What is he doing?

I didn’t want to make a scene in front of everyone, but I wasn’t as comfortable having his arm around me. I cleared my throat and sat up, slowly shrugging him off. “Hey uh I’ll be right back. I’m gonna head to the bathroom real quick..” I stood up and made my way back inside the house. I’m not that angry anymore about what Joel did, but I am disappointed that he didn’t wait for me at the airport… I just didn’t get there in time. I thought about going on that plane anyways and surprising him at a show, but what would I even say to him?

“Oh, hi! I know that I said I didn’t want anything to do with you anymore, but I changed my mind and now here I am! Please love me!”

Pfft.. pathetic. I glanced down at the photo of us on the coffee table and sighed. We looked so happy there. Why do I still have that photo in a frame? It should be in the garbage somewhere… it should, but I can’t bring myself to do it. He’s gone now and I missed my chance for us to try again. It’s been a couple of months now and I bet he’s probably found someone new. I was about to head back outside when I heard my doorbell ring.

I’m not expecting anybody else, so who could it be? I slowly walked towards my front door and opened it, seeing a man around my age hold up a box in his hands. “Um.. hi, can I help you with something?”

“Are you Ms. (Y/N)?” The man asked. “Yes, this is she. Can I ask what are you – ”

“I have a package for you.” He held up the box and I shook my head. “Oh, no you uh must have the wrong house or something. I didn’t order anything.”

“Someone sent this to you, Ms. (Y/N). I’m just here to deliver your gift.” I slowly took the box from his hands and looked down, realizing a message on top that said ‘Open When You’re Alone’.

“Wait, there’s no return address on it..” I glanced up at him and squinted my eyes, furrowing my eyebrows together. “Who are you?” I asked. “Let’s just say I’m someone who’s trying to help out a friend. That package is for you from someone who misses you dearly.” He placed his hands inside his pockets and gave me a smile.

“Do I.. know you?” He shook his head, turning his face away from me and pouted his bottom lip out. “No. No I don’t think so.”

“Really? It’s just.. I’m sorry. You look really familiar, like I’ve seen you before.”

“I guess I just have one of those faces.” He chuckled. I glanced down and noticed tattoos that covered parts of his arms and hands. He grabbed his phone and glanced at the time, sighing.

“Listen, I gotta go. Um.. it was nice seeing you shawty. Please, just follow the instruction on top of the box. It’s very important that only you see it.” He looked at me, giving me a small smile and tipped his hat. “You have a good one.” He quickly walked off as I was left standing there with this package in my hands.

I walked back in and shut the door behind me, slowly walking towards my bedroom. What could this be? Who was that guy? Why did he call me shawty? Do we know each other? This seems kind of sketchy, if I’m being honest. I opened the door and stood in the middle of my room, wondering if I should open it.

I had to have known that guy. Maybe from school or something? Like I’ve passed by him without really seeing him, you know?

Before I could even think about checking to see what was inside, I heard someone coming down the hall closer to my room. I quickly placed the box under my bed and got up as soon as they opened the door.

“Hey..” I turned and saw Vicky standing there, a drink in her hand. “Hey.” I smiled at her and fixed my hair. “What are you doing in here? I thought you said you were only going to the bathroom?”

“Yeah no uh I just needed to get something real quick. I was on my way out anyways.” I chuckled and walked towards her. “Let’s go..”

“Thank you so much everyone for coming by! I hope you guys drive home safely.” I hugged a couple of my friends as they were now getting ready to leave. It was getting late and just about everyone had to get up early for work tomorrow, so I bid them well and sent them on their merry way. “We have to get together again sometime!”

“Oh, most definitely!” I chuckled as they walked out, closing the door behind them. That’s almost everyone..

“Hey, I’m spending the night if that’s okay?” Victoria asked as I nodded. “You practically live here.” I laughed. “Oh shush! You love me haha!” She smiled. “Anyways, I gotta go for right now and take Andrea back to her place, I was her ride here. I’ll be back in a bit, okay? I’ll pick up some coffee from McDonald’s.”

“I’ll be waiting.” I gave her a hug and waved Andrea over so I could say goodnight. “I hope you had a lot of fun today, babes!” She smiled and embraced me, her perfume still prominent on her clothes. “I did! Thank you girls for everything. I had a blast today.” I chuckled and pulled away, walking them to the front door.

“Text me when you get home, alright?”

“I will!” The two of them walked towards Vicky’s car and got inside, driving off. I closed the door and sighed. “Long day?” I heard Johann say as I jumped, not expecting to hear his voice. “Oh my – .. argh! You scared me!” I chuckled. “What are you still doing here? I thought you left already?”

“What? You trying to get rid of me?” He joked. “Nah I was just in the bathroom and I came back out to find that everyone else had gone home already.”

“Oh..” I smiled and glanced around my living room. “Well, uh is there anything I can do for you? Want to take some food home?” I asked, mentioning over to the kitchen. He shook his head and scratched the back of his neck. “No, it’s okay. Thank you though.” I nodded and thought of ways to keep it from getting awkward.

“Did you have a great time today?” He asked. “Yes, I did. Thank you again for coming by and for the flowers you gave me. It was really sweet.” He slowly stepped forward as I stayed in place. “Thank you for inviting me. I had a lot of fun.” It became quiet for a few more moments as I wondered what else he wanted to talk about. He’s not making a move to go anywhere just yet.

“I uh..” He chuckled. “I have to say this. If I don’t, then I’ll regret it..” He stepped closer to me and said. “You look absolutely beautiful, (Y/N).” I felt my face heat up at the unexpected compliment. “Oh.. um.. thank you. I’m just in a t – shirt and jeans though, nothing extravagant.” I laughed as he now stood face to face with me.

“But you still look as radiant as ever. It’s simple, but effective.” I stood there, not quite sure what else I should do. Why hasn’t he gone to his car yet? “You know..” He was now almost chest to chest with me as I looked up at him. “Ever since we’ve been hanging out these past couple of months, I feel like I’ve really gotten to know you.” He lifted one of my hands and brought it up to his lips, placing a gentle kiss.

“Oh uh haha I guess so. I think I’m an open book, if you ask me.” I said and he smiled. “You are a rare diamond, mi amor.” He chuckled. “I’ve never met anyone like you.” When did he start calling me “mi amor”?

“Joel didn’t deserve you..” He lifted his hand and moved a strand of my hair out of my face. I frowned and looked at the photo still sitting on my coffee table. “You deserve someone who can give you the world and more.” I felt his breath against my cheek and I looked up at him. “I can do that..”

Why is his face so close to mine? “Please.. let me just…” I felt a pair of lips press against mine and my eyes widened in shock. I stayed completely still as he brought one of his hands up to cup my cheek. Is this actually happening?

My eyes stayed open as I looked at the photo of Joel facing us on the table. Why do I feel like I’m cheating on him even though we’re no longer together? “(Y/N)..” he mumbled my name against my lips, trying to encourage me to respond to him but I just couldn’t. I didn’t feel anything.. no sparks.. no butterflies.. nothing.

He slowly pulled away and sighed. “I’m sorry I just.. I’ve been wanting to do that for a while..” My mind went completely blank. I couldn’t seem to form any sort of sentence and he chuckled. “Speechless?” He asked as I nodded. “You – You can say that..” He glanced down at my lips for a second and smiled. “I’ll get going..” I nodded as he turned away and walked towards the door, me following after him.

“Goodnight, (Y/N). Happy birthday. I’ll see you later.” He winked and opened the door, making his way towards his car. “Drive safely..” I waved bye to him and with that, he was gone. I could still feel his lips on mine as I closed the door and leaned against it. What was that?

I looked at the picture of me and Joel on the coffee table and frowned. I walked over and grabbed the frame, looking down at our happy faces stuck inside that moment forever. I know I said to not call or text me anymore… but I miss you, Joel. I miss you so much and I want what we had back. But I’m stubborn and I won’t be the first to text you..

I sighed and placed the frame back on the table, face down. I walked up to my room and lied down on my bed. I’ll check that random package I got later. Right now, I just want to watch some movies while I wait for Victoria to come back and debated if I should tell her what happened a few moments ago with Johann.

Next Chapter

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bottleofspilledink · 4 years

Text

God's Watching, Put on a Show || Chapter II

It's been a day since the oven mitts were lent to her.

Eve hadn't been able to return the them, too shy to ask around for it's owner.

Once class was finished, she washed it in her kitchen sink. Half a pack of lavender detergent wasn't enough to get rid of the burnt smell that lingered on the cloth, but she had done her best.

While she chipped the hardened batter off of the soft cloth, her hand sometimes stopped to caress the tag, tracing over the small, slightly slopping lettering. She'd only realize she had stopped scrubbing them when her bunny slippers were damp with water from the still running tap, the soapy liquid spilling over the sink and in between the wooden floorboards.

Even when the oven mitts were tucked away in her nightstand, her mind would wander to thoughts of it's owner, her warm hands, her fiery hair, and her plump, pink lips.

But that was a problem for the Eve of tomorrow to deal with.

...

It's been two days since the oven mitts were lent to her.

They've sat in the front pocket of her backpack since the moment Eve deemed them dry enough, squashed against her pencil case that was filled to a near burst.

She put them in with her books after an hour, not wanting to return it smelling like pencil shavings.

For the rest of the day, her mind was bombarded with images of the smile she would receive upon returning them.

That is, of course, if she could even bring herself to do so.

...

It's been three days since the oven mitts were lent to her.

Eve thought about leaving it in the lost and found but ultimately decided against it, seeing as it wasn't lost, nor was it found.

It sat heavy in her deep skirt pocket while she ate her lunch, plush compared to the hard bench pressing at her thighs, hyperaware of its presence.

Her chicken pot pie was cold in the center and she immediately recoiled when it met her lips.

"Is the pie chilly?" Elizabeth asked, looking up from her plate.

Lilith's smile flashed through her head, the epitome of stunning.

In the past few days, the word chilly had been linked to Lilith and Lilith only. This was going to be a problem as the wind began to blow and all Eve heard in the hall was the sound of her voice, gentle but teasing.

"The center is."

Elizabeth laughed at this, a quick, cute snort through her nose. "I bet you half my cake slice that the freshmen were on lunch duty today."

Gambling, no matter how small, was against the rules. It said so in big, bold letters on page 37 of the student handbook.

They had to have fun somehow though, so this was often overlooked in favor of small and quite harmless bets.

"I bet you my juice that it was the sophomores that skipped home economics last year."

"You're on!"

They ate what parts of the food they could stomach, waiting for their other friend to join them from the line.

"Hey." Mary slid her tray next to Eve's and sat down, slicing the crusts off her tuna sandwich with the dull, school issue knives.

"What year's on kitchen duty?" Elizabeth asked, always straight to the point.

"The people who got in trouble for the fire." She bit into her sandwich. "A senior class."

"Okay then, so it's a draw."

"What's a draw?"

"We made a bet on what year made the meals because the center's cold," Eve explained.

"Wait a minute, this means they caught who started the fire, right?" Elizabeth perked up immediately at the thought of gossip. The fire was all anyone could talk about these past few days.

"Please, please, please, tell me who it was!"

"Not really..."

"No way! If they didn't catch anyone, then who's on kitchen duty?"

"According to the file, everyone who put something in the oven was held accountable because they weren't able to get a confession."

"Gimme the list of suspects," Elizabeth whispered. Mary was head of the student council and knew everything that was worthy of an official report.

"There's only five of them. Joan Amiel, Eliza Job, Paula Matthews, Gabrielle Davidson, and... Lily? Wait, that's not it," She rested her head in her hand, immaculate brows furrowing.

Makeup was also not allowed, as stated in page 34 of the same handbook. But practically all the students knew that if you were able to make it look natural enough, you'd get away with it.

"It's on the tip of my tongue, I just can't- oh! And Lilith Damien." She took a bite of her sandwich, shaking her head all the while. "Honestly, how could I forget her? She causes half the problems around here."

Eve's head shot up but she hurriedly ducked down again, hoping her friends wouldn't notice her rather dramatic movement.

"You know her, Eve?" Their eyes bore into her skeptically, far too accustomed to her demure, blink-and-you-miss-it, reactions.

"Not exactly?" She brushed her golden hair back, playing with the ends as she avoided their gaze. From what she had just heard, knowing Lilith was not the best thing.

"We ran in to each other in the courtyard when the fire alarms went off. I doubt she even remembers me." She decided not to tell them about the things that had happened, the oven mitts in her pocket, or how soft her hand was.

"That's a good thing, too! Lord knows what kind of trouble you would have gotten into, hanging around with her sort," Mary said, adamant.

Eve couldn't help but wonder if her days of snooping through the school records had let her feel like she truly knew people. Though, she knew better than to say anything, merely nodding along and sipping her juice.

The rest of lunch continued like this for her, passively humming and nodding as her only response. As silent as she was, however, her mind was buzzing with thoughts and possibilities, some more welcome than others.

By the end of the hour, Eve had a plan.

She would knock on the kitchen entrance, oven mitts already in hand. (She didn't want to waste Lilith's time.)

After handing them over, she'd apologize for taking so long, and maybe, just maybe, she'd tell her she washed them for her.

Just so she wouldn't appear to have kept them for no reason.

The conversation went on without her, the other two saying goodbye before heading to the one class they had together, not bothering to wait for Eve since they knew her free period was next.

The blonde patted her pocket one last time to make sure the oven mitts hadn't somehow disappeared and shrugged her bag on when she felt it's now familiar plush against her.

Her plan, Eve quickly realized, was easier thought out than done. Her fingers curled into a loose fist that hovered nervously over the kitchen's backdoor.

She knew what she wanted to say. Well, she thought she did anyway. The real problem for her now was how she was going to say it.

So there she was, pacing by the garbage cans and muttering incoherently to herself, trying to find the right words to sound grateful for being lent the gloves, which she was, but not creepy or annoying, which she thought she was.

This went on for quite some time, Eve completely unaware of her surroundings til she was snapped back to reality by a loud, familiar laugh.

"Eve! We meet again!" The girl said, somehow giddy and suave at the same time despite barely being able to get her words out through her giggling.

"Hi!" Eve squeaked, clinging to the cloth tighter than she had been.

Her obvious shock only served to make Lilith laugh harder, the redhead clutching her stomach and struggling for breath.

"Why are you laughing? Come on, what's so funny?" Like that day in the courtyard, Eve felt her face flush with what she thought was indignation. She ran a hand through her hair, nervous and entirely confused as to why.

"Sorry about that," The girl walked past her and tossed a garbage bags into the dumpster nearby.

"It's just," another small laugh escaped her, "the people I was cooking with were too scared to come out here. They said there was some crazy chick was talking to herself by the trash like she was on crack!"

"Really?! I-I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to-"

She felt like dying, her face hotter than a stove and twice as red. Her fingers reached for her hair on instinct, twiddling with the tips, snapping some of the strands of in the process.

"Hey, it's alright! Gave me an excuse to get outta there, so I ain't complaining." She shrugged her shoulders then stretched her back, uniform rising as she did so.

Her eyes were instantly drawn to the sliver of skin that appeared before her. It was gone as quick as it appeared yet the very image was now burned into her mind.

It would occupy her mind all throughout dinner. It would be all she could think about as she took her nightly shower. It would invade her mind as she lay in bed to sleep, restless and half mad because of the picture.

Though it wasn't so much of a problem now. She had something else to keep her mind busy, after all.

"How'd you find me, by the way?"

"I saw your name on the tag and I asked around."

"Oh..." She breathed, face falling for only a second. "So you know who I am?"

Her voice was laced with something akin to disappointment and hesitance. As if, in her mind, the moment Eve knew of the person she was and the things she'd done, the blonde would go running.

"Yeah, you're Lilith Damien, right?"

"Depends on who you ask." She winked, blue eyes filled with mirth and smile becoming devious.

The way she said it somewhat jokingly. Though what the joke was evaded her and she was left looking like a fool, a few slow blinks being her sole response.

"Anyways, I'm here to return these," Eve said, turning a deeper shade of pink at the wink.

Those eyes did things to her.

Whether she knew it or not, though, was something for later.

"Thank you." Lilith smiled, apple red lips a cross of amused and endeared.

Like the first meeting, their hands brushed against each other, but if Eve was honest with herself, though she rarely was, it didn't seem as accidental or as fleeting, skin lingering and heat staying for a moment longer than it had.

"Were they able to do it?"

"Do what?"

"Keep you warm."

Lilith said this as if it was the most obvious thing in the world, but not in a way that berated her or made her seem naive and stupid, but her tone was that of care, as if the oven mitts were meant to warm her.

"They did great, you should be very proud of them," Eve giggled, cheesy humor shining through before she could stop it.

It was refreshing when Lilith laughed, not a snicker of distaste or one of pity like her friends who would cringe are her childish jokes and puns, but a sound of genuine joy and hilarity.

Eve was still getting used to the sound, lost in her own high when Lilith spoke once more.

"Did you wash them for me?"

"Uh.."

"Don't be creepy. Don't be creepy."

"Yes, actually. I had them for a while after you gave them and I didn't wanna give you a hard time scrubbing all the dried batter off after being so nice to me."

As it turns out, this was the right thing to say as the redhead gave her another dazzling smile in thanks.

The serene silence that hung between them was interrupted by three heavy knocks on the door behind them.

"Hold on, I'm in the middle of something here!" Her smile was wiped clean of her face, replaced by a deep scowl that looked so out of place on her sharp, yet stunning features.

"Lilith, get your ass back in here!" A harsh voice boomed from inside the kitchen.

"You better not be on a smoke break, taking the trash out shouldn't be taking that damn long."

"I'm not smoking! Just gimme a minute, will you, Joan?"

"If you're not in here in two minutes, I'm telling Mother Cecilia."

"Fuck you!" Her change in tone was abrupt and shocking to say the least, and Eve couldn't help but gawk at the more aggressive language.

Cursing was prohibited and anyone caught doing it would get a detention and a note home. It was on page 39, right in between bullying and, coincidentally, smoking.

"Anyway," Lilith said, turning back to her, suddenly sheepish as she rubbed her neck. "I should probably go..."

"I see what you mean now when you said it depends on who I ask."

"Yeah?" Her usual smirk was off now, cool façade cracking under the weight of Eve's words.

"Yeah."

"And... is it a bad thing?" Lilith's voice was hesitant, as if, for some reason, she cared for what the other thought of her.

"Not exactly. Flexibility is a good trait in the workforce." She said, taking a quote straight from their textbook to justify the girl's actions with something other than the fact that she had taken quite a liking to her.

All the tension left Lilith, shoulders slumping in a show of relief. The hand at her neck had fallen, dragging her unbuttoned collar with it, giving Eve a peek of her cleavage.

She would also think about that later tonight, mind alternating with the peek of skin earlier, and now, this.

"OK. I'll see you around, then?"

The blonde grinned and nodded in response. She didn't know why, but she wanted to see her again.

"Bye, Lilith."

"Bye, Eve."

With that, the girl went back into the kitchen, door unintentionally slamming shut behind her.

Eve could hardly wait for their next meeting.

And lucky for her, she wouldn't have to wait long.

...

"So?" Paula asked, not even a minute after Lilith entered the kitchen.

"So what?"

All the girls in had their eyes on her, as if waiting for their turn to asks their own questions.

"She's asking you if you dealt with the crackhead or not, dummy." Joan said, snickering, though she shut up after being elbowed by Paula.

"I'm here, aren't I? And don't call her that." She went over to the sink, quicklime washing her hands and wiping it on her worn apron. "She has a name."

"We'll call her by her name when you tell us what it is."

"Joan!" Paula hit the girl once more.

"That's not what I meant. We just wanna know who she was."

Paula took Lilith's damp hands, thumb moving in small, soothing circles.

"We're worried about you, Lil. You haven't really been with anyone since Sarah left."

"You really don't have to worry. I'm over her, I have been for months now!"

Joan sighed and sauntered over to the pair, patting the girl on the back. As much as they'd tease and bicker and squabble, they cared about each other, though their ways of showing it were unconventional to say the least.

"You sure?" She started. "I mean, it's fine if you wanna take a break from relationships and all that, but maybe it would be better for you to get out there and try dating again?"

"Date who?" Lilith went to her bag and fished out a pack of chips. "In case you haven't noticed, I don't exactly have a lot of options here."

"Me and Paula met someone at the garage concert we went to last week, I can hook you up with her if you want."

"Not happening."

"Why not?"

Lilith looked at the floor, kicking the tiled ever so slightly as she popped a chip into her mouth.

"'Cause, I don't feel like it."

"Why not?"

"I just don't."

Joan and Paula shared a knowing glance.

"Look me in the eye and say that again."

Lilith groaned, blue eyes shifting upwards before she muttered, "I don't feel like it."

"Why not?"

"I answered that already."

"Why not?" Paula said, deciding to help Joan and press on.

"'Cause..."

"'Cause...?"

Lilith frowned, sharp features turning harsher than they already were.

"I see what's going on here, Lil." Joan put her head on the girl's shoulder, neck craning. "Who's the lucky girl?"

The redhead's expression softened and she slumped onto her friend.

"The one I was talking to outside." Her voice was soft, barely a whisper. But girls like Lilith had to get used to talking in hushed voices and hurried murmurs.

Love was a dangerous thing for girls like Lilith.

"Will you tell us her name?" Paula leaned on the wall by her right, effectively sandwiching the girl.

"Eve."

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yoongi-sugaglider · 6 years

Text

Somebody Save Me

This case might just be the death of a young detective. Sleepless nights and stress filled days haunt the young detective Kim Taehyung but he’s determined to find her. Even if it’s the last thing he may do…Warnings:angst, mentions of torture, mentions of murder, strong language, detective au

Word count:1967

A/N:So this chapter ran away from me a bit lol. I got some inspiration from two of my close friends @bbl90 and @btsstan4life so thank you both so much for that~ Anyways!Hope you all enjoy this one and remember! If you liked it please don’t hesitate to drop a like or reblog or even a comment!I appreciate them all as they provide the motivation to keep writing~

<<Part Four---Part Six>>

Chapter Five:A Home Cooked meal and Good Company

Taehyung groaned to himself. What is it about basement file rooms that made him feel like he was crawling with spiders and other creepy crawlies? Not to mention the sheer depressing weight of a room full of paperwork, something he always tried to avoid at all costs.

He shoved a box of files they'd acquired into the back seat of Namjoon's car, slamming the door shut with his hip before climbing into the passenger seat and closing it as well. He leaned his head back against the headrest and closed his eyes, a soul-rending sigh escaping him that caused Namjoon to turn to him with a concerned look on his face.

His brow furrowed as his eyes scanned the weary posture of his friend. Taehyung's cheeks were sunken, probably from far too many convenience store meals that lacked anything in nutritional value besides the general carbs to keep him going another day. His eyes were sunken as well, dark shadows haunting beneath them like the ghosts of late nights spent going over old clues and retracing dead leads.

"Hey..." Namjoon's voice was quiet as he garnered his partner's attention. Taehyung blinked blurrily as he turned his head to look over at Namjoon, his face expressionless as he waited for Namjoon to continue. "You alright there buddy?" Namjoon paused, chewing on his lower lips as he chose his words carefully. "I mean... you've barely slept more than 24 hours in the last week. Why don't I take you home so you can get some rest?"

Taehyung scoffed, sitting up slightly straighter as he rested his elbow on the leather of the car door and leaned his head to rest in his hand. His eyes scanned the bustling streets and sidewalk, glaring at those that dared to pass by with their busy lives and happy faces.

"I can't afford to take a break hyung. That girl is counting on us and we've basically gotten nowhere!" He hand clenched into a fist in his lap as he ground his teeth in frustration.

"That may be so." Namjoon countered, his frown deepening as he leaned forward slightly to see Taehyung's face. "But you're not helping her any if you don't take care of yourself. You've changed Tae. I can't even remember the last time you laughed, let alone had a decent home cooked meal." He huffed as he tried to make his point.

"What good are you gonna be to her if you collapse from exhaustion and end up in the hospital or dead?" His voice softened, full of concern and urgency. "Come on Taehyung. Jimin and Jin-hyung are in town visiting. Why don't you come over and let Jin-hyung cook you some good food? We can all go over the files together and you can sleep on the couch tonight."

Taehyung closed his eyes, his resolve weakening before cracking at the mention of Jin's cooking. "Alright, alright, at least it's not the couch in the office. I swear I'm really starting to hate the smell of leather at this point."

Namjoon chuckled, a small smile of triumph turning up the corners of his lips as he started the vehicle and easily pulled into traffic, glad to finally have a moment of victory even if it was this small.

***

Namjoon turned his house key in the lock, nudging the door open with his elbow as he shifted the weight of the box of files he'd been carrying so that he could see over it into the house.

"I'm home baby girl!" he shouted into the recesses of his home as he stepped inside to let Taehyung enter as well. Taehyung grunted under the weight of his two boxes, shuffling inside with a slight pout to his lips.

"Why does this thing have to be so heavy?" Namjoon grunted as he dropped his box beside the console table just inside the entryway. He dropped his keys beside a family photo as Taehyung nudged him aside to drop his boxes on top of Namjoon's.

"I don't want to hear about it old man. I had to carry two of those dang things. The least you could do is not gripe about it." Taehyung grumbled as he shook out his sore hands.

Namjoon smacked his partner on the arm. "You can complain all you want. If it weren't for my smooth talking we would have never even gotten access to those files." The two began making their way through the house, moving through halls filled with smiling pictures of friends and relatives and several tasteful paintings.

"Yea... that smooth talking. Want me to mention to your wife how you were flirting in the elevator with that pretty little secretary and how you gave her your number?" Taehyung smirked as he dodged another of Namjoon's hits.

"I didn't give her my number. I gave her Jimin's number. He needs to go out more instead of being holed up in his office all day like you do." Namjoon said just as they walked into the kitchen.

The room itself was large, allowing for modern appliances in tasteful black steel and mahogany cabinets that spanned the length of the back wall before opening out into an even larger family room.

"What's this about giving secretaries Jimin's number?" A young chocolate skinned woman asked from the kitchen. She stood at the stove beside a tall older man, her head quirked towards the newly arrived men and a teasing smile on her lips.

Namjoon chuckled, making his way to his wife with a large grin on his face. She smacked his arm with a sauce-covered spoon which earned her a snicker from the taller man standing off to the side of them.

"I was flirting for the job.I didn't mean anything by it." He wrapped his arms around her waist as she turned back to the large bubbling pot on the stove, placing a gentle kiss on her temple as she gave a long-suffering sigh.

Tae plopped onto a barstool at the large island beside the other male in the room, giving him a soft smile which the older man returned before turning his attention to Namjoon once more.

"For the record hyung I don't need dating help. I do just fine with the ladies on my own." He pouted slightly, his plump lower lip sticking out slightly at the implied insult.

"Yah! We all know you spend your nights and weekends locked up in your office Jimin. Let Namjoon help you out. He got himself an amazing catch maybe it's time you took a page out of his book." The elder waved his knife in the air, his back turned to the others as he was busy chopping vegetables. His waving hand earned him a smack from Namjoon's wife despite the rising blush on her cheeks.

"You're no better Jin-hyung. You spend all day catering to your students Mister Law professor. You can't tell me you're out and about slaying the dating scene." The man named Jimin huffed, folding his arms on the black and gold-flecked marble countertop and resting his chin on his folded hands.

Jin turned, a cocky smirk dancing on his lips. "I'm far too handsome to limit myself to just one relationship. I have to spread my beautiful face to the masses or I'd be doing the world a disservice." His thumb and index finger cupped his chin as he flashed the room a dazzling smile which earned him a collective groan from the room. He sheepishly turned back to chopping carrots, muttering nonsense about ungrateful children to himself as he turned his aggression to his knife chops.

***

45 minutes and a six-course meal thanks to Jin and Namjoon’s wife later and the group had retired to the living room.Jimin, Jin, And Taehyung were sprawled on the massive oversized couch and across the stained glass coffee table, Bri sat in a large recliner while Namjoon sat on its arm with his arm wrapped lovingly around her shoulder.

“So what’s the deal with this case Joonie?” Jin asked, self consciously adjusting his glasses as his fingertips drummed on the arm of the sofa.

“The cops pretty much cold cased it. Said it wasn’t worth their time searching dead ends and running in circles.” Namjoon mindlessly rubbed circles on his wife’s arm as he spoke, his eyebrows creased in a frown.

“That’s why they sent it to us. Because that whole garbage dump of a department can’t do more than sit around and eat donuts all day while the real men are on the streets doing their dirty work…” Taehyung spat the venomous words from his lips as if just speaking them left a dirty taste in his mouth.

Namjoon leaned forward, his tone scolding as his frown increased. “Hey now, not everybody there is useless!”

Taehyung scoffed, leaning forward with his arms resting on his knees and his hands clasped together. “True, there was you and Chief Min. But that’s about it. You’re gone and last I hear Yoongi hyung wasn’t doing so hot in the stress department.”

“Last you heard? You just talked to him yesterday.” Bri interjected, her laugh knowing as she got regular updates from her husband on their progress.

“Yea and he looks like death itself. The man doesn’t sleep and his next step in his addiction is a freaking coffee i.v drip 24/7.” The statement earned Taehyung a well knowing chuckle from the group and yet despite that he seemed unusually restless.

“Taehyung… seriously why is this case bothering you so much?” Jin asked, leaning back a bit to get a good look at his stressed younger friend.

Taehyung shook his head, getting up from the sofa and rubbing his hands on the thighs of his jeans. “Jimin come help me…” He mumbled and the two made their way to the front entryway to retrieve the three large boxes of files. Returning to the living room they passed the boxes around, one to Bri and Namjoon and another to Jin.

“Well?” Jimin asked softly as he sat back on the sofa and placed the box he’d still been carrying on the floor before him.

“The girl...woman that was kidnapped.” Taehyung closed his eyes in pain and inhaled deeply before continuing. “Her name is y/n y/ln”

Jimin’s eyes shot open wide and his jaw dropped slightly at the name. “Wait...you mean that girl you had a crush on that lived across the street from us when we were kids?”

Jin’s head shot up at Jimin’s words. “So wait. You know this girl???”

“Knew…” Taehyung mumbled, his head hung low so the others couldn’t see the pain in his eyes. “We lost contact when she moved away in middle school… But as soon as I saw her face on the missing person’s report and saw her parents on the cold case file I knew immediately that it was her.” He chuckled bitterly to himself. “All these years and she was still just as breathtaking as the first time I saw her…”

“Doesn’t that make you a little too close to this case?” Bri whispered, her lips pursed in a concerned frown as she scanned his forlorn body language.

“I’m not a cop anymore. Being impartial doesn’t matter if you work for yourself…”Taehyung defended himself, sitting up slightly straighter as he shot her a slightly challenging look.

She put her hands up in self-defense. “Hey kiddo, I’m just trying to look out for you here. We’re here to help not stop you from doing your job.”

Taehyung sighed as Jimin placed a calming hand on Taehyung’s shoulder. “You’re right. I’m sorry Mrs.Kim…”

She snorted in reply, tossing a throw pillow at his chest from across the room. “Hey, I hold you about calling me that Tae Tae. Now come on, give us the details and then explain why in the heck you two came home with so many boring ass file boxes.”

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ladamab · 6 years

Text

Molting Memories

“Hanzo, no! Please, what are you doing?!”

He crouched over the downed body of a man, of an angel with its broken wings outstretched on either side holding a long knife in one hand and a fist full of feathers in the other. The injuries were grave but if he stopped to help the creature, he might just be able to save him… but Hanzo wouldn’t. He would turn around and he would leave as he always did each time before, never turning back to pick up the fallen creature despite how much he wanted to.

Blood pooled on the cement, coating the refuse and grime. Regal features watched up in disbelief; he looked down in complete apathy. Standing there in a alleyway that Hanzo could describe in agonizing detail by this point, he regarded his knife with a feigned interest.

Hanzo could tell you how many air-conditioning units sat in the secluded back street, he could describe in detail which ones had been wrenched free of their windows by the frantic flapping of long tawny wings. He could go into exquisite and excruciating detail about the way the skin between his guardian angel’s strong brows crinkled in confusion or the way the light escaped his almond eyes as more and more blood flowed freely.

He could tell you how many tears of disbelief and pain fell from warm brown orbs. Hanzo hazarded that he could even take the time to count exactly how many primaries had been ripped free and laid flung over the filled trash bags piled on the wayside. After all, this was the same every time it happened. What was a bit of distraction now and again?

His eyes traced over the edges of the ordinary hunting knife as if it were the most ornate of hand-crafted swords, blood glistening dark in the stormy night and spreading everywhere when the rain mixed with life essence to stain his hands. Sometimes when he looked down he could still see it; no amount of soap would ever clean it off.

“Hanzo please--” The angel begged again, reaching with an outstretched hand though the motion drug his worthless wings against the ground and caused the gaping wound to gush. He could have saved the angel; he should have saved him. He watched as his own hands threw the feathers back at the creature so desperately begging him for an intervention in mockery. Hanzo watched as his own feet began to back away.

‘No,’ His conscious mind would always scream, a cri de coeur that begged and pleaded for those feet to stop in their retreat. ‘No, go back, don’t leave him what are you doing!? That’s your angel, why would you leave him? Go back! Go back!!’

...but they didn’t and they wouldn’t and nothing he could ever do would ever stop them. The rain raged stronger and the blood began to run, long rivulets of life from a protector felled by its own guarded human. He knew that he would retreat and back away from that garbage filled alley, leaving the angel to slowly die of internal bleeding. If he was going to murder the creature it would be only fair, only merciful, to kill it in one go and not to leave it there to suffer. In his dreams, Hanzo was not merciful.

No matter how many times he watched this scene play out from the back seat, trapped in a portion of his mind where the real Hanzo screamed in agony and cried tears of regret for what could have been, the feet would not stop walking. His body would not quit running away. No matter how many times the angel begged him or how slow the time ran while he was leaving the creature where it had fallen after his betrayal, Hanzo would not turn around.

“Why did you do this to me?” The angel cried as he always did when Hanzo reached the end of the alleyway. His mutinous feet paused as they always would and turned to regard the angel for a moment or two. Being a passenger didn’t mean that he couldn’t feel his face as it twisted into what could have been a grimace or could have been a grin. Hanzo couldn’t know because this wasn’t him. Whoever it was in his body with this knife on this night with his angel was in control of the show; this was a memory and nothing he did could ever change it.

Hanzo didn’t even know Angels could bleed; yet this one had bled and even died.

“Genji,” His own voice called, soft and almost sad in a mockery of care that couldn’t be true after this murder. There came a pregnant pause and by now he could count the very milliseconds as they passed, between the first fateful name to the breath of betrayal that would inevitably follow. Genji, his angel’s name was Genji, and Hanzo swore that he’d never forget that name.

“Genji, you did this to yourself.”

Then he left; he always did. Hanzo turned on his heel and walked from the alley like it was nothing and it was nothing to the man in the body that Hanzo now found himself trapped in. The backseat driver hoped against hope that this time it would be different. That this time he could jump the partition and hop into the front seat; wishing and hoping and praying that this time he could wrench the power from the psychopath at the wheel and take control.

The ending was always the same. He ran from the alley and he never looked back. Few people ever found themselves in a place where they had an angel, the creatures only arrived when their humans were in grave danger but not yet destined to die. It was so exceedingly rare that human sciences dismissed the idea as the sightings became less and less common. Hanzo had been in the presence of an angel. By all indications, he’d also killed him.

The figure lurched up from his position in the bed, gasping in air and clutching his chest as he fumbled around in the dark to turn on the light on the side table. The blinking red lights beside the bed read ‘0424’, flashing as if to mock the frantically shaking man. As the table came on, he squinted into the light and pulled open the top drawer to search around for the journal that he always kept there.

“State your name for the record?”

Pale hands, one arm covered in a tattoo sleeve he couldn’t remember sitting for and the other mottled with small scars that he didn’t remember getting, opened the journal and clicked the ballpoint pen that could be found inside. December 8th, 2020, No changes in nightmare noted.

“John Doe, ID #47846236.”

This was one of the many therapy channels that his army of shrinks had foisted upon him. They’d tried everything from the ways that were known to work ,such as occupational memory recovery, to the newer therapies including smart devices. He ate what they told him would help, even. He did everything he could think of to try and recover some sliver of what he used to be but at the end of the day nothing would work.

Doe had been like this for 10 years, a same dream every night evidenced by the piles of records that he kept. Every page in this journal was filled with that line, line after line of the same nothingness. Just a man in alone in the world without a past, without a name, without a family or a home.

“Your CT testing has come back to show no points on your brain where damage explaining your loss in memory can be explained. While the psychiatrists say cognitive testing shows no sign of deceit, the police chief and I are significantly less convinced. John, how are we supposed to believe someone who has no proof?”

He threw his legs over the side of the bed and slowly slipped on the house shoes that sat beside the side table as they always did. The alarm was set to go off in a half an hour anyway so Doe figured he may as well get up and get moving. His morning coffee waited for no man.

“I don’t know sir. Please call me Hanzo.”

He stood and pulled his robe from the nearby dressing chair, pulling it over his shoulders to protect from the chill that the apartment always had in winter. When living in Philadelphia, or anywhere on the East coast, housing was in a high demand and with no background past ten years ago and a legal name of ‘John Doe’ with a string of numbers for his ID, there were few people who would rent to someone like him. He’d managed to find a kindly old doctor and his son to rent him out this apartment for dirt cheap and the nearby Buddhist monk who ran a semi-public library was more than happy to offer Hanzo a job.

This was his life now. A constant wondering of what was and what could have been. Whenever a new shrink called him out of the blue to offer an exciting new way to fuck around with his head, Hanzo inwardly cringed but accepted. Regaining his memories, discovering why he had killed his angel, was the most important thing to him but he would be lying if he didn’t say that he hated every single second of going to an office. It wasn’t bad enough that they wanted him to try yoga or cooking traditional Japanese meals to reclaim memories, some of them wanted to get in his head too.

Hanzo refused to consent to a biopsy. There was no way to know if he’d come back from that the same. There was no way to know if he'd come back from that at all.

“Is that the same name that your angel called you in the dream?”

Simple DNA testing had revealed that he was Japanese, to the surprise of exactly no one. He'd woken up speaking the language and the only names he could remember were so fundamentally Japanese, it would make less sense if he wasn’t. There were no records on file; no dental or medical, not so much as a fingerprint to tell him who he was before or what he’d done with his life all that time. When Hanzo had been found, he had no wallet or keys. No identifying factors of any kind save for the tattoo and no artist in the country had claimed it. He would be willing to bet that it was the most widely recognizable traditional Japanese sleeve in the world with as many times as it had aired on late night television.

He slipped into the bathroom to relieve himself, hanging up the gown on a nearby hook and turning on the shower. The old pipes in this place knocked and banged whenever he used the facilities and the hot water took an age to heat up, but it was the only home he’d ever known in however long he’d been alive.

Doctors estimated that Hanzo was somewhere to the tune of 30, give or take a few years. It was impossible to know. He didn’t have a birthday either. A quick google search and Hanzo had chosen May 9th out of the sheer irony. The Day of the Lost Sock; it seemed fitting for him to have it as a birthday as he’d lost everything including his socks.

“Hai. It’s the only tie I have to who I was and it feels better than ‘John.’ Hanzo means one half and… I’m only half of myself without my memories.”

“Sure, whatever kid.”

He slipped into the shower, relishing how the near scorching liquid chased away the chill and ache in his bones. The apartment building had been built in the mid 1800’s as a hospital and then converted to apartments. There were some days that Hanzo wasn’t so sure it hadn’t been condemned, at least the lower floors. He was on the top level and while it was only a few small rooms, he was happy to have a place to call home.

“I don’t know how else to prove that I can’t remember anything. I’ve submitted to every test that you’ve asked for and you haven’t even charged me with a crime. Other than the dream of me killing an angel, something that the government doesn’t even believe exists, I haven’t done anything to deserve your suspicion.”

Ten years of being on his own without the faintest recollection of his past; ten years of being a medical oddity and resident guinea pig for the doctors of the region. Surrounded by this many prestigious medical schools meant that he had a new doctoral candidate knocking on his door every other week. He’d learned to ask for money in exchange for being a part of their studies and that had padded his librarian’s income quite nicely.

No matter how nice the nest egg though, this was still the East Coast and the price of living out here didn’t allow for egregious spending. The moment that the chill had been knocked out of his bones, Hanzo turned the shower off and stepped out, toweling down as quickly as possible before snuggling back into his fluffy robe.

A sharp crack of thunder outside caused the lights to flicker and he just prayed that his tiny apartment didn’t lose power in the middle of a cold snap. Again. The East Coast was notorious for its icy winters and while Hanzo had become accustomed to wearing multiple layers of clothing, he didn’t want to be required to in his own home. Was that really so much to ask? The lights flickered again and then went out. Hanzo’s fist came to strike the wall in frustration, careful not to knock another tile loose before shutting the water off and fumbling around.

The last time this had happened, he’d caught his foot on the lip of the tub and busted his ass on the tile floor. That was an experience that he had no desire to repeat again, instead carefully holding onto both the shower rod and the towel rack before blindly feeling around in the darkness with his feet. It was only after he got out and began to dry his hair with the towel that the lights in the apartment flickered back to life, once again lighting the way back to the bedroom. Hanzo would have been more annoyed if this wasn’t such a common occurrence around here; now he was simply resigned.

Grabbing his toothbrush and squirting a bit of toothpaste on, Hanzo continued to move around with his morning routines. Underwear, socks, pants. Undershirt, t-shirt, sweater. Belt, boots, watch. Hair pulled back, beard clipped, piercings cleaned. The morning shuffle that came like breathing, adulthood and responsibility being essentially all he’d ever known.

Hanzo walked over to the largest window, pulling back the thick blanket he had draped over the glass behind his curtains. The instant chill of cold air that seeped around the ancient single pane windows caused a shiver to run down his arms, even after the hot shower. Sun was still down, at 0503 it would be, the lights on Liberty One and Two shining down on his humble abode and he could swear he saw and heard no less than three sirens. Such was the life in West Philadelphia. It was really too bad that he couldn’t also have an uncle who lived in Bel-Air… or really anywhere further south than here. He’d settle for Florida, even taking into consideration the general fascination with geriatrics and sweaters at 75 degrees. Maybe next time he felt like a real asshole, Hanzo could just feed himself to an alligator instead of considering tossing himself into the Delaware. Honestly, it was a real waste of meat to freeze to death when he could be feeding the wildlife.

Welcome to Florida; do whatever the signs tell you not to.

The sad reality of it was that he always had a tab or two open on his computer, checking the price of one-way tickets to Miami. All jokes aside, it was probably a good thing that he’s never been able to afford one. Hanzo sighed, putting the blanket back in its place and pulled the fitted insulating blanket over his aquarium to keep out the cold. The fish had their own heater built into the tank so that if anything ever happened while he was out, the back up battery would keep the tropical fish from dying. Those suckers were fucking expensive and he didn’t want to replace them. Besides, Hanzo was pretty fond of the gray-green dragonfish. That one was his favorite; he’d named it Soba, even though it hardly looked as appetizing as its namesake.

Poor Soba was an ugly motherfucker.

The rain and sleet outside the window had really started to pick up, taking his half-baked plans to jog and tossing them directly into the toilet. There was no way that he could get out and exercise in this, so he resolved to just run stairs later after work. Not for the first time, Hanzo considered getting a subscription to a gym but his financial situation wouldn’t allow for it, not if he wanted to get Soba’s fish food sent in from Guam.

More importantly, Hanzo needed coffee. His favorite place was warm, had free wifi and really, he couldn’t say he’d ever truly been cold until the first time he’d excited to get to a jam-packed coffee shop that may or may not smell like weed. It was the only place in the area that’s open at 0530 anyway. He grabbed his satchel and slid the beat up old laptop inside along with his memory journal, pulling on gloves and a hat before locking the door on his way out.

Hanzo jogged down the stairs, huffing air into his gloves to try and warm up his fingers. Four flights of stairs didn’t seem all that bad on the way down but getting back up here every night was a herculean trial in and of itself. The coffee shop that he favored was actually in the same building as his apartment, so at least he didn’t have to be outside in the sleet for more than a few minutes at most. Hanzo had to throw his shoulder against the iced over door on the side of the building to get it open, threatening to break something other than the frost keeping it shut as it did every morning. This morning the door was particularly well glued due to the wind whipping the sleet through the narrow alleyway. Nevertheless, he got out. Past the pile of refuse and the odd homeless guy that he was only 60 percent sure was still alive, Hanzo trudged around the building and into the shop. Thunderbird Brew: not the best nor the worst but definitely the highest THC content in town. Hanzo slipped in behind the modest line, glad that because he’d gotten there so early, he wouldn’t have to wait for as long to get to the front. So he flicked his phone on, reading the news after connecting to the WiFi. Honestly, the legalization of cannabis in the United States had been a huge boon to the economy, allowing for little places like this to go on the books and make a killing. Getting it legal had nearly taken an act of God but no one could argue with the results.

He slid over the news, outrage over the election results still going after nearly a month, scrolling it down further until he found the weather section. Hanzo had checked the weather the night before, using the weak signal from the shop in the stairwell before going back up to his apartment, and he had hoped that the warnings of ‘Massive Winter Superstorm’ had been just some kind of hallucination. Unfortunately, it hadn’t. He frowned at the mass of ice and snow that had torn its way across the country, watching the wisps of it moving closer and closer to Philly--it was due to really hit in force by 3 pm but with the sleet already falling, Hanzo would estimate that was wrong.

‘Well, better go to the store before all the milk and bread was gone.’ Hanzo snorted through his nose, shaking his head and sliding the phone into his back pocket. At this point, everything he thought or said was steeped in sarcasm. Milk was a no-go as he was lactose intolerant, a trait shared by every asian ever. Bread was sort of a moot point as well, it didn’t make sense to buy something that would just go bad in a week if you were looking at the possibility of a long term power outage.

No, he’d need at least four packs of batteries for Soba’s warmer and a tank of propane for the emergency heater he’d installed. He began to mentally tally whether he could afford two tanks, maybe he could put off the phone bill a while…? The utilities would be prorated for the outage--

“Hanzo,” A voice called, an amused tenor followed by a soft whistle and bracelet stacked hand waving to bring him back into the here and now. “Hey man, good morning. You want the usual?” The name badge read Halháta, but the regulars knew him around here as Ena. He owned the joint--Hanzo inwardly laughed at his own joke--and even while the coffee shop could run on its own, Ena was always more than willing around to help. After all, his father owned the building; He was the landlord.

“Huh?” Hanzo looked up to make eye contact with the other before averting his eyes and nodding, feeling the usual uncomfortable twist in his lips at social interactions. “Yes. Please.”

“Quiet as ever.” If only he could hear all the shit Hanzo said in his head. Ena grabbed a paper and then plastic cup and began to write on them, rings stacked on his fingers sparkling in the bright lights that illuminated behind the counter while the rest was kept a cozy medium brightness. “You grabbing Mei’s?” He asked, though the man was already halfway through writing her name on the plastic cup before Hanzo had a chance to say ‘yes’.

“How are you so chipper every morning?” Hanzo grumbled, still rubbing the sleep from his eyes and skirting away from the barbell running through the bridge of his nose. The piercing had been there when he ‘woke up’ and he had no recollection of getting it but it seemed to be well maintained and it got him enough compliments that the shy Japanese man hadn’t bothered to take it out.

“Well,” Halháta smirked, handing the cups off to Fareeha to his right before leaning on the counter and blowing a lock of sequoia hair out of his eyes, “I figure I can either laugh or cry and crying would fuck up my guyliner.”

Hanzo couldn’t stop himself from flicking his eyes up to the laughing amber pair and then back down. “You don’t even wear eyeliner.” He mumbled again, tucking a bill into the tip jar and stepped out of the left once the coffee had been paid for and his wallet had been tucked back into his back pocket.

“Ah, but I made you look! Isn’t that worth something?” Ena snickered, entering the next order with his seemingly magical ability to listen to two conversations at once and still be charming in both of them. The woman purchasing the triple shot macchiato as the owner cooed at her seemed to find him charming, at the very least. Hanzo had lived here the last 6 years and the jury was still out.

“I guess.” It was a point. Hanzo had the hardest time making eye contact with people and he didn’t know if that was something he’d always had or if it was a new problem that came with the amnesia… it was as if when he looked someone in the eye too long, Hanzo felt like they might realize that he had no idea what he was doing and this was all an elaborate ruse to appear normal.

That was terrifying.

“Don’t listen to him, Hanzo.” Fareeha smiled, the young Egyptian woman having found employment here after moving to the states because so few people would hire an immigrant with a facial tattoo even with her amazing background in security. Ena treated her kindly and she seemed to like it well enough; she still worked here after all this time. “You keep doing you, ok habibi?”

He smiled, the expression tight on his face and not for the first time, Hanzo wondered if maybe everyone knew how fucked his life was. “Aah-- Thank you.” Words he knew but didn’t came unbidden to his mind, just another example of how much was stripped away. He had woken up speaking both languages… now he could count on one hand how many times he’d spoken his (native?) tongue in the last week.

“Anyone with a mental condition such as yours and delusions that include a graphic murder is someone to be suspicious of. If you haven’t done anything yet, there is no promising that you won’t in the future.” Hanzo took his book bag and found the little booth in the corner, half-way around the edge of the counter so most of the patrons thought it was for employees and thus it was always empty, and settled down. He took his laptop out and plugged it in at the electrical outlet behind him, not needing to go hunting for the power source any more.

Headphones in, computer open and homework out in front of him; the crunch to finals week had hit everyone really hard. Hanzo was no different. Getting an organization to let him get credits had been difficult but there had been a really great scholarship given out by Johns Hopkins that allowed him to study there. In return for keeping a high GPA--which Hanzo was obsessive about his grade point average--and letting them use him as a living textbook on extreme retrograde amnesia, he was allowed to study there. That wasn’t to say he wasn’t always looking for other scholarships to cover the gaps and busting his ass to pay for the rest, but it helped that being a freak got him his diploma. Ten years of being in the dark and John Doe #47846236 was about to finish his credit requirement. One more round of finals and he would be able to start on his thesis. It wasn’t as if Hanzo had any idea what he’d do once he got to put ‘Ph.D.’ behind all those numbers, but it was the thing he was most proud of. Ten years of being lost, alone, confused and helpless, soon enough he’d be Dr. Doe.

Hanzo only wished that it brought him more satisfaction.

Feeling of the table shifting alerted him to Halháta sliding into the chair directly across from where Hanzo’s back sat to the corner. He pulled his earbuds out, offering a small smile to his landlord while the man put both coffees down on the table. “You know, Hanzo,” Ena started, stretching out and leaning the chair back onto two legs as if he knew how much that would stress his table-mate out to watch. Words interrupted the mental image of his landlord, someone he might even dare to hesitantly call a friend, falling and splitting his head open on the tiled floor--“I probably should have made you Mei’s a little later. It’s gonna melt on you.”

Mei-Ling Zhou was one of the other librarians where he worked and he swore the woman was never cold. She drank iced coffees all through the most frigid months of the year and somehow managed to maintain warm fingers. What did they say about ‘cold hands, warm heart’? Mei must be some kind of demon.

“...You’re right.” Hanzo hesitantly admitted, pursing his lips while he clicked the earbuds held between the thumb and forefinger of each hand together idly. It was going to melt in the warm coffee shop and then he’d have to buy another.

“Don’t worry about it, I’ll just make you another one on the house. It’s fine.” Ena smiled, reaching out with a single finger to press it into the crinkles between Hanzo’s angry brows. The shorter male jerked back, batting at the offending hand and made a harsh clicking noise under his breath. Hanzo reminded the barista of a declawed cat; hissing and batting but no real threat to anyone. It was too cute to find too intimidating. “Speaking of house, you buying propane today?”

“Yes, they think the heat will be out for an extended period.” Hanzo replied, still rubbing his forehead as if there was a green fingerprint there that needed to be scrubbed off. “I will need to purchase at least two.”

“Here, how much are those things?” Halháta asked, pulling out his wallet. “I should have replaced your windows last summer but I never could get a good bid. The least I could do is cover your heating since it’s gonna be cold as fuck up there.”

Hanzo chewed on his lip, considering it. He had two twenty pound tanks up there and they usually held just under 5 gallons… with the inflated prices for the storm…

“So what, I’m a victim of violence which caused me to lose my memories, my home, my family, everything, and you’re more concerned that I might turn out to be a serial murderer?”

“I think between both of them it’ll probably be something to the tune of fifty bucks.” Hanzo said honestly. His knee jerk reaction was to deny any kind of monetary gift; something about it felt so wrong and just a brief glance through ‘his’ culture, the culture he couldn’t fucking remember, told him that it was considered odd to offer or accept money unless it was a formal occasion.

Common sense and need had broken his pride years ago; Hanzo no longer turned down gifts when given as selflessly as this one. He was in need and even as much as he would rather not take the charity, he had learned the hard way to just smile and nod. Perhaps one day he would be able to say ‘No, thank you’, but today was not that day. The landlord gave a nod, pulling a trio of Jacksons out of his back pocket, waving one hand when Hanzo spluttered at the ten dollars above and beyond what he’d asked for.

“I know, I know. Don’t worry about it, Han. You’ll just spend it in my coffee shop later anyway.” Halháta smiled, giving a slight wink. Hanzo cursed himself for being so pale skinned as his blooming blush was too obvious to hide.

“Domo arigatou, Ena-kun.” It slipped out before Hanzo had a chance to stop himself, bowing his head as he accepted the gift in both hands and stared down at it as if he expected the stoic faces of the 7th president to reach out and bite his fingers.

“Iie, iie.” Ena chuckled, waving a single hand and standing up. It always struck Hanzo as odd when the American replied to him in Japanese but he accepted it as one of the strange things that made him so charming. Half of the charisma came from his knowledge of ‘Please’, ‘Thank you’, and the accepted equivalent of ‘you’re welcome’ in a variety of languages. It didn’t take a lot of work and it made a world of difference.

Hanzo thought the man ought to own a hotel or at least a concierge service with how well he could anticipate the needs of his customers, but that might just be a pipe dream of an overzealous friend. “Thank you…” He called again, flicking his eyes back up to the barista’s before sipping his coffee with a soft hum.

As Halháta slid back behind the counter, Hanzo began to open his word documents on his computer and settle into the usual routine. The only thing that Hanzo could manage to do for a hobby between graduate studies, his full time job and the handful of things he did only because they elicited ghosts of familiarity as if they used to be something he did before was… writing. He was a writer in his free time between working on a Ph.D. of Mathematics. Hanzo liked to think he was actually quite good, though the anxiety surrounding whether or not that was due to his fan base being kind to him was debatable.

Social dread lead him to think they were just being kind so he’d write them more smut.

“That or a serial arsonist, I haven’t decided yet.”

Hanzo shook his head, flinging the ghost of Sgt. Reyes’s berating from his mind as he tried to get into the right mindset to work. Another sip of the warm caramel drink, tasting just a hint of the cannabis oil that he hadn’t ordered but knew better than to turn down with how well it eased his anxiety, and then began to write.

His fingers danced at the keyboard, the rhythm of the words and the writing started to wash over him in the way that only a beloved hobby could. The characters moving in his mind’s eye, each their own person with thoughts and feelings, every last detail thought out from the temperature of the tea to exactly where the pink case might have gotten off to. Each and every last detail, from the inner workings of the gun that sat enclosed in Mycroft’s umbrella to the way he made eye contact with his younger sibling and raised an eyebrow at a certain pair of red shorts laying on the stairs on the way up to the flat.

“Poly-blend, crimson...” Hanzo murmured under his breath, eyes closing while his fingers danced over well worn keys and clicked out the mutual chemistry that he knew so well.

“Blimey, Hanzo.” A cheerful cockney accent chimed from over his left shoulder, causing Hanzo to startle so badly he nearly fell out of his fucking chair. “Why’re you so fascinated with John Watson’s shorts?”

“Chikushou, Lena!” Hanzo gasped, slamming the lid to his laptop shut with one hand while the other one grabbed his chest as if to try and get a grip on his wildly beating heart. Lena Oxton was the local UPS girl and she was just ridiculously speedy and surprisingly good at getting up behind people without them noticing. “Why do you do that? Can’t you knock? Don’t sneak up on me like that-- don’t read over people’s shoulders! Do you not have any shame?”

“Not particularly,” She smiled, spinning cutely before plopping down in the chair across from him with a frothy iced beverage in her hand that she was sipping through one of the bright teal straws that were iconic to the coffee shop. Teal was to Thunderbird as green was to Starbucks; everyone could spot the low key stoners by the kind of coffee cup they had. “You’re the one writing filthy fanfiction in the middle of a coffee shop, luv. It’s good material, that’s why I keep sneakin’ up behind you. If it was shite, I wouldn’t be as nosey.”

Hanzo wasn’t quite sure how to take the way she wrinkled her freckled button nose or winked at him so he just opened his laptop again and tapped the keyboard to wake it back up. “...yeah, ok. Uh, Thank you.” He mumbled, flicking his Opera browser over to Pixiv to troll back through the art looking for the newest thing to transfer over to his Tumblr, with permission of course. It was just about the only thing he used his knowledge of Japanese for these days.

“Awh, loosen up, Hanzo!” Lena laughed, checking her watch subtly as she took another long sip. Honestly, this woman had so much energy that he could barely fathom why she’d bother to buy coffee. Seriously, why? “You know, I never ‘ear ya talk as much as you do when you’re tilted like that.”

“That’s because I’m embarrassed.” Hanzo snipped out, his typing fingers jamming the keys a bit harder than he intended but unintentionally made his point. He couldn’t stand invasions of privacy. It made him all kind of twitchy. It wasn’t even as if he didn’t put his name on his work or advertize that he was an author online; there was something about the fact that she’d managed to sneak up behind him without him being aware that really set him off. It wasn’t embarrassment, it was the cold rage of a man who wouldn’t hesitate. It terrified him.

Something he had no explanation for didn’t like that she was able to come into his space without him knowing she was there. The same instinct that whispered into his ear to keep his back to the wall, keep eyes on the room, conceal, don’t feel--that was the instinct that suggested that she might just know too much. Hanzo pressed his middle finger into his temple, sticking his tongue out at the delivery girl. Better to hide it as something normal, sweep it back under the rug, rather than deal with it and perhaps even admit that something more than just an irrational reaction to a mild irritation was at work here.

“Oh, that’s real mature, Hanzo.” Lena laughed, finishing her coffee and beginning to wipe anti-frost over the goggles she wore while running packages around in and out of warm buildings. The man rolled his eyes, glancing up as the lights flickered in the shop and the sound of sleet becoming something heavier could be heard as the establishment quieted for a moment or two. “Should’a packed me red ‘n yella.” Oxton mumbled, chewing on her thumb nail before starting to zip up her bomber jacket and pull the gloves and scarves on. The hardest part about handling Lena was her complete inability to speak English. It sounded like English but Hanzo could swear that it wasn’t. “...Your what?”

“Umbrella, Hanzo. It means I shoulda brought me umbrella. Is your watch slow?” She teased, accent getting thicker and the cockney slang somehow becoming even less intelligible than before. “I don’t wear a watch.” Hanzo sniffed, grabbing his earbuds to start plugging them in. “How is Emily?”

“Oh, She’s right Robin Hood, I s’ppose. ‘Aven’t seen ‘er in an age--” The woman snickered, standing up and dropping her empty cup into the nearest trash bin, dodging the stirring stick Hanzo tossed with surprising accuracy across the table. “It’s been good rabbitin’ wit cha, Hanzo! Slaters--” “I hate you.” He grumbled, crumbling up a napkin and tossing it and miraculously managing to bounce it off the head of spiky brown hair even as she attempted to dodge, laughing the whole way out the door. That girl ran so fast that it was a wonder she even got wet.

He shook his head, putting his headphones in as he pulled open his document once again. Letting the music start to work through his tension, He got back into the right headspace to write the neurotic and ultra-observant Sherlock Holmes; the same guy who can tell you where a victim was 3 hours previous but failed to notice that his boyfriend had been out all day and was replaced with a balloon.

He smirked some, bobbing his head with the hip-hop that he only barely understood. He listened to it for the beat and feeling of the bass in his ears, if he related to the lyrics too? That was just a bonus. ‘Anderson, don’t talk out loud. You lower the IQ of the entire street.’ Hanzo found that he really related to Sherlock. Time didn’t flow here as he let his mind become engrossed in the spiderweb he wove.

“When you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. I can’t be your killer. You have no evidence, no motive, no means, no opportunity, no victim. You have no case.”

The sound of a new iced coffee being placed in front of him shocked Hanzo from the faraway stare he’d been locked in for who knows how long, looking up to the concerned expression on Fareeha’s face. “You ok, habibi?” She asked, placing a hand on his shoulder. For the second time that morning, the Japanese man startled and felt his heart race, shaking her hand from his arm as he packed up his computer and all of the requisite parts.

“Holmes. Doe, you’ve been making snarky quips and references all day... How do you expect me to believe that you don’t remember anything? Something isn’t right with you, I just don’t know what yet.”

“Yeah. I’m fine. Please don’t touch me.” He muttered, shoving his headphones into the bag and rubbed his forehead again, picking up the iced drink and put it in a drink carrier so he didn’t have to touch it with his bare hands as he prepared for the long trek to the subway.

“Yeah… ok, Hanzo. Sure thing.” Fareeha said slowly, not sure what had come over the usually mild-mannered, demure man. Hanzo wasn’t the kind to just snap at people like this; then again he also wasn’t usually plagued by headaches. She’d watched him rub his head no less than four times in the last hour that he’d been sitting there in the corner nursing his caramel double-shot.

As Hanzo forced his way out the front door, threatening to nearly run one of their patrons over, she looked at the owner who simply shrugged. Neither of them pretended to understand what went through his head anymore.

“That isn’t a good enough reason to hold someone! Suspicion of something I might have done, maybe, isn’t a charge! I don’t remember why I know stuff but I know this shit isn’t legal!”

The last few weeks, the throbbing headaches and constant harassment of his first ‘new’ memories plagued his every waking moment. Ten years of being relatively able to cope with his problems and now it was as if the first few months of issues had begun to rear their ugly heads again. Why? Why him? Why now?

Hanzo leaned against the subway pole, swaying lightly as the subway car sped along the track. He didn’t have too far to go and in the summer, he’d usually walk to work to avoid having to pay the subway fare but it was just too cold to do that now and it was well on its way to icing the entire city’s power out.

It would make sense to just call in today but the Library was warm, full of the few people he would call his friends and always had food courtesy of Mondatta and Zenyatta, the two monks who ran the place. If there was anywhere in Philadelphia he’d want to get stuck at during the biggest storm predicted to hit the East Coast in a century, it was there. The library was tucked away in an unassuming historic building that had very nearly been lost to decay in the last few centuries. It wasn’t until two of the most unlikely of saviors showed up about ten years ago and turned the place into the beautiful period bank into a library-- complete with the original vault filled with literary classics-- and restored it to its former glory. He walked in, glancing around as he noticed that the other librarians were standing near the door with their bags in their hands, watching into the library as if they expected someone to come out of it. Hanzo walked over, still sipping his now long-chilled coffee and offered the frozen concoction to Mei as he also began to watch inside. Sure enough, the very unofficial IT guy walked past cursing up a storm about something being broken. Again.

“What’s going on?” Hanzo asked, relieved when Mei took the beverage tray and all so he’d be free of it to watch the commotion.

“The computer Mondatta uses needs another motherboard.” Mei lamented, chewing on her lower lip in worry. “Max is trying to fix it but it’s expensive and we don’t know what is causing it.”

That was weird and an unfortunately common occurrence. Aberrant technical malfunctions were a daily reality when it came to the pair of Buddhist monks; no one had any idea what was going on save for the fact that they were exceedingly unlucky. It drove Max up a wall.

The teenager charged with keeping the IT around here working stomped past again, flashes of red winking at them from the soles of his shoes and Hanzo had to take a second glance to make sure that he’d actually seen that correctly. The makeup had never struck Han as odd; he was Asian. If you’ve ever watched a music video out of Asia, particularly of the Korean variety, the men were wearing makeup all the time. The platinum white hair hadn’t seemed at all strange either, it looked surprisingly good on Max despite the deep skin tone…

… but that was new.

“Is he wearing heels?” Hanzo asked in a sort of bewildered disbelief. It wasn’t as if he cared what Max wore, he was an adult… at least the justice system thought he was. He’d been stationed here to perform more hours of community service than Hanzo was sure actually existed in a human lifespan. Max’d been working here to slave away at his community service sentencing for no less than a year and by all accounts, he wasn’t even halfway done.

“Oui,” Amelie replied, hands clasped around the handles of her purse as she looked on. “Louboutin. He has good taste.”

Hanzo opened his lips to dispute that but found that he couldn’t. He had no idea what good taste in shoes, clothes or otherwise was and if Amelie thought that the kid looked good… he probably did. “What’re they going to do about the computer?”

“I do not know.” The tall woman spoke, kicking off her own pair of tall heels and stealing his cold coffee right out of Hanzo’s hand and taking a sip. “I know that Max must work quickly… his parole officer is due to be here any moment.”

Well that explained the string of vehement cursing. Max had been sentenced for hacking his way into corporate secrets and while they could never prove that he hadn’t sold them for a pretty penny, the now-adult did have quite the stash of funds socked away somewhere if he could afford to buy sky-high heels and strut around in them in the middle of a blizzard. “Merde..” Hanzo muttered under his breath, subtly checking the stoic woman for her reaction.

She didn’t disappoint. Amelie choked out a laugh at the abrupt cursing in her native language, shaking her head as the chuckles became less stifled and more enjoyed. “Mon chou, are you ever going to learn the rest of my language? Curses only get you so far.”

Hanzo gave her a sly smirk, stealing his coffee cup back to knock back the rest of it like a shot. “Curses will get me everywhere I need to be. Max taught me how to tell that old bag down the block how to go fuck herself in Italian and honestly, what else is there?” He gave a shrug, starting to back toward his desk. “Oi, Amelie, speaking of cabbages... Did you ever call back Lena? She’s the UPS girl--”

An elegant brow arched up, the woman tossing her long ponytail over her shoulder as she swept down and scooped her heels off the ground. “Is this the same UPS carrier with a girlfriend?”

“They’re not together anymore, at least as far as I can tell.”

“But they were when she first hit on me.” Amelie sniffed, watching him sit down and begin to pull out the late books he’d need to mail out collections requests for. “That isn’t at all attractive.”

“I think Emily left her first because of how she’s always working overtime--” Hanzo started, raising an eyebrow at her as she sat down to her own desk at acquisitions.

“And what makes you think that I want to deal with that any more than… Emily?” Amelie wrinkled her nose in a distaste at how similar their names were to pronounce. That wasn’t exactly settling. “Besides, the answer is still no. I don’t need a reason to not want to date someone, Hanzo.”

He rolled his eyes and dropped his empty cup into the trash bin that sat beside his desk and started to boot up his computer when the lights flickered and something very wrong happened to the screen. Instead of the usual boot up menu, there was a string of binary and then an error message.

‘Error: 404, The Cake is a Lie-- Linux Custom Pro, GHOST cannot be found.’

“Uh… Max?” Hanzo called, watching the petite Italian look up from where he was sitting with the tower in front of him on the counter in pieces and a screwdriver in each hand. “I think I broke it.” “Youse guys are aboutta break me.” The Newark native grumbled, cussing under his breath and rolling the chair back to go digging through his desk and look for his burned startup CD to reload the UI onto Hanzo’s computer for the third time this week. Just as Max began to walk across the floral Rococo Revival era carpet, the lights flickered again and this time when they went out they stayed out. If this was at all indicative of the way this day was going to go, Hanzo agreed with him.

“You’re not a citizen, you’re a ward of the state. They’ll tell you that you’ve got rights but last time I checked, it’s your word against mine. Who’re they going to believe?”

One of these days, Hanzo was going to learn that when the monks say that the weather is getting too bad and they need to go home, he needed to listen and go home then. As it stood, he’d put off going home until the chill in the old bank had become too much. The parole officer had never showed, go figure, and almost all the employees were being booted out. The monks had turned the old back counting room into an apartment and so that much, at least, was warm and a text message on his phone told him that Ena had dropped the propane off at his apartment and tucked it just inside the door so it wouldn’t be stolen.

The problem was that right now he was looking at having to walk the next four city blocks home in a complete white-out without the right kind of protection for this. Max had been offered the spare bedroom with the monks, since he lived so far away and Mei had eagerly begun trekking about an hour previous but now Hanzo had to brave the storm and it was starting to get dark. He groaned, tucking his gloved hands into the shopping bags that Mondatta had provided--they matched the ones Zenyatta had suggested go in his shoes to make sure his feet didn’t get wet-- and pulled the borrowed towel up around his head so that snow wouldn’t go down his collar when the wind blowed.

Hindsight tended to be 20/20 and his new view looked like he should have called in this morning. The whole thing was quickly becoming an absolute disaster. He tucked his arms around his waist tightly, trying to keep warm in the winter coat even as the blowing snow started to soak through the woolen outside. When he’d picked it out, Hanzo had chosen the peacoat for how smart it looked when he wore it on the usually tame winter days. Now, a few years and more than his fair share of snowstorms later, Hanzo would be the first to tell you that the ugly puffy coats were by far the better idea. Fashion be damned.

“Ugh..” Han groaned and started to trudge his way through the snow and ice on his path back home, looking out over the street. There was not a single soul out right now, strange as that was here in Philly, the whole street had almost become some kind of barren wasteland that had been abandoned to the ice. Not a single person to be found except for him, as poetic as it was. Hanzo’d never known, or at least he didn’t remember, anywhere else but this town and this place… Alone in the world, unable to see the way forward and no way to turn back.

“You’re getting sappy in your old age.” Han murmured to himself, continuing through the thick drifts stubbornly. Even though this walk would usually take him no more than 20 minutes, Hanzo knew he had to of been out here at the very least 30 already and he wasn’t even quite certain if he’d made it halfway yet. The wind and the snow made things that wouldn’t have seemed odd at all without them into something of nightmares.

Such as the sudden rustling and yelling off to his left in the alleyway. Usually, he wouldn’t have even turned his head but he found himself moving down the alley to try and help whatever poor soul was presumably being mugged back here. The first thing that living in a large city on the East Coast had taught him was that it was usually ill-advised to step in between a mugger and their victim. Especially any mugger desperate to work in these kinds of conditions. As Hanzo came around that corner he was certain that he was going to live to regret this decision.

Nothing could have prepared him for what he’d find.

Wings as long as a bus, the colors muted by the snow but they appeared to be striped in black and white with a rusty red top that for a moment, Hanzo worried might have been blood. This was all too familiar, the creature injured and passed out cold in the snow..

An alley, an angel, a mistake that he refused make a second time.

So when he turned his eyes to look at what had downed this creature, this angel that had to be his otherwise he wouldn’t have been able to see it if the stories were to be believed, and saw figures clad in black and wielding swords… Hanzo just reacted.

It wasn’t as if he had any idea where the ability came from, it appeared to be some kind of leftover instinct from whatever and whoever he used to be. As they ran for the angel laying with his wing bent at an awkward angle and hat lying forgotten in the snow, Hanzo ran for them. His body moved naturally, ducking a slice to catch the first assailant by the wrist and wrench the weapon away. Before he could stop it, Hanzo had turned that same sword on the black-clad figure and sliced through the gut.

To his horror, what seeped out was anything but blood. Blood might have been easier to work with and certainly blood would have been considerably less disturbing than the thick, inky substance that spilled into the freshly fallen powder. “Nani ga fu-”

Time for gawking quickly came to an end when one of the others swiped their sword at him. Again, memories flashing of another place with sakura blossoms and a huge bell-- ryu and torii and Hanamura and-- Too much reminiscing about suddenly reclaimed memories and not enough protecting his ass. Hanzo barely ducked the next swing in time, feeling the wind against his face as it swung past and he turned on his heel to counterattack. More of the ink-like substance fell and this time the slice was deeper and the attacker quite honestly dissolved into more of the goo. What were these things?

Guardian Angels were one of the biggest mysteries of the modern age: Where did they come from? What were they? Were they really as benevolent as they seemed? Did they live a life of solitude until they were assigned a human? Were they actually assigned humans or was that some kind of strange biology thing?

Were they even real?

In the midst of all those questions, a litany of ‘where’, ‘what’, ‘who’, and ‘why’, the real question that ought to have been asked and hadn’t was ‘were there things out there that weren’t angels?’ More importantly, ‘are they friendly?’ If you’re wondering, things other than angels do exist and the answer is a solid ‘no, they are not friendly.’

They also weren’t terribly good at sword fighting, despite coming up against an angel with katana of all things. However it was that they’d managed to fell the fallen guardian--Hanzo didn’t know how you’d manage that with just a sword-- he was winning this fight by a landslide. Dodging came like breathing, the steps felt well rehearsed and the sword weight in the palm was like coming home again. For a moment, Hanzo worried that if he sliced himself it would also bleed ink. Certainly, that would make sense of the night terrors.

When it became clear that they couldn’t win against him--not even that they weren’t winning, they were losing in battle and numbers--the creatures began to retreat. They seemed humanoid, though Hanzo couldn’t see their faces. More disturbingly, they seemed to walk into a shadow and just vanish into thin air...but now wasn’t the time to think about that. The snowfall had only gotten worse and this angel was out here in nothing more than a pair of jeans, cowboy boots, and a button-down. He was going to freeze to death at this rate.

‘No. I’m not doing this again. I won’t do this again.’ Hanzo wasn’t about to lose another angel. Not today; never again. So he quickly peeled off his outer coat and pulled the angel’s arms through it from the front, trying to fold his wings in the best that they could be folded in before pulling the warm man into his arms and starting to haul him toward the apartment. If it hadn’t been so fucking cold he might have paid more attention to what the angel actually looked like but at the moment, his only thought was getting him back to the apartment building and then somehow pulling this heavy avian hybrid creature up all four flights to his apartment.

Doesn’t matter how hard it is, he had to do it. This was his angel and he’d be damned if he lost another one.

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theofficialcunt · 7 years

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Simplicité - Chapter 8

#multi chap #farradore #smut

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emilyplaysotome · 7 years

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Faithful

I wrote a quick story inspired by this screenshot which recently sparked discussion on my dash. It’s meant to be a cute, sweet short story, so I hope you enjoy it!

“It’s not cheating if you don’t get caught.”

He’d said the words in jest, about a poker game no less, but for some reason the statement played in my mind like a broken record - over and over.

When he’d said it, I’d dropped the rag I’d been tidying the penthouse lounge with in a rather inelegant fashion.

I was thankful that it didn’t make a loud noise (drawing the attention of everyone in the room), but nevertheless upon clumsily retrieving it I still came to realize that my actions had drawn his gaze. He smiled gently at me, and I smiled back in an attempt to push down my own insecurities that were beginning to gnaw away at my insides, and went back to my cleaning duties.

I couldn’t understand why the statement had struck a chord with me when I knew full well that I had no real reason to doubt his faithfulness to me.

Since we’d met he’d been nothing but honest with me, and from what everyone said, he was crazy about me.

Even though we’d only been exclusive a few months, from the moment we’d met he’d always put my needs first. Whether he was making my life easier by helping me with my work duties or taking me out on romantic dates, I directly benefitted from everything that he did.

On those rare occasions that his work took him away from me, he’d kept me smiling during our time apart by sending sweet messages, flowers, and even a singing telegram. Upon his return he’d come straight to where I was, be it home or work, and take me in his arms as he whispered, “I’m home” in my ear.

In fact the more I thought about it, the more I realized that everything had been perfect since we’d met. Perhaps that was why his careless words had caused these negative feelings to overtake me - it all had been too easy...

...and that left me feeling suspicious.

It’s fair to say that Baba was one of the most handsome men I’d ever dated and as a result, I couldn’t help but shake the feeling that when we were together people gossiped about how I’d landed a guy who was clearly out of my league.

When we were out in public, I was aware of the way that other women watched him, following him with their eyes and even going so far as to approach him in my absence.

The last time he’d taken me out, I returned from the restroom only to find a woman gently touching his arm as she laughed with him at the bar. She’d coyly sipped her drink, and I could tell that she’d seen us together only to determine I offered little competition.

I did my best to hold my head high and upon my approach he’d effortlessly shaken off her touch, and grabbed my hand introducing me as his girlfriend, which ultimately caused her to slink away (though not before giving him her card).

He apologized to me and smiled as he made a show of ripping up her contact information, all the while assuring me that I was the only woman for him. It wasn’t long after that we headed back to his room where he made me his like he always did, showering me with his love in an attempt to reassure me.

I went along with it, pretending not to care, pretending to believe him...

...but deep down I worried.

In the past, I’d gone after bad boys, or more accurately, they’d gone after me.

The pattern was always the same - we’d meet, we’d flirt, and eventually I’d realize that they were trouble but at that point found myself in too deep to care.

Our whirlwind romance would end in my heartbreak, and it usually came at the hands of another woman. It was never her that was the problem and I knew that, but I couldn’t help but look at her and see everything that I wasn’t. In my mind they were always prettier, smarter...better than me.

And I worried that it would be the same with him.

My first day on the job I’d heard from a few of the maids that there was a VIP who was an incorrigible flirt. They told me that he was extremely handsome, but not to take him seriously seeing as how he showered every pretty girl with the same type of attention.

I had ever intention of avoiding him, but as luck would have it we kept running into each other. At first it seemed that we always ended up in the same elevator, which transitioned into him joining on my breaks in the hotel’s cafe, before finally getting me the job cleaning the penthouse where it was revealed that he was a womanizer and thief.

I should have protected myself from falling any further for a man like him, but instead found myself spending more and more of my free time with him. What started as politely accepting his invitation to lunch soon became Saturday dates and finally romantic dinners overlooking the city.

One night he paused at my door and kissed me. I kissed him back, not regretting opening my heart to him in the slightest and now...

...now I was worrying over a simple, throwaway statement about a poker game.

That was how much I loved him and didn’t want to lose him.

By the time my cleaning was done, the card game was over, and my boss was the only one left in the room.

As Baba’s words repeated in my mind once more I sighed, which caused the otherwise aloof Mr. Ichinomiya to take notice.

“What is it?”

“It’s nothing, sir.”

“It’s clearly not nothing. You’ve been moping about all day - spit it out.”

“I just...something Baba said before is bugging me.”

“That thing about cheating?”

I nodded, surprised by Mr. Ichinomiya’s shrewdness.

I’d figured the comment had been said in passing, that Mr. Ichinomiya who hadn’t even been playing the game would have no memory of it, yet it was obvious he saw through me.

“Why waste your time with someone who you’re worried will cheat on you?” he asked with an amused smirk.

“I...”

“Baba’s a thief. A womanizer. A cheater. Right?”

“You know as well as I do that he’s more than that.”

“Oh?”

I knew what Mr. Ichinomiya was doing, but I appreciated it nonetheless. I could feel myself starting to smile as I thought about the man I’d gotten to know these past few months who was full of contradictions.

Baba only stole from the corrupt and morally bankrupt, often reuniting people with what was rightfully theirs. He flirted with women in an attempt to stay in control, thereby guarding his fragile heart.

And he only cheated if he was caught in an impossible situation.

Thinking about who he was made my heart beat a little faster, and with a grateful box and smile I gathered my things, thanking Mr. Ichinomiya before making my exit.

That night, I carefully plated the pasta before placing the bowl down on my kitchen table.

The elaborate meal contrasted with my modest living quarters, but I felt certain that he would enjoy it. I knew that despite obvious appearances, everything that Baba did, he did out of fear that deep down he wasn’t good enough.

He’d lived most of his life hiding behind his flirtatious veneer, worried that if people saw who he really was they’d run and I felt guilty that I of all people had forgotten this. His bravado, his cavalier attitude towards cheating - all of it was a part of the mask he hid behind and it was only after speaking with Mr. Ichinomiya that I’d been reminded of who Mitsunari Baba really was.

He was a man I loved, and I hummed to myself as I dedicated myself to making this night about him.

“Hello?”

His voice caused me to whip around, and I saw him standing in my doorway, a bouquet of flowers in his hands. I’d told him in my text message that I wanted him to join me for dinner, in addition to making it clear that he didn’t need to bring anything other than himself.

I had hoped that he’d believed me, that he’d have taken my words to heart, but the flowers made it obvious that he’d gone out of his way.

Seeing that made me want to reiterate that he didn’t need to bring me flowers, that he alone was enough, but instead I greeted him with a loving kiss, taking the flowers from him as I thanked him for being so thoughtful.

When he saw the dinner I’d prepared his eyes widened and he pulled me towards him in a small hug.

“You did all this for me?”

“Of course - you’re always making me happy and I wanted to do the same. Did it work?”

He nodded with a smile, but I could see his eyes begin to water and knew that the gesture meant far more to him than even I’d been able to anticipate. I hoped in that moment he understood how I felt and that one day in the future he wouldn’t feel the need to go out of his way for me.

“It looks delicious!” he said with a laugh as he pushed down his feelings, doing what most men did when their emotions threatened to control them.

“Good...I hope you like it.”

Taking a big bite of the pasta, he nodded emphatically.

“I can’t believe you made all this for me!”

I paused for a moment, glancing at the takeaway containers hidden in a bag, within a bag, that currently resided behind my garbage.

As he happily ate my “home cooked meal” he was completely unaware of the fact that in actuality I was a terrible cook. I would have felt guilty about lying, but seeing as how he’d said himself that it’s not cheating if you don’t get caught, I wasn’t about to let him in on my little secret.

Instead I smiled at him, and lovingly rubbed his arm, as I met his affectionate gaze with my own and said to him with a smile, “You’re worth it.”

I wrote this on a whim so I hope you liked it! If you do I hope you’ll consider sharing it and if you’re feeling really generous I hope you’ll consider buying me a coffee!

Thanks for reading!

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#Mitsunari Baba #kbtbb baba #kissed by the baddest bidder #kissed by the baddest bidder fanfic #kissed by the baddest bidder fan fiction #kissed by the baddest bidder fan fic #kissed by the bidder fanfic #eisuke ichinomiya

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za3k · 4 years

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Life-logging in 2019

I’ve been keeping a time log since somewhere around 2011. A time log is a journal with a complete record of everything I do. I’ve become very consistent about it, so this seemed like a good time to write up my current habits for anyone interested.

This is going to be a mixture of information about life-logging, how I organize things, and my current schedule, because they’re not really separate things.

There’s an interesting story about how I systematically broke everyone one of my habits, and it took me 17 years to get in a daily routine after that, but that’s a story for another time.

If you’re curious, I’d guess it takes me 2 hours a week spread out to do my life-logging, 1 hour to type it up, and 1-2 hours to do my weekly review. In my mind the original life-logging doesn’t cost me anything because it’s so automatic, it’s zero-energy, and it has some psychic benefits. By psychic benefits I’m talking about the same kind of thing you get from GTD–you’re not constantly thinking about or trying to remember things that are already written down in a trusted system. Typing it up and review are not free.

Time log (2011-)

I keep a written (pen and paper) time log which I normally just call my “log book”. Each entry has the current time and what I’m doing. I typically record an entry either when I start an activity, finish one, or notice I’ve switched activities. I’m on volume 9.

Today’s page starts like this (italics are censorship or words added for clarity):

Date: 2019-12-17, Tue 12:02pm Woke up on my own slightly before alarm. Dream about […]. (7h12m sleep)[100ml yellow rockstar recovery. (33mg caffein, 400mg taurine–from front material)]Morning data log (see below)Brushed teeth12:55pmCancelled torrent verification–I already know this will failResponded to gnu coreutils ‘date’ threadhealth stuff2:02pmTrying qutebrowser. Feels very productive.2:04pm[Coke Zero Vanilla, 1 can]

I’m not fastidious about what the time represents. The questions I most often ask are “when did this happen roughly” and “do I have any big portions of my day I’m not time-logging”. I’m less concerned with exactly how long I spent doing each particular activity.

There are some things I try to consistently write down every single time, including:

Exactly when I woke up, especially if I don’t use the computer first thing (see “Sleep Log” below)

Any dream if I remember it

Any food or drink I consume, with enough information that I could generate nutritional facts if I wanted. I omit food amounts if it’s a pain to measure. 1 package of ramen: yes, 125g chicken curry: no. I put food and drinks in hard brackets: []

Watching a movie, TV show, youtube, or reading a book. I used to underline these, now I’m trying putting them between underscores: _. I’m switching to write these in a computer-understandable way but it’s a work in progress.

Anything health-related, including symptoms, drugs I took, and bathroom visits. Drugs are a type of food [], the rest is freeform.

Travel from point A to B

Phone calls. I don’t always manage this one. While you’re picking up the phone is a really garbage time to try and write something.

Any time I change timezones

Any time I work on a project for more than a couple minutes

“Where did that time go”: one of the goals here is to have no huge gaps. If I spent time browsing the web or researching, some vague notes on what about. If I talk to someone in person, noting who and possibly what topics we talked about (talking in person often feels like minutes in my head but hours on the clock).

Here are things I don’t write down:

Information that I’ve put elsewhere. See below for specifics on what else I have! This one isn’t hard and fast, but I’m a believer in things being in “exactly one place” as much as possible–I do make some exceptions since I’m working with paper

General-purpose notetaking, thoughts about what’s going on, TODO lists, etc. This is just a boring ol’ record of time. I do sometimes jot down TO-DOs when out of the house since this is the only paper I carry on me, but at the rate of 1-3 a week. I also may write down where I’m at in a really long-running computer project, just to make sure I can find it later.

Anything a human shouldn’t have to write or read. For example, I could write down the youtube URL or the UPC code of everything I buy… but nobody has time for that, and I’d only write it down wrong.

At the front of the book I have a table with guides to abbreviations, ingredients in things I have often (ex. caffein amounts or recipes). In the back is my bookkeeping section (see below).

I am currently using the Leuchtturm1917 gridded notebook, with date labels at the top of the page. I’ve been experimenting with felt micron pens–I’m looking for something that can write easily, but won’t smear when I close the book. I’ve used Moleskins in the past–I stopped using them because 2 of 5 split at the spine for me. Leuctturm seems a bit better but more expensive–time will tell.

One a week, I type up my time log up to the last page. I’m working on my backlog slowly. This lets me search more easily. I have plans to someday cross-reference better in a computer system (for example, include nutritional info, link to youtube videos, etc).

Bookkeeping (2019-)

Fun fact: b-oo-kk-ee-ping is the only word in the English language with three consecutive double letters. Bookkeeping is keeping a record of what you earn and spend, or what you buy and sell.

For the most part, I pay for everything using a credit or debit card, which I’ve been doing since 16 so that I have a financial record for my own benefit. Most banks offer an easy export. I get paper copies, then once I download the PDFs from my bank, throw out the originals (I’ve checked one or two match the PDFs by hand). I use mint.com for the purpose of having a CSV export from my bak statements. I used to put this export online (currently broken, check back soon).

Starting a few months ago, I started keeping a weekly record by hand. Every time I spend money, I’ll put a $ symbol in my time log,

2:21am Amazon $

and add a bookkeeping entry (real thing is prettier).

2019-12-15, Sun [ ] Amazon -29.21 -236.07 Choline citrate, 500g

The entry includes:

The date (2019-12-15)

Where I spent the money (Amazon)

How much money (29.21)

How much total I’ve spent this week (236.07)

What I bought (Choline citrate, 500g). If it was more than one thing, how much each item cost. I’ll try and write price-per-pound if I’m buying bulk food or meat. If I’m buying more than one of something, I’ll write how many I bought and how much each is. I’d like to consistently write down how much of something I got (ex. 16oz of cheese) but I don’t at all yet.

If it’s something that needs to be delivered, I’ll write a checkbox. Then when it arrives, I’ll check the box and write down the date it arrived to the right. This way I can easily scan and see if something never got delivered.

Since I use the same book for my time log and my bookkeeping, bookkeeping goes from right to left, two pages per week. At the end of the book, I keep

a running record of any debts I owe

any undelivered packages from the previous log book

During my weekly review process, I copy this information to my (digital) weekly review and add it up by category to check against my budget. I used to check it against my bank statements, but it takes forever and it’s easier to just be really good about writing down everything to start with. Checking totals and category totals is pretty time consuming the way I do it, I’ll probably automate it soon.

Budget

My current categories are:

taxes, bills, rent: Predictable expenses, no need to check these on a regular basis. I separate out medical bills in my summary, which are not regular.

travel, hard drives, moving: Big but one-off expenses. Currently I don’t have a way to budget these.

charity: I aim for 10% of my income after taxes (a tithe)

other: The main budget category, I try to keep this at $1000/month ($240/week). I actually break it down into categories like “food”, “groceries”, and “luxuries” so I know what happened, as well as pulling out any single big expenses.

Weekly Schedule (2019-)

My current schedule is weekly:

Monday: Do meal planning for the week, and grocery shopping for the week if needed.

Tuesday: Cook food for the week.

Thursday: Batch day. Do all the small chores (<1 hour) on one day. I aim for around 2-4 hours of chores, but I’m fine skipping a batch day if I don’t really have anything. I almost always clean my room and do laundry at minimum. I also have a running list of small tasks: call the doctor, clean the fridge, fix SSL certs.

Friday: Review day. I’ll do a weekly review, and a monthly one if it’s the last weekly review of the month. Then I’ll type up the timelog up to that point in time. For my weekly review, which I do on my computer, I write down

How much sleep I got on average

What I did each day of the week (summary of that day’s time log). Typically once I cut out really boring things (brush your teeth), food, movies, etc there’s not all that much left.

Accomplishments. Anything I got done this week. Also, any big milestones reached (finished X) even if the last step wasn’t that impressive.

Reflection/things learned: Did anything major happen? Did I learn any new facts? This is my time to look at the big picture and thing about how my life is going lately and where I’d like it to go. Also, if anything especially good/bad happened, I try to think about why and how to make things go well next time.

Finances. I copy down my expenses for the week and total them by category.

Saturday: Nothing planned.

Sunday: Nothing planned.

I haven’t done batch cooking in a while, but I’m also trying to run out my food supplies because I’m about to move, so we’ll see if it sticks around.

Daily Log (2019-)

Every morning, I record:

The date and time I’m recording

How much sleep I got (but not when I went to sleep or woke up)

What day it is in my schedule

The temperature of the room

My body temperature (am I running a fever?)

How much exercise I got yesterday, in minutes (and what type)

My weight

I don’t think it matters that much how you do these measurements, but it’s important to be consistent (for example, weight with clothes on/off?)

If I have a specific habit I’m trying to pick up (say, brushing my teeth twice a day or meditating) I might record that for a while too each day. I used to record a mission for the day, but I dropped the habit.

Automatic Logs

I put all my computer logs in a single combined format, and sync them to a single location, starting in 2019. The format is basically <date> [<log name>:<computer name>] <Log entry>. I don’t have a great process to view logs yet.

Sleep Log (2019-) / Keystoke Activity Log (2013-)

I log which hours I was asleep. I live alone and tend to fall asleep first thing after closing my laptop in bed, or at least with a video playing in the background, which makes this relatively easy. I keep a computer log of whether I’m using my keyboard (I almost never do anything with just the mouse) for each minute using a custom-built keylogger (it records activity but not passwords).

Then I run it through a custom script (included in link) which says which broad periods I was active. The biggest inactive period in a day is when I was asleep.

~ $ sleep? Report period: 2019-12-17 00:00:00 – 2019-12-17 16:21:06 (16:21:06s) Inactive: 2019-12-17 04:50:18 – 2019-12-17 12:02:58 ( 7:12:40s)

I was asleep from 4:50am to 12:02pm. I make sure to write down when I wake up into my time log in case I don’t use the computer first thing. This has been much better at guessing when I fell asleep than anything else I’ve tried.

If you don’t fall asleep at a computer, I have some ideas around using a motion sensor (cheap webcams can see in the dark)

Chromium History Log (2013-)

I use Chromium as my only web browser. I export the history and bookmarks every time I do a backup, and put it all in a standard log format (basically time + URL). Currently I only record each history entry once.

For futureproofing, I archive every webpage I go to on an irregular basis (about once a year). Archiving pages doesn’t work super well but it’s better than nothing.

Video/TV Log (2019-)

I watch my movies using noice, either directly on my television, or streamed from my media server to my laptop. When I start watching something, it automatically gets logged (including what the movie is, the path, how long it is etc). Same for when I stop, so I know if I quit early.

Youtube is included in my chromium history (see above). Sadly I’m not sure I can get ‘how much of this video did I watch’ from my format–only that I visited the video.

For futureproofing, I automatically archive every youtube video I watch.

Bash History (2011-)

This one is pretty simple. My Linux shell history (everything I run from the command line, which is basically everything I do outside a browser) is saved, forever. This one goes back to 2011 for my laptops.

Scanning (2014-)

I scan all documents I write, mail I get, etc. and generally throw out the originals. I organize everything by hand, and keep everything as image files.

I use a flat folder structure, which is to say I have a “scans” folder and then a bunch of folders in it like “taxes – 2019”. No nesting. This was my main takeaway from GTD for Hackers and I use flat folders for most digital organization.

I use the Doxie Go feed-through scanner (doesn’t need a computer, writes directly to SD which I love). I recently got a Canon Lide 400 flatbed scanner (works on linux) which I use to scan bound books like my time log.

Who else does this stuff?

As far as I know I came up with this stuff independently. I’ve read plenty of time-management resources (which tend to be good) and experimental journaling resources (which tend to be… scarce?).

Lion Kimbro: “Make a complete map of every thought you think”. General journaling. Inteview.

Fenn Lipowitz (my roommate): Time log, with an emphasis on being completely machine-readable. Being machine-readable means click for pretty graphs. I took inspiration from how machine-parsable this was recently, but I want to keep my freehand sections too.

Bryan Bishop (acquaintance): meetlog, a system for recording conversations and topics of conversation. Overall I didn’t find this useful because I don’t know hundreds of people. The format is so-so, largely because the author can type very fast, including real-time transcripts. I got the inspiration to write topics of conversation while talking from this. I do something similar if I spend a long time thinking or researching, too.

Bullet Journaling: I dunno, if you’re super lost and don’t know how to write a journal/TODO list, some guy figured it out for you! It’s just the basics that you’d figure out on your own, but it may save time. The site is better than the book. I independently invented most of their notation for TODO lists, I don’t find it too useful for a journal. Other peoples’ bullet journal pages are also useful, not just the original author’s.

Life-logging in 2019 was originally published on Optimal Prime

#bash history #browser history #daily log #forever #journal #lifelogging #log #schedule #self #self-improvement #sleep log #timelog #watch #cross-posted-from-blog

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doubledaffy · 7 years

Video

vimeo

January, 2017. Daisy and I went to Japan to visit Kevin and Shoko. I wrote a lot about it and made this little video. XO.

1-5-17 Thursday

Kyushu island

Hippo Bakery

Beach walk. Bread. Blendy Stick. Laundry mat. Itoshima - wife and husband. I forgot my back pack on the beach it so happens. Moto guys. Daisy thought Japanese surfers were big water turkeys. Ancient pine forest. Karatsu burger. I hated. Aka egg and cheese. Kagamiyama mountain. Body move move. Karatsu castle. Ripped the cube into traffic towards Akasaka station to meet Tsuyoshi. (We got the laundry while I sat in the car). AirBnB guy. Boom box grocery store. Dars. Wasabi potato sticks. Crying toddler. Google translate sucks. Shoko made hot pot meal. Nummy. Kevin whipped his chocolate pops.

Fun fact. The man who invented Tenga, has the Guinness world record for longest JO. How fitting.

Gross airbnb hair on comforter and towel. Do not want to stay there. Wasting more money. :(

1-6-17 Friday

Big dry heave last night. Woke up at 1am thinking "oh boy, something's going on. Whoops!" Ran to the bathroom, felt the heat rise up my body. Was it the broth? The chicken? The Sake? I placed my hands upon the electronically heated seat of the Japanese washlet and began to dry heave. No barf. I felt like Barfing. But nope. My body wouldn't let me. I felt better though and went back to bed. Daisy told me in the AM that they made the HotPot with pork broth, thought of me, and then decided not to tell me. Maybe it was that. Who cares. I feel better today. Kev made Spanish French toast (torijas) for us. It was lovely. Daisy said the shower she took was the best she's ever taken. That's because there's a huge window looking out in the the sea. It's magic. Daisy and went to 7-11. Big presence here. Kev fully loves it. Apparently they make great stuff and the ATM is reliable. Located right next to the "Titty mags" as Kev explained. I took out Shoko's penny board and we stopped at HIPPO tiny surf bakery and got some snacks for the house. No salty bread. We showed up too late. I left the penny board outside and no one stole it! --- Shoko drove us to a special lunch and snack spot. Snack spot was very Japanese and cute and had weird dessert stuff. Lunch spot was closed at 3pm! Great shoe horn though. I Bought the best spoon ever. White metal. Feels like stone. Expensive ceramic gift shops. Hotto motto dance and curb eat. Sake factory great traditional architecture. Drove to muji and inkcube in the mall. Went nuts at Muji. And stuff. Daisy neck hurt. Back home. Cream soup. Organize pack. Test journals and pens out. Daisy in bed by 9. I stay up and eat cream soup and some dars. White chocolate. Do some photos and stuff. Kev teaches himself Japanese on laptop then plays StarDewValley.

1-7-17 Saturday

Woke up early. Beach walk. Big shell find. Hippo. Too early for SheoPan! 9:30 is the best time. Come back. Blendy stick with Scones and Cream Soup left over. Computer time clicky and and work / taxes shit. Shower ocean view. Skate to Hippo at 9:30. got the SheoPan. Groin pull fall on the way back. Saw Osky and the Corgy photo shoot. Kev takes us to train. I dropped 40 on the train card by mistake. Taking photos on the train is illegal, Kevin explains. Photo sound on iPhone mandatory. Unpack at AirBnb. Then Bounce to Lunch at crazy under ground mall. Green noodle soup. So many people. So many things. So many structures. So much lighting. So much movement. No white people. Babies dressing nicely. Cool gear. Women in mens wool long straight overcoats. Tan and black. Big buttons and ties. Underground mall culture. Walk tour through FuK with Kev. Side of building greenery stair case hike to views. Photo shoot women and man. Stop at Julette’s letters. Got a CLIP and stuff. Wooden baby toys nice. Japanese Love Pop and cool pencil, etc. Walk to DONUT spot. Lots of walking. Donut spot in crazy OTHER mall under ground. Madness. Hot down there. Amazing donuts. Weird that in a mall though, but maybe that’s great. Mall Mall Mall. Energy to go to MUJI. Big walk again. Lots of stores and big streets. Mega complex. Water light projector show. Muju is calming. Hot in there. Got more shit. Wanted everything and a new house to decorate. Book for Ben. Meet up with Shoko at Hippo and crazy recycling bear. Walk to restaurant called CHIKEN. Allow smoking, but place is cool and hip and nice. Light beer life. Moscow mule. Was off, from walking and hunger. Kev big adventurous eater. Raw Chicken - SASHIMI. Crazy. Got a little buzzed and let go. Crazy smokey chicken dish. Tasty food overall. Walk back in the Rain. LAWSON Dars and purple gummy candy and Crunky! Shoko peeled off before the AirBnB after party. Incense at the Airbnb made it smell better. Muji lights. 1/4 xanax or whatever to sleep. Pushed beds together with D and passed out.

1-8-17 Sunday

Woke up. Jon Bellion hate listen. Shower in tiny shower. Trying to meet with Kev at Eggs and Things. Big American style food. Just love the American food. Not so much THAT< I love knowing what I’m eating because I have a special little diet that doesn’t really include meat or fish or pork or anything, and here in Japan that’s hard. Kev showed up. After Eats and Things we popped on the train(s) to Dazaifu - a very old (16th century) Shrine (or could be a temple, hard to remember which is which) about 1hr on the localish trains. People on the trains sleep a lot. It’s nice. Also, no one is loud. Very quiet and respectful. Trains are on time and the stations are clean. One train we took was just the loveliest color scheme - light green/blue and red. V. calming. Tons of people in the terminals at times. Felt like Grand Central Terminal. If I ever felt like wanting to go to a Bigger Japanese city, nope - this amount of people is fine. Dazaifu is amazing. Tiny village full of a billion people swarming up to see the shrine, but it was oddly peaceful because no one is rude and it’s generally quiet. Tiny shops and people cooking meat sticks and shit on the sides on the way up. At the end, before the gate, there was a naturally formed single file line just to take a pic with the whacky animal statue. Formed by the people in a simple organized way. Not like the monster americans at Disney. Just a nice simple civilized line. Inside, we had to do a special hand and mouth wash routine to cleanse ourselves a the water zone. I touched my lips to the water bucket stick because it’s hard to know the customs in other countries. A million Japanese people cycling through there each day, and Jeff touches his lips to the community water bucket. We hiked up into the woods and saw an amusement park on the other side which seemed weird being so close to a shine or whatever. We got soft meatless sweet pucks and sat at a low table. Very relaxing stroll. Felt bad that Kev was in the Glum zone not knowing if his relationship is in the pits. Train back Komono woman sleeping among all the other sleeping Japanese people. Kev bounced, had to work and wanted to be home for the night. We wish we could all just stay at the house. Going back to the AirBnB and not having family dinner with the homie was bumming us out. I was excited to take the reins and figure out where to go in the new city. Apple Maps is great for walking directions on this trip. Great UI. Google Maps looks like garbage. Daisy found a place that has burgers and veggy options called Brooklyn Parlor. No shame in just going to a cool hip place that I know I can get something I like. The thing is, the Japanese food I have eaten is amazing. But when you’re without your Japanese speaking friends, it’s very hard to make sure you aren’t eating shell fish or meat. We saw some other cool small restaurants we’d thought looked nice on the walk. 7-11 stop after dinner to get snacks. The Titty Rags had censorship thingies on the genitals and they also had tape on the pages so you couldn’t open em. Old man barfing at the bus stop, but overall we’re getting a friendly vibe from the city. Plans to watch Finding Dori on the lappy, but might just crash. Trying to plan what to do tomorrow with the rental car with Kev. Hard to plan sometimes! We’re living out of a backpack now because of the AirBnB and would like to re-up / swap out our gear.

(First horn sound we’ve heard here. Wow. Just now as I was typing this entry, just goes to show you, why honk, when you can be patient and kind?)

1-9-17 Monday

Giants

Eggs and things iced coffee?

Train to Kevin's

Rental car madness - couldn’t find Nissan. Goosechase.

Senyoji temple - Magic. Soft. Quiet. Milltion Monks on hill. Old artifacts. Incense. Chanting on Mic.

Everyone backs their car in to the parking spot.

Ichiran Noodle Factory - ticket system. Rice and Egg and cold Mushrooms. Put the plate on the sound thingy and it makes a big sound all across the restaurant signifying that you want your next little order.

Tea Garden Madness - Light up trees across this huge empty yard with pop music blasting from a ton of speakers hidden all over the grounds. I did a BodyMoveMove, naturally.

1-10-17 Tuesday

Tried to go to Hippo today. It’s hard to go there, apparently. Closed on Tuesdays. Whoops! Came back with no pastries, so Kevy Cab hooked up the Pancakes and I took care of the Blendy Sticks. Grabbed the laundry and popped out to the long driving day through windy roads in the beautiful Japanese country side. First we stopped at the big Caldera overlook where a volcano made a blast hole a very long time ago. Then we popped down more windy roads to see the Aso Volcano. It was cloudy, but you could see a massive mountain with a big hole in it smoking underneath sets of ominous clouds. The museum center looked like something out of a Russian Post Apocalypse B movie. Drove to the wrong hot springs, I was getting car sick, so moved up front. The steering wheel is on the right side here, so sitting up front is a treat cuz you feel like you’re just controlling the car with you mind. Finally made it to the real hot springs. It’s a 24hr spot and it’s magical. You pick your favorite little hot spring house for around 1500 Yen (15 bucks). Then you pop in there, shower off, put your coins in the slot thingy that makes hot water blast out of a long tube into a beautiful wooden tub. We would have splurged for the rock tub for an extra dollar. Yup, a dollar for the upgrade. Daisy and I never felt so relaxed. I bought some sheepy slippers at the gift shop and am wearing them now. I also bought a sprite type drink that was about 1/4 size of a glass coke bottle, with a label designed to win design awards. Shoko is now getting car sick, so it’s me and her up front, with her driving. She drives very fast. On the highway she was passing mother fuckers with ease. I was nervous. Grabbed our laundry from the trusty laundry mat (drying only for us). I lay down on the bench while Daisy read Japanese Nylon. I was trying to still my body. Bopped over to the UDON noodle place and got some Tofu Noodle Udon and white rice. It was simply great. Ate at the counter and took some iPhone vids of stuff. At home raging on some 7-11 snacks we got at some point today. 7-11 here is what I want a convenience store to be. It has lots of shit I like and cheap. Daisy in bed now cuz I feel I owe it to myself to document these trips. They’re super important to me and special and I’m lucky to go on them.

1-11-17 Wednesday

Woke up at 8am and popped out to the ocean magic tree zone to dance in public for my BodyMoveMove & Exquisitemovement project. Dancing really gets the heart pumping. Daisy said she wanted to go for a run on the beach but where is she now? Face down in bed, that’s where. I can’t seem to sleep past 8 and I’m loving it. Slid over to Hippo for a pastry run. Scored that ShioPan which is very rare and special, as we all know. Came back and missed the “let’s go” and rushed to get ready. Everyone was making fun of me for being a space cadet on this trip, but I kinda like being loose and spacey when I’m not at the wheel. Most of my life is dictated by me and only me so it’s been really nice that Kev and Shoko are handling everything and being great tour guides. We zap over to Shoko’s parent’s house which is a traditional Japanese magical tiny compound. Garden’s and outbuildings and paths tucked and squeezed into the tiny suburban hillside. They have another house that they open as a cafe and art gallery and everything is as you’d expect a modern day / ancient Japanese house to be. They have a fucking COY POND in the middle of it all with lots of buddies swimming back and forth. Their toilet has a button that lifts and lowers the seat - no touch lifestyle. That sums up the house and how rad it is. We jammed over to a fast food Sushi Roll place that uses a conveyer belt system to deliver your food and you pay per plate. You order on the touch screen and it makes a lot of loud chimes and screams at you, which is the only downside. All this annoyance is overruled by the convenience and novelty. I ate no fish because fish grosses me out and I feel bad for them. They say fish is good for you, but not for me because it’s disgusting and smells like low tide. Your kid isn’t dressed up like he/she is headed to fashion week? Don’t bring them outside then. That’s the rule. Tolls here are very expensive, but the roads, even though I can’t read a god damn word, seem to be great and tight and efficient and clean. Next, we bopped over to the largest bronze Buddah that is laying down. It’s magnificent and peaceful. Snagged a Bodymovemove before going inside and praying at all the little pray stations. Then we got little balls with feathers on them to toss into the tiny buckets but none of us were successful. Guess what? This place is manicured to perfection and has a very hand made feel. Lots of paths into the forest and mini shrines and stuff. Even a tiny Torii Gate you can crawl through. Whoops, sun is setting, so we blast off to another Temple Shrine they’re calling Hay something. It has a lot of stairs and you can see the ocean and whatever. Big hay knot thingy you can pray to. We got gas and stopped at Aeon for food and snacks for gifts. The Nissan March really gets good gas mileage. I can’t find my lens cap, but who cares, I already got the good Bokeh shot on the highway. We’ve been using a “Shared Wallet” System, which is neat. You all put in the same amount of $ at the beginning and when you do group activities you all take out of that. At the end if there’s any left, you split it up. It works well or whatever. Back home Shoko made hot pot - no pork so I don’t need to dry heave over the wash-let again! Beers for everyone but me and desserts and funny convo on the futon and stuff. I took a bath listening to the ocean waves pulse. So nice. That pulsing really does wash away everything bad.

(so that’s it for what I have written. I know we stayed in Japan longer, maybe I wrote the rest of my thoughts in an actual journal? Hard to care to search for it right now. Maybe the video above will do the trick closing that gap. I’m updating this blog right now and it’s 5/11/19 10:07AM)

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opepin · 7 years

Text

september: week three

11: i was dead tired in the morning. it took me a while to get up. i had english muffin with the ikea marmalade for breakfast and 4 potstickers lol. the marmalade tastes too artificial :( then i made tea and got to work. it was hard to motivate myself but when i did, ux360 wasn’t working for some reason. so then i switched gears and decided to record another video -- well, rerecord because of updates. it was an interesting day today working in the den with kevin. kevin wfh too because he had a doctor’s appointment and he was tired af. i watched some youtube videos and hopped on stand up. it doesn’t feel like we’re acquired yet and it’s weird lol. i did some internet errands and picked up my partial ae package: got a sports bra and hillary sent me a birthday gift of supergas <33333 ahhhh. i’m in love. thank you so much, bae!!! i get her white shoes for her birthday, she gets me white shoes for mine hahaha. <3 the maintenance guy came in to get a piece of plastic?! out of the garbage disposal, fix the loose ass toilet seat, fix the jank door lock, and etc. he is amazing! the previous tenants however, idk if i would have liked them. .__.

kevin went to kam man to get a rice box for us to share for lunch. then i watched some more youtube videos and worked when kevin left to go to his doctor’s appointment. kevin’s rotater cuff is swollen and his doctor just gave him physical therapy exercises -- he didn’t even make him go to a therapist :O what a lucky guy ahha. we worked a bit more and then meal planned and went back to kam man to get groceries, drove to bj’s to use our coupons and get meat and rice, and then got back home and put away all the groceries. kevin made fried rice for dinner while i did a quick 20 minute hip hop cardio workout. then we ate dinner while watching two episodes of agents of shield; we’re now on the season three finale! kevin went to play overwatch and i did a 20 minute pylo workout and then 20 minutes of hip hop cardio again. my quads got super itchy after because the past two days i haven’t been doing intense cardio workouts the past two days because of moving. lol ugh, my muscles. i showered and then got ready for bed. i stretched before sleeping (it was easier after the shower) and then ko’d at around 12 am.

12: i was tired when i woke up but excited to go to the yoga studio to exercise! i woke up 10 minute earlier or so to walk over and prepare myself for working out there. no one was in the fitness center or the yoga studio and i took the 5 lb weights into the yoga studio but realized there were some in there already :O so that means i don’t need to bring weights in all the time! i did lower abs and one 10 minute weighted abs section. working out in the studio wasn’t too bad. i just have to bring a hoodie or shirt so i don’t look too scandy walking to and out ahah. i made tea with benefiber and then showered and ate english muffin with creamy pb and bananas. i think this creamy peanut butter will be better in smoothies... i might do smoothies for breakfast now. i changed and then caught the 8:55 am train. i got to work at 9:30 am and i kinda tripped on my way to the office and my headphones flew off my head and into my hands LOOOL. awk.

i realized i was the only one in the product office today and only cait and raj were in too. i went to work and took breaks to read manga and then recorded a video tutorial and then hopped on the all-hands while eating lunch. then dave came into the office and had calls the rest of the afternoon. i had a part i needed to record so i asked him for his key to a separate office. the key wouldn’t work so i went to the 8th floor and got a copy and that one worked, finallly. then i set up the monitor only to find out it wouldn’t work so i looked on the back and found charles’ initials on the sticker and slacked him. he told me he had trouble connecting to it so he got another monitor. i tried unplugging the power but it still wouldn’t work. so i gave up and went back to my desk and then plugged my laptop into the monitor only to find out it didn’t work anymore! i had to do a SMC reset and then everything worked again so i went back into the other office to try it out and it finally worked!

the sad part is that i tried recording and i got all the background noise of the people around me because of the glass walls -___-” so i rq’d for the rest of the day and just edited the parts that i had and planned out what the training page would look like. oh. riceburg was serving food today so i got a bulgogi rice burger for me and kevin to try. i ate like 1/3 and gave the rest to him when i met up with him at the train station after work. we took the train home and watched an episode of agents of shield and then kevin went to cook while i went to work out in the yoga studio. i did weighted oblique exercises and then stretched. this other lady came in and was breathing intensely and doing some intense? reverse crunches while holding on to the bottom handles of a cycling bike. then i went back and cut potatoes and showered while kevin finished up the curry. we forgot to make rice so i made it before showering and then kevin went to go do his pt exercises and some running. i ate dinner while watching youtube videos and then i bursted out crying and laughing at this one video about a wish haul LOL. kevin thought i was going crazy.

it was too late to game so i just watched videos and kevin ate dinner while watching videos online too. i brushed my teeth, stretched, and went to sleep at around 12 am and kevin gamed until...probably late because he is working from home tomorrow.

13: i got out of bed at 7:20 am and then went straight to the yoga studio to workout. i did a hiit leg workout and then rushed back to make tea with benefiber and prepare breakfast. i showered and then put on nice clothes to meet the ceo and then curled my oily af hair. i ate breakfast and drank my tea and packed my lunch and said goodbye to kevin and caught the 8:50 am train. i left on time and got to the office at 9:15 am. then i learned that we wouldn’t be seeing the ceo until 1 pm... meh. i said hi to everyone. sultan and steve came in and i went straight to work. then at 12 pm, i went lunch hunting with the devs. we didn’t know where we were going and we ended up going to a restaurant in chinatown. next time we will call in to gourmet dumpling house. we spent a good 40 minutes or so looking for lunch and finally getting it and getting back. i thought i had to get back by 1 pm but i guess not?

i ate lunch with steve and cole in their office and then went back to do some work. instead, i talked with sultan about renting, properties, etc. then i went to get tea and ended up talking with cole and steve for a good while. we talked about food and also the movie, “it”, which i am interesting in watching now. they’re fun to be around (: then i left to get my work done for the day and then met the ceo when he walked around to the offices. kevin sent me messages throughout the day telling me to come home early but i couldn’t because my stand up kept getting pushed back further into the work day :( i got on a real quick stand up with the team and then packed up, said goodbye to everyone, and walked to the station with cole and steve. steve ran for the braintree train and i wasn’t going to until cole couldn’t get through because he didn’t put enough money on his charliecard. i made it and got a seat on the train after a few stops :O

kevin was running when i got home so i stopped by the fitness center to say hi. i was hungry so i ate the leftover half apple i had in the fridge with peannut butter and the mango slice kevin saved for me yesterday. then kevin came back and i felt ready to do my weighted butt workout. i went into the fitness center instead because i needed a heavy chair to do bulgarian split lunges. i was following a video and the lady was doing sumo squats with a 65 lb dumbbell... i touched the 30 lb one and i was like NOPEEE. instead, i did 25 lbs and the squats and deadlifts burned. then i switched over to two 7.5 lb weights to do everything else. my legs were shaking and my heart rate spiked! a change in weight really does get the heart pumping. i came back and showered and then watched two episodes of agents of shield with kevin. recently, kevin has been gaming a lot more on his computer and not with me and i feel like he’s been disengaged when we’re watching agents of shield so i felt like our quality time hasn’t been quality. i guess he didn’t feel the same because we had a small argument and he went to game again.

i spent the evening chatting with daniel and watching youtube videos. then i prepared everything for tomorrow, brushed my teeth, and did a good amount of stretching before falling asleep pretty early like at 11 pm. i didn’t feel like reconciling with him because he was busy gaming. :/

14: i woke up before my alarm that was set to ring at 7:15 am. i eventually got up and went to the yoga studio to do my cardio kickboxing workout. my legs and butt were so sore from yesterday’s workout... i could only squat so low LOL. before working out, i made rice for lunch because we forgot to make more. when i got back, i showered, debated whether or not to go into work (ultimately, i did) and then packed lunches, changed, and ate a banana with some peanut butter. then i said bye to kevin and hopped on the train. i was the first one in the product office and looked through emails. dave came at around 10 am and he basically set the itinerary for today. i will be working on more wireframes :) which is good so i can work on them from home tomorrow. during lunch time, i ordered xiao long bao with the devs and they covered the cost with the tech time money because cole and steve weren’t here today :P they also asked me to pick it up while they were in tech time and i got to hold on to charles’ credit card >:D hehe. well, i ate my lunch from home and then watched a youtube video until it was time for me to get it. i walked over to gourmet dumpling house and picked up a heavy af bag and walked back.

i got an email requesting support but then the customer didn’t respond after so i just left my work phone on to see if she was going to call the rest of the day. then i ate my second lunch with the devs. john asked me what kind of chinese food i ate and i told him the traditional kind. he asked charles to order him something an american would like to eat and charles got him sesame chicken LOL. we got him to try a dumpling though. these dumplings are the best soup dumplings i have ever eaten. after, i raved to kevin about it and we decided to order more plus scallion pancakes for dinner. we were thinking of leaving work early and working from home but then i got slammed with work after lunch. it was a meeting after meeting after meeting sort of deal. there was a lot going on. so i stayed and when i had a chance, i ordered and then left the office at around 5:05 pm after talking with dave about work.

i actually got to south station quicker than i had anticipated and waited for kevin to get there. i ate some scallion pancake -- it was soooo good. we commuted home and then kevin and i talked about our argument and we both realized we were in the wrong. we apologized and then finished eating the food. kevin really liked the soup dumplings. we also got our tall step stool and our ottoman in the mail today! yay! i can’t wait for our ikea stuff to come in. then we chilled for a bit and worked out at the same time. he went running and i did weighted arms. i’m the most scared to lift heavy for arms because my arms are like toothpicks LOL. so i got a good workout but i think it could have been better. next time, i’ll lift heavier. we stretched and then went back and showered. then kevin ate real dinner and i just ate the rest of my banana with pb and some chips. i stayed up watching youtube videos and checking instagram (lol i traded in one social media addiction for another) and then clipped my nails and stretched before sleeping at 1 am.

speaking of instagram... i still don’t know how i feel about it. i’m less against it but it gets boring when you follow a small amount of people but then again, i don’t want to be bombarded with pictures of things i kind of like... there’s also the thing about posting and i’ve been wanting to post more but i’m a perfectionist when it comes to posting art, design, creative work and i start editing a photo and then never posting because it’s not what i want to post in the end LOL. maybe i’m being too picky. there’s also just a lot of things i want to do on instagram but i keep telling myself that there are barriers and etc. it’s all a mind game.

15: i slept in today because fridays are work from home days! (: i got up with kevin and then we brushed our teeth, i made myself breakfast, and he headed over to work. then i got to work and did some internet errands. it was a pretty chill work day. everything is winding up now so things will get busier in the next few weeks with training. i was able to watch 2 episodes of love connection and 2 episodes of masterchef. then i went to the yoga studio and did weighted oblique workouts. kevin stopped by to say hi and then went home to make dinner. i cooled down while kevin made the beef broth for korean dumpling rice cake soup mmm. he let the soup cook while he went out for his run. then i relaxed a bit and turned off the stove before i showered. the rest of the dish was basically done. kevin cut up some nori, beef, and scallions and i made poached eggs in the soup. he showered before we ate dinner and watched some agents of shield. then we stopped to play some castle crashers. i got unhappy at it so we switched to battleblock theater and then i got tired at 12 am or so and prepared for bed. kevin went to game and i think i pretty much ko’d. yay for the weekend!

16: i woke up super excited for ikea. we ate breakfast and then went straight to ikea after that. well, we waited a bit and then we went but then kevin was already hungry .___. we left at like 12 pm and ate at like 10 or 11 am. there were so many people at ikea today and it ruined our experience. plus, we knew what we wanted so everyone was pretty much in the way. we picked out chairs for the dining table, got a lamp for the dining area, got more mason jars (lol kevin), and then went upstairs to get some food. i got us a table while kevin waited like 30 minutes in line... it was so long and more people just kept coming. kevin got the pulled pork burger and swedish meatballs and i got swedish meatballs and the chocolate conspiracy cake -- i have been craving chocolate for the longest time. all the food was worth it. mmm. then we went to pick up the chairs. i had to walk back to get drawer organizers because we missed it the first time. we had a quick check out and then packed bb with all our stuff and drove home. we spent 3 hours there... haha. we stopped by bj’s to do some grocery shopping. i got silk cashew milk from there and contact solution. then kevin got back in time to skype with brittany and mike.

while he skyped, i did laundry and caught up on masterchef. then the rest of the evening was kind of a blur... i know i did a full body strength workout in the yoga studio then we ate leftover rice cake soup for dinner while watching agents of shield. oh, i think that is what we did. we ate and after, kevin just started building the chairs while i focused on the show or walked around the apartment. i know why the evening is blurry; we watched until 1 am and i just knocked out while cuddling with kevin. i ended up sleeping on him for like 30 minutes or so and then he left me to make the bed (i washed the sheets too). then i got up pretty awake and brushed and then got out our fall / winter blanket and then kevin helped put a cover over it and basically tucked me in before going off to play games lol. i think i went to sleep at 2 am because i went on my phone for a bit. it was a nice day spent with my bear (:

17: kevin and i were super productive today. i woke up before him and ate breakfast. then he woke up and we watched an episode of agents of shield while he ate then built another chair and then i cleaned the kitchen. then we meal planned and hit the gym together for an afternoon workout. i did multiple cardio videos because i kept getting bored. then we showered and went grocery shopping. we finished buying all of our groceries in under an hour :O we unpacked and then ate congee for lunch along with some chicken wings we got from roche and some scallion pancakes. i was stuffed. then kevin went to game for a bit and i accidentally fell asleep on the sofa for like 1-2 hours LOL. i woke up and then went straight to cleaning the bathroom. kevin finished gaming and then after cleaning, i went to workout again. kevin vacummed and cleaned while i did my ab workout and then i showered while he made dinner. we had a late dinner and were going to game with terence and ryan via online coop with our steam boxes but then they were eating too so we watched shield and then we gamed after. we played some silly games on battleblock theater and we crushed themmm but to be fair, kevin and i have a lot of experience and they just downloaded the game... i still feel good about winning! kevin and i played some overcooked after and then i got ready for bed. kevin stayed up to game for a bit and i went to sleep at like 12 am. zzzz.

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instantdeerlover · 4 years

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To Commemorate the Death of Gray Kunz, a Timeline of His Work at Lespinasse added to Google Docs

To Commemorate the Death of Gray Kunz, a Timeline of His Work at Lespinasse

Photo by Chen Xiaomei/South China Morning Post via Getty Images

The celebrated NYC French restaurant closed in 2003; here’s a look back in the form of an oral history originally published in “Lucky Peach”

Last night, chef Gray Kunz died at the age of 63. A wildly influential chef most known for his work at ’90s destination Lespinasse in New York and the invention of clutch kitchen tool the Kunz Spoon, Kunz was most recently working at a hotel group in Asia where he helmed locations of his restaurant Cafe Gray in Shanghai and Hong Kong.

Food world figure Dana Cowin today called him “a giant in culinary history,” who “shaped palates, influenced so many young chefs and of course gave us one perfect spoon.” Ruth Reichl tweeted that he was “one of our truly great chefs, who literally changed food in America.”

In 2012, I wrote a timeline/oral history of Lespinasse for Lucky Peach’s third issue. The piece covered Kunz’s work as a chef and mentor and boss, as well as the larger history of the restaurant’s ultimate demise in the early aughts. Kunz trained an entire generation of devoted chefs, but his legacy is not without controversy. When a hostess filed a sexual harassment complaint against a maitre d’ at the hotel, Kunz fired the hostess, leading to a front-of-house walk-out and protest. He left the restaurant nine months later. He then went on to open Cafe Gray (2004 to 2008) and Grayz (2007 to 2008) in New York before decamping for work in Asia.

In honor of his death, we’re republishing the timeline here.

In the 1990s, the handful of restaurants where talented up-and-coming cooks wanted to work were four-star (or aspiring to it), French, and run with precision. What distinguishes Lespinasse — the showpiece of the St. Regis Hotel from its opening in September 1991 until its closing in April 2003 — is not only its position as a groundbreaking restaurant among its contemporaries, but also its storied reputation as a proving ground: the place where young, ambitious cooks were molded or broken.

First, the talent: Andrew Carmellini came through the Lespinasse kitchen. So did Floyd Cardoz. And Corey Lee, Shane McBride, Fabrizio Salerni, Rocco DiSpirito, and Brian Bistrong. The man that brought many of them there was chef Gray Kunz.

Swiss by birth, raised in Singapore, and trained in the best kitchens of Asia and Europe, Kunz was a precise, disciplined perfectionist. He shipped in the best ingredients from all over the world; insisted on throwing out every sauce, stock, and other preparation at the end of every night; demanded spotless uniforms and specific tools; and made his chefs dismantle the stoves, clean the walk-ins, and sweep at least twice a day. The work was hard and intricate. Carmellini recalls the garde manger station alone had 125 mise en place items — all of which were tossed at the end of the night. Floyd Cardoz adds, “It was very intense, it was very hard, and you would punch in for eight hours but work seventeen.”

But the survivors of that kitchen learned more than just discipline. Kunz was the first four-star chef in New York to fully incorporate Asian ingredients and techniques into a French fine-dining experience, to dazzling effect. Chef Craig Koketsu explains, “At that time, he was doing things in food that were unique. Jean-Georges [Vongerichten] was doing it, but his cooking was a lot lighter. Kunz’s cooking seemed light, but it was pretty deep and pretty rich underneath it all. In a service I would go through six or seven pounds of butter.” Or, as Ruth Reichl puts it, “I felt that Gray suddenly gave us a different flavor palate.”

Less than a year after a 1997 labor dispute (see the following timeline), Kunz left the restaurant. Christian Delouvrier, who’d spent the previous seven years at Les Célébrités, took over. Delouvrier’s cooking married lusty, rustic French country flavors with refined, precise technique. His menu was old school, and he acted as such: He yelled, he turned red, he ran the kitchen with military orderliness. But his protégés say that he was also a father figure, cooking shoulder-to-shoulder with his cooks, showing them how to imbue soul into fine dining.

In 2003, the St. Regis closed Lespinasse. The restaurant was never a moneymaker—food costs, traditionally kept below 30 percent, flirted with the 50-percent mark under Kunz at some points. In the end, Lespinasse ended up a casualty of 9/11, the crap economy, union labor demands, and changing tastes.

More importantly, its shuttering may have also been the death knell of the high-stakes American kitchen, where cooks proved their mettle under old-school, hell-raising chefs. Now there are more quality restaurants to cook at, in more cities, with greater varieties of cuisine; the boot-camp mentality is becoming a thing of the past. Lespinasse alum Ben Pollinger notes, “The culture in general is changing and the culture in the kitchen is changing. As a human being I don’t feel at peace with myself going to work and being a maniac.”

The Lespinasse Timeline September 1991

Lespinasse opens at the newly renovated St. Regis Hotel, with Gray Kunz at the helm. Kunz made his bones in Hong Kong and then in Europe, most notably under legendary chef Frédy Girardet in Lausanne, Switzerland. His menu at Lespinasse is nominally French, though it incorporates a substantial number of Asian ingredients and unconventional techniques for a restaurant of such ambition.

The dining room is opulent and upscale: deeply cushioned armchairs, large classical murals, tables draped in thick white linen, crystal chandeliers, and walls done in shades of beige and white. Even in an era when La Caravelle still roamed the earth, Lespinasse was seen as over-the-top luxurious.

October 25, 1991

New York Times restaurant critic Bryan Miller awards Lespinasse three (of four) stars: “His creations are eclectic, intelligently conceived and visually dazzling. At times, though, he can go overboard. But no matter how many ingredients dwell on his plates, vital flavors are rarely obfuscated.”

October 28, 1991

Gael Greene reviews the restaurant for New York magazine. She declares the cooking “Kunz at his uniquely obsessed best.”

Gray Kunz: “I had and have a hand-on-the-shoulder kind of approach, but am very strict in the sense of standards. I’m very precise and meticulous about cooking standards. A lot of hotels stress that at any level, but we pushed the envelope to the point where the hotel looked to us to adopt our standards. I worked in the best places in Europe, and the standards were extremely high. I boiled down those standards.”

1992–93: The Kunz SpoonView this post on Instagram

A post shared by JB Prince (@jbprincecompany) on Nov 14, 2015 at 8:29am PST

Another legacy of Lespinasse is the Kunz spoon, dreamed up by Gray Kunz in the ’90s to fill the need for a perfect basic working spoon. Measuring exactly nine inches, it is a bridge between a larger cooking spoon and a small saucing spoon. It’s big enough to handle robust cooking tasks like basting, roasting, flipping meats, and stirring, but is still small enough and tapered at the tip, so it can be used for more delicate and precise tasks like saucing, making quenelles, and portioning.

During the early days of Lespinasse, Kunz issued a spoon to each chef (the chefs paid for their spoons) with a unique number and station engraved on the back. The number was recorded in a ledger in the office, so if anyone found a lost spoon, they would know whom to return it to (and whom to blame for losing it). In the early ’90s, the spoons served as a distinctive badge, as only cooks who had worked at Lespinasse had them. Kunz eventually began selling them through the vendor JB Prince, and the utensils caught on throughout the restaurant world.

Andrew Carmellini (1992–1996): “For the record, I never gave him a deposit for my spoons. Out of spite. I refused to participate in the deposits on the spoons. Though I can understand why he did that now. It’s a real pain in the ass. People steal them; they end up in the garbage. But yes, it is a great spoon to cook with. I have a bunch of Kunz spoons. I do not exclusively use them in my kitchens, because they’re too expensive—which is very Gray-like, by the way—but I use a similar kitchen spoon that I found on the Bowery. When you hold it between your thumb and finger it just sits properly. So it’s perfect when you’re sautéing something or roasting something, if you’re going to arrosée something or glaze something. It also has a nice deep well in it. I don’t know if he just got lucky or he consulted some yoga instructor or measured the distance between his thumb and his index finger, but it’s an important tool, the Kunz spoon.”

Craig Koketsu (1996-2003): “When you came to Lespinasse they gave you three Kunz spoons, a Peltex spatula with a wooden handle (which was perfect and now hard to find), and a heat-resistant spatula. Those were your tools. That and a meat fork. No tongs were allowed at all. Your spoon became an extension of your hand. You had to pay for them, and they numbered them. There are better saucing spoons now, which are smaller, but it is such a universal tool. It’s perfect for cracking stone-crab claws. You can wedge it in the side of a Rondeau handle to move the pan. Whenever I’m doing a demo with an avocado I use the Kunz spoons. It’s the best cereal spoon you’ll ever use. We even eat with a Kunz spoon at family meal.”

Floyd Cardoz (1992–1997): “There were knife drawers for every station where we kept the spoons. They were locked up at the end of the night.”

March 11, 1994

Ruth Reichl, then the new New York Times critic, awards Kunz his coveted fourth star. The intro reads, “Pow! The food at Lespinasse comes out shooting. With your first bite you know that you are in for an exciting adventure. These are flavors you have never tasted before.”

Ruth Reichl: “I remember going to Lespinasse and tasting the food and thinking, I can’t take these flavors apart. He has flavors in there and I don’t know what they are. Tasting his food, I felt I was entering a whole new level. It was subtle and exciting and I just fell head over heels for what he was doing. When he went over to Lespinasse, it was as if he had been unleashed. It was like encountering a chef at the full height of his powers.”

Andrew Carmellini: “Kunz used to get northern pike flown in from an Indian tribe on Lake Superior. And he had them FedExed to the restaurant twice a week. No one’s doing that now! The cost was crazy, and that was before we got the big review. We had to throw everything away every night. Everything. It was crazy. I would hide mise en place all the time. One of the pluses of being in a hotel is that I could hide sauces all over that place. I had a refrigerator on the twentieth floor that I used to keep all my backup sauces in.”

April 4, 1994

Kunz tells The New Yorker — in a “Talk of the Town” piece about the downsides of a four-star review — that every week, 25cooks come looking to work in his kitchen. “I could become a celebrity chef, out every night,” he tells the magazine. “Believe me, I get the invitations. But my task is here, in the kitchen.” At this point, Andrew Carmellini and Floyd Cardoz are working with him. Rocco DiSpirito, Scott Bryan, and Brian Bistrong have already passed through.

Summer 1994

Lespinasse closes temporarily to install a million-dollar, state-of-the-art kitchen, designed down to the last detail by Kunz. It features soft lighting, air conditioning, rubber tiling, and a PA system so Kunz can speak through a microphone to his whole staff.

Floyd Cardoz: “Kunz was the first person that I knew who embraced Asian ingredients and techniques and really understood them. The first thing he told me in the kitchen — and this was very important — was it’s all about balance. Nothing should be overpowering. I took that from him and it has affected my cooking to this day. I like things to be layered and balanced.”

Andrew Carmellini: “There was that pop of flavor that still exists now in the way that I cook, or at least I try. Whether we make fried chicken or raviolis, whatever we do really stems from Lespinasse. Back then people weren’t playing with acids so much. There wasn’t that extra squeeze of lemon or vinegar reduction or chili oil — the things that really open up the palate. Umami was not being explored at all. No one in a three- to four-starred New York kitchen was using fish sauce. No one was making peanut sambal and serving it on Limoges china.”

Photo by Mychal Watts/WireImage Kunz with onetime protege Rocco DiSpirito and Ruth Reichl, who gave Lespinasse four stars in the New York Times, in 2006. Fall 1994

When the restaurant reopened that fall, the Times called the new kitchen “the most expensive and the most technologically advanced kitchen in the city, if not the country.” Everything was made to the chef’s specifications, from the black-tiled floor to the stainless-steel ceiling. Alumni of the restaurant say that even by today’s standards the physical space of Lespinasse’s kitchen was a feat, and an undeniable selling point for up-and-coming chefs (despite the fact that they had to take the whole thing apart and clean it twice a day).

Gray Kunz: “If you create a certain environment, it does affect not only customers’ food but also the people working there. It can be a stimulus for you as a chef, and this is very important, I think.”

Cornelius Gallagher (1997–1998): “The kitchen was very smartly designed. It was kind of a Disneyland for chefs. It was almost unreal, that kitchen. The floors were perfectly pitched to the drains. The sinks had lips on them so a perforated hotel pan could sit perfectly and act as a drain pan. The pass-through for the dirty pass was efficient. There was a reflective stainless ceiling so you could power-wash the kitchen. There were magnets all along the wall. Each cook had a knife drawer with a lock on it so you could keep your knives there. We never ran out of utensils. As soon as something was broken, it was fixed.”

Corey Lee (1998–2001): “The kitchen had every piece of equipment you could need. You could tell a chef designed it. It was detail-oriented, every corner had a purpose; all those details you take for granted, but it was not typical. It was not just some hotel kitchen. It was customized for a particular kind of service, a particular kind of food, a particular kind of experience. What I wanted to portray when I built my kitchen at Benu, and this is the sense I got from the kitchen at Lespinasse, is that this is a serious place serving a quality product. And it all begins with the physical space.”

Craig Koketsu (1996–2003): “Gray, he had a really quiet intensity to him. He’s very exacting, and he commands a lot of respect, but he wasn’t a screamer, at least when I was there. I heard it was different when it first opened. But when I was there, it was his sous-chefs who did the dirty work. Those were the guys you feared. The sous-chefs were like Nazis.”

December 1995

New York magazine cites Lespinasse as a good “place to have an affair,” writing that “the exquisite saucery of Gray Kunz ignites all senses. Idle fingers caress handsome Oriental ceramics and witty silver casseroles, fueling fantasy.”

January 1997

Lespinasse expands to Washington, D.C., opening a branch in the Carlton Hotel. (At the time, the plan was to expand the concept to St. Regis hotels all over the world.) Kunz’s sous-chef Troy Dupuy (who later lands at New York’s La Caravelle) relocates to Washington to run things.

October 23, 1997

A hostess at Lespinasse files a sexual-harassment complaint against a maître d’ at the restaurant. Kunz fires the hostess, leading to a walkout by all front-of-house restaurant staff and most hotel workers. On the day of the strike, all but two chefs scheduled for the shift show up. They go through with lunch service. Kunz runs dishes out to the dining room, and then comps every single meal. Dinner service is canceled. The hotel rehires the hostess the next day and no longer allows Kunz to give orders to anyone not under his direct supervision.

Floyd Cardoz: “I left six months before the strike, but I could see the way it was changing. There were people who cared tremendously and there were people who didn’t. There were some cooks who cared and there were others, who, because of the union, just didn’t.”

Craig Koketsu: “All the other hotel employees surrounded the outside of the kitchen and were yelling at us to stop cooking. Kunz was running food out to the dining room. He was like Superman, changing between his chef’s whites and his suit in seconds. It was nuts.”

October 24, 1997

Kunz takes a three-week break to “cool off” and manages the kitchen by phone. He returns on November 19.

July 26, 1998

Kunz leaves Lespinasse to write a cookbook and asks his friend Christian Delouvrier, of Les Célébrités, to take his job. Kunz doesn’t announce plans to open another restaurant, but the restaurant world and the media assume he will. In 2004, he opens Café Gray in the Time Warner Center; in 2007, he opens Grayz on 54th Street. Both are now closed. More recently, Kunz opened a Café Gray in Hong Kong. Ruth Reichl, on a Kunz-less New York dining scene: “I think Gray Kunz was the most under-appreciated chef in America, and the fact that he’s not working in the United States anymore breaks my heart. He’s a magical chef.”

August 1998

Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide acquires the St. Regis Hotel.

Lespinasse closes while Delouvrier develops a menu and readies the kitchen. Some of the chefs stay on, but most leave. Delouvrier brings in his own team.

Gray Kunz: “I was at Lespinasse for almost ten years. There were some labor issues that were very difficult to deal with. My drive was looking to different areas. I wanted to do a cookbook, open my own restaurants. I took a break and came back and I still feel I have a place in New York.”

Corey Lee: “Lespinasse became an institution because of the reputation that Gray Kunz established over the years. The kind of food that Kunz was doing was different from a lot of the other traditional restaurants. And I think good cooks attract other good cooks. Restaurants can get a reputation within the industry. As a chef, you know which kitchens have a lot of strong cooks, and you gravitate toward them. It’s very competitive, and that challenge is what you look for as a young cook.”

Ben Pollinger (1998–1999): “I was one of Christian Delouvrier’s cooks at Les Célébrités, in the Essex House hotel. I remember the moment when Christian came into the kitchen and gathered everyone and said, ‘I have an announcement to make. Gray Kunz is leaving Lespinasse.’ We were all floored. Then Christian goes on to say, ‘And I’m taking over!’ I was just praying to God he was going to take me with him.”

October 4, 1998

Lespinasse reopens with Christian Delouvrier in the kitchen. Where Kunz’s food was playful and inspired, Delouvrier’s menu is earthy and robust, offering an upscale take on French country cooking. The tasting menu is $135.

Craig Koketsu: “Everything was different. The style of cooking. There were a lot of stylistic differences and management differences. Christian definitely got upset, and when he got upset he would turn red. He is a genuine person; he is a very, very warm person, and he’s very old school. The discipline and the position that I learned from Gray has stuck with me. Just having cooking in your heart is the way Christian cooks, and that’s really stuck with me, too.”

Ben Pollinger: “Most cooks have it inside of them: it’s a matter of getting it out of them. And both Gray and Christian pretty much used old-school methods for getting it out. With Christian it was an emotional roller coaster. Any given day you’d go from being filled with joy and pride about what you were doing to feeling that what you were doing was worthless. But what he did was he pushed you and made you a better cook. I’m appreciative of what I got out of it. At the end of the day I can look back and say he really brought it out of you.”

Yuhi Fujinaga (2002–2003): “Delouvrier was the first one to arrive and the last one to leave. He showed us a lot of commitment. I didn’t see that from other big-name chefs at that time. He was cooking with you shoulder-to-shoulder, showing you and teaching you and kind of being a father. It was one of my best learning experiences. Of course, I got yelled at so much I almost left. He would say things like, ‘I’m going to kick your ass so hard I’m going to send you to Hawaii.’ But he would only say that because he really cared about us getting better.”

November 9, 1998

Gael Greene gives Lespinasse a favorable review, but notes posh French restaurants are already passé.

December 2, 1998

Ruth Reichl gives the Kunz-less Lespinasse four stars. She notes that Delouvrier’s food lacks the pyrotechnics of his predecessor, but the cuisine finally matches the room. According to Reichl, Delouvrier had delivered “a sumptuous menu so right for this staid, extravagant room that he is likely to be revered by his guests… The combination of his food, the quiet setting and the solicitous service create an experience so opulent and old-fashioned that it can be a serious shock to walk outside and find no coach waiting to take you home.”

Ben Pollinger: “Perfection was the only way. There was no other option. No room for error, and at that price point, there shouldn’t be. But how do you get people to be at that level of intensity all the time? I was not in the military, but cooking at Lespinasse was like being in boot camp. You had to be extraordinarily intense.”

Shane McBride (1999–2003): “You had to really know your shit, and you had to know how to move or you wouldn’t make it. It wasn’t that they fired people; people just quit. It became painfully clear when people couldn’t hack it — they moved them to banquets.”

May 10, 1999

The New Yorker writes a “Talk of the Town” piece about the lofty cost of Christian Delouvrier’s $35 leek-and-potato soup with langoustines and black truffles. He contended that because of the truffle cost, the restaurant probably broke even.

June 2001

The restaurant stops serving breakfast and lunch. Rumors spread that the business is in trouble. The hotel’s manager, Herbert Pliessnig, denies these rumors.

September 2001

The restaurant closes for two months after 9/11, and then reopens for just a few nights a week before eventually reinstituting the full schedule. But business plummets and never recovers.

Shane McBride: “‘Fresh every day,’ that was the mantra from the beginning. I was there right after they got the four-star review. And that’s how Christian was at Célébrités. But that faded over time, because the price was incredible. When you’re throwing away things that cost dollars per ounce, it was mind-numbing.”

April 19, 2003

Lespinasse closes due to economics. Delouvrier says: “It is much better to close Lespinasse as a four-star restaurant with all the glories.” At the time Lespinasse closes, appetizers are $28 to $48, and some entrees are in the $50s, but the restaurant is hemorrhaging money.

via Eater - All https://www.eater.com/2020/3/6/21167991/chef-gray-kunz-rip-lespinasse

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