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#anyways i doubt this will get as many notes as my last piece of art but I made this one for me
sweetchup · 3 years
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Bi•valve
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Noun
an aquatic mollusk that has a compressed body enclosed within a hinged shell, such as oysters, clams, mussels, and scallops.
AKA
The Most Common Seashell in the Ocean
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Vol. 1: Just Keep Swimming // Ch. 2
Type: Poseidon x reader
Word Count: 4,000+
Masterlist
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Sounds of horns and shouting filled the air outside as you stood on the packed bus. Cramped in from every side, it was hard for you to tell where you were going. Not as if you were paying much attention anyways.
“Okay, you left fish and pasta in the fridge… he could use the tv or read a book for entertainment while you are gone…what about…” You ramble incoherently to yourself.
Even though the storm hit Athens hard yesterday, your studio art professor was still having classes today. Forcing you to leave Triton alone at home. You shouldn’t be nervous. There was no reason to. After all, Triton is a god, he was hundreds of years old.
But…, he was still a child. No matter how old or what type of being he is. He could still possibly injure himself or get into trouble. And that single fact alone made you feel sick to your stomach.
“Is this how parents feel leaving their child alone for the first time…?” You groan to yourself, leaning your head forward so it hits the window in front of you.
“Now Approaching *Athens International School of Art*. I repeat, Now—“ The robotic voice announces over the intercom. At the familiar name of your college, you squeeze your way through the other patrons on the bus to make your way to the doors.
Sweet, sweet air, you think to yourself as soon as you exit the bus. It was starting to get way too cramped in there. So much so, you wondered if it was a safety hazard. Though it wasn’t as if you were one to talk, you left a little boy alone—
“Argh!” You scream out, slapping the cheeks of your face. You needed to stop thinking of Triton. He was going to be completely fine. But, what if…
“I’m getting too attached already…” You groan to yourself. It had only been a day. One singular Day. But you were already smitten by the blonde haired child. “It doesn’t help that he's absolutely adorable as well…”
“Who’s adorable?” A voice calls out from behind you, making you jump in surprise. Whipping around, you let out a sigh once you identify who it was.
“Bryce… how many times have I told you not to sneak up on me like that…”
Bryce Kroger. He was studying abroad at Athens International School of Art for a year just like you except he was instead an architecture major. You met him by coincidence while taking art history so you didn’t know much about the guy, the only thing being the few stories he told you about his home country of Australia.
“Oi! It’s not my fault you're so skittish!” Bryce banters back with a huff.
“Whatever…”
“Eh? Wait, where you heading?” Bryce questions as he watches you walk away, “I thought you had Studio Art on Fridays?”
“I do. I’m heading to the library first though.” You yell back to the tall male who stayed put where he was standing. Not even bothering to follow you.
“You need to stop studying so much!”
“Shut up!”
“IT’S THE TRUTH!”
“SHUT UP!” You scream back with one final huff before storming off. So what if you studied so much. You just wanted to get good grades in the classes that counted. It’s how you got here in the first place. By working your ass off.
Unconsciously, you feel your hand twitch as you open the library door. So what if you spent hours studying. So what if you didn’t go out with friends that often. So what if you didn’t have a social life. So what—
You feel yourself pause, your expression turning sour. Lonely. That’s what you were. You were lonely. A miserable lonely girl.
“Miss!”
Startled out of your thoughts by the sudden call, you realize you were no longer standing at the front door but instead standing in front of one of the librarians. You must have unconsciously walked up to the front desk while you were lost in thought.
“A-Ah. Sorry, I was just looking for books on Leonar—“
You feel your voice trail off at the end as a book on the counter catches your eye. It wasn’t the gold detailing nor the leather texture. No. It was the simple words of “Greek Mythology: Tales of Zeus” printed neatly on the front.
“…Actually, Do you perhaps have any books about Poseidon?”
You just found something better to do with your time.
—.—.—.—.—
“Damn… this is extremely confusing…” You mumble to yourself as you glare at the pages of notes in front of you. Each book seemed to be a little bit different from the last. “Perhaps I should recap…”
Okay, so what makes sense to you is that Poseidon is the second eldest of three brothers and is the ruler of the seas. The things that don’t make sense are… practically everything else…
You weren’t sure if you wanted to cry or scream out of frustration right now.
According to the books, Poseidon has had many consorts over the years. One of them being Triton’s mother, Amphitrite…
“My mother… can be quite mean to other women. Even to some of the female servants around the palace. She believes that they are trying to seduce my father…”
…but that doesn’t match up with what Triton mentioned last night. According to him, it sounds like Amphitrite scared away any women that would even come near Poseidon. This also leads to another flaw in the mythology books. You doubted that Poseidon would be able to have an affair with any other women with Amphitrite antics, nevertheless have 10 other children with them.
“Triton also never mentioned having any other siblings…”
Letting out a groan, which you seemed to be doing a lot today, you banged your head against the table. It seems like these mythology books weren’t going to be of any help after all. Though…. you couldn’t help but wonder why the books were so off in the first place.
Lifting yourself back up from the table, you glare down at one of the book covers. It was blue, almost silvery in a way, with a giant black silhouette of Poseidon right smack dab in the middle. Or, at least, what Poseidon might look like…
“Well, my father is extremely strong and handsome. All the sea nymphs stare at him with big heart eyes half the time. Oh! B-but, father doesn’t pay any attention to them. Father is not a cheater like uncle Zeus…”
“…Is Father…? Oh. He’s alright… He’s nowhere as bad as my mother. He’s never hit me or anything. He’s just… cold. Extremely cold. He really just ignores me half the time…”
“…I do love my father…I just wished he would at least spare me a glance…you know?…Acknowledge his own son…”
“God damn jerk!” You hiss out in anger as you push the book aside. Your blood practically boiling at even the slightest thought of Triton’s father, Poseidon. He doesn’t deserve to have such a good and nice son like Triton.
However, as much as you want to curse out Poseidon more, you realized class would be starting soon and you really had to get a move on.
“Shit. I can’t afford to be late again.”
—.—.—
“Ugh. Why did the professor have to assign me this type of painter…?!” You whined to Yuri. Class had already ended by then with the professor long gone. The only people left were students that were conversing with others or trying to get a head start on their paintings.
“Well, it didn’t help that you barged into class late for the second time this week, (y/n).” Yuri explained with a sigh as she continued to set up her palette, not even sparing you a glance.
Yuri Saito, Or rather Saito Yuri, was an abroad student from Japan. She was the closest person you knew at the college as you both were similar in many ways. Especially since you were both homebodies.
“I get that but at least I showed up in the fir—“
“(Y/n)!” A voice shouts out interrupting your talk with Yuri. You turn around to see Bella Woods, a student apart of your major, approaching you. “(Y/n). You were part of your student council back in high school right?”
“Uh, Yeah. Why?” You answered hesitantly. You weren’t sure why, perhaps instincts, but you were already having a bad feeling about this situation.
“Well I need your help on something…” Bella explains, her voice trailing off at the end as she grabs something from her bag. It’s a piece of paper, a flier to be exact.
“A…A Cultural Festival?”
Bella nods her head at your words, “Yeah. The college wanted to put something on for the public to show what our art school is all about and Mrs. Yamamoto suggested this. A-Apparently, it’s something schools and colleges do back in Japan.”
“B-But how can I help? Wouldn’t it make sense for someone like Yuri to do this? Since she’s from Japan and all.”
It was the truth. You didn’t know a single thing about japanese culture festivals.
“Hey don’t drag me into this, I’m busy.” Yuri counterbacks with a glare before returning back to her painting.
“Well… you see… The school wanted to change Mrs. Yamamoto’s idea a bit since they really didn’t know anything about Japanese Cultural festivals either. So it’s like a Cultural festival, kind of not.” Bella rambled. You could tell all this information was scrambling her brain as well. “Basically, it’s like a Greek version of a Cultural festival where each major picks a Greek god and plans an event or booth around it.”
“…Okay… So it’s just like a school festival in a way?” You questioned cautiously. This was a lot for you to take in at once.
“Yes. Precisely. We are just taking inspiration from Cultural festivals.”
“Okay. Okay…” You answer as you rub the back of your neck, “I still don’t understand why you need me though?”
“Well, I kind of… kind of saw you reading the mythology books in the library today and we need more people on the planning committee…” Oh, god. It seems like everything is coming back to bite you in the ass, “…Just. Please (y/n), We need your help!”
You let out a small sigh as you watch Bella give you a pleading look, “Fine…”
“Yay—!“
“But…“ You start cutting off Bella’s cheers, “But I’m taking care of something really important right now at home so I can’t always make meetings and things like that. I can help with planning but that’s it. Okay?”
That was correct. As much as you wanted to help Bella and your department out with this festival, Triton was your top priority right now. His care and needs were above all else right now, even your own. So if this would get in the way of that then you would drop this project instantly. Instantly.
“Of course! Oh, thank you (y/n)!” Bella cheers, her body visibly relaxing now that a stress has been taken off your shoulder, “Well, I’m not sure if you're busy right now but… the committee is currently planning two classrooms down… so if you could…”
“I’ll go…” You sighed out. Damn, what’s with you lately. Less than two days ago, people hardly approached you. Now you are as busy as a bee. A person magnetic… Well, more like god magnetic as wel—
Wait, a minute. You feel yourself tense up as a thought flies into your brain. If Gods could travel and spend time on earth, could they live here as well? Just like how Triton wants to?
Shit. What if some that live here are able to identify Triton? You could be in big troub—
“(Y/n)? Are you coming?” Bella calls, snapping you out of your thoughts.
“Y-yes.”
It seemed you would have to worry about that later. Not that it mattered right now, you could always just ask Triton when you got home. And even if he didn’t know the answer you would just have to be careful bringing him out of the house. Yeah… you would just do that.
“Guys, I would like to introduce you to (y/n). She’s a fine arts major just like us and knows about mythology. I think she would make a great addition to our group.” Bella introduces you as you enter the room. As you looked around the group of only 4 other people, you realized you really didn’t know anyone.
That is until everyone started to introduce themselves. You never heard of the first three—Brian, James and Kyle—but you found the last name, Marissa Samudra, quite familiar. You wonder if she was that Marissa.
Who you were talking about was Marissa, the hottest girl in school Marissa. Well, at least that’s what all the boys in your major told you. The girl in front of you at least seemed to fit the part. With white silk like skin, light green eyes and dyed coral pink hair, she truly was a sight to see.
“Okay. So shall we get started.” James suddenly spoke up, seeming to want to get the meeting started. You nodded your head in agreement before taking a seat next to Holly. As well as across from Marissa. “Well, I think we should first decide which god we should do. Culinary, Music, Visual performing arts and architecture already have chosen Aphrodite, Hades, Ares and Zeus. (Y/n)…”
You lift your head up at the call of your name.
“…as you know the most about Mythology, who do you think we should pick?”
“Well,…” You feel yourself pause, your palms growing sweaty out of nervousness. You really didn’t know that much about Greek Gods, only the class you took last year and the books you skimmed this morning. You also didn’t expect so many of the main gods to be taken already.
“…How about…”
You needed to think of someone fast. Someone that would satisfy all parties here. Someone that would bedazzle people coming to the festival.
“…Poseidon…?”
Why… Why was that what your brain had come up with? Poseidon? The very god that you were cursing out this morning. Wishing near death upon.
“Fish man?” Brian questioned, letting out a small chuckle at his own joke, “You really want to go with Fish man as our god? Isn’t there anyone better?”
“I think Poseidon is pretty…cool.” You feel a shiver go up your spine as you compliment the man. It was official, you might actually puke. “…He’s the king of the seas. It gives us a lot to work with for his character. Especially since most Fine Arts students are good at realistic elements, we could really do well on painting or using sea life.”
“True… but—“
“I think it’s a wonderful idea.”
You are shocked as you hear Marissa cut Brian off. When you first sat down, she seemed totally uninterested in the topic at hand. Caring more about her hair and nails than anything else. But now, now, she was paying attention to every little thing. You couldn’t help but wonder why. “Oh sorry. I really like the sea. It holds a special place in my heart… you know?”
Oh, that makes sense. You totally forgot Marissa’s paintings were mostly about the ocean and sea. Never drifting off to other topics.
“N-no. That’s actually pretty cool. You know what, we should totally do Posedin… or whatever the dude’s name is. He sounds really cool.” Bryan agrees as he bashfully rubs the back of his neck. Gross, could he make it any less obvious that he was smitten by her. And not in a nice way either.
You feel yourself shiver as you watch him sneak small glances down at Marissa’s chest area. Disgusting pervert…
“Well, with that decided let’s move on…”
…Great… You could already tell this was going to be a long meeting…
—.—.—.—.—
Again, for what felt like the hundredth time today, you banged your head against the wall. This time however it was against the door of your apartment.
“Seriously… a Café…?”
Yes, a Café. That’s the brilliant idea your group came up with. An under the sea type themed café.
In hindsight it didn’t sound all that bad. You could have a couple of students paint some props and decorations. Then another couple of students who know how to cook plan out the menu. Maybe even borrow some culinary students if you were lucky.
But,… there’s that.
Outnumbered three to two, the boys of your group insisted the girls that are serving customers should wear togas. Togas. They stated it was to bring in more customers but it was pretty obvious they had other intentions behind it. Especially since they didn’t even bother waiting a couple of minutes afterwards to ask if Marissa wanted to be part of the waiting staff.
“Poor girl… I feel bad for her.” You mumble to yourself as you pull out your keys, finally unlocking the door to your apartment. You wished you could just beat all those men senseless with a baseball bat. “That’s actually not a bad idea… Could I bring a wooden club and say that it's part of the character? They seem to not know that much about—“
“Miss (y/n)!” You hear shouted as something comes barreling into you. Knocking you onto the ground right as you enter your apartment. “O-oops I meant to only say (y/n)…”
Even though you got the air literally knocked out of you, you still let out a small chuckle as you reached up to run a hand through the perpetrator’s locks. Triton’s blonde locks. “It’s okay. I only told you this morning to stop referring to me so formally. It will take time for you to get used to it.”
Suddenly, you wince at a feeling of pain as you move slightly. Triton sure was strong. You, honestly, wondered if he held back some strength when he jumped at you. If so, you wondered how strong Triton was nonetheless an adult god.
Speaking of an adult god…
“Hey Triton.” The boy lifts his head up at your call, “Do any gods live on earth?”
The boy seemed to take a moment to think, “Well kind of? Not really Greek Gods though. Most of them are too proud to live with humans.”
“Oh well that’s goo— Wait, a minute! Other gods are real as well!?”
Triton nods his head furiously, “Yeah pretty much all gods. As long as it is considered as one, it exists. There’s Nordic gods…, Indian gods…, Oh! Even Buddha. I like Buddha, even though I’ve only met him once. He introduced me to salt water taffy! It’s delicious.”
“I-I see…I’ll try to get you some then. Another time.” As much as you wanted to hide your surprise you couldn’t. Learning that Greek Gods actually existed was one situation but learning that All Gods existed was a whole nother ball game. Did that mean demons existed as well?
“Hey (y/n). Could I ask you a question?” Triton asks, suddenly seeming bashful all of a sudden.
“Sure. What’s up?”
“Could I…” Triton pauses for a moment, “Could I call you…”
You leaned closer to Triton as his voice slowly got softer and softer at the end. His ears and cheeks were bright red as he waited for you to answer. However, you couldn’t answer him as you didn’t hear the last part of what he said.
“I apologize. Could you repeat what you said, Triton? I couldn’t hear the end of it.” You felt bad for asking him to repeat it as his face only seemed to get even more red when you asked.
“I-I… Could I call you… Mom?”
It was silent as his question, or rather request, fell upon your ears. You thought about it for a moment. Especially whether it was morally right for you to have him call you ‘mom’. Even if his true mother was a terrible person, she was still his mother.
Though, then again, She really didn’t act like his mother. Especially in all her hundreds of years of existence of having him. At least from what you’ve heard from Triton. She’s had plenty of chances to show her love for him and she never did.
“Of…Of course you can.”
You feel yourself smile as Triton’s face lit up. And you knew, Deep down inside, that you did the right thing. You would show this boy the love he deserved.
“Hey (Y— Mom.” You giggle at how Triton seemed to practically beam with happiness once the title left his lips.
“Yes, Triton?”
“Could we have dinner right now?”
You feel yourself jump up a little in surprise. Since you stayed later than what you usually would, due to the meeting, you didn’t have anything prepared ahead of time for dinner.
“Ah, yes. Do you think you could wait in the living room while I prepare it?”
“Of course!” Triton answers as he scrambles up off of you. As you make your way to the kitchen—which was technically in the same room as the living room—to start dinner, you find yourself drifting off into your thoughts.
You realized you really hadn’t thought this through. Taking care of Triton and all. Your apartment was small, he didn’t have his own room, he seemed to eat a lot more than a human boy his physical age and so much more.
You wouldn’t be able to buy a bigger apartment right now. Going through college and all. But you could take more shifts at work. After all, it was literally down the street. You were also good friends with the owner of the toy shop next door. You bet he would allow Triton to play with a couple of toys while you worked.
As you continue to list things you would need to take care of Triton especially if it was long term, Triton was watching cartoons on the couch.
“…Wonder cats will be right back!…”
As the show goes to commercial break, Triton feels himself let out a sigh. Television sure was awesome and all, much better than the plays and coliseum matches used to entertain gods, but he despised ads more than anything.
“Who in the world created such a malicious thing…”
Triton’s voice trails off at the end as the ad changes to another. As he stares at the screen, he feels a shiver shoot down his spine. As quickly as he could, Triton changes the channel to another before shakily dropping the television remote. A cold sheen of sweat breaks out all over his skin as he collapses back onto the couch.
To anyone else, the commercial before looked like any normal hair dye commercial seen on Tv. But not to Triton. Especially when he saw something oh so familiar.
“T-that hair color…” Triton feels himself shiver at the thought, “L-looked too much like Aunties. Mom’s…No…
…Amphitrite’s Sister.”
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Author Note: Ahhh this chapter contained so much but I knew I couldn’t split it up. Especially if I was doing posting Tuesdays and Thursdays. I was worried that the time frame in between would mess my readers up. Anyways, I hope you enjoyed this Chapter. I know there wasn’t a lot of Triton moments but I wanted to get the ball rolling on the plot so that things and certain characters (*cough* Poseidon *cough*) will appear soon. Well that’s it for now, see you next time :)))
Taglist: @angeli-fucking-cat @marixxhq
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archived-kin · 3 years
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solomon deserves a husband so i'm giving him one (it's you)
note from kin: i don’t know HOW i’ve managed to get this out so soon after my last piece but i do know that it is a miracle (now watch me disappear for like a month lmao)
anyway there’s a severe lack of content for the boys in this fandom and therefore i am here to try to mitigate that!!
(as a heads up, this is sort of an au version of obey me’s story?? there’s no exchange program, and the general human world doesn’t know about the devildom or celestial realm, apart from sorcerers and similar special cases. solomon and simeon both still visit the devildom, though - solomon because he has a sort of job at the r.a.d., and simeon as an ambassador sort of thing for the celestial realm. the r.a.d.’s also less of a school and more of an organisation?? i haven’t really fleshed it out haha)
fandom: obey me!
character(s): male! reader, solomon, mammon (briefly), simeon (briefly)
pairing(s): solomon/reader
warning(s): blasphemy??? solomon disses god really briefly and that’s about it
genre: fluff!!!!!!!!!
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As a general rule of thumb, Solomon doesn’t believe in destiny.
He’s lived long enough to know that, no matter what he does, the universe does not care about him, much less have some sort of plan for his future. The course that the world takes isn’t affected by some grand puppet master pulling the strings; one has to force the so-called path of fate in the direction they want it to take if they want something. Solomon knows this better than anyone.
It’s as much a downfall as it is a strength - as much as power as he’s amassed over the countless years, his constant need to challenge the universe’s power has lead him down a path far from humanity. There had been a time when he was like every other human on the Earth, when he was still young, full of hope and determination and promise, believing earnestly in some God high in the sky who would guide him through his life.
He shudders to think what sort of insufferable fool he’d been back then. An almighty God? Don’t make him laugh. The ruler of the Celestial Realm is incompetent at best, and a downright childish brat at worst. He doesn’t know how the angels put up with him - though he supposes his realm-smiting power is part of it. Why the universe chose to place such power on such a being’s shoulders will always be beyond him.
Long as it has been since he had been so naive, Solomon has learnt his lesson, to say the least. He’s seen people come and go, witnessed kings and queens reign and fall, watched on as friends and family live and die. It’s a truth that he’s been forced to learn across the years of his long, long life, a curse that he brought upon himself the moment he gave up the purity of his soul in pursuit of magical arts. 
He supposes he’s always had an insatiable thirst for the unknown - to play all his cards out front, to tempt fate’s hand, to jump into the void and hope to find ground beneath his feet when he lands. It’s that sort of reckless abandon and hunt for knowledge that has led him so far down this path, through so many years, across so many sleepless nights. The world continues to swirl around him, always changing, but Solomon refuses to be swept away. Because, even in the tumultuous movement of the universe, there has always been one constant that keeps him anchored - you.
The night he'd first met you isn’t as clear in his mind as he would have liked. He wants to be able to remember everything - the way the soft blue light of the will-o’-whisps had lit up your eyes in the dark of the night, the way that your hand had felt in his as you greeted him with a handshake, the way that you had said his name for the first time - in sharp detail, but Solomon knows better than to hope to recall something so long ago so perfectly.
He’d still been relatively new to a sorcerer’s life at the time - excited and determined and a little too full of himself. You… well, he doesn’t remember exactly, but he does remember thinking that you must be the most handsome being to exist. The you of today would probably shake your head and dismiss the past you as an obnoxious high hoper, but Solomon has loved you for so many years that he’s never been able to think of you as anything less than perfect.
There are times when he wondered how he managed to stumble upon such luck. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that Solomon has has had truly insufferable periods over the years he’s known you, and he’s always considered it a miracle that you still chose to stay. Even through all the restless nights and the exhausting trips, even after all of the clashes and vexation, you have refused to give up on him.
He had asked you once, in the aftermath of an argument spurred by his inability to confide in you and your own frustration with his refusal to communicate. He remembers that night so vividly that it might well have happened just yesterday - the frustrated shouts, the shattering of glass, the warmth of your arms around his shoulders as he finally collapsed on himself. He doesn’t know what your face had looked like as he stuttered the question out in stuttering breaths, head buried in your shoulder in an effort to conceal his tears, but he imagines that it had been soft.
“I’m not going to leave you to yourself,” You had told him matter-of-factly, stroking his hair with such fondness  that it still sometimes brings a tear to his eye when he remembers it on particularly long nights. “And I’m not giving up on you, either - not now, not ever.”
Solomon had been unable to speak, too choked up by his feelings and the sudden, overwhelming love spreading through his entire body to reply. He’d only sunk deeper into your embrace, wishing that the moment could last forever.
I wonder if he still remembers that…?
“...lomon! Anyone home?!”
He jolts up from the table he’s sitting at so abruptly that he nearly knocks his head right into Mammon’s chin. The Avater of Greed, however, reacts quickly, and hops back before Solomon can break his jawbone.
“Jeez, you’re off on a different planet today,” He comments, setting his hands on his hips as Solomon shoots him the sort of look that tells him that he’s not particularly enthused about his presence at the moment. “What’s up with ya?”
Solomon isn’t quite sure how to answer. Sorry, I got distracted thinking about how perfect and lovely my husband is and how I’m the luckiest man in the entire world - nay, the universe - to have him. He nearly physically shudders at the thought of how much teasing he’d receive if he answered like that.
Instead, he chooses a much safer and still technically true option. “Just thinking about going home today.”
Mammon nods in understanding, pulling up a seat next to him and throwing himself down into it without much grace. “I feel ya. S’ been a long day.”
“You’ve barely done anything today,” Solomon quips flatly, not particularly impressed by the demon’s attempt at… empathy? Relatability? Either way, it isn’t working. “I doubt it’s been that hard.”
“Now, now, Solomon, let’s not be rude,” interjects a soft voice from behind them. Simeon is still dressed in his fancy envoy cloak - the one so long and heavy that it trails along behind him like a bridal train, decorated with a number of elaborate golden charms that jingle as he moves.
Solomon attempts to shoot him a slightly annoyed look, but it’s kind of hard to stay irritated by one of the literal embodiments of holiness and light, even if he wakes you up at very unholy hours of the morning to help him figure out how to answer an email. Solomon isn’t ungrateful for the new age of technology descending on humanity, but he’d like it a lot better if it hadn’t somehow reached the angels as well. The amount of times he’s had to tell Simeon that he needs to actually turn his D.D.D. on before he starts calling someone is… embarrassing, to say the least.
“You’re back in the Devildom, I see,” He observes as the angel pulls up a seat and sits beside him. “Did Michael send you down again?”
Simeon nods with a smile. “There were some arrangements that needed to be made with Lord Diavolo. Naturally, I volunteered.”
“Naturally,” Solomon echoes, raising a brow at his friend. “I don’t suppose your biases had anything to do with your decision?”
“Well, they may have had some effect,” Simeon answers with a shameless smile and shrug, beginning to undo the tassels of his heavy cloak and draping it on the back of chair he’s sitting on. He’s still wearing all of his regular clothes underneath it - including the other, much smaller cloak. Solomon wonders how he hasn’t somehow melted in the heat.
“When’re you gonna start heading home, anyway?” Mammon asks, beginning to pick at a loose thread on his jacket sleeve. “It’s gettin’ late.”
Solomon blinks and looks up at the clock. “...ah, you’re right. In that case, I'll get going now.”
Mammon shoots him an odd look as he pushes himself up from the table and reaches for his bag, managing to hoist it onto his shoulder with some effort. He’s never been particularly good at heavy lifting - you’re usually the one helping him carry everything around the house.
“Oi, oi, what’s the rush?” the demon asks as Solomon adjusts the weight of his bag and starts heading for the door. “You on a timer or something?”
“I promised [Name] I’d be home earlier tonight,” is Solomon’s slightly absent-minded reply as he fiddles about in his pocket to find his transportation charm, nearly losing his balance and dropping his bag in the process. “I’ll see you both tomorrow.”
Mammon watches him in clear confusion for a moment as he pats down his pockets, mumbling a quiet curse under his breath as he realises that he’s left his charm at home again. How many times this month does that make it now...? He supposes that he could always perform a teleportation spell, but knowing his luck with those, he’ll probably end up somewhere in Morocco again.
“Oi, Simeon,” Mammon hisses to the angel, who cocks his head slightly to the side and leans over so as to hear him more clearly. “Who’s this ‘[Name]’ Solomon’s talkin’ about?”
“You don’t know?” Simeon blinks at him in blatant perplexion - as if he can’t even fathom the idea that Mammon might not know who Solomon’s talking about. “He’s talking about his husband.”
There’s a long moment of silence. Then—
“Solomon has a HUSBAND!?” Mammon practically shrieks, completely flabbergasted. “I thought he was totally, like, the forever alone type!”
“Don’t tell me you’ve never noticed?” is Simeon’s bewildered response. “Who do you think Solomon is always talking about buying groceries for?”
“I thought he was just buyin’ them for himself!” Mammon fires back, looking far more ruffled and shocked than he probably should be. He whips around to look at Solomon, who’s flicking through the little packet of blank charms he keeps on him at all times in an effort to find the right one to create a temporary transportation charm. He’s had to do it so many times this month that he’s already beginning to run out. “You’re married?!”
“Of course,” Solomon answers vaguely, briefly raising his left hand, allowing Mammon to spot the soft glint of a ring around his fourth finger. “You’re not?”
“Wh— ‘course I’m not!” Mammon exclaims, positively scandalised by the very concept. “Why would I get married, huh?! It’s a waste of time and a waste of money!”
“Think whatever you like,” Solomon dismisses him easily, which only seems to irritate Mammon further.
Finally having found the right blank charm, he plucks it out and begins carefully tracing patterns onto it with a single glowing finger. He’s dimly aware of Mammon furiously whispering to Simeon in the background, with the angel responding in kind, most likely sharing some exaggerated story from back when the three of you had worked together - when Solomon had accepted a job from the Celestial Realm. The details of the whole thing are a little fuzzy to him now, long as it has been, but he’s almost completely sure that Simeon somehow still remembers the whole thing flawlessly.
“How old even is he?!” He hears Mammon hiss.
“I’m not so sure myself,” Simeon replies, placing his chin in a thoughtful hand. “Let’s see… their two millennial anniversary’s coming up in about two years, and I remember Solomon saying that they got married when he was around two hundred or so… which means he’s about twenty-one hundred years old.”
“Holy shit,” Mammon mutters in disbelief, turning glance at the sorcerer as he starts folding down the corners of his charm into the right shape. “Humans aren’t supposed to live that long. How’s his husband still alive, then?”
“That isn’t really a question for me to answer,” Simeon shakes his head slightly. “I suppose you can always ask him yourself if Solomon ever brings him to work with him.”
“I doubt it,” Solomon speaks up for the first time since announcing his departure. “He’s usually busy during the day. Besides, transportation charms make him queasy, and I’m not making him walk all the way down here.”
“Aren’t you a wizard?” Mammon asks, scratching his head. “Just do one of ya fancy teleportation spells. Why d’you need a charm?”
Solomon sighs. He hates to admit it, but he can’t be bothered to make up some other reason to cover up for himself. “I’m afraid that teleportation spells aren’t actually particularly accurate. We could end up somewhere in the Pacific if I’m not careful.”
Mammon looks thunderstruck. “Then what about all those times you’ve teleported us?! Don’t tell me we coulda ended up in, like, the Archaic Pit or something?!”
“Well, it was always a possibility,” Solomon shrugs in reply, finishing the charm with a deft flick of his hand. “You’re a demon, I sure you could have handled yourself.”
“But…!” Mammon crosses his arms and turns away like a grumpy child. “Hmph…”
“Do say hello to [Name] for me, will you?” Simeon requests as Solomon turns to open the door, ignoring the sulking demon sitting beside him. “We haven’t been able to talk for a while.”
“You text him every day, don’t you?” Solomon asks, shooting him an unimpressed look. “I’d say that’s conversation enough.”
“Now, now, there’s no need to be stingy,” Simeon countered with a smile, tilting his head slightly to the side and leaning forward. “Besides, one misses the presence of an actual person after a while of nothing but electronic communication... especially texting is so difficult. Tell him he’s always welcome to come around for some tea - Luke would be happy to see him.”
Solomon shakes his head, but makes a sound of affirmation nevertheless. You had mentioned that you’ve missed seeing Simeon since he’d started the whole negotiator businesss, and he isn’t the sort of person to deny you the company of a friend. “I’ll let him know. Anyway, I should really be going now…”
“Have a safe journey!” Simeon calls after him as he swings the door open and sweeps out. Solomon waves a hand over his shoulder in response, then disappears down the corridor, most likely to a quiet spot in the courtyard to use his charm. He’s been banned from using them indoors ever since he accidentally shattered one of the fancy artifacts in the assembly hall and sent hundreds of shards flying everywhere. Apparently Barbatos is still finding tiny pieces of glass in the crevices of the floor.
“Why didn’t Solomon ever say anythin’?” Mammon asks Simeon after a moment of quietude. “Seems like the sorta thing you’d mention.”
“Solomon’s a private man,” Simeon says with a shrug. “Besides, he and [Name] have made plenty of enemies over the years, and you’d be shocked by how quickly names and locations can spread…”
“Does he mind us knowin’ about it, then?”
“Well, personally, I’ve known for a while,” Simeon answers, “And I’m sure the others will have worked it out by now - Solomon’s always finding ways to mention [Name] in passing. But no, I’m sure he doesn’t mind. He’d say something if he did.”
Mammon nods and goes silent for a little while. Then he asks, “What’s this [Name] like, then? Must be some guy if Solomon liked him enough to put a ring on him and keep him for that long.”
“Well, let’s see…” Simeon drums his fingers thoughtfully against the tabletop. “He has quite the penchant for raising deadly plants, he hasn’t gone more than a full month without exploding something or another for about five centuries, he takes clocks apart in his spare time, he likes his coffee with a touch of vanilla, he collects cursed books, he makes a lovely butterscotch-cinnamon pie, and he works as a curse breaker for hire.”
It takes a moment for Mammon to process all of the information that’s just been dumped on him. “...sounds like the kinda guy Satan would get along with.”
“I thought so as well,” Simeon agrees. “Their house even reminds me of Satan’s room, in a way… [Name] is quite the avid reader.”
“What, you’ve been?”
“Only once,” Simeon’s eyes flutter closed for a moment as he reminisces. “Quite a long time ago now. I wouldn’t know where to find it even if I wanted to go again, though - it’s always moving.”
“Do they move house a lot, then?”
Simeon shakes his head. “Oh, no, no. They’ve lived in the same house for centuries - it’s the house that moves itself.”
Mammon pauses. “...what?”
“The building,” Simeon clarifies. “They’ve got an enchantment on the whole thing that makes it change locations every couple of weeks or so.”
“But… why?”
Simeon shrugs. “[Name] doesn’t like staying in one place for too long.”
“Still, isn’t that a bit much…?” Mammon pulls a face. “They could always just travel, ya know…”
“As Solomon said, transportation talismans make [Name] feel queasy,” Simeon explains. “And he prefers not to use teleportation spells when it comes to him, just in case they end up somewhere dangerous.”
“And he doesn’t care about the rest of us ending up somewhere dangerous?” Mammon huffs and collapses forwards onto the table.
“Well, you can’t really compare the two,” Simeon says patiently as the demon continues to mutter indignantly under his breath. “He’s his husband, and we’re essentially just his friends from work.”
Mammon opens his mouth to make a rebuttal, then thinks about it for a moment and changes his mind. After a moment, he comments, a little less resentfully, “Well, you’d think he’d at least introduce us.”
“He’s been planning to for a while, actually,” Simeon tells him. “Give him some time and he’ll probably bring it up on his own.”
Mammon nods. “He’d better!”
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“I’m home.”
You look up from the book you’re reading and hop down from your seat on the roof just in time to see Solomon emerge from the back garden, looking noticeably dishevelled, with leaves decorating his head like some sort of fancy accessory.
“Welcome back!” You greet him happily, setting the book aside and moving forward to start picking the leaves from his hair. Solomon smiles softly at you as you take his bag in one hand and start pulling him to the front door with the other. “You forgot your talisman again, by the way.”
“I noticed,” He laughs, gently removing your hand from his upper arm and wrapping his fingers around it instead. “Why else do you think I ended up in the hedges again?”
“It’s a wonder that you’ve had to make these temporary talismans so many times and you still haven’t gotten one right yet,” You tease in reply, nudging him in the shoulder. “How many points is that on the tally now, then?”
“Ten for the basement, seven for the roof, and eleven for the hedges now,” He answers with a small pout as you laugh. “Honestly, you’d think I would have learnt my lesson...”
“You never do, love.” 
The door creaks as you and your husband enter the house, only to immediately be greeted by a bundle of scales hitting you head-on. You manage to keep your footing and steady yourself on the doorway; Solomon isn’t so lucky, and ends up laying spread-eagled on the floor with about two hundred kilograms of excited adolescent dragon purring on his chest.
“Looks like Triton missed you,” You comment with a bright smile, setting Solomon’s bag down beside the umbrella rack and leaning over to give the dragon a scratch behind his left horn, just the way he likes it. He rumbles happily and jingles the little bell around his neck at you. “Isn’t he getting big?”
“I saw him this morning, [Name],” Solomon wheezes from his position on the floor, somehow managing to reach up and tickle Triton’s chin with one hand despite the dragon’s weight. “He can’t have grown that much in ten hours.”
“You never know!” You tell him, reaching up and wrapping your arms around Triton’s neck. He coos in a delighted fashion and raises his head, setting it heavily on your shoulder. Solomon uses the brief lightening of the weight on him to take in a deep breath as you allow your dragon to nuzzle furiously into your neck. “Dragons are unpredictable, you know.”
“Believe me, I do,” He sighs tiredly as Triton blows out a pleased puff of hot air and knocks the clock off the wall again. “Now, if you wouldn’t mind, Triton, I’d quite like to get back up again.”
The dragon blinks and raises his head from your shoulder, glancing down at the sorcerer that he’s crushing under his weight. Then he huffs and turns away again.
“Oh, you—!” Solomon curses as the dragon seems to press even harder into him. Your laughter rings out across the hall, and while he’d normally take a moment to admire the sound, he’s a little preoccupied. “[Name], stop laughing and help me!”
“He’s like a rebellious teenager!” You splutter helplessly in reply, voice still trembling slightly out of mirth. Triton makes a happy noise as you reach up and rub his scaly cheeks, his ears fluttering slightly. “Awww, you’re really growing up, aren’t you, baby? Your poor dads are really going to have their work cut out for them, huh?”
“Hey,” Solomon calls reproachfully from beneath Triton’s enormous chest. “Your husband’s still being crushed down here.”
“Oh, right!” You click your tongue and give Triton a meaningful look. He grumbles but obeys nevertheless, hopping off of Solomon (though not without knocking all the air out of him by using his chest as a launchpad) and scampering off, most likely to go play with the salamanders that have set up shop in the storage room again.
“I’ll never understand how you manage him so well,” Solomon sighs as you bend down to pull him to his feet, rubbing at the sore spot on his chest. “He never listens to me.”
“Aw, he loves you, really,” You reassure him, taking his hand and pressing a comforting kiss to his knuckles. “He just likes roughhousing with you.”
Solomon shakes his head, wanting to complain further about the big lizard that the two of you had adopted six months ago after the last one grew up and flew the nest, but then he sees the smile on your face, and he feels the flicker of irritation in his chest die down almost immediately. It’s at times like this that he’s really reminded of how absolutely worth it all of the nonsense he has to put up with at work is - because, at the end of the day, you are here, with your warm eyes and your lovely smile, with your comforting hands and your warm embrace, and there is no road too long to walk if you are waiting for him at the end of it.
“I know,” He sighs, tugging off his shoes and stepping into his favourite pair of slippers - the ones with the little cat faces printed on them that you’ve charmed to always maintain a perfect temperature for his feet. He glances at your own feet and notes that you’re wearing your matching pair as well.
The two of you have long since set up a routine for this sort of occasion, and you both fall into it with unconscious ease. Solomon changes into something more comfortable while you put the kettle on in the kitchen, and the two of you inevitably spend so long snuggled up together on the largest armchair in the living room, unwilling to leave the warmth of each other’s presence, that the water cools down, and you end up having to put it back on again. Then you sit together at the table, you with a coffee with a dash of vanilla and him with his favourite chrysanthemum tea that you always brew just the way he likes it. Sometimes you’ll sit side by side, shoulders pressed up against each other as you show him the specifics of your latest curse-breaking commission, and sometimes you’ll sit across from each other, holding hands across the tabletop as he tells you about his day.
Today it is the former, but Solomon can’t help but zone a little out of the detailed deep-dive you’re giving him about the intricacies of the spell that’s cursed this teapot to shoot its contents at anyone who attempts to fill it. It isn’t that your explanation is boring - quite the contrary, in fact; Solomon could probably listen to you describing the most mundane or trivial of things on loop for the rest of his life and be perfectly content with it. No, it’s more to do with the fact that this is the first time he’s been home before dark in a long while, and he can’t help but revel in the fact that he can spend time with you like this again. Of course, there’s something wonderful in coming home to be able to collapse into bed beside you and bury his face in the crook of your neck, drifting to sleep as you burrow closer to him even in your sleep, but Solomon can’t run off of that forever - he needs to see you with your eyes open as well, after all. 
“You’re not listening to a word I say, are you?” You ask as you note the far-off look on your husband’s face. You’re not offended in the slightest by the way he starts at the directed question, evidently guilty, but you are a little puzzled. “Is there something wrong?”
Solomon’s mouth falls open slightly, then shuts again. There’s something about the way you’re looking at him so earnestly that makes his heart stutter like nothing else. Honestly, you’d think he’d be used to this after nearly two thousand years, but it seems that he’s still as weak for you as he was on the very first day of your marriage. “...I suppose I’ve just got a lot on my mind.”
“You always have a lot on your mind,” You counter softly, giving his hand a brief squeeze. “Come on, you can tell me.”
He laughs quietly, bringing your linked hands up to his face and gently holding yours to the side of his face; you, in turn, unfurl your fingers from around his and rub his cheek affectionately. After a moment, a fond smile pulling at his lips, Solomon replies, “I’ve… missed you a lot this week.”
You pause in mild surprise, but it quickly turns to endearment as Solomon presses his body even closer to yours. The hand that you’re using to hold your mug of coffee moves to settle on his shoulder as you pull him closer. “Really now? What a coincidence. I’ve missed you lots as well, love.”
He chuckles a little bashfully, his cheeks flushing. It seems that your ability to fluster him hasn’t declined even a bit over the years. He’s still well and truly besotted.
You can’t help but find it rather amusing that, despite already having spent a good hour and a half or so in the living room, bundled so close together in the blankets that you could feel his breath on your skin, the two of you are still nestling so close together now. You suppose it’s the effects of a week with much less contact than usual.
You lean forward and press a kiss to his jaw before pulling back again, reaching for your coffee and taking a sip. Solomon exhales softly, pulling his own drink towards him and draining the last of the tea in a single mouthful.
“You know,” He says, setting his empty cup down on the table. “One of my coworkers was asking about you earlier.”
“‘Coworkers’,” You snort at his choice of language, earning a reproachful poke in the side as punishment. “Come on, just admit that they’re your friends.”
“Fine,” He sighs. “One of my friends, then - Mammon, the one that Lucifer’s stringing up all the time.”
“The one with white hair?” You recall, thinking back to the group photo that Simeon had sent you a while back. “He’s the Avatar of Greed, right?”
“That’s the one,” Solomon nods. “Apparently he never noticed that I was married.”
“Well, you can’t really blame him,” You say, giving him a playful nudge. “Honestly, the way you keep your mouth shut, you’d think I was some shameful secret or something.”
Solomon looks scandalised by the very idea - it had only been a little joke, but his eyes flash with such affront that it’s almost as if someone has genuinely called you such a thing. “Of course not! I’d never—”
“Hey, hey, it’s okay, I was joking,” You cut him off before he can get more riled up. Solomon calms down quickly once you set a comforting hand on his knee, though he still looks a little indignant. “I know why you don’t like talking about us much, but really, it’s okay. They’re your friends, aren't they?”
He hesitates, then nods, releasing another deep sigh soon afterwards. “I suppose. There isn’t much I can really do about it at this point anyway… according to Simeon, most of them have somehow figured it out already.”
“They’re probably a lot smarter than you give them credit for, Sol,” You hum, reaching up and brushing a stray lock of hair out of his eyes for him. “They’re demons, after all. They’ve lived even longer than us.”
“Believe me, they really aren’t.” Solomon shakes his head, a frown pinching at his brow at the very memory of the amount of things that his coworkers have done recently - some of the most notable being Diavolo setting an entire flock of geese free in the courtyard for an ‘experiment’, Levi quite literally throwing himself out of a window just to win a bet against Mammon about who could get down the stairs faster, Asmo causing a stampede in the main hall by dropping and shattering a bottle full of a powerful aphrodisiac potion that became even more powerful once released into the air, and Lucifer accidentally breaking one of Solomon’s favourite cauldrons when he’d transformed into his demon form and inadvertently smacked halfway across the room it with one of his upper wings.
“I’d really love to meet them some day,” You sigh, swirling the contents of your mug around. “They sound like fun.”
“Trust me, the trouble isn’t worth it—” Solomon attempts to reason with you, but he gives up laughably quickly as you pout at him in protest. “Oh, fine. But don’t blame me if you get sick because of the charm again.”
“We don’t have to use the charm,” You shake your head. “Just do a teleportation spell!”
“You know that that’s risky,” Solomon sighs, chucking you under the chin and leaning forward to kiss the tip of your nose. You laugh as he draws back again, a pleased smile rising on his face at your reaction. “We could end up anywhere.”
“You’ve teleported them a bunch of times, though, haven’t you? And you haven’t ended up in Texas or the Sahara Desert any of those times!”
The resemblance to his earlier conversation with Mammon and Simeon is almost uncanny. “That’s different. I was still teleporting them within the Devildom, not across an entire realm barrier… and besides, I can afford the risk with them. You’re a different story.”
You pout again, shoulders dropping in defeat, though it doesn’t escape Solomon’s notice that his sentiment seems to have appeased you at least a little. “...guess we’ll just have to use a transportation talisman, huh…?”
“That’s your only option if you really want to visit, yes.”
You go quiet for a moment or two, nose wrinkling and face scrunching as you think it over. Solomon doesn’t mind the lack of conversation - he entertains himself by studying your features, wondering for perhaps the millionth time how he managed to find someone like you.
Finally, a determined look rising on your face, you nod and proclaim, “Then I’ll do it!”
Solomon cocks his head slightly to the side. He can’t say he’s surprised by your eagerness, but he had expected it to take you longer to make up your mind. He opens his mouth to say something, but tou answer his question before he’s even asked it, a skill that you’d managed to pick up within the first year or so of knowing him.
“I really wanna see what you actually get up to when you work,” You explain, looking a little sheepish. “You’ve had a job there for nearly two years and I’ve never even said a word to the people you work with.”
Solomon laughs. “It isn’t usually a requirement in the workplace. Wear appropriate uniform, bring any equipment you need, introduce your husband to your coworkers within the decade…”
“Still, I’d feel bad if I didn’t at least meet them,” You say. “Besides, I want to see Simeon as well. You said he’s working down in the Devildom for a bit as well, didn’t you?”
“Why are you so eager to see him, huh?” Solomon’s tone is light and teasing, so you know not to take him seriously as he puts on an hurt expression. “I’m offended. Your dear husband’s right here and you’re thinking about some angel.”
“Oh, stop it, you,” You shake your head in slightly exasperated amusement as he runs a finger down his cheek in lieu of a tear. “You know it’s not like that.”
“Isn’t it?” He pulls an exaggeratedly petulant face and pretends to turn away like an upset child. “Sometimes I feel like you love him more than me.”
“Simeon’s a lovely guy, but you’re still the only guy for me, you doof,” You tell him, tapping fondly at the cheek he’s turned to you with your free hand. Solomon obligingly turns back around to look at you, a grin pulling at his mouth. “Why would I marry you and then stay here for two thousand years if you weren't?”
“I guess I always assumed it was out of pity or something,” He jokes in response, leaning forward and briefly brushing his nose against yours. “And, just so you know, you’re the only guy for me as well.”
“I’d better be,” is your lighthearted reply as he pulls away. After a moment, looking at him expectantly, you begin tentatively, “So…?”
He sighs, but gives you a smile nevertheless. “I’ll ask Diavolo. He probably wouldn’t mind if I brought you without asking first, but Lucifer definitely would.”
“What’ll we do if they hate me?” You ask. “Do demons actually eat humans?”
“They wouldn’t dare,” He replies firmly. “Not if I have anything to say about it. Besides, they won’t hate you. I doubt anyone could.”
You laugh and drop your head to rest on his chest. “You’re too nice to me, love.”
Solomon turns to wrap both his arms around your shoulders, setting his chin on the crown of your head. You smile into his jumper, looping your own arms around his waist and pushing yourself closer to him.
“I’m not just being nice. Honestly, [Name], you’re kind of the most perfect man in the universe.”
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neoculturetravesty · 3 years
Text
We met in online class - Last Part
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Image adapted from here.
Pairing: Renjun x Reader Genre: College AU, romance, angst, fluff Warnings: Strong language Word Count: 3.4k
Navigation: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | You are on the Last Part
A/N: And so it comes to an end, and let me tell you guys, I am not okay 😔 This is going to be a bit of a longer A/N, so please bear with me. If you’d like to get straight to the story, I COMPLETELY UNDERSTAND, so feel free to click Keep Reading!
Lowkey, I had a bit of a meltdown as I typed the final words on this fic because I hadn’t realized how attached I had grown to the characters. This is the first time I wrote three different chapter openers before deciding on one, because I simply couldn’t believe it was goodbye after this.
These mofos had constantly been on my mind for the past two months and a half. I would spend most days thinking about where to take them and then bringing them to life at night, after my entire day was over. When I wasn’t writing, I’d make little notes about thoughts I had into the night about them so that I wouldn’t forget them when morning comes. 
This was my first ever (and as of right now, my only) chaptered fic. I had no idea parting with it would be as emotional as it was. When I think back to when I first received the prompt for this, I had never even imagined I could write Renjun, let alone a series. But there was something in the prompt that had gotten my wheels turning. And I am so immensely glad that it did. There were days when I thought “Oh man, what have I gotten myself into.” Some days, the story would just flow. Other days, I’d keep staring at the blinking cursor not knowing what to type. But when I did, I found my emotions so deeply connected with the characters. I was happy when they were happy. I was sad when they were sad. So, parting with them is very hard to say the least.
But through this journey, I got to experience the joy of reading all of your reviews and comments and honestly, it made it all worth it. THANK YOU to every single one of you that read this story and waited on it and laughed and cried with it. You have made my life better in more ways than you can imagine.
In this moment, I want to thank 🍙 anon, because it was their prompt that put me in this mess in the first place. And so, it is only fitting that I dedicate the final part to them 💛
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“Oh, we definitely need a picture together. How about here? I think this place would fit everyone.” Kim Doyoung looks about, finding a spot best suited for the photo he wanted.
“I think right there on the platform would be better. We could get everyone in two tiers.” his assistant suggests.
“You’re a genius. Let’s gather everyone. It’s not often that so many NCTU grads and students come to Midnight Arthouse,” Doyoung nods.
“How many of us are here, anyway?” Renjun muses. The assistant looks at her iPad, checking once again.
“I think there’s 23 of you. So, let’s definitely go for the platform.” she nods.
“Okay, then.” Doyoung claps his hands together once, “Gather everyone,” he says to no one in particular and walks ahead with purpose. Renjun and the assistant’s eyes meet and they smirk. Of course this was directed to the both of them. So, they set about to work.
As it would turn out, gathering 23 people from a charity event with art and food and drinks would be a bit of a task. But somehow, they manage to gather all alumni and current students on the platform in three tiers instead of two for a somewhat chaotic picture. There must’ve been something in the water at NCTU because none of it’s students could stand still for very long. They get maybe one decent picture and several in which someone or the other was moving or pulling a face.
His friends aside, looking around at the group, Renjun realized that he recognized nearly all of them. Yangyang and Hendery and the rest of their frat were here. As were the 127s, old and new. Renjun recognized them all, except maybe two boys, who didn’t seem to know a lot of the others either. When the pictures were done and the main events were over and the crowd had started to dissipate, Renjun finally walked over to the artwork to observe it up close.
Honestly speaking, watching the work with his own two eyes left no doubt in his mind that this artist deserved to be spotlighted like this. This work was in a league of its own. Watching it makes Renjun smile; because looking at it makes him think back to a few months ago when he was sitting in Kim Doyoung’s office, thinking of himself as some sort of a big shot. But the truth is, there was no way he had that caliber then, and there is no way he has that caliber now, though he was sure as hell working on it.
“This is the piece I lost the bid on.” Renjun hears a voice and he turns around to see Zhong Chenle’s father observing the art with him. Renjun bows politely and smiles under his mask,
“I mean, this is a remarkable piece. You have good taste.” Renjun acknowledges.
“What about you? Why isn’t any of your artwork displayed here?” he asks and for a while, Renjun smiles a bit nostalgically. He could’ve been here, had he made something for the Annuale. Had he just selfishly taken that shot. Then again, there would’ve been no real guarantees. Because Kim Doyoung was pretty particular in the people he chose, whether they were recommended by his family or not. Working with him closely in the last couple of months had taught Renjun that. It had also taught him how underdeveloped his skill was in the real world context.
“I guess I still have a long way to go.” Renjun replies humbly.
“Don’t we all?” Chenle’s father nods, “Are you working here at this establishment?” 
“Um, I… I suppose I am. I am Kim Doyoung’s apprentice. He is my mentor.” Renjun nods.
“So I might see your work here soon enough, eh?” Renjun assumes the kind man is smiling under his mask because his eyes seem to be making the same shape as Chenle’s do when he smiles. So Renjun grins back.
“I mean… if I work really hard, I might get to shoot my shot in the next Midnight Arthouse Annuale.” Renjun fantasizes.
“Or maybe you’d get lucky like this young artist,” he points his chin towards the artwork.
Renjun smiles, “I would credit her luck, too if I hadn’t seen her work. But her talent is… it kinda speaks for itself.”
“Oh, no, you should definitely credit her luck. Talent isn’t enough. The stars have to align. Luck, talent, the right place, the right time. It all has to come together.” he says nodding. 
Renjun considers his words. They seem to be coming from the wisdom of experience. 
What if Renjun hadn’t received the phone call about his grandma back then? Well, then he probably would’ve made something lackluster and gotten rejected. Working with Kim Doyoung has taught him as much. It didn’t matter who had put a word in for him. At the end of the day, his work had to be outclass.
What if he had received the phone call and then still had enough time to submit something for the Annuale? Then he still probably wouldn’t have because… well, because of you.
What if he had gone ahead, regardless of you or his grandma and just made something and submitted it? Then he still would’ve been rejected. Because the truth of the matter is, he just didn’t have the caliber that artists associated with Midnight Arthouse did.
In that sense, Renjun supposes everything was in fact happening at the right place and right time now. Doyoung was mentoring him and he was getting better by the day. The stars were aligning for him. He knew it in his heart.
“Then I would wish that it all comes together for me, too.” Renjun says.
“When it does, young man, I’ll be the first one to bid on your work.” he says and Renjun doesn’t even have the time to react when he feels a presence breeze in his direction and invade his personal space.
Renjun doesn’t even have to look up to know who it is. He can tell by the way this body fits perfectly into his side. He can tell by how naturally his own body responds and just puts his arm around it’s waist.
“Oh man, I missed all of it, didn’t I?” you lament, as you loop your arms around his neck from the side instead of a hello.
“Not all of it. The guys just left but your brother and his friends are still here. Besides, you had work.” Renjun turns his head and looks into your eyes to reassure you. “Y/N, this is Chenle’s father.”
“Oh, hello!” you say cheerfully and respectfully bow and give you greetings. “It is so nice to meet you. Chenle looks just like you!”
“Yes, I’ve been told I’m a more handsome version of him,” he smiles then turns to Renjun, “And who might this young lady be?”
“This is my girlfriend, Y/N. She goes to NCTU with us.” Renjun introduces you and you bow again. Oh, the thrill he got every time he got to introduce you as his girlfriend. Fuck, he’s pretty sure he’d never tire of it, even if it had just been a few months. The serotonin boost in his veins is strong and he gets the urge to squeeze you and hold you forever.
“Oh, that’s very nice. Come have a meal with us before we have to catch a plane back home, okay?” Chenle’s father invites the two of you. 
“Oh, I would love to!” you say in your chipper tone before your eyes start darting around “I’m going to have to excuse myself for a little bit, I just wanna say hi to my brother.” you say and you politely bow before you start moving away.
“Babe, hang on…” Renjun says, holding you back by your hand. He brings his fingers delicately to the bridge of your nose and softly pinches down the mask over it so it sits more snugly on you. “There, it’s much safer now.” Renjun nods and watches the affectionate smile your eyes give before you move away. You looked so pretty today, even if you were just coming back from a four-hour internship. You were easily the most beautiful girl in this room, though Renjun suspected that you’d be the most beautiful girl in any room you entered. 
Albeit sometimes, Renjun had to wonder if your talent or your beauty was greater. Because you had become the only junior in NCTU to land an internship at the SMK Trainee Drive. And now that you were a senior, you were somehow managing to keep your grades up alongside it. 
Renjun, on the other hand, would find himself struggling with balancing his apprenticeship with his school work. So he knew firsthand how your discipline was something else altogether. Recently though, he had experienced a rise in his grades because you had been taking him on so many study dates that your organizational skills and motivation had started to rub off on him.
Renjun walks around the studio and the party and feels like it’s been too long till you’re finally back by his side. 
“Love in the Time of Corona,” you read the title of an art piece displayed in front of you. “That was supposed to be our thing.”
Renjun laughs and has no qualms in looping his arms around your waist and finally pulling you into himself.
“I guess we should’ve realized then how un-novel the idea would become in a few months.” he comments. 
“Un-novel is not a word, Huang Renjun.” you narrow your eyes at him.
Renjun laughs. “It is now,” he says and lets out a long exhale, “I missed you today.” he complains, though he looks down at you with warmth.
“Well, you’ve got me now. And you have me for the entire weekend.” you reassure him, your palms on his chest.
“Mhmm.” Renjun smiles and he wants to lean in to kiss you. But Kim Doyoung specifically had people assigned to walk around and make sure that everyone had their masks on when inside. “Also, we already have a thing.” he reminds you and winks.
You laugh, and say “I guess we do,” then let out a happy sigh as your eyes avert from his for a moment, taking in your surroundings. “Our Couple Thing should give you some ideas on what you can make when your work is displayed here in the 2022 Annuale. I won’t be late to that, I promise. I’ll take a day off from everything else in my life.”
Renjun's heart grows warmer still, and he’s sure his eyes reflect what he feels, “How can you be so sure my work will be displayed in the 2022 Annuale?”
“I don’t know, Huang Renjun. I just have a feeling about you.” you say and Renjun can see you smile even if your lips are covered by a mask. Your eyes always smiled before your mouth did, anyway.
“Y/N L/N, I have a feeling about you, too.” he retorts. 
“And what feeling would that be?” you raise an eyebrow.
“It’s a secret.” he says, but now he sees your pout, even if he can’t see your mouth because your cheeks have puffed up over the mask. It makes him laugh.
“You’re no fun.” you protest.
“I’ll tell you once we get out of here.” Renjun offers.
“Well, I’m ready to leave.” you jut your chin up. Renjun grins and offers you his arm. You grab it with your entire body and the two of you start walking out together.
You had plans for the weekend, after all. And Renjun was determined to keep you all to himself for once, with no one else demanding your time. Not your internship, not your assignments, not any of your friends, and especially not Lee fucking Donghyuck. He was finally going to take you away where it could just be you and him and nobody else.
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This moment felt way too surreal to Renjun.
The campfire had simmered down from a glorious roar to a comfortable burn, giving off just enough heat in the cool of an early winter evening. The sky was in it’s fading moments, where the pink of the light was slowly turning to violets and the violets were slowly merging into darks. 
Renjun remembered suggesting to you all that time ago that maybe you could go somewhere together. But now that he was here, he hadn’t imagined that the moment would feel as surreal as it did. 
Because now the two of you are sitting in front of your tent by the fire, entwined in one another. You’re sitting between his legs, arms around his neck, nuzzling your cheek inside his padded jacket while he supports your head on his arm and kisses you.
He’s holding you in his arms and kissing you and everything seems so perfect that for a moment, he has to pull away to watch your face and wonder if all of this was real. And though there is a gentle smile on your face, you’re not opening your eyes much. Because you know full well that Renjun’s lips would be back on yours in no time. So you play with his hair as they fall to his forehead and when he kisses you again, you press up into him so he would wrap his arms around you and hold you tighter. He does and he rubs his hands up and down your back and attempts to close his jacket around you.
“Are you cold?” he asks lovingly. You shake your head.
“No. I just want to crawl inside you.” you say, like it’s the most logical thing to be said.
“Creepy.” Renjun remarks but holds you closer still.
“You should be happy you haven’t seen my collection of your hair clippings.” you quip as you nip into the skin of his neck.
“Oh, sweet. That rivals all your used tissues I’ve kept in my shrine at home.”
“Aww, you shouldn’t have.” you coo at him and then lean up to kiss him some more and he laughs. But soon, he pushes the arm that you were using like a pillow up so your face would be closer to his and he could kiss you as deeply as he was truly craving. 
The two of you keep kissing like that till the sky is dark. It was an odd sort of trance, being so lost in one another that neither of you cared about what time it was or how long you had been sitting here, wrapped up in one another. Your phones were zipped away in your bags and you hadn’t checked them even once since you had parked your camping van and set up your tent. It was a slow, peaceful sort of bliss, just sitting by the fire and kissing and kissing with nothing else on your minds but being here like this with one another.
“Renjun?” you say, your voice sounding like it was returning from a deep thought.
“Hmm?” Renjun asks as he combs your hair away from your pretty face.
“You know, I learnt today that a cactus can live anywhere between 10 and 200 years.” you tell him, idly tracing the birthmark on the back of his hand.
Renjun leans in and presses long into your lips. “Yeah?” he replies and watches your face. It seemed hazily focused, like it was trying to catch onto a faraway thought.
“I also learnt that it can take up to 30 years for a cactus to bear flowers.” you say in an introspective, wistful tone.
Renjun looks away to hide his smile. Oh God, you were so cute. “Yeah?” he says again, but it’s getting more and more difficult to keep a serious face.
“Sometimes, a cactus doesn’t flower at all.” you say and then you turn your head to look at him like you’ve resurfaced from your thoughts and are now in the moment. Renjun’s grin grows wider. “Renjunnn…” you whine and so he has no choice but to tenderly hold your cheeks in his palms and stroke your hair.
“What?” he chuckles.
“You said you’d think you’re worthy of my forgiveness when the cactus bears flowers.” you whine again and Renjun has to plant a loving kiss to your forehead.
“Is that what I said?” he chuckles some more and then leans in to kiss the anxious realization away from your lips. 
“Renjun.” you pout and Renjun laughs and takes his beautiful, whiny, kindhearted girlfriend in his arms and hopes that his hold could chase away all the worries from her pretty, brilliant mind.
He kisses you because his heart can’t bear it any longer. How did he manage to hold a heart like yours in his hand?
Renjun feels an indescribable amount of happiness. Like he wasn’t sure that you were really here with him, in his arms, all for him to hold, with no worry or burden afflicting him. The happiness is so immense and so incredible and so heavy that for a moment, he feels it suffocating him. He wonders if he deserved this kind of happiness.
But right in the next moment, he stops himself. He knew how easy it was to relapse into those tempting, lonesome thoughts. But if there was anything that therapy was teaching him, it was that of course he deserved happiness. 
Though right now, holding you in his arms, this happiness was choking him. He felt like his heart was swelling and pressing against his lungs and his chest couldn’t bear it and he could no longer breathe. 
“Y/N…” he exhales, holding you back so he can look at your face and you could look up into his. He pauses to gather another breath. Then, he just says it. “I love you.”
And doing so does the trick. He feels his chest slowly getting lighter, because this is what it had been bursting with. Now, he’s told you. Now, it can be unburdened.
You look up at him and there is nothing but a sparkle in your eye, and tenderness in your smile. For a while, you say nothing, just looking upon his eyes like that. “Thank you.” you finally whisper back at him.
Renjun pauses for a moment. But then, he relaxes. This was okay. You didn’t have to say it back right away. Renjun was ready to give you as much time as you needed. So he presses his lips into your forehead once again till he feels you laughing against him. He pulls back in confusion and you grab at the lapel of his parka.
“Huang Renjun…” you say and he looks back at you with uncertainty, “... I love you, too.”
And Renjun can’t help it if he kisses you too hard. He can’t help it that he’s squeezing you too tight. He wouldn’t care if the night brightens back into morning and the morning fades back into night. He was going to hold you just like this for the rest of his life. 
So he lays you down and kisses you deeper, like he wanted to make up for all the time he had lost. All the time in his life when he hadn’t known you. All the time he had known you and didn’t let himself have you. He was going to make up for it all. And as he zips the tent up and shields you from the rest of the world, he wonders if he could spend all of his days just like this. Holding you and loving you and knowing that you loved him back; and if he could, today was a damn good day to start.
The fire slows to a simmer till all that’s left are embers that keep being carried away by the breeze. But the two of you remain inside, in your own world, happy that you had found one another, happy that you could finally have one another. Happy that you could hold one another and say that you loved each other and have nothing in the world hold you back, not now, not ever.
You were Y/N and Renjun, Renjun and Y/N, two names that were forever intertwined because that’s how people would call you now. You were the couple that belonged so perfectly with one another that people would wonder if you’d been together for years. And any time someone with a burning curiosity would come up to you and ask,
“So, where did you guys meet?” you would just look at one another, smile and say, “Well, we met in online class.”
~THE END
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Copyright © 2021 NeoCultureTravesty. All rights reserved.
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motthe · 2 years
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hi hi!! just me here again to tell you how much I adore the part in hindered heart where Van gives Jason his tattoo! wouldn't that be her first official ink work on another person in years?? the vibes just must've been so good for them then. she finally gets to be back in her element after so long, and it's with Jason, and he gets to see her in her zone for real this time, and have her art permanently on his skin! like, that's sexy. and he was so trusting of her and what she'd give him! just them talking and enjoying each other's presence for 3 hours with brief appearances from their other friends, she must've been so happy 💕 I just love that part so much, you did amazing with it ❤️❤️❤️
you have been so freaking amazing with feedback and just hyping me up in general and i am so thankful for it. hopefully the next part of hh will come sooner than later but as a thank you i wrote you a special little something from Jason’s POV. hope you like it ❤️
little sketches & a tattoo
“She really misses it, you know.”
Jason’s attention is pulled from you hunched over the table, keen eyes having been centered on your hand as it whisked over your journal page. No doubt another masterpiece in the making, he thinks.
When his eyes meet Nick’s, he ignores the suggestive eyebrow raise and instead mutters, “Miss what?”
“Her tattoo parlor back home.” Nick nods to you across the room, completely unaware of their discussion as you bob your head to the music streamlining through your earphones. “She’s been at this job for a while now. Gotta be tough having all that creativity with nowhere for it to go.”
“It’s goin’ somewhere,” he argues lightly, that thick art register of yours filled to the brim. Never had he gotten to flip through the thing at his own leisure but he’s gotten his share fair of glimpses. You made use of all the space on each and every page. He reckons that’s the only reason you haven’t used up all the space, yet. That and you tend to doodle on just about every paper or file that comes your way. He always knows if you’ve had something before it reaches his hands.
While he would deny this in an instant if someone asked, it may or may not be true he had a box shoved under his bunk with various notes you’d passed him during team meetings. They weren’t anything special to anyone else, he bets, but those little caricatures of Nick yawning or the captain scowling off into the distance make his darker days a bit brighter. His favorite is the one you drew of him, snoozing off during a break with his hat shoved over his eyes. You’d said you were almost tempted to add drool to his lip but saved him the teasing and only left a few drifting Zs over his head. One too many times he’s traced over your handwriting sprawled over the back of that drawing.
‘Sweet dreams,’ it says with a heart that stays with him every time he looks at you.
“Think you’d let her tattoo you?” Nick asks, yanking him out if his reverie.
“Been wantin’ another one for ages and I’ve seen her serious pieces. I’d take one if she’s offerin’.”
“Her birthday’s coming up.”
Jason curses. He loses time too often in Iraq and after missing your birthday last year, he’d told himself he would do something nice for the next. Here he is, surprised again just on the early side of the date.
“Guess I’ll let you skimp off my idea,” Nick laughs as Jason rubs a hand over his face. “Needs to pass through the heads first anyway and you’re the messenger.”
Jason’s stunned at the elaborate plan to get you a more personal gift. The men around the base don’t get too riled up about these events but there’s something about your birthday that has not only him but Nick wanting to do something a bit more special. Captain doesn’t mind in the least when he goes to get her to okay the project. She manages to get the contacts of your friends at the parlor within days. Nick handles the pleasantries of which Jason is all too relieved with. He’s the Lieutenant after all, there’s always work to be done.
He makes the trip to get the package when it arrives, signing off on it and answering the questions when securities checks through everything. All of the shit he and Nick went through for it to arrive late is worth it, though, when your eyes gloss over. His chest aches when you hold back the tears and it’s all he can do to tease to get you to crack a grin and let them slip free as you laugh.
He’d cleared his schedule the day before in hopes you would be eager to use the tools again after so long. Thank God you are and although it’s three hours of pricking pain, he’d go another three just to watch the way your expression shifts as you get into your true element all over again. It’s the longest period he’s ever gotten a chance to talk with you—the longest he’s ever mostly been alone with you.
All the little details he’d had over a year to glance at when you’re not looking are right there for him to take in. And, damn, you sit so close. So close he has to pray you can’t feel his heartbeat through his arm. He supposes it’s easy to brush off with the stuff you’re doing to him but the pain he’s used to. Having you a breath away is rare and almost too much to bear when you smile as you crack jokes and furrow your brow when you ask if he needs a break.
God, he never knew how much he wanted a woman that could make him laugh until he met you.
At the end of the day as he’s laying in bed with his arm wrapped and your art etched on his skin permanently, he tells himself that this might be the only thing he’ll have of you when this war ends: little sketches and your tattoo.
And fuck, if he isn’t just happy to have that and the precious memories of you and you alone.
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jerryb2 · 3 years
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I mean….you all knew this was coming ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ : the Star Wars Art of one Mr. Drew Struzan. 
And look, the man has done so much and has such a diverse portfolio that Star Wars is only one very small part of his career. If you want to explore some of his other works, then might I suggest that you check out his website. 
As for me here, we’ll be sticking strictly to his SW art. Now, with that out of the way, here we go…
*cracks knuckles*
I have to admit that before I really started to dig into this, I didn’t realize just how many Bantam Era (and beyond) Star Wars books this man has illustrated. Nearly 50 titles, ranging from novels to comics, short stories & even an RPG supplement. 🤯 
And so, after much consideration, I decided to just pull all the titles that feature his art off my bookshelf and take a few pics for you guys:
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First off, I just want to point out that I don’t have every book he’s ever illustrated. Some of them are just harder than hard to find, are hilariously expensive, or I just don’t have an edition that features his art prominently - you’ll see what I mean. Right off the bat though, you can see that he was really hitting his stride in the mid-90′s, with all but a handful of these coming out between ‘94 & ‘99. One of the highlights from this time for me, is The Callista Trilogy.
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I just want to stress that The Callista Trilogy is a highlight for me only because of its gorgeous cover art. 🤣 Other than that, this book series needs to go lay down. 
Anyway, the designs are all really striking and even after all these years, absolutely iconic. And you can really see Struzan’s distinct visual style at play here; not a painting in the same vein as something from Dave Doorman, and not a simple trace. Rather, something that is stylized in a very particular, very subtle way, almost to the point where it appears photo-realistic at first glance. Beautiful.
Next up is this trio of trilogies (good use of words, me), collected in these Science Fiction Book Club (SFBC) hardcovers: 
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Once again, these covers are just striking, particularly The Black Fleet Crisis. This is actually what I was referring to when I said that I don’t always have the best editions for a Drew Struzan appreciation post. 😅 
Because these are hardcover collections of paperback books, we actually miss out on a good bit of the art. For these SFBC special editions, the publisher just took all three and basically photoshopped the best bits of each one together. The one that suffers the most here is obviously The Corellian Trilogy, where they didn’t even try to blend everything together, and instead just separated everything into columns. I don’t personally mind it (and I do love having the hardcover editions of these books) but if you want to see the covers as they were originally intended, just pickup those mass market paperbacks. 🙂
There’s a lot more to get through, so I’ll just hit the highlights here; even though he didn’t illustrate The Thrawn Trilogy (that was Tom Jung, who I personally think did an okay-ish job at best), he did an absolutely amazing job with the follow-up, The Hand of Thrawn Duology in ‘98 & ‘99:
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I’ve always loved these covers. And narratively speaking, they really do serve as one last hurrah on the Bantam Era. Oh, and also please note, Mara Jade on the cover of Vision of the Future, just as Zahn originally described her. ❤❤❤
If you step back and look at Struzan’s work as a whole, it’s all incredibly unified. I bring this up here because even though some of these are books relatively ‘meh’ worthy, Struzan maintained a level of quality that belied the mediocrity contained within. And also to say that he was definitely busy, particularly in 1994:
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That’s right - all of these released in ‘94, within a few months of one another. These covers man… *chef’s kiss*
And look I’m sorry, I just can’t help myself: The Crystal Star was a hilarious joke until we all realized they were serious about it. 😳
Alright, that’s a little on the harsh side; it’s not nearly as bad as most make it out to be, and Waru as a source for unlimited power (citation needed 👀😉) isn’t any more ridiculous than the 50 other post-Palpy, hair-brained Imperial schemes that everybody else cooked up, so I guess it fits. And besides, I really wanna be nice to Vonda McIntyre here, but this book was just so so boring. 😴
*clears throat* Moving on, here we have a couple Barnes & Noble hardcover collections of The Jedi Prince Series:
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The same thing applies here; cover art photoshopped from across 6 different YA novels to get these. They don’t look bad, far from it. But rather this series has some things that people would rather forget about, namely a supposed son of Palpatine (spoiler: he wasn’t) named Triclops who had - wait for it - 3 eyes. 
Like Tien. From DBZ. Yep. 🤦‍♂️
Moving further down the list, we have yet another pair of iconic cover designs, being I, Jedi (the only Star Wars novel written in the first person, and an appropriate riff on Isaac Asimov’s I, Robot - yes ladies & gentlemen, that is as clever as Star Wars gets) and The New Rebellion.
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Classics, no doubt….but for reals, did anybody else ever wonder why the X-Wing on the cover of I, Jedi is missing an S-Foil? Or how that one slipped through??? 👀
Ah, at last we arrive at what is arguably Struzan’s most famous work; the covers for Shadows of the Empire & The Star Wars Trilogy: Special Edition.
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It’s hard to overstate just how important Shadows of the Empire really was for Star Wars as a brand. In an era where SW books were already extremely popular, the Shadows of the Empire Multimedia Project basically served as a breakout hit and reignited interest in SW media across the board. This was in no small part due to the striking imagery captured on its cover - are you seeing a pattern here?
This success actually renewed Lucas’ interest in a theatrical re-release of the OT in 1997….which of course, feature more beautiful art from Drew Struzan:
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These are my OG Special Edition VHS tapes from back in the day. I watched these so damn much as a kid. In fact, they’re basically the whole reason that I’m here, annoying the shit out of everybody today. 😁
After the Bantam Era concluded & the Star Wars publishing license went to Del Rey, Struzan did progressively fewer pieces for SW media. Here we see his contribution for the latter half of the Last of the Jedi YA series, and his kick-ass cover art for the Darth Maul comic: 
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And when I say that Struzan did progressively fewer pieces for Star Wars, I am of course omitting his turn as the poster artist for the freaking Prequel Trilogy: 
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Say what you will about the films, but these poster designs are nothing short of genius. 
Look guys, it would be pretty easy for me to downplay Struzan’s Star Wars portfolio as just one small part of his incredible career. But my dudes, this is literally just the tip of the iceberg. The man has been a professional illustrator for over 50 years, and his art has delighted and inspired generations. From Star Wars to Indian Jones, and from Back to the Future to Blade Runner - Drew Struzan has played an integral part in shaping popular culture. 
Here’s to you, sir. 🍻
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sugar-petals · 3 years
Text
Baekhyun Doms You: Ending Up Laughing
↳⎡NOTE.⎦thought this’d be an interesting concept & a different side to smut: what if you try things out and it’s both not your thing? w/ a humorous twist and subby bf moments sprinkled in 😄
♡  words. 4k
+ tags ⚠️ pwp hc, bondage, throatfucking, graphic, cum play, unsafe/clumsy practice: do not recreate, degradation, biting, masochist bbh, domme!reader switches unsuccessfully, whips, hair-pulling
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imagine that. a wide-eyed baekhyun pacing and tiptoeing in front of your toy shelf, trying to pick a riding crop he fancies. it takes five minutes and several ‘uhh, ohh’ confused puppy noises until he’s able to decide which one he’s taking. 
...literally even if he knows exactly which one does what. you’ve used all of them on him. 
meanwhile, you take three seconds flat to pull out one that fits your mood and proceed to edge the living shit out of him. yes, without literal further ado. teasing his dick and marking his thighs and doing all kinds of delicious things. 
he’s still going back and forth in his head without having even started out. cutely tapping and swaying from one foot to the other. 
it’s like he’s back to school. priceless.
what’s even more hilarious: baekhyun practices random mean facial expressions while trying to decide. he doesn’t seem to be sure what character he’s going for. it feels like he’s rehearsing for a concert or photoshoot, even. absolutely fascinating to watch. 
i mean he’s absolutely photogenic no doubt about that but
you’re sitting on the bed waiting naked like okay is this gonna be william shakespeare deluxe or what is kyoong channelling over there
“um... i think i got it! this one, okay? i’m ready!”
finally he walks over, strutting with his nose in the air and his eyes glaring, muscles tense, a mysterious bad boy charm about him, whip ready to sting, lips tight and punitive...
....and hits his pinky toe on the bed
oh the pain
great master baekhyun flops headfirst into the sheets processing the existential cruelty of bedpost pinewood and needs head pats to recover
lots of head pats
at least twenty of them
so many head pats
more time passes until kyoong is back in character i guess
you probably could have listened to exo’s whole discography in the meantime
and knitted a rug for taemin’s new flat
anyway
baekhyun tries to act very confidently finally getting into it 
adopting a sharp ‘hmph’ kind of tone 
endlessly teasing your back and thighs with the riding crop
so far so good sir pinky toe
but he just goes on and on
you could actually crochet a pair of socks for chen’s daughter now that you think about it
it’s you who has to tell him to get to the point and it’s clear he’s more nervous than he pretends to show
to be fair he’s not the only one
you try to get yourself mentally ready but you find yourself giving him actual orders and even correcting his stance five times cuz he’s so wobbly on the mattress like a pupper indeed
baekhyun mumbles to himself and has a hard time fully implementing the advice on posture but tries to aim well regardless. it seems to work at first
but tragically
he ends up with a miss, hitting his own thigh rather than your ass and moans out loud
now you’re the one confused because you were waiting for the whip to come down
but nope it went elsewhere did it
you wonder how he managed to do all that furious fencing in the obsession mv with an aim like that
looks like he’s so submissive, he straight up whips himself
taking matters into his own hands is he. subs these days.
baekhyun keeps on being wobbly on the bed and looks like he ran a marathon already
may i remind you that this guy does 3-hour long concerts and can practice throughout an entire night
... you both agree to immediately scratch that completely after his next flailing strike sends the riding crop flying into his unsuspecting, non-consenting plushie collection
animal cruelty
moving on
you figure that a change of location might be a good idea
baekhyun sits you down on a chair and bashfully stores away the yeeted whip
he vows to never use a riding crop again already and his teddy bears are thankful for it
now the whole plushie village and whole china knows how you don’t do it
next up is rope
what could possibly go wrong
he practiced wrist bondage on his own ankles for five days straight, you really prepared a lot of things to test out together today 
and he’s seen you tie him up over and over and over
but whatever it is that he manages to install on your arms 
looks like a piece of very experimental modern art that just sold for half a million at sotheby’s
what’s supposed to be a column tie is nothing but a mere... ball
chaotic like baekhyun’s personality. not surprising at all
wait that rhymed
anyhow
even alexander the great couldn’t have cut this gordian knot of a tangly masterpiece
ironically: while baekhyun’s roughly grabbing your chin for an intense kiss... the rope casually falls apart harder than the soviet union in 1991 my loves, you ain’t ready
baekhyun takes ages to notice while he’s teasing and kissing you and ends up sweating bullets when he realizes that the sublime art fell to pieces.
sorry comrade 
the fantasy knots and artistic freedom increases even more when it comes to putting a collar and leash on you
and his guy is supposed to be a dog owner? mongryong, instruct your man
baekhyun is a flustered mess trying to fasten it on you even if he tries very hard to be concentrated
maybe it’s because you’re watching him with literal hawk eyes checking every move (...hoping he learned something from you oh my). you’re not really melting into your role either, huh. the only thing melting is your pussy because baekhyun is acting so embarrassed which is the actual turn-on
if that doesn’t give you away
the leash comes off in two minutes time after baekhyun miraculously ties his own hands together with it
how the fuck did that happen
how do you even manage to do that
eager are we
after whipping his own thigh, self-domination 2.0 i guess
so whipping and bondage are off the programme 
this has been the most chaotic and hazardous attempt at topping in the history of sm entertainment
and they’re literally called s and m
...humiliation is next
when you planned your session you both figured hey he’s tested and tried by exo’s lively debate culture and he might be able to pull that off
and there are no props involved so he’ll have an easy time right
life is an illusion
you find out he can’t pronounce degrading names clearly because he keeps on stuttering them. which in return makes baekhyun crack up. 
carrying on the joke, you correct him every time. 
“i want you to repeat after me: stupid, slutty, bitch.”
it ends up as you doing what you always do 
teaching and training him while baekhyun either shyly or brattily obliges. you don’t even notice how you’re doing it but from the outside, it’s blatantly obvious.
because your brain is still feeling in domme mode, you also find yourself saying the usual things to him without thinking, even when he grabs you and gives orders. “now bend over! i’m gonna fuck your brains out.” — “okay, cutie!” 
which causes baekhyun’s mean face to collapse and he snap out of his command tone immediately, snorting because it’s the last thing he expected
he tries to carry on by punishing you with an actual mouth gag and a harness he can hold onto while fucking you from behind, i mean your pussy is already wet why not
guess what’s gonna ensue
wearing a harness feels kind of strange and new so you wiggle back and forth and all over the place. like what is this, what’s happening. baekhyun’s dick is going into all kinds of directions my friends, the amusement park carousel surely inspired this fucking style right here. 
and wearing a gag — there’s a way different person who needs to have this in his chatty mouth. 
kai and kyungsoo’s dream would come true and yet you’re the one gagged 
something ain’t right
if you’re honest. you’re feeling so weird being on the other end of punishment tonight and not being able to give him any directions. your dom brain is worrying he’s all left to his own devices trying to drive that confused dick home left and right and above and below and diagonal and crosswise. 
the fuck
your poor guts my god
what’s worse: his stamina is gonna sneak up behind him and tap on his shoulder like... bro that’s enough pounding for a whole month please spare these balls from deflating please do not break this device
to which your pussy agrees in unison
how are you gonna love your bub day in day out if you’re that sore
there’s nothing more frustrating than being sore and horny with byun baekhyun at your disposal
or a knocked out boyfriend trying to generate at least a sprinkle of semen after getting completely emptied in one go
probably sleeping for three days straight
alright so the harness and gag come off fast oh dear baekhyun clears those away in a heartbeat
that’s another point off the list 
the more you know
carousel cringe dicking down type of dominance... bizarre, disorderly, totally erratic, not on the agenda, worst rated on bing 
comrade baekhyun keeps on apologizing for making things so messy even if he tries and tries
you’re both so puzzled because you’re used to something so different and need a water chugging pause
baekhyun hasn’t sweated this hard since doing the MAMA choreography
and your pussy has never had to provide this much lubrication at once
where on earth is both of your usual stamina what happened
if a type of sex exhausts you fast and even baekhyun’s balls are suddenly moody you just know you’re wired in the opposite way
safe to say you’re better at giving and baekhyun is better at taking
leave the multidirectional powerfucking to kai or something
and being orderly to xiumin
another rug could have been knitted my friends 
moving on dot org
so, you both figure to take it easier and try to go with something he usually does in passing. you know, turning a typical baekhyun habit into something you can try out casually in bed so he can tease you.
that one should work out right?
proceed: teeth action. you seated, him positioning himself above you. after your approval baekhyun pulls your hair back to expose your neck — so he can deliciously bite into it (or so was the plan). 
reality: his hand gets tangled up completely. 
while he’s busy nibbling and giggling about like a lil’ bunny chomping at a carrot that turns out to be extremely ticklish herself. 
in fact, you start squeaking out a wonky high pitch, startling baekhyun’s fine musical ear to the bone by the obvious atonality. did she just try to outsing my vocal range with a creaking whistle note? 
mariah carey would cancel you on twitter over this one
that’s how you turn a vicious, possessive bite into an eternal meme
every time either of you go for a neck kiss, you end up imitating each other. baekhyun has immortalized himself as a nervous chomping bunny and you as the vocalist anti-christ
lord have mercy
you miss your old sex life already and it’s only been two hours
cause you see... if baekhyun gives you the chance to bite him? he needs a set of long sleeves, scarves, and an extra soft pillow to sit down on for the next two days
like, no mercy bitch
you get right down to business and ravage him and do it properly until he cums in his pants
sure, the way he uses his tongue now is definitely kinda hot mind you
baekhyun is always good with his singing equipment that doesn’t suddenly change aye
and you keep your eyes closed
but with time you notice that he starts drooling and whimpering. baekhyun’s wet mouth is out there betraying him, huh.
same with your body. your reactions give you away, body language just won’t lie. you have a damn hard time staying still. you wanna do something, you wanna touch and guide baekhyun all over.
and vice versa baekhyun keeps on glitching and doing the same thing he really became a living tumblr gif now
this whole session is just so confusing and laced with all these moments of awkwardness it’s really telling you something about yourself and mister pinky toe’s ideal dynamic
baekhyun can’t even get himself to even lightly slap you properly. and when he does, his delicate hands are just so cute. it’s as if legolas came along, scented in jasmine, elegant and fabulous like it’s a l’oreal commercial
he immediately looks concerned after he manages to do it cleanly and you admit it wasn’t really that exciting a feeling yourself. it felt more like, “um ouch, and?”
needless to say, you’re weirded out if anything, baekhyun smacking and dragging you around as a cold-as-ice dom is just a strange thing to do for both of you 
like even exo’s wolf era fashion was more coherent than this carrot fuckery
and those were some of the most intense turtlenecks ever 
is there really nothing dominant baekhyun can pull off. come on he’s the genius idol 
actually 
there’s something that does work out for once
because no rule without exceptions indeed
because hey, you can learn something anyway, it’s the whole point of you going through a list of things to try as a couple
baekhyun is good at doing the more hardcore, faster kind of fingering. who would have thought, totally surprising, revolutionary i know. but that’s where you’re both agreeing hey, there’s some untapped potential you can use for the steamier evenings you have going. 
cuz wow, he can get you off with flying colors. 
...only to succumb to a malfunctioning bobohu wrist 
even baekhyun’s boner for your legs in latex isn’t that stiff
it’s another pause until his hand loosens up again
this poor man just can’t win
and if you’re asking oi hard domming isn’t the only thing you can do
baekhyun trying to summon his inner soft dom: surprise, same old tale. here we go again.
your boyfriend thinks he generally looks way too puppy-like to be your big ole buff daddy taking care of you. oversized sweater, fluffy hair and all. 
you say to him well, it’s not that doms can’t wear casual things. but it’s true that you have to feel your role and find yourself believable. regardless of your looks, in fact. 
unless your partner really enjoys you dressing up as some kind of dominant hyper-archetype? looking the part is relatively unimportant if you’re absolutely made for dominance you say
pretty eye-opening moment for him
in your roleplay, he caresses and kisses you to the point, he can approach and lead you to do this or that position, don’t be mistaken. and he’s good at making presents, he’s indulging you perfectly well and actually likes doing it. but... it still ends up being more vanilla than not a few hours in. the d/s is out the door almost automatically the longer you do it.
at the end, it leaves you with a feeling of “but err, what now? give the maid outfit to charity?” 
baekhyun rubs his neck in search for something else to do, both of you staring at each other with expressions blanker than kyungsoo when a prancing chanyeol is acting up.
how did the quote go again. if you scramble for inspiration, let it be?
it’s exactly that situation when baekhyun soft doms. he can hold you tight and do his thing for a while, but the chemistry of your roles is dwindling into a question mark.
in fact. there’s an uneasy silence as if great mother suho was sitting right beside you critiquing baekhyun’s sugar daddy skills
baekhyun is rich like a motherfucker and can’t even call you ‘my innocent lil’ baby girl’ without looking like he just learned a first grade tonguetwister by heart
you did play your parts with less cracking up, but you clearly tell him that there’s still something strangely clueless and “ah, awkward” (baekhyun’s verdict in response, verbatim) in between the two of you. 
when you take care of baekhyun and tuck him in, you hardly run out of ideas. it just goes on and on. even when you played through an entire scene, you both come up with things to extend the scenario because it’s so much fun. you make him a hot chocolate, massage his feet, brush his hair, do some extra light bondage with a silk ribbon around his ankles to make him feel pretty, feed him pizza, have him cuddle up in your lap, pinch his ass, and do some rimming if he’s feeling a bit hornier. 
the spoiling is nice at the start, but there’s something missing. you want to lead his hands and really treat him, and do it all the time, and baekhyun really finds himself craving it as well. 
baekhyun soft domming quickly turns into — well just normal loving makeouts and gestures. you kiss and touch, there’s nothing hierarchical about it, nothing mega juicy or exciting.
you just don’t get into the groove, you know. there’s nothing particular happening if you try to get into those roles. it doesn’t titillate both of you for an extended period of time, it doesn’t make you curious for more. it’s like... shrug. what about it. 
when you usually dominate, you know something hits home when you think about it all day. baekhyun screaming and crying with his legs twitching pops up whenever you close your freaking eyes goddamn.
you make a note to observe whether you’re going about your daily business thinking about how you could be his innocent good girl. following his every whim, making big eyes at him or something. 
result: more shaky, ruined baekhyun moaning his soul out in the highest of notes and leaking cum everywhere from getting choked and his face sat on. 
daddy baekhyun has simply not crossed your mind. in fact, poor guy no chance to fit in there from the get-go. his particularly whorish, extra subby counterpart is all over your brain cells with his tongue out. and you’re very tempted to grab it between your thumb and index and spit in his mouth for some very good measure. maybe cum in it as well.
um. so there’s that. the more you know.
baekhyun figures as much himself and you try the other side of the equation. oh, oh. here comes hard dom baekhyun.
who gets you on your knees and starts a wild deepthroat session while calling you names. that’s all well and good... nope. your gag reflex decides to yeet some weird coughing facial expressions and reflex cock bites at poor baekhyun who doesn’t know what’s happening. to finish him off completely, you sneeze while having a hiccup and his dick slips out. 
... you both safeword at the same time.
that cleanup has scarred you both for life. what the everloving fuck. no more impulse throatfucking in this pure christian household, then. 
you’ll stick to lazy, twirling, indulgent blowjobs and the usual ruined orgasms for him — the actually planned ones, jesus christ.
like seriously. you invented a whole new language with those confused gargling noises and that wasn’t french, it was advanced level klingon. baekhyun repeats asking if you’re okay and you’re still stuck realizing oh hell, that was not pretty. off the bucket list, you like sucking him off but this style just doesn’t come natural to you. 
the popsicles you could train yourself with are usually gone from the freezer within a day after getting the groceries. baekhyun is wholeheartedly addicted to them. 
he loves cheating on his diet since you told him his fully cheeks are your emotional support squish and kiss pillows, so.
baekhyun rightfully insists he’s better at eating pussy the wild way in the first place — and that you have no business choking on his dick like you’re on hot ones eating the world’s spiciest whatever is trending now.
or actually... baekhyun’s dick can’t be compared to a chili pepper if we’re doing a choking analogy alright. that just doesn’t fit his promotion concept. cinnamon stick is more like it.
ever saw one of these terrible cinnamon spoon videos where reckless people try to defeat god by— anyway, you’ve seen them. that’s how you looked like trying to get your mouth fucked. i think god would actually be defeated by how far away from divine elegance that was and you’re so sorry for subjecting baekhyun to this artless display. 
cinnamon is still best used in small doses. say, for garnishing a creamy cake or pie y’know. 
anyway. you dished up the most butchered attempt at sexy gagging in history and so, baekhyun will preach for days how he’s the one chosen by fate to push down seven big fat inches of your strap still half asleep without even blinking. 
... and that his world-class operatic breath control would probably enable him to bury his face in your pussy on mount everest. baekhyun knows that every domme would sell her soul to get a sub as skilled with breathing as him.
...and that he has the official copyright for giving quality slobbery oral with quality smudged tears. as he will demonstrate to you almost daily from then on. king of messy head and going stupid with the tongue acrobatics. ugh, the noises are amazing, too. give him a grammy for his oral sounds.
gotta leave the heavy-duty work to the experts innit.
at dinner, he also poutingly brags how he can make his spit run out of his nose while he’s sucking himself through your entire dildo collection. and blow spit bubbles. and snort his own semen off his thighs and let it drop off his tongue if he’s in a particularly slutty mood. or a creampie. jeez, baekhyun, the wolf of wallstreet is strong in him. you literally have to stop him from showing off because “hey boy, i already know! i’ve seen it last week bro it was good!”
needless to say he’s talking in essays all day because he wants things go back to normal and he doesn’t have to ask twice.
for real, your candy man with the cinnamon stick has been suffering from the love bites and has to retire his cock for two days from the bruising. 
mind you. the pain he can deal with. that ain’t the problem. by all means, man. he’s a fucking masochist. 
it’s actually more like... submissive you has deactivated his boner and he can’t help it. it’s not you that makes him limp, it’s more like, the klingon choking and the ton of mishaps that just don’t sit right. 
baekhyun feels bad about not doing well enough to make both of you have a good time as well which is lowkey heartbreaking. you have to cheer him up with ‘now repeat after me: stupid, slutty bitch’ jokes to make him chuckle at least a bit.
cuz you gotta understand, baekhyun is very ambitious to develop his talents in all areas of life. if there’s a skill he gets stuck with and he can’t work with his potential, that’s so unusual to him.
and you say man, imagine if you were some kind of uber-talented dom. that’d still not make me sneeze any less.
if you dominate him, it feels easy to do. nothing can really ruin the mood, not even when the lube runs out (baekhyun drools enough to make anything slippery okay). 
except maybe when xiumin rings on landline because he left his favorite fluffy sweater in the subway and needs to vent about it. my god that’s such a tear-jerking story i’m close to sobbing. this shit could kill literally any boner.
or when your hand cramps up after shoving your fingers down his throat and in his ass for like half an hour which should be ranked first as the saddest anime betrayal of all time but it’s justifiable and you had a lot of fun beforehand.
in other words. only the things outside of your control tend to mess with your femdom business. in and of itself, nothing can kill your vibe except a dying battery obviously. 
whereas you trying submission oddly spoils the atmosphere from the inside out and provides a free cringe compilation. like without even doing much, it happens automatically. 
baekhyun relishes in dramatically recounting how you both looked like true clowns attempting a rendition of overexpensive, extra tangly contemporary art bondage. hell, not even employed clowns, completely retired ones, struggling to regain their tightrope tricks from summer 1912 when harry houdini was still hot shit in town. 
you say oh god, that wasn’t even worth a retired clown’s skillset, clowns work damn hard man. you’d be hardpressed to find any circus artist capable of cracking a whip onto themselves baekhyun-style and moaning out loud because it was this good. seriously. that was one for the books.
if baekhyun tried to set foot in some willy-nilly maledom porn, he’d be capable of firing himself on the first day. 
at the end, you just have a good laugh, man. you agree — hey, this ain’t it, but it’s good to know at least. tried and tested, been there, done that. self-whipping and carrot-nibbling and blowjob hiccups.
if you’re both so hopeless and living up to the challenge managed to upset poor mariah carey instead of giving you a hot and steamy time, you very well know where you belong. that’s a good feeling. assuring and a confidence boost for your skills. it makes up for all the clumsiness actually. 
exactly because the try-out part was an entire disaster, domming baekhyun will be even more fun, you can’t see it becoming anywhere near boring. it never really was, but now you know where your strong suits are even more so. and — what to avoid, anyway. 
no more unsafe practice and teddy whipping under this roof my friend
and something to incorporate more often which is baekhyun unleashing his very creative, pianoesque fingering skills on you.
you have lots of anecdotes to rile each other up as well. or, at least, tease another a bit. your high note was too legendary not to be remembered.
baekhyun will use all of these things against you in a positive way if you get what i mean. he’ll say how you being so strangely vocal made him realize just how commanding and compelling your sexy time voice is when you tell him how to kneel, how to kiss, how to revere.
and you teasing him how clumsy a dom he is makes baekhyun more self-assured in his subbing abilities. he knows for a fact you’ve not once roasted him about how well he can use his pretty mouth. cuz it’s the real deal. sloppy, skilled, and eager to please. he’s damn right about that.
hitting his toes has ruined baekhyun’s whole career as a dom and he was mad at first but he did realize that beside the clumsiness, subbing just suits him well as a principle
your experience gives you even more anticipation for all the sex you will have in the future. 
you already knew what you both liked. you know it even more now, it’s underlined, it’s a big relieved yes. no more cringey “daddy, daddy, choke me please!” worship. time to make his day and sit on baekhyun’s perfect face to fuck the shit out of it. 
or you know, actually land a whip on his juicy boyfriend thighs and listen to those heavenly loud reactions in a dead-on pitch (he usually moans in C minor).
long story short and cinnamon sticks aside. it’s even more fun now. you just love your cute subby boy just as he is. he doesn’t have to try to be anything else or step up his game. he’s so ideal just doing what he does like a real angel.
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jadedxrealityw · 3 years
Text
-Penmanship- Cedric Diggory x Female Reader
    ☼-☪-☼
   Kody: I- i love this request. I’m also hella confused by half of it so imma guess? Also i’m putting Lupin in this story because in my dr hes the defense against the dark arts professor and i do what i want really so like-
  Request: Okay so listen honey. A cedric diggory imagine where he constantly gets love letters every now and then from a secret admirer aka the reader. Not so secret though because she has the prettiest handwriting ever and it was very obvious. One day, Cedric like asks for her notes because he needed it??? She mindlessly gave it away because that's her long-time crush okay- and then after, Cedric gives it back and says she has a beautiful penmanship and reader just blushes, thinking about what she had done and- Gdjshdhxbhshgs so she tried like avoiding him because embarrassing really wow and then some days after, Cedric asks her what was the answer. She was like???? Was there a question????? Ced was like look at your notes???? And tHEN SHE RUMMAGES THROUGH HER NOTES AND SAW CEDRIC'S LETTER ASKING HER OUT.I've always been that freak in class with a pretty handwriting 😭 - 💐
  House: Hufflepuff
  Possible Triggers / Warnings: the fluff, Cedric being a cheeky bastard, cursing because i have a foul mouth
   ☼-☪-☼
  Cedric Diggory, 7th year Hufflepuff, quidditch captain/seeker, handsome, charming as a prince,  and one of the most popular guys at hogwarts along with Harry Potter, Draco Malfoy, George and Fred Weasley, Blaise Zabini, etc. Anyway, like most girls and boys in Hogwarts, you fell for him. Hard.
  i mean- how couldn’t you, you shared almost every class him and he just seemed so kind and caring. He did have his smug side though that you rarely saw, but it was surely there. In layman’s terms: he was perfect in your eyes, and in your mind, you didn’t deserve him or his weird perfection thing he had.
  so you came up with a strange and somewhat coward way of confessing your feelings. Better than being embarrassed, normally guys and gals would get the young lad alone and confess there undying attraction to him and well- they’d get rejected. Everytime. It was almost as if Cedric had an attraction for no one.
  you decided to send love letters of sorts, but not really. They were more like letters of encouragement and it certainly wasn’t going to be a constant thing, just when you noticed a negative change in his attitude or anything like that. You would write him sweet compliments that you hoped weren’t to creepy as well.
  you just hoped that the letters brought Cedric some sort of happiness whenever he was low.
   ☼-☪-☼
  the Hufflepuff house had quite a grim aura this afternoon. The quidditch team had just lost a match against Gryffindor and even though Hufflepuffs were no sore losers, losing just sucked in general to anyone. It was sad to see your fellow housemates on the quidditch team so upset.
  the worst part was that Cedric had took the lose quite harshly since it would have gotten them a place in the quidditch finals of that semester. Now he would have to wait until next term to assure his team a spot. You noticed Cedric’s pained expression during the end of the game and left early.
  this was one of the moments where you could write something sweet and kind to lift his spirits and write you shall. You snuck back into your common room and quickly gathered up some parchment, ink, and a quill. You sat on the yellow loveseat as you wrote.
  ‘Dear Cedric, I’m sorry that you don’t get to participate in the quidditch finals, but don’t see this has a huge lose. You are still the most amazing quidditch captain and seeker i have ever seen. You should be proud of what you have accomplished so far. I just know you will do much better next term because your the kind of person to grow from your failures and such. It has inspired me to do the same with myself. Have a good rest of your day Cedric.’
  after writing what you needed to say you quickly make your way back to the quidditch field to see Cedric and his team slowly making there way to the changing rooms. Oh no. You needed to think fast. In a rushed state you slip into the boys changing room, no doubt feeling like a bit of a perv while doing so.
  it smelt like pure testosterone. you gaze around until your E/c eyes land on a small locker that had Cedric’s name on the front. Boom. With haste, you rush over and open the locker. The smell of fresh sage filling your nose. Odd. Anyway, you fold the letter and place it gently on on his clothes.
  after that you left.
   ☼-☪-☼
  as Cedric walked into the changing room he sighed deeply, running a hand through his golden brown hair that by then had collected sweat. His male teammates were quiet as they began to strip themselves of their protective padding.
  as the seeker opened up his locker to grab his regular clothes he spotted a folded up piece of parchment. By now he had been receiving letters for a bout a month now, so he instantly knew. He reaches in and grabs it from the locker. Opening it, he spotted the unique handwriting as always.
  as he read the words a wide smile grew on his face. He honestly looked like a lovestruck idiot who had just been kissed by an angel. After a month of receiving these letters, he now had a want for them. They always came when he needed them the most and always brought the brightest smile on his face.
  even after reading the kind words you had wrote for him, Cedric couldn’t help but wonder who was writing the letters with the unique penmanship. He had fallen for the anonymous writer and longed to know who there identity was, so he could say those feelings in person.
  but not once had they mentioned any descriptors that could lead him anywhere, no hair color, eye color, not even there gender. Cedric could less about any of those, but he needed those clues to find them, to find you. All he had was a stack of letters with unique handwriting.  
   ☼-☪-☼
  a week later
  one of the many classes you shared with Cedric was defence against the dark arts with professor Lupin, which was where you were walking into at this current moment. Oh yeah, you were deskmates (assigned) with him as well, which was totally not nerve wracking in the slightest.
  Lupin stood up from his chair in the front of the class as most of his students had taken their seats “Welcome, welcome everyone. Once your seated please pull out your textbooks and turn to-” before he could get another word in Hermione Granger’s hand had shot up in the air.
  professor Lupin gave her a small smile before nodding once towards her direction “Yes, Ms. Granger?” he asked. Hermione’s arm fell and she folded her hands across the wooden desk she sat at “You told us last week there’d be a exam today on the Chameleon Ghoul?”
  as groans fell from your classmates you heard the chair next to you slide across the floor “I haven’t missed anything important, have i?” that deep melodic voice you had grown to enjoy spoke. You turn your head to face the browned haired boy who wore a kind smile and questioning eyes.
  you manage to muster up a reply “Uh- Granger reminded Lupin that we have a exam today” you said cracking a quiet chuckle. He rolls his eyes dramatically and takes a seat in the chair, all while pulling out a couple pieces of parchment with his handwriting on it. You assumed it was his notes.
  “Of course she did. What’s the exam for?” he asks. You sit back in your seat to make yourself look less tense then you actually were. “Chameleon Ghouls” you say, watching the golden brown hair boy search through his notes. A frown formed on his face, one you noticed “Are uh- you alright there?”
  Cedric turns his head to face you, his frown replaced with a sheepish smile “I was at quidditch practice during that lesson. You wouldn’t mind me borrowing yours would you? I- I mean if it’s not to much of a hassle?” he asked. You shook your head quickly, not wanting him to be nervous.
  “Oh no it’s alright. I usually write two sets of notes for my friend Hannah who usually sleeps through her lessons” you say, making him chuckle a bit. You reach into your bag and pull out both pages of notes, handing him one. Cedric gently takes the notes from your hand, his finger grazing yours.
  it affected you more than you’d like to admit. You pull your hand away and place it back in your lap. Cedric smiles kindly before looking at the parchment you gave him. His brown eyes scan the handwriting, a smug grin plastered on his face. It took him a couple minutes to read the whole page.
   “Your penmanship” he spoke
  at this point you were looking at your own notes and for once not paying so much attention to him. You raise a brown in confusion before looking up at him “My penmanship?” you question. Cedric nods towards the parchment he held in his hand
  “The way you write is so unique, i could spot it in instantly among others. I could never forget it” he said sending you a wink. You were confused at first by his choice of words before it finally hit you. The letters. He had seen your handwriting so many times before, so much so that he couldn’t forget it.
  and you had so willingly, so stupidly given away something with your distinct penmanship on it. Oh merlin, you were so screwed. Your E/c eyes widen, opening your mouth to force out some answer but professor Lupin speaks instead. “Now notes away while i pass out the exam”
  Cedric casually faces forward in his seat once again as he slides over the notes you handed him minutes ago. You quickly snatch them and stuff it into your bag as a red hue tinted your cheeks. You felt so embarrassed at the moment and wanted the earth to swallow you up.
   ☼-☪-☼
  “Aright, leave your exams on the table and you may leave” Lupin spoke, while kids stood up from their desks to leave the classroom. In a haste, you sling your bag over your shoulder and make a beeline towards the door, not wanting to even risk Cedric questioning you about the letters. Your heart couldn’t handle it.
  for the next couple days you spent most of your time avoiding the hufflepuff boy who seemed to now show up everywhere you went. Almost like the universe was punishing you for being such an idiot in giving him those notes and you did feel like a total idiot. You really hoped he would just forget you existed.
   ☼-☪-☼
  a couple days later, friday
   you couldn’t avoid him forever though.
  back in professor Lupin’s classroom you had been quietly sitting next to Cedric almost the whole class period. What were you supposed to say to him anyway “We seemed to have finished early, talk amongst yourselves quietly for the rest of the remaining time if you so desire”
  well shit
  you lean back into your chair and sigh deeply. He wouldn’t talk to you right? He should of taken the hit that you were avoiding him, RIGHT? No of course not. You felt a tap on your shoulder and slowly turned your head to face Cedric “Yes?” you say, trying to keep your calm composure.
  “You still haven’t given me an answer, your cutting it pretty close there Y/n” he snickers, leaning in close to you since he spoke in a hushed tone. You instinctively lean back, cause like- boundaries. “I’m sorry, i don’t understand?” you spoke, a confused expression on your face.
   Cedric studies your expression for a moment before chuckling again “I guess i don’t leave letters as skillfully as you do” he says making your face go bright red “Check the notes that you gave me” he adds. You mumble an okay before opening your bag to grab the crumpled parchment. 
   when you unfolded it another piece of parchment had fallen into your lap. It was small and looked like it had been ripped off the sheet and folded up like a note you would pass to a friend during class. You reach down and collect, gently unfolding the top flap to read the words. 
   ‘It’s my turn to write you something my secret admirer or should i say Y/n L/n. Would you do me the honor of going out with me this saturday- Cedric’ 
   you must have read those couple sentences three times before you believed your eyes weren’t defective of some sort. You slowly place the note down on your lap once again, biting your bottom lip out of nervousness. Slowly looking over to your right you saw Cedric with a questioning glance “So?”
   a smile grew on your face before nodding “Yeah i’d love to”
   the date went great, you walked around the school talking about anything you or Cedric could think of. He did question you on why you had sent the letters anonymously and you told him the truth, you didn’t want to be embarrassed. He thought it was funny the way he found out and you though to.   
    ☼-☪-☼
   a month later (bonus stuff)
   you were wearing a yellow sweater with black sleeves and collar, a short denim overall dress over that and black leggings with matching black boots as you tapped your fingers against the wood of Cedric’s chest at the foot of his bed. You were waiting for your now boyfriend to come back from the shower.
   Cedric had been at quidditch practice all afternoon and you knew he went to wash up right after, so it was the waiting game now. What you didn’t expect was what would happen next. The door suddenly opened to reveal Cedric with damp hair and only wearing a towel around his waist.
   you yelp and cover your eyes with both of your hands instantly “Cedric! What the hell!?” you shout. Cedric gives you a weird look all though you couldn’t see it “Your in my dorm! I didn’t think you be in here!” he shouts back, you can hear shuffling of clothes and his walking.
   “Did you walk through the common room like that?! What if somebody saw you!?” you exclaim. You didn’t want prying eyes on him in such a state since you knew almost everyone in your house and others hand the biggest crush on him. The thought made you frown knowing full well he could have anyone he wanted.
   you feel his large hand over yours as he pulls them from your face, his brown eyes studying your expression like always “Who cares if anyone saw?” he questions, your face not changing “Because everyone likes you, what if someone more good looking than me saw you and- eh”
   you look away from him. Cedric exhaled and let go of one of your hands to gently force your chin towards him so you were looking at him once again. “I don’t really care about anyone else Y/n. I’m your boyfriend aren’t i?” he asked, tilting his head with an amused smile. You nod slowly “Yeah” 
   “Y/n i fell for you the first time i read your letters, don’t doubt yourself because your the only girl who has ever caught my attention” Cedric smiles and leans up since he was crouching in front of you to kiss your lips gently. It was like he was sealing his statement with the kiss. 
   you smile against his lips. He pulls away after a couple seconds with a smug smirk “Now my secret admirer, want to cuddle?”
   “I’m never getting over that am i?”
   “Nope, now in the bed”
    ☼-☪-☼
   Taglist: @the--queen-of-hell @sonbelleame @dracosathenaeum @pxroxide-prinxcesss 
    ☼-☪-☼
   Kody: this is shi for how long it took me lmao. Anyway, requests and taglist are open so like- yeahhh.
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frobin · 3 years
Note
Okey serious question here. How much do you actually believe that Oda ships Frobin? Like do you think he actually have like doodles/sketchs of them in a pairing kind of way? like for the strong world film riding the motorbug? (Personally i would love it to be true but he has stated one piece isn't about romance in that way)
Hey there anon! Thank you so much for your question and I hope I can answer it seriously enough. Also once more sorry for the late response. I felt like a question like that needs some research and that is what I did these last few days.
So... I think I'll start with the tl;dr because that way people can read that and ignore the rest.
So, long answer short: I 100% believe that Oda has one or more sketchbooks with drawings of his characters that are absolutely self-indulgent. I am 98% sure that he has drawn Franky and Robin in a romantic way at least once (and supported the ship). I am 80% sure he still is shipping FRobin.
Little disclaimer: I actually have no idea if any of this is true. I pull everything in my arguments out of my own experiences and knowledge and since I'm not a 46 year old Japanese Mangaka my perspective might be WAY OFF.
argument - reason- example - conclusion... behind the cut (or in the google doc)
So, why do I think that Oda has a secret sketchbook?
Simple answer is that he is an artist. He is drawing a lot and no artist will publish everything. That can have multiple reasons like imposter syndrome or because the artist thinks it’s not good or interesting enough or they just forget. There are even more reasons I forget and every person has their own.
For Oda I can imagine two big reasons as to why he would keep secret sketchbooks.
First: He is a horndog. You can skip this part if you don’t want to read about it, to the second reason.
Anyway, we know thanks to answers in the SBS, the way he likes to draw big-breasted women and how some of his characters are classified as perverts that he can be considered one too.
Let me show you a few of a few lewd SBS questions he likes to answer in a funny way:
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Chapter 228, Page 46
D: How are ya, Odacchi? I know how much you like getting butt-naked, so this must be a favourite season for you. <3
O: Yes, yes. I just LOVE getting completely naked. In the summertime, after I take a bath I just run STRAIGHT OUTSIDE!! And when the girls' softball team running on the sidewalk looks over at me, they say, "Yup, it's really summer now!!" ... AS IF!! I'D GET ARRESTED!!!
(x)
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Chapter 433, Page 68
D: If Lady Robin can use her Hana Hana Powers to make any part of her body sprout somewhere else, does that mean she can do it with her ample bosom as well? "Nyurin-zaki" (Breast Sprout) Boy, I'd like to take a hit from that sometime... P.N. Ero Ero no Mi Devil Fruit User.
O: "Ichirin-zaki" (Single Sprout) "Nirin-zaki" (Double Sprout) "Nyurin-zaki" (Breast Sprout) Very clever!! NO IT'S NOT!! STOP THAT!! I'm sure she CAN do it though ♡
(x)
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Chapter 798, Page 64
D: Oddachi, I'll give you a pornographic book, so please answer my question. Sanji won't allow anyone to waste food, but what will he do if a woman does so? P.N. Smoker's Cigar
O: I think he would grab the plate and eat it up. Now please give me the pornographic book.
(x)
Nowadays I’m sure there is a focus on those lewder questions compared to the beginning because that is what 13 year old boys laugh about and we all know that is Oda's main demographic (of course).
I think a very good picture of that is given by Tekking101 in his breakdown video of SBS Volume 100.
youtube
“Let’s get diving into these questions (...) now, this is a huge moment. I mean, not many Manga manage to reach 100 Volumes, Okay? Now I know Oda usually starts these off with questions relating to boobs and things that don’t really… you know, aren’t really relevant but you know, this is a big celebration so we’re gonna dive right into it. I bet the most important things that we need to know about the One Piece Story are right here in these pages, okay? I printed them out. That is how important this is. So let’s start off, shall we? Epic voice, Barry!
‘Mister Oda, there is a UFO over there with huge big-breasted beauties on it. That memorable 100 Volume of the SBS is about to begin.’
[pause] Yeah, like the first five of these are all related to boobs in some way. You know what Oda? Sticking true to your guns! Godspeed, Sir Oda. Godspeed.”
(end at around 2:30)
So, Oda is a man who likes beautiful women and who draws.
Coming to the conclusion that he will draw his own characters in suggestive poses, naked and even doing adult stuff is not hard.
Obviously he would not show these sketches just around. He would probably keep them in a secret sketchbook that he keeps at a safe location. Maybe his wife and some close friends know about it? Maybe it is his and only his little secret.
I don’t think it would be unlikely to learn about this years into the future, maybe the next generation of Anime Fans will hear about this.
And it would not be the first time that something like this happened.
Not that long ago the daughter of Osamu Tezuka - groundbreaking Mangaka, known for his works of “Astro Boy”, “Kimba the white lion” and many more - found his adult Furry art. Source; Japanese article;
It’s a fact that many Mangaka did indeed start their career with art of the more risque kind and/or as doujinshi artists.
So again, I have no doubt that Oda, a known pervert, has one or more secret sketchbooks with „the p0rnography“ in it. Is there only hot stuff in there? Not necessarily.
The second reason to keep a secret sketchbook would be to collect information in there, that could be considered canon but he is not willing to use it in the Manga. Maybe they are not important enough or will be used later.
What am I imagining here? Anything that could be considered too weird for the normal sketchbook but isn‘t too risque. Funny things that might still not be „appropriate.“
Like a sketch of the male Strawhat ding-dongs with the sizes beside it. All the lewd jokes the fans did about Luffy's stretching qualities? I’m sure Oda thought about them too and drew that in the past if he had the time and it made him laugh enough.
But also maybe there are scenes in there that never made it in the Manga. The Strawhats interacting with each other in their daily lives, ideas for colorspreads and maybe chapter-titles. Oda probably has noted/sketched down a lot of unofficial stuff somewhere.
Another example, even an artist like Oda himself would have needed to exercise drawing two people kissing. Why not use Characters he thinks that might work out together?
Why not Franky and Robin? I would imagine he sketched up a few panels of Franky and Robin having a romantic date, going shopping together in Dressrosa, having a conversation that we never got to see because it was too on the nose.
Which brings us to the second point of me being very sure that Oda had drawn FrankyXRobin at one point.
I’m sure in those sketchbooks there is at least one drawing of them doing anything couple-related together. Again it does not have to be downright nasty but it could be them holding hands, kissing or even just Robin leaning onto Franky while reading, like all those fanarts that exist out there.
It’s not hard to imagine. Even for other Characters I think that is possible
And there might even be proof for that idea. The sketch of the Strong World movie you also mentioned, anon. The one movie that can be considered canon is Strong World. It was basically written/directed by Oda. Shiki the antagonist had an appearance in the Manga.
This sketch is drawn by Oda. Robin is holding onto Franky.
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Can it be read as romantic? Yes. Can it be read as Robin holding onto Franky because there is nothing else to hold onto? Also Yes. But couldn't she just have used her power to keep herself secured on the bike without holding onto Franky? WELL YES. Could Oda never have thought in these circles like I do right now? I hope he did not because I hate it and I don’t wish it upon him.
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In the movie Robin is NOT holding onto Franky. Now the really interesting thing - that is neither proof pro nor anti FRobin - is that we can see the sketch provided by Oda as a “between the scenes”.
In the movie Strong World the old trio is collecting information at the Pirate assembly. The next time we see them they use the Batta GT-7000 to slowly approach the destroyed village, which had been ravaged by the animals, and start to look for their friends. No need to hold onto Franky and no need for Brook to lean back. They are looking around.
The sketch is clearly not the same scene as the one we see in the movie.
In conclusion the drawing is indeed a between the scenes drawing. And yes if there exists one, who is to say there aren’t more?
Talking about Animal-Bikes...
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Is there any meaning about the fact that in the opening scene (that is part of the talked intro after the opening ‘We Go’ - a huge thanks to antiherofangirl, ccb0nnet, JFL_Estudios and Maems, over at twitter!) Franky and Robin build another grasshopper-based vehicle? Maybe not but I still feel like it’s quite a callback.
Where did the idea to put this in the beginning come from? a) an editor had the idea inspired by Strong World; b) maybe it’s another sketch that Oda provided.
Neither seems very far-fetched in my opinion.
So yes, I am very sure that Oda has drawn things that we would consider FRobin.
Now to the last point (the first being Oda having a secret sketchbook, the second me arguing that Oda might have drawn FRobin).
As I said in the beginning I’m very sure that at one point Oda did and kinda that he still does ship Franky and Robin. Because even though every Interaction of two characters can be depicted as romantic or platonic, Oda used ROMANTIC TROPES with Franky and Robin.
They have never kissed on screen but we had
finishing each other's sentences
coordinated clothes
one using the others lap as pillow
hand on cheek caressing
and we can’t forget that Robin had answered Franky's invitation to ride on another animal-themed bike with a heart.
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Edit: I didn‘t say anything about „no romance in OP“ so ask again if you want me to talk a bit about that. Sorry!
Those are things an author of Oda's level would not write or draw without being aware about how teasing this is. He has to be aware that every single line he draws will be analyzed to the end of the universe and back. People earn money by saying their opinion and interpretations about the Manga on Youtube.
These interactions are not something outlandish like “There was once an Anime Scene in which Robin was wearing something blue and exactly 28 episodes later Franky was wearing something violet and then 39 episodes later they both stood beside each other for exactly 69 seconds.”
Whenever I think about these facts, things that are not about interpreting but are factual, black ink on white paper but also about the little things, about how Frank and Robin help each other to become better, how they support each other… I want to say YES! ODA IS 100% on board! While in reality I’m 80% sure and 20% of me is wondering if I’m not actually analyzing too much into it. If maybe he really is abandoning ship. Maybe I will become the person who will curse his name and throw my Mangas and fanfictions in an active volcano?
I don’t know and it’s impossible to say what is going to happen.
And with that I've concluded this answer, and it only took me around 2k words and four days.
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sindrafalcone · 3 years
Text
Adventures in Babysitting pt. 3
Fandom: BIGBANG/ Choi Seung Hyun x reader
Synopsis: A babysitting job turns into something unexpected…
Warnings: Fluff for now, but it will evolve into something steamier in a later chapter. You’ve been warned!
Author’s Note: It has been entirely too long since I updated this story! My apologies... But I finally think I’m un-stuck on the storyline, so hopefully I can finish it in a reasonable amount of time. Thanks for sticking with me, and I hope you enjoy!
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. This story contains fictional representations of real people. None of the events are true. This is from an American standpoint, so some of the situations may not happen the same way they might in Korea. I make no money from the writing of this fictional work.
Masterlist
Part 1   Part 2
You had only made it about half a block before Seunghyun stopped dead in his tracks. When he quit moving you did as well, peering at him to see if he was okay. Between the dim city lights and his face mask you couldn't make out very much, but he was still holding on to your hand so that had to count for something. Before you could ask him what was wrong, he spoke softly. “This place that you're taking me...” his deep voice trembled a little bit. “Is it going to be very busy?”
You were a little taken aback by the clear apprehension in his voice. But then you remembered how happy he'd been when you had given him his space back at the museum. Maybe he just didn't like crowds.
“Sometimes it can be.” you admitted. “Usually around lunch time, but this late at night I doubt there's very many people in there. It's just a small Mom & Pop shop.” He seemed to take a moment to think about what you said & you patiently waited  for what he was going to say next. Perhaps he was getting cold feet about having dinner with you and just wanted to go back to the hotel instead.
“I still want to go with you.” he said, as if reading your mind. “I just... um, do you know if they have a private room?”
“Yeah...” you answered him hesitantly, not really seeing where he was going with this. “There's a medium sized room in the back of the restaurant that can be reserved for parties or large groups.”
“Do you think maybe you could call ahead and ask if we could eat in there?” Seunghyun shifted his weight back and forth from foot to foot nervously. “I'll be happy to pay extra if they want. Or if that's not available, we'll need a table in the very back, preferably as far away from other people as possible.”
You looked at him closely for a bit before taking out your phone. You decided he was being completely serious and you had the fleeting thought that he might actually have a phobia about this. “Okay... give me a minute.” you relented & you could finally see the tension in his shoulders relax as you did so. He let go of your hand so you could make the call and you found that you missed his warmth more than you wanted to admit.
Luckily for him, you were very good friends with the owners. You had been eating lunch there almost every day since you'd found the place a couple years back. The food was good and relatively cheap, especially once they had started giving you the 'family discount' even though you had tried to object. In a matter of minutes, you had secured the private room for you and Seunghyun to use. You brought up his willingness to pay a fee, but the owner just laughed at you. Telling her that you'd be there soon, you hung up only to find him looking at you anxiously.
“We can use the private room.”
“Oh, good.” he sighed, relief obvious in his voice. “That usually works out much better.”
You really wanted to question him about this whole thing, but decided that it might be better to wait until you were actually in the restaurant or maybe even back at the hotel before deciding to pry into his apparent agoraphobia. This time Seunghyun held his hand out for you to take & you stared at it in shock for a few seconds before gleefully interlacing your fingers again and setting off once more towards your destination for food.
When you rounded the corner and pulled him in the direction of the restaurant, he stopped once again.
“Pho?” he said, a curious tone to his voice. “You're taking me out for Pho?”
You turned to face him, not letting go this time. “Is that a problem?”
“No...” he smiled & you could see it in his eyes, despite the face mask he still wore. “I'm pleasantly surprised. That's all.”
“Well come on then.” you told him, playfully tugging him along towards the door. “I'm starving!”
He chuckled and the two of you tumbled into the warmth of the Pho shop holding hands, laughing and pink cheeked from the cool outside air.
“You didn't tell me it was a date!” the woman who stood at the counter exclaimed loudly. “_______! You should have warned me.”
“It isn't... we're not...” you stammered, looking down at your interlocked hands. You attempted to pull away, but Seunghyun just held tighter and chuckled louder.
“Nonsense! I know a date when I see one.” she dismissed as she motioned for the two of you to follow her to the room in the back. “I wondered why you wanted to use the party room. You should have just said, dear!”
Thankfully you noticed that the restaurant was mostly empty as she walked you through it, so there weren't very many witnesses to your embarrassment and none that you recognized.
She opened the door and gestured the two of you inside. “Here, just sit at the smaller table in the middle of the room. It will be more intimate that way.”
Beside you, Seunghyun made a small choking sound as she continued fussing. “I wish you had told me it was a date when you called. I would have set up some candles or something.”
“It's fine.” you told her, voice cracking a bit. “It'll be fine just like this.” You all but ripped your hand away from Seunghyun's and started to take off your coat, but before you made it very far you felt his hands slide over yours to remove it for you. Then he draped it carefully over a nearby empty chair before he set about sliding out of his own outerwear.
“Such a  gentleman!” the old lady exclaimed, hearts practically dancing in her eyes as she backed out of the room. “I'll be back with your drinks shortly.”
As soon as the door closed behind her, you rounded on Seunghyun and hissed. “What the hell was that?”
He held his hands up innocently, face mask still dangling from one long-fingered hand. “What?” he asked, laughing slightly, his eyes lit with mirth.
You plopped down into a chair inelegantly. “I was trying to let go of your hand and explain to her that this wasn't a date...”
“Is it not?” he interrupted, setting his mask down on top of his coat. “She's right, it does look like a date. And, you have to admit, it's slightly less awkward than the truth... that you're my babysitter.” he put a special emphasis on that last word that made you squirm in your seat a little bit.
“True...” you agreed.  “I suppose when you put it like that...”you started, but Seunghyun held his hand up to you again just as he had earlier in the evening at the hotel. And, just like before, you stopped talking.
“But that isn't what's important right now.” he told you as he pulled out a chair and sat down in the seat across from you.
“It isn't?”
“No.” he said, his face utterly serious, all traces of joking gone. “It's probably best that she thinks it's a date. But I have to tell you something before she gets back.”
You leaned forward, resting your elbows on the table so you could give Seunghyun your full attention. He leaned forward as well, until your faces were mere inches apart.
“___________.” he whispered your name. “I have a confession to make. I'm not...” he took a deep breath and blew it out. “I'm not who you think I am.”
“A rich, foreign guy with impeccable fashion sense who knows his wine and appreciates contemporary art?” you quirked an eyebrow at him, spilling all the details that you'd managed to piece together over the past few hours you'd spent with Seunghyun (or at least all the observations that you were willing to admit to him, anyway).
He flashed you a dangerous smile. “Well, yes... I am those things. But that's not all of who I am and you need to know the vital details before...”
The door the room slid open again, interrupting whatever Seunghyun had been about to say & he cursed quietly under his breath. You watched as he leaned back in his seat and winced, seeming to brace himself for something he knew was inevitably coming. From the pained expression on his face, it didn't look as if he expected it to be pleasant.
“I've got your usual right here. Iced Vietnamese coffee and a glass of water. I brought the same for your gentleman, I hope that's okay.” the older lady said as she bustled over towards you. “Now, do you two love birds need menus or...” her voice trailed off as she finally made it to the table and caught a clear view of Seunghyuns face, without his mask. “Oh my...” her voice faltered, the tray immediately started shaking in her hands.
“Ma'am...” Seunghyun said tightly, pinching the bridge of his nose with his eyes still closed.
“Oh my goodness!” she practically yelled, her voice echoing slightly in the almost empty room. “Y- y- you're... T.O.P!” she whispered those last three letters as if they were some sort of secret.
You just looked between the two of them, completely lost as to what was going on. “Um, Mrs. Tran?” you placed a hand carefully on her arm to get her attention away from Seunghyun.
“Yes, dear?” she asked, still looking at him with sheer disbelief written all over her elderly face.
“You might want to set the tray down before you drop it.” you told her gently.
“Oh, yes... good idea.” she replied, voice weak.
She did finally manage to set the tray down on the table with a little help from you.
Seunghyun sighed, opened his eyes & smiled at the old woman. It was a polite smile, but tight. Something that someone who hadn't spent much time with him probably wouldn't notice as a fake smile, but you could see it nonetheless.
“Mrs. Tran...” he soothed, having picked up her name from when you'd said it. “Tonight, I'm not T.O.P. I'm just Seunghyun, trying to enjoy a normal date with the lovely ________,  here. I'm happy to sign as many autographs as you want and I'll even mention this restaurant on my Instagram if you'd like a boost in business. But I'd appreciate it if you could keep my visit here a secret for now. And please, no pictures.” Seunghyun gestured over to you. “I'd like to keep our date as private as possible.”
You were so confused right now, but Mrs. Tran seemed to understand what was going on. It was as if a light bulb immediately went off over the little woman's head and she smiled knowingly. “Oooohhhhh, I get it. Don't worry, you aren't the first celebrity we've had in here. It's just been a very long time and you caught me off guard, that's all. I know how to be discreet.”
“Thank you.” he said with a little bow towards her that made her giggle like a school girl and blush.
“Now that's settled...” she clapped her hands together excitedly. “Menus?”
“I think I'll trust __________ to order for both of us. She obviously knows this place quite well.” Seunghyun said with a wink in your direction.
“Um...” you faltered, still reeling from their entire conversation, not to mention the fact that he had just referred to you as 'lovely'. 'Celebrity?' you thought quickly to yourself. 'What the hell is going on here & what have I gotten myself into?!?' you cleared your throat awkwardly.
“Is there anything you don't want to eat?” you asked him. “Or are you allergic to anything?”
Seunghyun smiled. “I'm allergic to peaches & I don't eat intestines. Other than that, I'm fair game.” he said, already reaching for a glass of water from the tray.
You nodded at him at turned back to face Mrs Tran. “Just double my usual then.”
“So...” she pulled out an order pad and pen from her apron. “A double #4 and two medium # 45's?”
“Actually, make those #45's a large please. We're both kinda hungry tonight.” you said without thinking of the implications of that sentence.
“Oh, I bet you are.” she sassed under her breath as she walked away, causing Seunghyun to almost snort water out of his nose. Mrs. Tran merely hummed happily to herself as she walked out of the room. As soon as the door shut, you could hear her yelling in Vietnamese, presumably to her husband who was in the kitchen.
You briefly thought about immediately grilling Seunghyun about this whole “celebrity” business, but as you remembered the look on his face as he braced himself earlier, you paused. You never wanted to see that look from him directed at you. So instead, you settled for pouring the coffee that had just finished steeping over the ice & sweetened, condensed milk in the other glass.
“Are we going to talk about this or would you rather pretend that whole scene never happened?” you asked, not trusting yourself to look at him.
A few seconds ticked by before he answered quietly. “You'd be willing to do that? Just ignore everything she said about me?”
You shrugged, stirring your coffee to combine it with the milk. “I mean... I'll admit to being curious. But it obviously bothers you & I was just fine with not knowing before.”
Seunghyun sighed heavily before pouring his own coffee. “Right now, I'm just Seunghyun to you. A rich, foreign guy with impeccable fashion sense who knows his wine and appreciates contemporary art.” he smirked. “If I tell you everything, that changes.” he said, his voice melancholy.
“It doesn't have to.” you told him softly. “Let's try this... You tell me your secret, and I'll tell you mine.” you said, finally looking up and locking eyes with him.
That statement seemed to intrigue him and he arched an eyebrow up at you. “You have a secret double life too?”
“Saying it like that makes it sound like I'm a superhero or something.” you laughed & smacked him playfully on the arm. “But, yeah... there are things that you don't know about me yet. Maybe not as big of a bombshell as yours, but still... something that might change the way you see me too.”
“How about we wait until after dinner?” he asked tentatively.
“Sounds like a plan.”
Interrupting the conversation, Mrs. Tran came back into the private room, bringing two large bowls of pho over and deposited a plate with bean sprouts, sprigs of basil and quarters of limes on the table; along with four egg rolls and two bowls of dipping sauce.
Seunghyun inhaled deeply. The aroma of the broth and the slices of rare beef and shrimp wontons floating atop the long rice noodles making his stomach growl once again. “This smells amazing.”
Mrs. Tran just giggled at him again. “You know, I didn't even realize Bigbang was in town...” she started before he held up a finger to his lips.
“Technically, we're not.” he whispered. “We're just... having a bit of a vacation that's all. Very hush-hush.”
“Ohhhhhh.....” she nodded knowingly. “I guess everyone needs a break sometimes. Well, I will just leave you two alone. I'll be back later to check in on you.” and without another word, she was gone.
Seunghyun started plucking the basil leaves off one of the sprigs, rolling them up and then ripping them into little pieces and dropping them in his soup while you watched him, completely mesmerized by the movements of his fingers.
“I guess you've had Pho before then?” you asked, taking an egg roll from your plate before tearing it in half, dipping it into the sauce & taking a bite.  
Seunghyun nodded, “It's been a while though. So, thanks for bringing me here.” he told you sincerely, picking up an egg roll with his chopsticks and dipping it before taking his own crunchy bite.
“Show off...” you muttered, grumpily picking up your own chopsticks and spoon just to show him that you did, in fact, know how to use them.
Seunghyun merely laughed.
The two of you spent the next hour simply eating and discussing the art and artists from the museum exhibition. Conversation flowed between you effortlessly & before you knew it, Mrs. Tran was bringing in the check and fortune cookies.
Seunghyun pulled out his wallet and when you tried to object, reminded you that you'd paid for the taxi earlier. You caught a glimpse of the black card he held between his long, slender fingers & swallowed hard, nodding your head in acceptance.
You both made the decision to take the fortune cookies back to the hotel and, after Seunghyun spent some time signing the promised autographs for Mrs. Trang, you left the restaurant the same way you'd come in... laughing and holding hands.
Only this time, you were headed back to the hotel and a discussion that could possibly change everything between the two of you.
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amjustagirl · 3 years
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Chapters: one. ~ two. ~ three. ~ four. ~ five. ~ six. ~ seven.
Wordcount: 2.3k
Summary: Akaashi Keiji catches glimpses of another life in his dreams. He dreams of fields of endless gold, of constellation of stars that light up the night sky. He hears echoes of the birdsong in her laugher, the songs of the gods in the wind. 
(Loosely inspired by ‘Your Name’, aka Kimi No Nawa, featuring Haikyuu’s own pretty Tokyo boy)
Wordcount: 3.5k
Masterlist here
AO3 Link here
Author’s note: This fic is a little different from my usual work, so I’m a little nervous about publishing it. If you do like it, would love if you leave a comment / reblog / anything!
If you’d like to be included in the taglist, do drop me a msg/ask!
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‘It’s rare to see young men like you buying flowers for their mother’, the florist comments offhand as she wraps his order of yellow chrysanthemums in paper. 
Akaashi smiles, accustomed to the friendly florist by now. ‘I guess I’ve always had a partiality for flowers’, waving to the florist as he leaves to head to Shibuya to meet Bokuto for Izakaya. He’s running late, but Bokuto doesn't mind, hooting good naturedly at the comedy show playing on the television in the rundown bar. 
‘Agaaaashi, you made it!’ Bokuto rises from his seat to give him a jovial fist bump. 
‘Of course I did’, he responds dryly. ‘Wild horses wouldn’t keep me from my appointment with you’. He spends most of dinner listening to Bokuto’s recent exploits both with the national team and MSBY. Excitement still sparkles in the older man’s eyes as he recounts each and every match he’s played in, and Akaashi idly wonders how it is that Bokuto seems to have managed to pack on even more muscle in the short span of a month, the last time they met up was to see Bokuto off at the airport for the World Cup. 
‘You should have continued playing volleyball in university’, Bokuto crows in between mouthfuls of yakiniku and beer and Akaashi shakes his head at the refrain he’s so used to hearing from his senpai.
‘I wouldn’t be able to maintain my grades if I wanted to take volleyball seriously in university, plus there’s no guarantee I’d even get off the bench’, he answers self-effacingly. 
‘But you have the best tosses, Akaaaaaashi!!’ Bokuto declares, his words slightly slurred, and Akaashi wonders if he should start to inch Bokuto’s beer away from him. After consuming far too much barbecued meat (Bokuto took the liberty of ordering twice of what Akaashi would normally order, waving his protests off by stating grandly that he’ll take care of the bill, he’s the one working after all!), Bokuto slips into a food-drunk stupor, happy to listen to his anecdotes of university life, and he takes the chance to ramble on about his advanced Japanese classical literature course that he finds far more fascinating than his class on modern literature to his best friend. 
They stumble out of the izakaya when the line outside grows far too long to be ignored, Bokuto draping a heavy arm over Akaashi’s shoulder, the red tint on the tips of his ears betraying his slightly tipsy state. As they stand at the traffic light patiently waiting for the light to change from red to green, Bokuto turns to him and grasps his shoulders in his large, warm hands. 
‘I’m really proud to have you as a friend, Akaashi’, Bokuto tells him seriously. ‘And I’m going to prove to you that I can be the best ace so you can be proud of me too’. The molten gold glimmering in Bokuto’s gaze fills him with far more warmth than any alcohol could possibly achieve. 
‘I’m already proud of you, Bokuto-san’, he answers, his earnestness resounding in every word of his short declaration. Bokuto beams at him in response and bounds across the pedestrian walkway in approximately three strides, ignoring Akaashi’s chiding to ‘look before you cross the road, even if you have the right of way!’
Many things may have changed since high school, but some things still stay the same.  
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His dreams take a strange turn that night.
He’s back in the Fukurodani gym with his teammates, but it’s not accurate to say he’s with them - rather, he’s watching his past self from afar, seated on the bench, a wrist guard on his right arm. He doesn’t remember ever injuring himself enough to warrant a wrist guard at any point during his high school volleyball career, but it’s probably just another oddity of being in a dream.  
‘I wish your wrist was feeling better, Akaashi. I miss your tosses already’, the pout in Bokuto’s voice pronounced.
‘It’s just for a while - I’ll be right as rain tomorrow!’ he hears himself say cheerfully - but that doesn’t make sense either. No one in their right mind has ever described the way he speaks as cheerful, and the rest of his teammates glance over at him curiously. Then his past self awkwardly tucks his legs under the bench, ankles crossed almost as if he’d like nothing better than to fold himself away with all the cloth vests they use for practice – but that doesn’t make sense either, he doesn’t even know why he’s behaving like some fish out of water. While volleyball doesn’t come naturally to him as it does to someone like Bokuto-san, and there are times he feels like he’s struggling to swim upstream, his fingers still itch to toss a ball up into the sky in a perfect arc even now. 
‘I told you, I don’t get what you insist on waxing lyrical on him being a star you can’t help but follow,’ he hears her voice chime in his consciousness, inexplicable though her presence in this scene may be, he hears himself answer - ‘just be patient and watch’. 
Anahori, their substitute setter tosses the ball up in the air and it’s a good toss, he will give him that, but it’s still not quite as high a toss that Bokuto likes. Bokuto runs right up to the net to leap into the air, back arching to slam the ball to the ground with such force that it’s a commanding full stop punctuating any doubts about his place on the team as its captain and ace. 
‘You see! When he plays well, he's like a supernova, shining with a light so bright it almost blinds my eyes.’
‘Waxing lyrical again, Keiji-kun?’ He can hear her tease him gently. ‘Go on, carry on with your celestial metaphors’.
‘How about a shooting star then’, he replies, amused. ‘If a shooting star shot up from the earth instead of falling from the sky.’ 
‘You sound like you like the guy. Are you sure you don’t?’ She asks. ‘You sure sound like you do.’
What?!
His legs are tangled in his sheets when he thrashes awake, mouth open in a gasp for air. That was a new twist in his collection of dreams, the first time he’s dreamt of something other than that phantom girl’s life in months, but even when the dreamscape doesn’t even feature her, she still manages to invade his dream. 
Worse - his dreams are now edging into territory he hasn’t mapped out in years. His teenage infatuation with Bokuto-san died a natural death after he realised that he’d mistaken his admiration for the ace for romantic feelings. Besides, there was no way Bokuto-san would ever be in love with him, not when he’d chosen to devote the next decade of his life to his sport. So why are his dreams dragging him deeper into a labyrinth of memories that aren’t even his own?
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‘Why are you squandering my pocket money in a maid café of all things’ he says, sounding uncharacteristically put out. But then again he would be annoyed if anyone managed to drag him into the pink and white monstrosity his dream has deposited him into.
Bokuto’s happily seated across from him (or rather, his past self), exclaiming ‘ooh - isn’t the ketchup art on this omurice amazing, Akaashi? They managed to capture my hair so well!’, and to his horror his past self nods encouragingly and only laughs when Bokuto whines about not wanting to destroy this ‘piece of art the maids took so much time to create’ by eating the damn omurice. 
‘Don’t be such a killjoy, Keiji-kun’, she giggles. ‘Look at him, he’s having such fun, and besides, your day will reset so your money won’t be wasted anyway!’. 
Bokuto, distracted by the catchy beat of the J-pop song blasting over the speakers, is cajoled by a trio of pretty maids to join them on stage to dance along with them. He pops his hips to the beat of the music, throwing up cheesy hand signals with such gusto that it makes him (yes, present day Keiji) want to smile. 
But his past self evidently hasn’t lightened up yet, because he hears himself say crossly – ‘You do realise this is a waste of time when we could be doing something more useful like homework, especially since  Bokuto-san and I already spend most of our time training?’
‘Oh Keiji-kun, life is too short to be spent worrying like that. Because before you know it, you’ll grow into an old man who doesn’t know how to have any fun’.
‘I have fun’, he says petulantly, a faint sulk in his voice. 
‘Oh really? Then stop worrying and live a little. Maybe you should take a leaf out of your beloved Bokuto-san’s book – look how much fun he’s having!’
Bokuto clearly seems to be having the time of his life because now he’s prancing around the stage playing some silly game with the maids. 
‘I told you, I don’t think of him that way.’
‘And I’ve told you I’ve borrowed your skin for far too long to know when you’re not telling me the whole truth, Keiji-kun’, she sing-songs. ‘You wished for more time with him, didn’t you, so aren’t I doing a good deed by helping you figure out what Bokuto might like to do with you?’
‘Bokuto-san doesn’t have spare time on these things – and you’re just making an excuse to explore cafes in Tokyo at my expense!’ 
‘Two birds, one stone. Don’t be pedantic, Keiji-kun!’ 
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The next time he’s back in one of those dreams, he finds his past self dressed in a blue yukata along the Sumida river, tugging Bokuto away from the takoyaki store. He remembers Bokuto dragging him away from the rest of the team on a quest to buy some snacks at the food stalls set up around the park, insisting that his stomach’s growling too loudly to wait until the fireworks display is over ‘come on, even you can hear my stomach at this rate, Akaaashi!!!’ – but that’s where the dream starts to diverge. 
‘If you queue for takoyaki, we’re going to miss the fireworks, and you don’t want to miss that, do you Bokuto-san?’ he says, hand firmly on Bokuto’s yukata sleeve. 
‘That’s right! But shouldn’t we join the rest of the team? They’ve got a spot by the river just over there!’ 
‘We won’t get there in time with this crowd – come on! If we hurry, I know the perfect spot to watch the display’, weaving his way through the crowd to shimmy up the trunk of a tree and settle himself comfortably against a large branch. 
‘Woah – Akaashi! I never knew you could climb trees!’ Bokuto calls, sounding impressed.
‘Well, don’t stand there, come join me!’ 
The tree creaks ominously as the larger boy scales its trunk, branches already heavy with red lanterns groaning in protest as he settles himself in the branch opposite Akaashi. And not a moment too soon, because a collective gasp ripples through the crowd along the river as the night sky explodes into rainbow hued fiery streaks.
‘It’s amazing, Akaashi!’ Bokuto hollers with his face tilted up to the sky. 
‘You’re amazing, Bokuto-san’, he says fondly, reaching over to bump Bokuto’s shoulder with his fist and the older boy beams at him, the sheer delight in his smile brighter than the fireworks in the sky. There is a sea of stars in his eyes, and Akaashi wants to shrivel in shame at the way his younger self looks like he’s mentally planning to pirate a boat to cross the straits to Bokuto’s heart. 
‘There is no way I’m going to do that’ he hears himself say, sounding mildly cross. 
‘Eh – it’s cute. ‘sides, doesn’t he look so happy’ he hears her say, sounding overly chipper. 
‘You could spend your time instead learning how to play so Bokuto-san won’t pout when you sit out of practice and you wouldn’t have to pretend you sprain your wrist every time we swap.’
‘Are you mad? Do you really think they won’t think something’s up when I can’t even do a simple serve?’ 
‘Fine. You have a point’, he answers begrudgingly. 
‘Of course I do. Come on Keiji, live a little. Enjoy your time with the lodestar of your life’.
‘Can you not say things like that?’ he says dryly. 
‘It’s your fault for reading so much Shakespeare to me!’ she replies with a grin in her voice.
He texts Bokuto the minute he wakes up. ‘Bokuto-san, apologies if this seems weird, but do you remember if we ever climbed a tree when we watched fireworks with our team?’ 
Bokuto takes a while to respond, but that’s to be expected, it’s his mornings are usually filled with practice and conditioning. But when he does respond, his text makes Akaashi’s brow curl. ‘Nope, but sounds fun! What’s up Akaashi!!’ 
Akaashi drops his head in his palms. Good to know he’s not losing his grip on reality at least. 
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But his sleep for the following weeks continues to be filled with dreams in the same vein. 
He dreams of scenes that have never taken place in real life - him challenging Bokuto-san to ramen eating competition, the older boy winning handily of course, crowing like a child when he slurps the last mouthful of tonkatsu broth - ‘eh Akaashi, eat faster!’, him dragging Bokuto-san to the arcade near school, demolishing middle schoolers in endless games of dance dance revolution (there is no way he is actually able to move like that in real life) and losing far too much money in claw games - ‘Akaashi I really want that toy pleaseeee’ - and even he would admit it’s absolutely adorable if not for the fact that he can’t explain why these dreams keep invading his head like a wildfire that refuses to die. 
‘I honestly don’t understand you’, she says and again, why on earth is she in this set of dreams - she doesn’t belong in them -
‘What exactly do you not understand?’
‘If you like him that much, why aren’t you jumping at the chance to hang out with him? All you do is nag me about how I’m wasting his time, I’m wasting your time, but I don’t understand -  isn’t time meant to be spent on the people you love? Unless you’re confusing love with admiration, because yes, I get that you admire his talent, but you don’t seem to have all that much patience for spending time with him outside of school.’ 
‘I suppose I do like him, but…’
‘Finally you admit it, but I don’t like the sound of that word.’ 
‘It’s nothing’, he finally says, and she huffs in annoyance, clearly wanting him to explain but he stubbornly refuses to say another word. 
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His past self is skidding down the hallway with Bokuto hot on his heels yelling ‘Akaaashiii you owe me a Yakisoba bunnnnn’ when he hears an almighty crash behind him. As he spins around, Bokuto’s sprawled on the floor, papers and books scattered around him. The older boy grimaces as he sits up, grabbing at his ankle in pain. 
‘Bokuto-san, are you ok?’ he cries, running back towards the older boy. 
‘I might have twisted my ankle. Argh this is bad - prelims are just next week!’ Bokuto groans, clutching at his ankle desperately. 
‘Don’t worry. You’ll be fine tomorrow, trust me’, his past self says with complete certainty, and flags down a passing student to call for a teacher. 
‘Look what you’ve done now. Are you happy with yourself?’ he hears himself say accusingly. ‘Everything might reset tomorrow, but look - he’s hurt himself today. Is this what you’ve been trying to prove to me?’ 
‘I’m sorry, Keiji’ he hears her say, her voice watery. ‘I didn’t think -’ 
‘Of course you didn’t, you never think about the consequences of your actions, do you?’ he says, glass shards in his words. 
His dream fades to black. He never hears her answer. 
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His sleep remains relatively undisturbed for the next fortnight, just in time for his mid-term exams which he aces, even his course on classical Japanese literature. He’s relieved of course, because his final year grades matter most when it comes to recruitment, yet there’s a part of him that’s buried deep between ventricles and pumping flesh that childishly wonders what his dreams are going to show him next.
His wish is answered when he opens his eyes to an ocean of stars, white pinpricks of light against the vast tapestry of the purple night sky. His head is pillowed on tufts of grass and the wind whispers against his feet.
The sight takes his breath away. 
He’s a born and bred city boy, and he knows from experience it’s near impossible to see stars in the city sky amidst light pollution and masquerading satellites.  
‘Is this your way of apologising?’ he asks, his voice wry. 
‘Is it working yet?’ he hears her ask, an uncharacteristically timid note in her voice. He laughs, a fond sound, and he can hear her huff a breath through her mouth. ‘I am sorry though, Keiji. I never meant to hurt him’. 
‘It’s fine, no damage done. Besides, I was thinking about what you said.’
‘Me? About what? I know I’ve said plenty to you so far’, she says curiously. 
‘About Bokuto-san’, he supplies, and she stays silent, waiting for him to go on. The stars twinkle down at him, and if he closes his eyes, he can imagine the galaxy reaching down to lend him its infinite strength. ‘You were right about how…I felt about Bokuto-san. I thought what I felt for him was something more than it really was - now I’m starting to realise I just admire his strength, and I don’t see our paths ever converging, especially if he’s going to chase his dreams of going pro all the way’. 
‘You don’t have to chase someone else’s light when you’re brilliant in your own right’, she says gently. 
‘Thanks’, he answers thickly, as if the word feels a little awkward in his mouth. 
‘So -’ she pipes up, and he can tell she’s trying her best to paper over the sudden lapse of silence. ‘Will you tell me stories about the stars, Keiji?’
He laughs fondly, raising a hand to catch the stardust from the sparkling constellations overhead. ‘I could tell you the story of Andromeda, chained to rocks as a sacrifice to satisfy the cruel demands of the sea monster?’ 
‘Ugh no gory stories, I want a happy ending!’ 
‘It has a happy ending, I promise. Just be patient and listen, okay?’ 
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Akaashi wakes up before his past self can finish telling the tale of Persues’ rescue of Andromeda from the jaws of defeat. It’s barely three in the morning, but he knows it’s futile to try to go back to sleep. He wanders to the window, and wonders whether the lone star hanging in the cloudy sky is merely a satellite in disguise. 
Against his better judgment, he dials Bokuto’s number. 
‘What’s up, Akaashi!’ he hears the older man mumble sleepily, sheets rustling. 
‘Was it obvious I had a crush on you in high school?’ he asks plainly. If seeking closure is what he needs to end this slew of dreams, then he’s going to do it, never mind the embarrassment thick in the blood in his veins.
‘Huh?’ 
Akaashi’s pretty sure he can hear Bokuto blink rapidly. ‘A crush on you’, he repeats, and for good measure he adds - ‘sometime in your third year of high school’. 
‘Ehhhh…’ Bokuto’s voice trails off over the phone. ‘You did?’ 
The sigh that trips out of Akaashi’s mouth is worn, weary. ‘I did’, he confirms, embarrassment writhing in his belly. 
‘But you stopped right? Just before I graduated? You started becoming distracted after Spring High and I thought you were just worrying about university entrance exams.’
‘I suppose.’ And Akaashi should really get a grip on himself but his dreams have been doing a number on him so to his horror, he starts to ramble. ’ It’s probably the lack of sleep, but look - this sounds really stupid but I was having a lot of really weird dreams and I don’t understand what’s happening but I’m hoping getting this off my chest helps me get some more sleep and I hope you don’t think I’m completely weird and don’t mind still being my friend -’
‘Woah, ‘kaashi, slow down! You’re overthinking again - what, you think I’m not going to be your friend anymore?’ Bokuto booms, laughing widely. 
‘Uh. I don’t know?’ 
‘Relax! I’m flattered, but I think it’s a good thing we never went out! You were already so stressed dealing with me in high school Washio used to joke about your hair falling out, but I’ve changed! Now I’m just an ordinary ace!’ 
‘Bokuto-san, I don’t think anyone would call you ordinary’, Akaashi interjects, rubbing circles against his temple. 
‘You know what I mean!’ Bokuto laughs, the sound so round and boisterous that it makes Akaashi quirk his lips up in affection. 
‘Yes, Bokuto-san. Anyway, sorry for disturbing your sleep.’ 
‘Anytime, Akaashi!’ They bid each other goodnight, and the relief he feels after the call settles on his chest like a blanket, and he falls back to sleep. 
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Taglist: 
@1tooru @kageyamakock @animeflower26 @underrated-fruit-tarts-official
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mammoney-honey · 4 years
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Summoning Circles: What to Offer the Brothers GN!MC
MC doesn’t need to set up anything to summon them since they have their pact but sometimes its just nice to add a bit of drama. It’s also a good way to get the brothers to accept Just Because gifts. So what would would MC lay out as an offering for their favorite demon in their pentagram?
Lucifer
Lucifer is hard to get gifts for because hes a man of few words and fewer guilty pleasures
MC does their best to keep an eye out for things he does like and finally sets things up when they feel that Luci needs a bit of a break
They mostly offer things that would make for a good date night but with one small exception: special gourmet dog treats 
He won’t admit it, he says Cerberus is just a well trained guard dog, but that big boy gets only the best and MC knows that Lucifer will appreciate the gesture
The rest is all about setting the mood so Lucifer couldn’t possibly say no to staying
The first thing to accomplish this is the finest bottle of hellfire aged wine, a special request put through to Diavolo for whatever he thought Lucifer would like most
And to accompany a good drink you need some good food as well. A charcuterie board supplied with recommendations from Barbatos and Luke. The little guy should be called a mouse rather than a dog with how much he loves cheese. It took a long time for him to stop talking about it
One of the things that MC looks most fondly on of their time with Lucifer was quiet nights in listening and dancing to new music. They didn’t always share the same tastes but they were always willing to give it a go
So MC would find a vinyl, the only thing Lucifer would listen to the purest that he is, of their most recent favorite song or band so that they could share it with him
The last thing offered is that which Lucifer would want above all else as his own, MC
They can think of nothing else that would gain Lucifer’s attention more than offering their full and complete self. His pride could never allow him to deny taking MC when they offer themselves so willingly
He appears in full demon form, he can’t think of who would be ballsy enough to try and summon him and he has to pull back on his full power once he sees its MC
“MC, my dearest love, the pageantry is appreciated but overall unneeded. All you ever have to do is call my name, all I wish is to hear my name on your lips. But now that I’m here lets make sure you are screaming it”
Mammon
He is another one who is hard to gift things to but for the opposite reason as Lucifer. He likes too many things, wants everything and so it makes it impossible to tell what would actually mean something to him
MC tries their best to lay out things that will show how much they love and appreciate their favorite demon
Money of course is the first thing that is set out but not just spare Grimm or human cash
No, MC will put gift cards out for Mammon’s favorite places or for a date that they can have together. It feels more personal that way and they hope it shows that they pay attention to the things he likes
Mammon has a wardrobe to rival Asmo’s but he insists that it all has to do with his job as a model. Gotta keep up appearances and all that yanno. Hes just a label whore though and everyone knows it
He also just melts at the idea that MC might be thinking of what he would look good in so if they put out a new outfit or accessory, even if its just new sunglasses or a belt, he just about explodes
He will scoff and say that hes not sure if human styles are really his thing but of course puts whatever it is on quickly
Next would be a very special edition of the TSL dvds, a directors cut that even Levi couldn’t get his hands on. He has watched it with MC so many times he could practically recite it but they were always borrowing from Levi so it was about time to start wearing out their own copy
The last two things are more personal, something that shows just how much MC thinks of and misses being with him
The first of that is MC’s favorite set of pictures they took with Mammon, a silly photo booth strip that captured their first kiss. MC had surprised him on the first snapshot and it showed a progression of him getting redder and redder before finally kissing them back
Lastly is a page from their diary, as intimate an offering as they can possibly give. Its from a day where the longing for Mammon was at its strongest and filled with sweet words of how much they miss their first man
Mammon is freaked out at first thinking he is being summoned by another witch and is confused to see MC before taking it all in
“H-hey you don’t have to go through all this. I mean of course The Great Mammon won’t say no to the the things he deserves but ... b-but you only ever need to say my name, there is no where I’d rather be than with you”
Levi
Levi has a bad habit of just buying whatever he wants but considering that he has so many fandom’s its not hard to find some piece or another he doesn’t have 
MC feels like his brothers don’t give much thought to his gifts though, just typing in a name they know and getting whatever they find. They want to give him something more personal and can’t just be bought and shipped in two days
MC starts to watch a lot of craft, cooking and cosplay YouTubers to try and put everything together themselves. It felt more genuine that way at least to them
MC tries to keep things diverse, hitting a couple of Levi’s favorites but mostly avoiding anything Ruri related since they are afraid of messing it up lmao
Instead they focus on the anime’s and games that they watched and played together. Almost like a collection of inside jokes that they are using to summon him
The first thing MC sets out is a prettily decorated plate of macrons, doing their best to replicate the colors and flavors described in the one bakery time management game they always played
MC also went through Levi’s super secret fanfiction accounts I will fight you he is totally a fic writer because he has so many self inserts and fix it fics  and wrote out comments for every single thing he had written. They printed them out not because they didn’t think he read them but to show that they were the ones that left them
Along with the comments MC also created art for Levi’s most beloved OC, creating cute enamel pins of them in chibi form with the cannon character he paired them with
 The last two things came as a sort of combo, a couples cosplay from the romance anime they had watched together. The protagonist had been a shut in otaku who had found his soulmate when they were reborn into his world and Levi had latched onto him immediately 
It had taken a lot of blood sweat and tears trying to get both of the outfits cannon perfect but damn it MC was not going to settle for anything less
At one point they forgot they were making it for Levi and just got caught up in the the drama that was finding the perfect buttons and trim color
Overall they were so proud of the sewing skills they just wanted to call on him the moment they were done so he could see but they got a hold of themselves so they could set up what they had planned
Levi was summoned into the circle still wearing his headset and fingers tapping at a controller that had been left behind
His demon side comes out at having been cost a serious match from the sounds of it but his anger turns to confusion at seeing MC and then into wide eyed amazement at all of the things in front of him
He started to gush about every single thing he saw before he realized that MC was there beaming at him 
“You went through all this trouble to prove that you aren’t a normie and yet you summon me this way?? J-just say my name like you’re supposed to! I kind of like hearing you say it anyway ...”
Satan
Satan surprisingly doesn’t like being the center of attention and thus doesn’t really like surprises or receiving gifts. He also doubts that anyone understands him enough to give him what he wants cocky ass that he is
The idea for the things to set out in his summoning circle came to MC when discussing love potions with Satan and Solomon one day. They were talking about how smell plays such a strong part and Satan let slip some of the things he might smell after MC listed some of theirs
So while MC doesn’t have much, well any, experience in magic or potions they do want to try to stir up those feelings those smells produce in Satan
The first thing he had said came as a surprise to no one, the smell of parchment and ink
MC used each of them as their own separate offering on the pentagram. They used a fancy new calligraphy quill dipped in green ink that matched his eyes to write a long love note for him
The ink was still wet on the parchment that they set down and left the quill and remaining ink as the second gift
The next thing he mentioned was another one MC expected: tea leaves
So MC just walked into their local tea shop and let their nose lead the way. Anything that caught their attention or made them want to keep smelling they bought, creating their own special blend just for Satan
It wasn’t necessarily something that Satan would say for himself but MC had started to burn different candles in their room when he would come to rant when he was angry, trying to find a scent that he could associate with being calm when they helped him work through the anger
Whatever candle seemed to work the best is the candle that MC sets out for him. Probably something woodsy, pine or balsam or even sandalwood. It brings back good memories for MC, kissing all those worries of his away and hopes it does the same
The last item is one that made MC blush when they heard Satan admit it, he had liked the scent of their shampoo
He hadn’t said that specifically but he had closed his eyes and described a scent that he couldnt place but that he adored and when MC was taking their shower that night it clicked 
It might have been a little lame, leaving a bottle of shampoo out for Satan but MC knew that when he realized what that scent he loved so much was that he would get the cutest blush
They weren’t disappointed when they summoned Satan. He hid his shock of being summoned this way well, taking his time to walk around the circle and examine each offering. He immediately knew where they had gotten the inspiration and teased them about being such a sap
He stopped when he got to the shampoo though, not sure how that fit into the equation until he smelled it. It dawned on him and there was that blush that he tried to hide by turning his face away
“You always did like to make things difficult on yourself didn’t you? I’m only ever a call away for you kitten. Now come here and let me really breath you in, you’re simply intoxicating to me and I can’t stay away.”
Asmo
Asmo is never shy about when he doesn’t like gifts that people have given him but he has only ever cherished what MC has gotten him. Every small trinket and gift he has on full display in his room and he will wear something that MC got them when he misses them the most
He also will do it when he wants to bother his brothers and show off that MC simply lavished him in gifts (Mammon and Levi are the only ones who fall for it lmao)
So MC decides to offer Asmo things that will allow him to parade around their love for him, things to keep them close when MC isn’t there
The first thing that MC gets Asmo is new nail polish, a color that they agonized over finding because they wanted it to match his eyes perfectly
Asmo has a very organized planner, its how he keeps track of all the events he is invited to, when he has dates, who hes slept with, who hes going to sleep with and everything in between
MC commissions custom made stickers for him so he can decorate the pages of his planner even more. Specifically a whole sheet of cute stickers of them together he could use for when they planned date nights
The next thing was something for Asmo’s room which he was always changing and refreshing so it looked forever interesting for Devilgram pics
MC gets a large print of Asmo’s favorite picture of them together and puts it in a beautiful frame that perfectly matched his favorite decorating style. Perfect to show to the world that Asmo was their favorite demon and that they looked so good together
And so they can take even more pictures of themselves together MC buys a Polaroid camera for Asmo. His phone will always be his favorite thing to take pics on but this way they could have them printed instantly and it continues to let him be trendy
Lastly MC gets Asmo a necklace. A dainty rose gold chain that he can wear with practically everything and with a diamond accented heart shaped locket that could easily be tucked away if needed. It was an enchanted locket, thanks to the help of Solomon, and it warmed when MC was thinking of him
Its the first thing Asmo grabs and quickly puts on, showing it off for MC
“Oh MC you are simply the cutest thing I have ever seen~ I’m sorry I don’t have something to give you in return. I hope the fact that my heart beats only for you will make up for it, now come here I’ve been without kisses too long.”
Beel
Its SO hard not to just grab whatever is in the kitchen at the time and throw it in the summoning circle and call it a day for Beel
But he is more than just his hunger and MC is always striving to show him that they understand that 
It was harder than expected, just because asking anyone what Beel might want always got them food answers. They thought Belphie might be helpful but only got told “he probably just wants a nap ... its what I would want”
MC starts to think of all the most special moments they had with Beel, trying to think what about them made them so memorable and they knew for a fact that it wasn’t the food
The first thing they come up with is a banner that MC made to cheer him on at one of his games. It had gotten a little tattered and torn because it had rained that day but they just couldn’t let it go
Mostly because Beel after winning had ran up into the stands and kissed them for the first time. It wasn’t as if they hadn’t ever kissed but they had always been the one to make the first move but this time Beel had come to them. Of course in the biggest gesture possible
It was cheating a little bit offering a cookbook, it was still food related, but it felt better than putting in actual food 
This particular cookbook was special to MC too, they had spent several months trying to recreate one of the recipes from it down in the Devildom when MC didn’t have it. Even their D.D.D had been no help in finding the human world dish they were trying so hard to recreate
It had finally been Beel who had found someplace that sold the food they had been craving. He had even been able to bring it back completely untouched just so that they could have it all though he didn’t complain when they offered him several bites from their fork
MC pulls the next thing from their own shelves at home, a well read copy of Lord of the Flies. The spine cracked and little notes about their favorite parts scribbled in the margin
It was one of the human novels that Satan had and one of MCs favorites from school. Beel had caught them reading it and thought the title was ironic but the more he watched MC get engrossed in reading the more curious he got
He eventually asked MC to read it to him, he actually liked books even if most didn’t take him for the type it was just that he had a hard time actually reading himself. He always got distracted by food but audio books always worked well for him when he was working out, it turned out to be even better when MC read to him when he was eating
It was the best of both worlds for him and he found the story actually pretty funny, slightly worrying MC but they figured they couldn’t blame a demon for getting enjoyment out of a story like that. He did find their lack of food concerning though so at least there was that
One of the things that Beel often complained about when MC was living in the devildom was that when he went to go eat they weren’t always there. Sure Beel would ask them to tag along whenever possible but it didn’t always happen. He would call them from the kitchen at times and tell them that he missed them
MC was sure the other brothers would have something to say about it but knew that Beel would genuinely enjoy the next thing MC offered. Amagnet with his favorite picture of them. It was MC caught in a candid he took, mid bite in a dessert he had made them and his hand could just be seen wiping some whipped cream off MC’s cheek
It was a way that Beel could have MC with him at his favorite place every time
The last thing that MC laid out was something that was inspired by Beel. He had once given them a coupon for a free meal by him and they had thought it was just about the cutest thing ever
They made him a whole coupon book of favors ranging from cooking any meal he wanted to recording his workouts for him and of course lots of coupons for hugs and kisses
Beel isn’t used to being summoned at all so hes slightly disoriented when he finds himself suddenly in the human world. As soon as he sees MC though its nothing but smiles and he doesn’t even notice the gifts until after
“MC did you know I was thinking about you? Sometimes I just say your name and hope you will appear ... so if you ever think of me just say my name. I want to be here, even if its during dinner” 
Belphie
Belphie is not one to beat around the bush at all. He is a creature of habit and just wants more of the same things that he already has. Dont fix something if its not broke right?
So its fairly easy to fill his summoning circle with things that he loves, just adding to his ever growing collection of happy nap time things
That isn’t to say that MC just grabs whatever blanket or pillows they have laying around, they still want it to be special for him
So yes the first two things they offer to Belphie is a pillow and blanket, there was never going to be anything else but MC spent a long time putting their love into finding just the right ones for him ... and still couldn’t find what they wanted
MC used this as an excuse to create something themselves for their sleepy boy. They dived deep into youtube and pintrest and spent more money than they care to admit on materials until finally they made what they wanted
The first was a quilt large enough for three cause the twins like to make MC a sandwich in a cow print pattern that matched his pillow and demon form marks, lined with the softest fabric she could find that was the same purple as his eyes 
His pillow was another quilted design, this time of a cloudy night sky with a sleepy cow jumping over the moon. MC stitched his name in pretty gold thread on the back long with a sweet ‘I love you’
There was one last fluffy thing to give to him, this one MC knew he would probably scoff and tease them about but they couldn’t help it. They saw the angry looking cow plushie and just could not walk away 
They have actually been sleeping with it when they miss him most and even if he doesn’t like the plushie the fact they have slept with it so much will make him a bit fonder of it
Even though they were pretty sure that Belphie knew every star in the sky MC couldn’t help but get a book with stories about the constellations. He might already know them all but they thought that he might still enjoy hearing them read to him as he drifted to sleep
The last thing MC has to offer him is also star related. A star map of the day that they made their pact. It was the day that MC had fully forgiven everything that had happened before and their relationship had truly began
When Belphie was summoned he was half asleep but knew who it must be even in his sluggish state. He gave a big yawn and looked around at all the things around him 
“At least things are already set up for the perfect nap, including having you. MC next time just say my name alright? Its much more of a drag this way ... and I want to know when you are dreaming of me”
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Q - Not That Bad
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♫ - The Rains - Henry Jamison 
For the always lovely @okamiredfoxx I sincerely hope you enjoy! All you lot too, as always, thank you for reading! Hugs! ♡
The captain had called his staff to the bridge not too long into your shift, and you made your way there alongside Geordi. As you entered, Picard was stood almost defensively with Riker shadowing behind, seemingly arguing with a man who you had never seen before. Seeing the uniform, you turned to Geordi.
"A higher up? The captain doesn't argue with superiors, does he?" you whispered, as Geordi folded his arms and shook his head.
"Oh, this guy is not a superior."
Before you could ask what that statement meant, the man in question made a dramatic motion around, his voice loud over the hum of the Enterprise; despite Geordi's claims of the man not being superior, he held every single crewmembers attention like a queen in her court. He turned, arms wide to gesture at the crew.
"And this.. this-"
His words cut off as he made eye contact with you, and your breath hitched. He was handsome, whoever he was, and certainly entertaining. You raised an eyebrow, unsure of why he was looking at you in such a manner, before he made his way to you with a graceful decorum.
"Ah," the man began, taking your hand and raising it to his lips to place a delicate kiss atop your knuckles. "Le plus beau, magnifique."
Unsure of his action but somehow not able to take your eyes off him, you were thankfully dismissed of the interaction by the captain.
"Enough, Q. Get off my bridge!"
'Q,' you thought, smiling a little to yourself. You were no longer looking at him, but he most certainly was looking at you. 'What a gentleman.'
Whether that thought was genuine or sarcastic, even you couldn't tell.
Q had lived a long time, he had met many people, aliens and the like. In all of that time, he had never seen someone with quite the amount of ethereal beauty you possessed. Never had he been brought to silence, for any reason, but most certainly not by a simple human stood before him.
Backing away, he didn't take his eyes off of you, blowing you one last kiss before he went back to tormenting the captain. Your head spun to Geordi, who had a look as though to say he knew this was far from the end of it. Q had since vanished, leaving Picard and Riker, as well as the rest of the bridge crew, awkwardly looking in your direction.
"A word, Y/N. The rest of you, back to work." Picard's voice was stoic and professional as always, and you followed him into his ready room.
"Sir, who was that?" you asked.
"His name is Q, he's part of what's known as the Q Continuum. Often he shows up, causes a lot of trouble and leaves. I know you may be feeling somewhat unnerved by his actions out there, but rest assured we will keep you safe."
"Safe, sir? Is he dangerous?"
"He can be," he replied, sitting upright in his chair. "Never to a full degree, but he can be."
The captain had since dismissed you, and on your walk back to engineering, your thoughts had drifted to the omnipotent being that had you at his centre of attention. He couldn't be that bad, could he? He seemed polite enough, though there was nothing to hold him to on your part; you'd never met a Q before.
Some days later, it began. Little notes left around your work station. Without fail, every couple of days there was a new one sitting there. Each and every day, you would get to work to find something new waiting for you. You knew not of whom was leaving them, and you were desperate to find out. You tried to keep a close watch on your areas, even choosing to work later in hopes to catch whoever it was off guard. Not in an unkind way, of course; you simply wanted your secret admirer to not be so secret anymore.
Part of you had hoped it was Q, though you thought it improbable, given he had left the ship that day and not been seen since. You thought through your friend group, those you worked with and knew, and believed it could have been the ensign from medical you had grown somewhat close to in the past month or so. Still, your guess was as good as any.
"Any luck?" Geordi asked, smile gracing his face as always. You sat down and sighed.
"Absolutely zero."
He handed you a letter, in the finest font, copperplate handwriting adorning the envelope. Inside, you knew already there would be some form of poem, whether it was a rewrite of an old Shakespearean sonnet, or perhaps a Wilde or Keats poem. Geordi chuckled.
"Seems like someone has taken a real liking to you, Y/N. I'd tell you who it is if I knew. Whoever it is really has their grasp on the arts, I'll say that."
You laughed with him, pocketing the note and continuing on with your work. Geordi's expressions suggested he knew, or he had a clue at least, and you got on with the day without distraction.
"Finally." Huffing and leaning against your quarter's door as it shut, you let out a breath. A long day, things not really going wrong per say, it just felt busy, and you wanted nothing more than to get into bed and sleep.
"Finally indeed."
You jumped, turning to see who the voice belonged to.
"Q?" you questioned, wondering if you believed your eyes or not. Cautiously, you stepped forward.
"I see you've been getting them, then." He nodded to your desk, where the pile of notes sat, tied with a piece of twine holding them together. You chuckled.
"Yes, I have. It's nice to know my poet has a face. A handsome one at that."
"No doubt you've had a lecture from Picard about me. I would guess he told you to keep a distance, that you would be safer away from me."
Your eyes widened at the mans words; he was very correct. Sighing, he took your hand, continuing.
"Well, I could see why. I have perhaps endangered him a couple of times, but alas, one must do something to entertain oneself, right? Anyway, I could never harm such beauty."
Your cheeks reddened, your mind not processing how such a being could be labelled as dangerous. He was gentlemanly and kind, at least to you. A hand on your cheek brought your eyes up to look at him, your gaze having fallen for you to look at the ground as he complimented you.
"You certainly have a way with words, Q." Your voice light, he smiled at you. Charming it was, to you there was no malice under it at all.
"Give me a chance to prove I'm not so bad, Y/N? Let's have dinner sometime."
You smiled, nodding at him.
"That would be lovely. Of course, it's the least I could do for the intergalactic Lord Byron."
He leaned down and pressed a kiss to your cheek, and one to your forehead. His last sentence before leaving was whispered, quiet and reserved, a strange feat for the overt and loud man.
"Be thou the rainbow in the storms of life. The evening beam that smiles the clouds away, and tints tomorrow with prophetic ray."
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beevean · 4 years
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SEGA and the eternal issue of the Sonic-Amy dynamic
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[Translator’s note: here’s the original article written by @latin-dr-robotnik​, originally written on the 26th of August 2018]
While the Bowsette phenomenon shattered the internet into a thousand pieces, it seems like the Sonic fandom is splitting itself over a completely different matter: the eternal discussion over Sonic and Amy’s dynamic, and how much it can be considered official from SEGA’s perspective.
Note: this article ended up becoming the first part of a trilogy. Stay tuned for the next two parts!
The main culprit of this new chapter of the discourse is, believe it or not, the official SEGA Shop.
Emi Jones (I don’t need to introduce her, most people in the fandom know her) brought the attention on the description of one of the new clothing pieces that appeared in the shop for Amy’s 25th birthday, which essentially invited us to “celebrate 25 years of Sonic the Hedgehog’s girlfriend”. This short sentence generated a chain reaction in the fandom, both positive and negative, and it brought to the light once again the eternal question: is it really possible that they’re actually a couple? What is the official position of SEGA about this? There are good arguments for both sides.
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Eggman: If you fight my robot, we’ll be disqualified and you’ll never win that couch for that whiny little girlfriend of yours.
Sonic: SHE’S NOT MY GIRLFRIEND!
*wrong answer noise*
Sonic Boom – S1E41
First and foremost, who is Amy?
Note: the article is based on Cutegirlmayra’s research in different magazines, in the games’ canon, in the differences between Japan and the West, in the structure of the relationship, and in SEGA’s marketing.
Note 2: while there will be mentions of other medias such as comics and TV series, this article will explicitly focus on the dynamic between Sonic and Amy in their official Modern versions, that is, from the videogames.
Since her official conception in Sonic CD, Amy has simply been considered our blue hedgehog’s girlfriend without any issue, but Sonic Team looked for a way to make this common cliché a little different. So a “unique” dynamic was established between them: Amy is the one chasing Sonic, Sonic tries to avoid her explicit affection, but despite this they are destined together, both in the proper canon (according to Amy’s tarot cards the two are made for each other) and outside of it (SEGA’s directives). This means that their dynamic is written in an implicit manner, and it’s never clear if Sonic wants to flee to a different galaxy to get away from Amy or if he wants to stay with her forever. Officially, there have been signs both in favor and against it, and the rest is normally left to the interpretations of the fans. Nevertheless, SEGA of Japan and SEGA of America (with the complicity of Europe) have radically different ways of dealing with the Sonamy dynamic.
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Sonamy in Japan
The relationship between Sonic and Amy, with its twists and turns, is deeply rooted into the Japanese culture of the ‘90s. According with the material found by Cutegirlmayra, Sonic and Amy are a couple in Japan, no doubt about it. This simple vision is due to how the Adventure era games were written: Sonic is much more gentle and subtle with Amy, to the point that there is a clear difference in tone in the Adventure 2 scene when Sonic, about to be sent off into space in a capsule, tells Amy to take care of herself. Japan didn’t have this vision of an openly hostile Sonic or of a totally-obsessed-to-the-point-of-violence Amy, in their culture and in the game scripts everything is much more serene and acceptable. At the same time, the situation is kept under control thanks to the mandates that SEGA strictly enforces over how to write the characters: for example, one of the most infamous ones is “Sonic can’t explicitly show affection to Amy Rose”. This kind of control allows SEGA of Japan to avoid problems like the ones in the West.
Then we have Sonic Channel, the official Japanese website for information and art, where once in a while events about Sonic and Amy take place, with fans sending their fanart of the official couple.
And finally, we can’t forget Sonic X, that, despite not being part of the official game canon, clearly shows the agenda of SEGA of Japan and Sonic Team for the two characters: dozens of scenes that imply something more, many songs about love/lovers and, well, everything about the famous Episode 52 ending.
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Sonamy in the West.
In the West things became more complicated. On one hand, the West came to know Sally Acorn before Amy, and the way they presented the Sonic/Sally relationship was, without any doubt, much healthier in SatAM than, for example, Sonic/Amy in Adventure (note: I purposefully won’t mention Archie Sonic here). At the same time, the differences in translation of the original Japanese scripts, and the cultural differences between these two countries on opposite sides of the world, radically changed the personalities of both characters, giving us the infamous “hysterical fan” Amy in Adventure and Heroes, the one who chases Sonic to force him to marry her. The general public’s perception quickly opposed these attitudes, seeing that they could be potentially toxic and that they undermine the very nature of Sonic. Sonic X did little to help in the West due to the strong censorship process it received when translated from Japanese to English. By 2006 the damage was done, and subsequent attempts to modify Amy’s personality, so that she was not as effusive with Sonic, have been tried over the last decade to repair their dynamics, with a little help from Sonic Boom (where the dynamic is so well written that, in the penultimate episode of season 2, Sonic literally stops racing Tails and Knuckles at Amy’s request to go buy ingredients for the cake he was making - Modern Sonic wouldn’t do that in a thousand years) and from the direction Ian Flynn has been taking the comics he’s been involved in. SEGA’s mandates were applied in the West as well, but relatively late and as a consequence of some things that were slipping out of control, like Archie Sonic. Both Flynn and the writers of Sonic Boom had to find new ways to present the characters, adjusted to both Western cultural patterns and also to the mandates of a Japanese company. Anyway, thanks to the recent accomplishments, we can deduce that the rigid structure of the official mandates is going through some changes that could mean a new agenda from SEGA to represent the Sonamy dynamic.
All of this information leaves us with the last question, that brings us back to the topic of this article and concludes it:
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Could Sonamy work today?
In the last 5 years we’ve seen a series of important transformations, both in the way Amy sees the world, her responsibilities and Sonic (ex: Sonic Lost World), and in the way Sonic himself treats Amy. Sonic Forces took some pages from Boom’s book when it came to their personalities, and it seems to be the beginning of a new era, made explicit by that description appeared in the SEGA Shop that sparked today’s discussion.
In 25 years, we’ve seen Amy chasing Sonic all over the world, living a life of adventures that contradicts her dreams of a stable life and a marriage, according to her declarations in games like Adventure. At the same time, Sonic never stopped seeking adventures all over the world, both alone and with his friends, of which he became the protector, including Amy. For the Sonamy dynamic to work today, I think the most obvious solution would be for the two of them to go on adventures together. How we see love has changed a lot in the span of 25 years, and Sonic and Amy would fit well the modern stereotype of those couples that travel all over the world to find adventures, and that we see in those posts labeled “Relationship goals”; at the end of the day, Sonic and Amy are this, stereotypes that follow a certain pattern. What’s more, such a relationship can still be kept subtle and true to official mandates if we add the rest of Team Sonic to the equation, which is basically what Sonic Boom did.
No need for kisses, no need for grandiose love declarations, weddings, or forming a family. All of this would even be extremely out of character for Sonic, and I’d hate for something like this to happen. Team Sonic is the only family he needs, and the Sonamy dynamic could benefit from the adventures, the anecdotes and the moments they spend together. A race at sunset, the view of a mountain, defeating a giant robot together… that’s how I would see a canonical relationship possible, and indeed I’m not the only one who sees it that way - remember IDW Sonic #2? [Translator’s note: the article is in Spanish and outdated]
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And let’s not forget about this scene from IDW Sonic #2: Sonic tells Amy that she can come on an adventure with him, but Amy refuses Sonic’s offer because of her responsibilities. Small changes like these have the potential to be slowly integrated into the official canon, and we have already seen how in Forces Amy barely bothers Sonic with her feelings.
So, when the eternal question of whether or not Sonic and Amy would work as a couple comes up again, you can say, yes! Yes, it can work without Sonic having to sacrifice his freedom, or Amy her dreams! The current context is making way for this, and while I may not think this whole SEGA store thing was completely intentional to drive the fandom crazy, I do think it’s time to start accepting the validity and potential of the couple. At the end of the day, everyone will ship what they want anyway, and that’s perfect. It will sound cliché, but remember that phrase that always circulates on social networks: "There are best friends who look like a couple, and couples who look like best friends."
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vampiresuns · 3 years
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Portrait Of The Lawyer As A Young Man
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3k words. All of Julianus’ life has been about fulfilling social expectations. Not any more.
Note: This fic contains some time changes. They’re all separated but they’re not linear. This pieces art is the cover of the centennial edition of James Joyce’s ‘Portrait of the Artist As A Young Man’.
CW: Superficial discussions of unhealthy family dynamics.
The song for this piece is Expectations by Belle & Sebastian. Saoirse, Meredith and the Crew of The Jagged Ruby belongs to @apprenticealec​.
Part 4 of Secrets Of An Ancient Moon series; you can read the rest of it here.
Dusk fell in the sky making the colours of the water change. Meredith whistled at Jules to get their attention, calling them aside. When they reached port again in four days, they’d reach Jules’ original destination, marking the end of their voyages in The Jagged Ruby. Julianus didn’t need Meredith to tell them this, they already knew: they had been counting the days obsessively, watching them slip by as they found a chance to speak to the Captain.
Meredith had found them first. It was now or never.
“Hopefully this,” Meredith said, raising the legal study Julianus had made for her a couple of months ago, “will help us with our Syd problem. I’m not going to pat you in the back, Sanlaurento, so just let me say this: you’ve got it in you, you’re a pain in my ass, I hope whoever opposes you in a court shit themselves. Now, leave.”
When Meredith looked back up, Jules was still there, looking at them with a frown and an intensity which the Captain had seen in them before, but never directed at them. Jules had been travelling with them for months. When they had manifested on the ship to become Meredith’s personal pest and unlikely legal advisor, the Quinquennial meeting was in the long term future still, they had time for it. Now, the meeting would happen in three months.
In all that time, Meredith had had time to watch them, even if they didn’t want to. She hated to admit it, but the asshole had guts. J.C. was clever, a fast learner, and seemed to know themselves well enough to anticipate their shortcomings. Analytical and strong-willed, in other circumstances they’d make an excellent addition to the crew.
They learnt the basics of sailing faster than Meredith had given them credit for, their basic knowledge of sword-fighting was getting honed by the week. They had never taken a shot against an actual person, but their aim had gotten notoriously better. Julianus got treats for the crew if you left them unsupervised, and somehow, always, found someone to help with legal advice, no matter were they were.
So yes, Meredith had seen that intensity before. She’d seen it when they put themselves between a vendor and a guard, suddenly carrying more presence and even a slight high-society touch to the way they conducted themselves. She’d seen it whenever they tried, again and again, to perfect something, never expecting to be handed anything. She’d seen it whenever they talked about Injustice, or the Sea Palace, or Freedom, or People.
It all shone through, even through the many flaws or annoyances Meredith saw in their character — anxious, irritable, high-horsed, mysterious for no damn reason.
“I said leave, why are you still here.”
“Meredith?”
The Captain raised an eyebrow. Sanlaurento never addressed her without an honorary.
“I didn’t remember us being friends— You smooch my quartermaster and…” Meredith stopped, a grimace overtaking her face. “This is about them, isn’t it. No, I’m not having a heart to heart about fucking Saoirse with you. Sanlaurento, I’m still your fucking Captain.”
“No, it’s not about Saoirse. It’s about me.”
“Right, because that’d make me care.”
J.C. frowned back at Meredith, trying to resist the urge to roll his eyes but failing to do so. “Even if they are a factor in my considerations. I’m well aware that if I talked to them, I could manage to see them anywhere and write to them even, given they write to Jacqui all the time.”
“If you’re going to talk anyway, at least do me the favour of going to the point, Sanlaurento.”
“Captain, I want to stay.”
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 
The sky was clear in the island of Sirenia, a cool late winter evening as Sanlaurento walked around a patio in a black, formal attire, with a green jacket with golden buttons. 
“You’ll do great, stop worrying. You already did great in your dissertation.”
“But my dissertation was just me talking about International affairs.”
“One last viva, and you’ll be a lawyer.” 
Julianus exhaled. “You’re right, one last viva. This ends today.”
“Did someone Come with you?”
“No.”
Their friend snorted. “You didn’t tell anyone about today, didn’t you?”
Feigning disinterest so the conversation could end, they looked over some handwritten diagrams.
Julianus sighed. “Actually, this time I did.”
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 
“Do I have to apply to the Sea Palace? I know I said I wanted to, but I don’t know any more.”
“Of course, Cleo,” their mother said, “it’s the best academic institution around, you might have a chance. You lose nothing by trying”
“They were weird though, you know? Off. Like, they give me a bad feeling.”
Their mother no longer sounded patient when she spoke: “You’re going to have to let go of turning down opportunities at every chance you don’t like everyone in front of you, or everyone in front of you doesn’t automatically think you’re brilliant. Besides, you insisted, and this is a matter about your education, your safety and your future. You’re applying.”
Julianus tensed, curling their toes inside their shoes, trying to ball them like they would their hands. They couldn’t ball them into fists right now, that’d give them away. If they gave themselves away, their mother’s reaction would be worse. “It’s not— that’s not—”
They exhaled, giving up. “You’re right, Mama.”
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 
In their 27 years, Julianus had been called a lot of things.
Weird by their classmates, dense by their parents. Unnecessarily complicated, dramatic, attention seeking, stupid. All of them also by their parents who said things in annoyance and in anger without measuring any reaction, nor waiting for any explanation. Stupid, perhaps, was the funniest.
They never called them Julianus, only ‘Cleo’, too, to the point their mother often said they made a mistake in choosing their first name.
Their Cleo was a lot of things but never what they themself said they were. ‘Intelligence’ was arrogance, ‘mistakes’ stupidity, or worse, something unforgivable; a lack of consideration for everyone around them and the marking of their mother in their failure to raise a child who wanted to do anything with her. 
Too loud, too quiet, too stiff, too needy, too this, too that, too weird, too feminine, too masculine, too much.
Academic settings were different. One of the few places they had some control over themself. Yes, their classmates might’ve thought them closed off, weird and even a bit of a “lunatic” when they were growing up, but their classmates also knew they were passionate about defending what they loved, including their friends. A willing ear to listen, offering food, advice and comfort to whomever asked, without thinking too much about it. Quick to rile up but never one to deny help. Their teachers and professors always knew they tried, that they wanted to learn, that they wanted to go to further, deeper horizons. 
Their own self, learning and what they could do with that education was their constant ongoing project. Their poems and stories, a constant conversation with the world. Not self-centredness, not absent-mindedness.
Only twice they had been told in academic settings that they weren’t enough. One was in the Sea Palace. The scholars called them an histrionic, low-pedigree charming but insubstantial kid, with poorly honed magic and more enthusiasm than capacity. Others worked better, others could sit still for longer, others had more steady grades — not the valleys of those subjects which did not interest them, with good but unremarkable grading, versus the stellar records of those subjects which obsessed them needlessly. A nice attempt, but a definitive rejection. 
The other was in that last Viva Voce in Firent. It hadn’t gone terribly, they had passed, but with meagre first level honours in comparison to their full honours approved dissertation. They were expecting to do worse, that was true. They weren’t expecting to have three examiners who did not let them finish a single explanation, one even laughing at their face for asking for a question to be clarified. 
“If you keep this way, I doubt you will have it in you to be a good jurisconsult,” one of them had said.
Julianus had looked at them with icy, saccharine sweetness, eyes like daggers and making apologies they didn’t mean as they took their diploma. They left the room thinking what did they know? What did any of these people know about Julianus Cleopatra, who wasn’t born with the Surname Sanlaurento, but had chosen it anyway? Nothing. They knew nothing.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 
Julianus had never been in many places they belonged.
The night was clear as The Ruby made its way through the waters in the night.
“What about you?”
“Yeah, Jay, tell us a story. All you do is work, kid. Grab a glass! Cut yourself some slack from those books, lest your vision becomes worse.”
Julianus couldn’t see why not. With a bright smile on their face, they grabbed a glass of beer, before joining the Crew that was lounging around on the deck, enjoying the night. 
“Does it have to be something I’ve heard, or does it have to be an original?”
“Right! Saoirse did say you wrote.”
Julianus blinked. “Saoirse mentioned me?”
An echo of warm laughter rang between the crew. Someone patted their back. “You’ve got it bad for the Quartermaster, don’t you? But tell us your story.”
"My story?” They snorted. “Oh, you don’t want to listen to that.”
After taking a drink, they let their own play on words slide, and chose a story to tell. “You know how they say that those who are the most impertinent have the best chance. Well, this cabin boy risked it all for a venture in a ship from the northern seas, whose flag it was under was at war with an Empire. The cabin boy, well, we’ll call them boy, had been searching for a place to fulfil their ambitions, and saw in this ship the right chance. The kind of person who wished to be remarkable, and do what’s right
“So one day, the ship runs into an enemy ship. Goes the Captain and says: ‘If we fight them, this ship might be sunk and we might not live the night’. So goes the cabin boy, who had developed a fondness for this ship; the fondness one does when one loves a place, but the place does not love one back, and yet one clings to the nostalgia of the good things. The cabin boy did not realise this yet, so the cabin boy goes and says: ‘If I time it right, I could sink it.’
“Though often trifled with silencing commands, the cabin boy was intelligent and daring so the cabin boy repeated: ‘If I time it right I could sink it. Was this not why I trained all these years as a cabin boy?’ 
“The Captain said: ‘No, you are just a cabin boy’, but at the insistence of our protagonist, the Captain said: ‘If you destroy that ship, I will give you silver and likewise gold, here in this very sea, and I will give you my only daughter for you to marry, if you make a renowned Captain out of me—’”
The story was not a happy one. It was a story of betrayal and disappointed hopes. It finished with the cabin boy, who making himself one with the night, went to sink the enemy ship, under the very noses of the unsuspecting crew. Yet, when the cabin boy came back and demanded their acknowledgement, the Captain denied them. Though the cabin boy had no interest in claiming the bounty, the Captain had not expected them to live, but fearing the Cabin Boy would take the credit and disrupt the order of things, the Captain slew them, and the sea took them in. 
Someone gasped with indignation. “And no one aided the cabin boy?”
“No.”
“Did the Captain kill them then?”
“That’s for you to decide.” 
“So the cabin boy didn’t die? Or did they?”
“In a way. It’s less about physical death, though it can be about it.”
“Isn’t this the Raleigh story?”
“Of the Golden Vanity?” Said Sanlaurento with a smirk. “Perhaps, but everyone tells it differently.
“If you don’t make it as a law person, I say you become a writer.”
Julianus laughed. “Why not both?”
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 
The last time Julianus Sanlaurento had seen their parents was when they sailed off to an apprenticeship. There had been no grand goodbyes, no heartfelt words. They had all fought around a week before, and J.C. was not yet forgiven. It was, perhaps, one of the biggest fights they had had with them, and the memory of it, along with the cold shoulder they were given would cling to them for some more time.
Nothing was worse than the hypocrisy, though. Or the pity. Too much to everyone around them, a brilliant child when they weren’t in the room.
Before they left, their father had pulled them aside to tell them they were brilliant, and that they were proud. Jules had wanted to say thank you, and just thank you, from the bottom of his heart, but they couldn’t, not after last week. Instead, they said:
“You always say that, until I’m brilliant in a way which neither of you like even if you still let me do it. You’ll hate this, but I don’t exist comfortably anywhere, and perhaps, I’ll never exist comfortably here.”
“That’s not our fault, Cleo.”
“It’s not about whose fault is it— it’s— you know what, Dad? Nevermind.”
Their only comfort was Maricus, whom they clung to at night when they were alone in their quarters, with only their things, their cat and an acceptance letter as they realised they were completely, and utterly alone. They were alone, that was true, but at least, they were themself and they had had enough.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 
Not wanting to try the Captain further after she dismissed them, Julianus retreated to the crew’s quarters. They sat against the wall nearest to their bed — if one could call a hammock a bed — picked up their notebook and began writing. They wanted to be left alone, so they buried their nose in their writing.
They didn’t expect seeing Saoirse when they looked up, leaning against a column as they watched them write. 
“Raleigh again?”
“No, I’m leaving the fictional man rest for a minute or two.”
“Meredith told me you were staying.” At this, Jules stopped writing. “Said you were on permanent crew member probation until you defended your case and your position in Ethari. Then, if she didn’t change her mind, she’ll make you try as a permanent member of the crew, if you also haven’t changed your mind about it.”
Saoirse snorted. “If I was told I’d meet a human like you a year ago, I would’ve thought the person telling me such was drunk.”
Julianus raised an eyebrow at them, wanting to ask what that was supposed to mean, but Saoirse’s eyes were full of tenderness when they met them.
“Meredith also told me you asked. Did you because of me?”
“No,” Jules said as they closed their notebook, standing up to stretch their legs. “I don’t want to part from you, that’s true, I care… a lot about you, and I hope you care about me just the same. I don’t want to stop seeing you everyday, and I don’t want to stop kissing you everyday, and I don’t want to stop learning from and about you. I haven’t mastered the language yet, and there’s more of the Code to study, there’s so many things I haven’t done yet, but it’s not about you, it’s about me.”
Saoirse watched them as silence fell between them, Julianus’ dark eyes looking everywhere but at them. When they did look back at Saoirse's ice-blue ones, their eyes were clouded with tears. “This isn’t quite it, either, but do you know what’s like feeling you’re unwanted everywhere? Because who you are has a big red ‘wrong’ sign attached to it?
“I just don’t want to go. I see, I can see a future here, and I think I’ve been in enough places where I have been unwanted, or wanted wrong, for me to deserve to have a shot at the future I say I want to have. Not the future I was supposed to have by whomever thinks knows me better than I know me.”
Out of all the reactions Saoirse could’ve had, J.C. wasn’t expecting them to stop leaning on their column, and open their arms for them. 
Their smile was just as tender as their eyes. “I know you enough to know that if I ask if you want a hug, you’ll say no, but in about five seconds you’ll change your mind.”
Jules’ half laughed, half sobbed. Unable to fight Saoirse’s logic they closed the distance between them, wrapping their arms around their waist, as they felt Saoirse’s arms sling under their arms to hold them close and safe between their arms. Like they were protecting them — from what? Neither of them knew; neither of them asked.
Instead, Jules was happy to bury their face against Saoirse’s chest, taking in the smell of them mixed with linen of their shirt. Saoirse’s cheek rested against the top of their head, only moving to plant a kiss there.
“Julie?” Saoirse said. “I know more about cages than you’d think.”
“I never said anything of—”
“You don’t have to say it for me to know. Before I was what I am now, I was in one, so to speak. Trapped, perhaps, is a better word. Cages all look different, but they all feel the same. There are no cages here, you deserve better than that.”
“I know, I know that now.”
“Can I kiss you?”
“Only if you keep calling me ‘Julie’.”
“Were you never told not to make deals with strange Gods?” 
As they spoke, Saoirse brushed their lips against theirs, themselves an offering for Julianus to chase. Chase them they did, pressing their lips against Saoirse’s over and over again. 
“You’re not a strange God. Or rather, you’re not a stranger to me… You know? You don’t have to tell me what you were before, but I will say this: whomever decided to trap you, is or was a fucking coward.”
Saoirse laughed, the sound ringing around the room on its own accord. Soon enough, Jules found themself laughing too.
No, of course they didn’t want to go. 
17 notes · View notes
rosethornewrites · 3 years
Text
Fic: a grain of millet drifting, ch. 3/3
Relationship: Niè Huáisāng & Wèi Yīng | Wèi Wúxiàn
Characters: Wei Ying | Wei Wuxian, Original Characters, Nie Huaisang
Additional Tags: Assassination Attempt(s), Introspection, Regret, Travel, Post-Canon, POV Third Person, POV Wei WuXian
Summary: Wei Wuxian reaches the Unclean Realm and talks to Nie Huaisang. 
Notes: See end
Chapters: 1 | 2 
AO3 link
———
Wei Wuxian wasn’t accustomed to having nothing to say, but as they entered the Unclean Realm he found himself searching for words. He’d always been able to fill silence, even with nonsense, but Nie Huaisang had perfected the facade of nonsense over the years, and he felt a little as though he was approaching a stranger. 
His old friend was fanning himself as he descended the battlement and approached them, the same fan he’d first carried during the Cloud Recesses lectures in that sweet summer before their world descended into hell. If he tried, he could almost pretend this was a visit from that august period—but only almost. 
“Aiya, Nie-xiong, I only caught your disciple when he took out the fifth assassin, he said,” Wei Wuxian finally settled on. “Someone seems to be spending quite a bit of money trying to kill me again—I’m almost flattered.”
Nie Huaisang’s eyes seemed to narrow slightly over his fan, but when he snapped it closed he was smiling, the narrowing actually crinkling. 
“Wei-xiong, it was so nice of you to send Jiang-zongzhu a letter. He came to ask about it personally, and I think he was happy you thought of him.”
Wei Wuxian kept his face in a careless smile, though that cut at him a bit—he hadn’t seen Jiang Cheng since the Guanyin Temple debacle, and doubted his once-brother wanted anything to do with him, particularly after having learned about his deception regarding the golden core. He’d only sent the letter on the off-chance that it would impact Yunmeng or Lanling, as it was the least he could do after destroying the Jiangs. 
“Jin Ling will have enough problems leading that awful sect without surprise assassins,” he said with a shrug, “so of course Jiang-zongzhu would be concerned.”
The look Nie Huaisang gave him was almost pitying, but he said nothing in response, only ordering a couple of disciples to take Little Apple to the stables. 
“She prefers apples, but likes other fruit just fine, it seems,” he told them, letting them take the reins and lead her away. 
He didn’t bother with the saddlebags, knowing they’d wind up in whatever room had been set aside for him. 
Nie Hengxiang wasn’t quite able to stifle a snort of laughter when the donkey deliberately stepped on Wei Wuxian when she moved past him. Nie Huaisang’s lips twitched before he managed to get his fan up. 
Wei Wuxian almost made a crack about how the women in his life treated him, but none of them were still in his life, and shijie had never…
“There’s good food and wine,” Nie Huaisang said, somehow closer than he had been before. “Really, Wei-xiong, you don’t look like you eat nearly enough!”
He knew he’d lost some time, Nie Hengxiang in the distance following Little Apple, having apparently excused himself at some point during his fugue. 
It shook him, but it was easier to follow his old friend without comment, focusing on the changes in the Unclean Realm since his last visit over a decade before. It looked bustling, and there were more gardens and color, artwork and tapestries brightening the stonework. 
Anything to avoid thinking of his many mistakes and the people who had paid the price for them. 
Nie Huaisang kept up a running commentary about different pieces of art and their artists, about the tapestry industry he had worked to get started in Qinghe, trading for specially dyed silk thread from various places. 
The food was good and the wine was better. They were deep in their cups, still talking of frivolous matters, when Nie Huaisang sighed. 
“Wei-xiong, what on earth are you doing, wandering around?”
The question seemed to come from nowhere, and signaled a shift to more serious conversation that Wei Wuxian wasn’t certain he was ready for. So he pasted on a grin. 
“What’s so wrong with wandering, Nie-xiong? My parents were rogue cultivators, so why shouldn’t I be one as well?”
The look Nie Huaisang gave him was unimpressed at best, and certainly implied he didn’t buy Wei Wuxian’s smile. 
“You didn’t stay in Gusu. I thought you’d stay with Lan-er-gongzi.”
“He’s Chief Cultivator. Associating with the Yiling Patriarch would only make his job harder. He’s already got enough of a mess to clean up—he doesn’t need my messes on top of it.”
And, anyway, if he’d stayed he thought Lan Qiren would actually qi deviate, and he didn’t need that on his conscience. 
“And, anyway, where else would I go?” he asked, tiring of the game where they talked in circles. 
“Yunmeng. Here.”
Wei Wuxian took a big pull of wine, mostly in response to the first suggestion, which he’d rather not address. 
“I threatened you, so I figured you’d prefer I stay away.”
“It’s not like I didn’t deserve the warning, Wei-xiong,” Nie Huaisang said with a sigh. “I put far too many people in danger, and got others killed.”
He sounded almost sad. 
“Mo Xuanyu?” he couldn’t keep himself from asking. 
He was grateful for the second chance at life, such as it was, but the cost grated at him. 
“Mo Xuanyu had seen dage’s head in the treasure room, but… He didn’t want to live, even if I brought him to the Unclean Realm.”
Nie Huaisang twirled the wine jug in his hand, his expression morose. 
“I’d gotten to know him when he was in Lanling. I visited often enough to harass Jin Guangyao, after all. He was a gentle soul, and loved the arts. But his mother’s suicide broke what was left of him when that viper was finished with him.”
Wei Wuxian didn’t know what to say, but he could tell his old friend knows the true cost of that spell—that Mo Xuanyu was gone from all realms, his soul destroyed. Nie Huaisang, he could see, was well aware of that. 
“There was nothing I could do for him except offer the chance of vengeance.”
In the end, that was essentially all Nie Huaisang had gotten out of the whole ordeal—vengeance, justice, whatever they wanted to call it. He wondered if he would have preferred to bring his brother back instead of Wei Wuxian, but knew better than to ask. It would have been impossible, with Nie Mingjue’s soul trapped asunder in the scattered parts of his body. 
Wei Wuxian suspected his own soul had been shattered at his death, but it hadn’t been tied to his body. That, after all, had been destroyed, leaving the pieces of his soul to scatter to the earth. But the spell could fuse the pieces back together in the sacrificed body, so long as they hadn’t faded to nothing. 
Truly, he had to be grateful to Mo Xuanyu.
“No, I regret Qin Su’s death,” Nie Huaisang said. “Though her reputation would have been in tatters had she lived.”
There was no knowing if she had taken her own life with that understanding, or if she had been another victim of Jin Guangyao, controlled somehow by her husband and helpless but to watch herself plunge a knife into her own breast. Either way, whether a suicide or murder, it had arguably been caused by the letter Bicao had written at Nie Huaisang’s behest. 
“And I regret putting the juniors in danger,” he added. “Though I really didn’t mean Jin Ling to be at the temple. I didn’t plan for that.”
But he had endangered them by luring them to Yi City, and Xue Yang would have killed them without remorse, and enjoyed it. 
“I wish you hadn’t involved them, too,” Wei Wuxian said. “It was dumb luck they survived until Lan Zhan and I got there.”
“They have skills,” Nie Huaisang protested weakly. “Not like the two of you at their age, but sufficient to survive, at least.”
He had a point there, at least about the Lan juniors and maybe Jin Ling and Ouyang Zizhen, who seemed to have his head on straight. The rest had at least known to follow orders from a senior. 
“I don’t regret bringing you back, though,” Nie Huaisang said after the silence stretched a bit. “I missed you, Wei-xiong. You never treated me like I was useless, even when I was, and we had fun. I didn’t have any friends once you were gone.”
Wei Wuxian’s first inclination was to protest that Jiang Cheng was his friend… but he knew full well that shijie’s death had broken his once-brother. That had probably put a damper on any friendships he’d had. 
And Nie Huaisang had been alone after his brother’s murder, after the discovery that it had been a murder.
“I’m sorry you were alone,” he said, though it’s not his fault—he was dead at the time. 
Nie Huaisang offers a smile that looks exhausted, probably the first true one Wei Wuxian has seen from him. 
“You know, he taught me the song—the one he used to poison dage—so I could play it on a piccolo.”
A chill raced through Wei Wuxian as he realized what that meant, just how deeply Chifeng-zun’s death had impacted him—like how he’d been made into an instrument of his shijie’s demise. 
“He made you complicit,” he whispered. 
Nie Huaisang’s smile turned bitter. 
“If he’d just killed dage, he’d just be dead. But between the killing, the desecration, and that… I had to destroy him, Wei-xiong.”
Jin Guangyao had set up Jin Zixuan’s death, had caused the situation in which shijie had died… Wei Wuxian could understand Nie Huaisang’s desire for revenge. But revenge cycled over and over and just led to more death—had led to his own. 
“I know,” he said. 
But it didn’t bring back the dead—even he couldn’t really do that. Though people thought that was what he’d done with Wen Ning, it wasn’t quite correct. His body had been actively dying when he’d reanimated him with resentful energy, which had essentially put him in a sort of stasis. He was in between life and death. 
“But dage’s still gone,” Nie Huaisang said, as though reading his mind or seeing a tell on his face. “As are all of the other victims.”
Wei Wuxian set his bottle of wine aside, no longer having the taste for it. All he could focus on was the bitterness of it, and he took no pleasure from it now. 
“More bodies pile up, more blood is spilled. All we taste is gall,” he murmured, thinking of a poem he once read, one that romanticized war.
Much was written on the idea of just wars, often the defensive or punitive kind. But most people felt their wars were somehow just, and the opposing side or sides unjust. And regardless of the writings, he’d seen himself how non-combatants were massacred despite the philosophies of both Mengzi and Xunzi stating the execution of even one blameless person was inhumane and unrighteous. So much of the end of the Sunshot Campaign had been filled with acts of injustice, a disregard of jus in bello.
He found himself suddenly tired, feeling the weight of everything—his hubris, the people who died because of him, who continued to die because of him in service of someone who wanted him dead, his own death. 
“Is it so wrong to just want peace?”
He’d thought, having died once, that perhaps his sins—those he was guilty of and those he was falsely credited with—had died with him. If so, they had been resurrected with him, because even if some of the air had been cleared, he was expected to die again. 
Now he was just so tired, and there was nowhere he could go where he could just exist and rest. Anywhere he went, people would find reason to take offense to his existence, to make rest impossible. 
Wei Wuxian hated that sometimes even now, despite Mo Xuanyu’s sacrifice to resurrect him, he wished he was still dead. He didn’t remember anything of the years that had passed, only a sort of peace that had perhaps come from nonexistence. 
Times like these he felt like his skin was too tight. 
“Wei-xiong?”
Nie Huaisang was looking at him with concern, which was almost funny. Before his death, Wei Wuxian would have said he wouldn’t understand what he was concerned about. Now… even he had scars. 
“Too much wine,” he demurred. “I should… I guess I should sleep it off. I’ll be out of your hair tomorrow.”
That got a frown. 
“Wei-xiong, I’m still looking into the assassins. Please at least stay until it’s handled?”
Right. They hadn’t addressed it. Wei Wuxian had assumed Nie Huaisang had already handled it, which he supposed said something about how high his expectations of his old friend had become, now that he knew his role in Jin Guangyao’s downfall. 
“It’s pretty peaceful here, and we have a lovely library, and good food and wine, and you can rest and get a nice bath,” Nie Huaisang rambled, his tone at the end implying he thought Wei Wuxian needed one.
His old friend’s words, about not regretting bringing him back, came back to him, and Wei Wuxian was belatedly gratified that more than one person was glad he was alive again. He’d left the other one in Gusu. Well, maybe there were more than two—A-Yuan and Wen Ning counted.
“All right, all right,” he said, waving his hands to get him to stop. “I’ll stay, at least until the assassin thing is dealt with.”
Nie Huaisang’s smile was so full of relief and hope, it was almost heartbreaking to think he’d spent so much time alone with his revenge. 
“I wish you’d told me, though,” he said, schooling his voice into petulance, hoping to lighten the mood a bit. 
“If I’d told you about the assassins you might have thought I was threatening you,” Nie Huaisang said, pouting. 
That was fair. After all, he’d threatened Nie Huaisang at the Cloud Recesses, and was used to getting threatened himself. It wasn’t what he was thinking about, though.
“Well, maybe. But I meant when Lan Zhan caught you at the man-eating tomb. Couldn’t you have just told us everything then?”
“If I told you and Lan-er-gongzi, he might have told erge,” his old friend pointed out. “And if he tipped off Jin Guangyao, all bets were off about whether any of us would have survived.”
Wei Wuxian remembered the way Lan Xichen had been taken captive, the garrote against his own neck and then Jin Ling’s, the death of Qin Su and the fact that Jin Guangyao had killed his son, father, brother, and cousin, Nie Mingjue, and likely hundreds of other people to rise to power. 
Here all Wei Wuxian had wanted to do with his own power, the power everyone was convinced he’d use for ill, was farm potatoes (not radishes) in a mass graveyard and protect the people he’d rescued. He’d acquired power out of necessity, to win the war, not because he wanted to babysit the cultivation world—that sounded fucking exhausting and he felt bad Lan Zhan was now stuck in the role. 
“True,” Wei Wuxian mused. “We caught him relatively by surprise and he still managed to kidnap the juniors and organize another siege of the Burial Mounds.”
Plus the situation at the Guanyin temple in Yunping had been very touch-and-go. There had been so many ways it could have gone badly, and nearly did. He was still amazed no one had died—aside from Su She and Jin Guangyao and their peons, but he didn’t care about them.
Nie Huaisang finished his wine and set the empty jar aside.
“In the inn, when I told you about the issue with the sabers…” he started, then sighed.
Wei Wuxian knew what he was asking.
“As the foremost expert on demonic cultivation and resentful energy, you’re hoping I’ll see if I can solve your qi deviation issue while I’m in the Unclean Realm,” he said, not without mirth.
“I know you like puzzles, Wei-xiong. And you get bored easily.”
Nie Huaisang wrinkled his nose at him with a knowing smile, and Wei Wuxian remembered, back in Cloud Recesses, pushing his friend off-balance and into the freezing cold stream out of boredom. He couldn’t help but laugh.
“I’ll do less damage with something to occupy me, as you well know. I suppose I can take a look.”
“Excellent!” Nie Huaisang said, fiddling with his fan in a practiced way, but not bringing it to his face. “Now, we’ll discuss your compensation tomorrow, after you’ve gotten a nice bath and some rest. Your quarters are fully furnished, and I took the liberty of stocking it with some better quality and less threadbare robes…”
As Wei Wuxian feigned righteous indignation, he realized the prospect of staying here made him feel more centered, like he had found a place he actually could rest in this new world, somewhere where he wouldn’t be a burden, where he could maybe do some good.
He thought maybe Nie Huaisang had recognized that in him, but maybe also in himself—that they could help each other in what amounted to a time of transition for them both.
Wei Wuxian could rest here for a while, taking in a refreshing breeze, before he continued wandering this terrestrial world. 
---------
The poem Wei Wuxian is thinking of is Wei Wang’s “Song of Mt. Yanzhi,” which is more a celebration of war, but it’s a remembered line that hits him here. 
Regarding the issue of just war (and aggressive vs. defensive vs. punitive war), there’s a lot written on it in multiple cultures’ philosophies. Famously, Mengzi/Mencius resigned his post in the Qi dynasty when the Qi army killed non-combatants and plundered wealth. There are some really fascinating papers on this issue. Jus in bello is a really fascinating concept involving the responsibilities an invading army has to the inhabitants of the area they are invading. Yes, I read scholarly research articles when writing this chapter, because that’s how I roll.
The last line is a reference to Su Shi’s “First Ode on the Red Cliffs,” same as the title.
Nope, we don’t know who sent the assassins, but Nie Huaisang is working on it, so you know it’ll be resolved (hopefully in less than a decade this time). This fic is about their reconciliation, with that being an unresolved thread. Wei Wuxian’s feelings about Lan Wangji are also unresolved, as is the status of his relationship with Jiang Cheng. If I get inspiration, I might make this a series and handle those in the future. We’ll see!
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ary-se · 4 years
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Mankai with a cat
a few months ago, our cat scratched me right on my cheek and my first thought out of all things was "what if mankai had a cat" pls get me out of this brainrot 😣
on a side note, this got way TOO LONG so i'm putting it under the cut!! this also works as an apology since i was gone for too long without notice 🙇‍♀️ as always, thank you for reading!
🐾 having a pet for the dorm was a subject mankai always brought up. it definitely sounds like a good idea for a domestic setting, but actually getting a pet is out of the question. sakyo didn't allow it due to obvious reasons, and of course it involved the company's budget.
🐾 there was one time however when muku and yuki went back to the dorms with a white stray cat that had a sprain. that time, sakyo would've given them a lecture like usual, but he gave in anyways and told them that they can foster the cat and they'll let it go after its leg gets better.
🐾 unfortunately for sakyo, everyone got way too attached to the cat before its sprain healed, and sakyo also adored the cat but of course he wouldn't openly admit that. after a week, when the cat got better, it only took a few buttons to push before sakyo agreed to finally keeping the cat, under the condition that they are not getting another pet again.
🐾 no one knew who started calling the cat koko, though it just seemed so natural that everybody else started to follow suit, which was pretty convenient because they didn't have to fight over the cat's name when mankai will finally keep her as a pet. (fun fact coco is the name of our cat)
🐾 that week, tenma deadass acted like an expecting father having his very first child, it was really unnerving to see. taichi and juza would often join tenma in shopping for random cat toys after school, which usually lasts longer than girls shopping for a singular pair of heels and that already says a lot
🐾 the conversation usually goes like this
tenma: "what's the best color for this toy mouse?"
taichi: "i like the red one!"
juza: "that's fine too."
tenma, after 10 minutes: "i see, i'll just buy all 7 colors"
🐾 tenma spoiled koko a LOT. teasers? balls? lasers? plushies? you name it, and tenma literally had them in ALL available colors. he did not really care if some of the toys remained untouched, as long as koko had something to be busy with. tenma had a huge ass box of cat toys that he could open up his own damn store and he'd get a lot of profit
🐾 tasuku literally had no idea why, but koko never scratched anywhere but his legs. is there some sort of magic on his legs?? if there was, it wasn't something tasuku is aware of, and he isn't sure if he wants to know what it is either.
🐾 it actually didn't hurt or anything, it just annoyed him when he needs to go somewhere else and the cat would just pounce to his direction to scratch his legs. tasuku feels bad on walking away, so all he does is stand up and wait until koko is done scratching his leg so he can finally move on.
🐾 when a scratching post was delivered to the dorm, koko has been all over it ever since. when tasuku noticed that koko never scratched on his legs anymore, it then just occurred to him that koko used his legs as a temporary scratching post. if he was being conpletely honest, he doesn't know how to feel about this.
🐾 know the meme of people making their babies choose their pokemon starter? that's what itaru did to koko, except he used the figurines of his waifus instead of pokemon plushies. he'd carry koko to the table, and the figurine koko will knock over would determine who her best girl supposedly is.
🐾 what he didn't know was that koko wouldn't knock one figurine over, but ALL FIVE OF THEM, and they all went rolling from the table and fell down to the floor. he swore that one of the figurines easily gets broken since its glasses came off at some point, and until that moment his trust towards animals has never been tested so bad. gladly, none of the figurines broke so koko is not yet in itaru's hit list.
🐾 even with all the toys tenma showered her with, koko finds itaru's hair on a ponytail very entertaining. itaru doesn't really mind koko messing with his hair as long as his gaming stays uninterrupted, though he gets annoyed when koko pulls a part of his hair too hard. he also somehow gets pissed whenever his hairtie falls off during a crucial moment, but he doesn't have the heart to get mad at koko so he lets her off the hook for so many times.
🐾 if omi is already such a mom to mankai, he is even more of a mom to koko. there is a sack of cat kibbles stored away for weeks, but it still remains untouched up to this day because omi always whip up homemade meals for her.
🐾 there was a time when omi cooked up turkey, mashed potatoes and corn for koko's dinner, but he didn't prepare anything for the actual human beings in mankai. omi was just like, "oh haha, there is leftover curry in the fridge. we probably should finish that first"
🐾 in other words, koko isn't subjected to curry hell. never. cats actually aren't supposed to eat curry or else something would happen. even if cats were allowed to eat curry though, it is highly doubtful that omi will make koko eat curry on a daily basis. if omi is an actual mom, everyone would collectively agree that the favorite child is koko. no buts, no questions asked, that's it.
🐾 it was a given that cats don't like water, so everyone was really surprised when they learned that koko LOVES water. the first time they learned it was when sakuya went to wash the dishes like usual, only for koko to literally pounce by the sink. she waits for sakuya to turn on the faucet and everytime sakuya does, she just sticks her paw out to the water until he turns it off. it was an adorable sight.
🐾 it definitely made sakuya slower on washing the dishes, but he does not really mind one bit, he actually enjoys the company. he opted to use a bit more dishwashing soap after he noticed that koko also liked to play with the excessive foam and bubbles on the sink whenever he finishes doing the dishes.
🐾 everyone in mankai, especially sakuya, already made it a habit to call out to koko whenever they're about to do the dishes so koko wouldn't have to wait for the sound of the faucet before running to the sink. it already is a routine every after mealtime.
🐾 was it already mentioned that koko likes water? yes. whenever the boys get in the bath, koko also joins in the damn tub and REFUSES to leave. after some time, the boys already accepted it and just let the cat stay in the tub, losing their sense of privacy in the process. they also bought little rubber duckies and those bubble bath products so koko can play around with the excessive amount of bubbles and the rubber duckies in the tub.
🐾 there was one time when omi woke up super early to prepare breakfast, though he went to the bathroom first and nearly shit on his pants when he saw koko in the empty tub. no koko, he isn't going to fill the tub with water if you just stay there. get out of there and sleep in your own damn bed.
🐾 koko also follows anyone who is on their way to the bathroom, ALWAYS assuming that they'll fill up the tub every time they do get in the bathroom. sorry to break this to you koko, but taichi wouldn't get in the bathroom 8 times a day to take a bath every single time, he just really wants to pee... please give him a break
🐾 koko always joins tsumugi when he is in the garden, though it was only because she wants to drink on the water coming out of tsumugi's watering can. when there are water droplets on the leaves, she climbs up and licks them off. unfortunately, it is one of the reasons why tsumugi started to yell on a daily basis, "KOKO NO THAT PLANT IS POISONOUS DON'T LICK THAT—"
🐾 tsumugi wouldn't have to warn koko forever though, since she'd eventually memorize what plants are poisonous and what are not. sometimes, after tsumugi is done watering the plants, he'd fill the watering can with water again just so koko would get in the can and chill for who knows how long.
🐾 koko is attached to muku for obvious reasons (he picked her up when she was injured!!) so koko is often in their shared room with kazunari. sadly, there was a time when muku took a break from reading the shoujo manga to grab some water, and when he got back, koko was already tearing it into pieces.
🐾 muku did not get angry at koko, but the cat knew something was wrong when muku was trying to stop himself from crying that koko already knew not to tear any of muku's books in the future. koko still felt really bad about it even after muku bought a new copy of that specific volume.
🐾 whenever kazunari is rushing an art project that is to be passed the next day, muku holds koko close to him so koko wouldn't be able to somehow ruin the painting. there has already been an instance wherein koko stepped all over the painting when muku and kazunari wasn't in the room, and that better not happen ever again.
🐾 gladly, kazunari was calm about it and found a way to fix the blue pawprints all over the white paint, but only god knows what will happen once koko messes up the painting again when kazunari is getting SO close to breaking down because of the deadline.
🐾 there are times when kazunari prefers to eat bread with charcoal and drink his paint water than having koko step all over his artwork, and muku better make sure kazunari does none of that
🐾 banri is unfortunately one of those people who pretends to be a dick around their pets. more often than he would admit, he'd act like he is about to throw a punch to koko, only to actually give it gentle pats on the head. banri throwing the cat mid-air and catching her is already a common sight, too.
🐾 he finds it funny scaring koko in all sorts of ways, especially when it comes to heights. banri would carry koko up high, and pretend to drop her just to catch the cat again. sakyo has reprimanded him a lot of times regarding this situation, but he brushes it off.
🐾 there was one time however when banri just carries koko up high and stays that way. the cat was literally scared shitless of being high up on mid-air unmoving, she literally had no choice but to piss right on banri's face. ever since that time, banri toned down his tendencies of teasing the cat
🐾 koko ALWAYS sleeps with hisoka. it doesn't matter where, will it on top of the sink? on the tree? below the table of the living room? you name it, and you see koko and hisoka stuck to each other like glue. somehow it feels like koko became a replacement of penpen. the poor stuffed toy probably got messed up by the cat, waiting to finally get fixed in yuki's room
🐾 koko got hisoka's habit of sleeping literally everywhere that it became really concerning. there was a time when tsuzuru noticed that koko was nowhere to be found, and everyone went batshit looking at her all over the city. even sakyo got mad at everyone because they weren't keeping an eye out of the cat while everybody else is gone. after how many hours of searching, turns out the cat was just sleeping inside the fucking washing machine
🐾 funny enough, taichi and koko have the SAME eyes. like, actual striking blue. taichi usually carries her and parades around the dorm, announcing the news to everyone even though he has said it for like the 83rd time that day. nobody really minds though, the coincidence is still too unreal. the quote "like pet, like owner" doesn't really apply to koko and taichi though, because if anything, it feels more like comparing a cat to a puppy
🐾 taichi is also the one who plays with koko the most, which solely meant that he also used the cat toys tenma bought as much as the cat herself did. at this point, it wouldn't be wrong if they said that the toys were bought for BOTH koko and taichi because even taichi sometimes finds entertainment in using the teaser by himself whenever the cat is being held by somebody else.
🐾 as much as yuki refuses to admit it, he actually gets concerned when koko climbs up in all sorts of countertops, because that would mean koko would also NOT hesitate to climb up to his sewing machine. he is already meticulous when it comes to his materials for sewing, but even moreso now.
🐾 every after yuki finishes sewing, he tightly encloses the sewing machine with a case so that the cat wouldn't get to touch it and potentially get hurt. yuki also used to just leave his sewing materials on the desk, but nowadays he actually keeps them into somewhere secure so as to not harm anybody. he can't have koko's paws bleeding just because of some damn pin that rolled on the floor
🐾 yuki also somehow feels bad when he drives the cat away from him by force every time he is working on the costumes for the next play. he doesn't know what the cat is thinking, but he hopes that koko knows he is just trying not to actually make her bleed over some needles. as a repayment, yuki lets koko bother him all she wants whenever he does his homework with muku.
🐾 since masumi always used to be alone at home, he always thought of the possibility of adopting a pet cat that would keep him company. that constant thought he had already dissipated when he started living in the mankai dorm, so when they decided to take koko in, he remembered the specific reasons why he wanted to own a cat.
🐾 he never let anyone willingly in his personal bubble except for the cat, which he accepted pretty easily. masumi also found it kind of amusing to blast songs on shuffle from his phone because koko had her own way of showing if she likes the song or not. if she likes it, she doesn't do anything. if koko doesn't, she taps her paw on his phone a lot of times as if telling him to change the song. most of the time, masumi obliges.
🐾 every time tsuzuru opens the fridge really late at night, he has to double check if koko is inside the fridge or not before he closes it. there was one time when he didn't notice koko get in the fridge while getting energy drinks. the cat pretty much stayed in there for hours and hours until omi opened the fridge to make breakfast. tsuzuru was lectured by sakyo that morning because he would be ultimately responsible if the cat died in the fridge from freezing her ass off
🐾 whenever tsuzuru gets in a writing frenzy, koko keeps him company late at night. unfortunately for tsuzuru, if he stops typing for at least 10 seconds, koko takes that as a sign to pounce on his keyboard and just lay down there. tsuzuru already knew better than to carry her away from his keyboard since the cat will be insistent enough to return to his keyboard, so he usually gives up and goes to bed, saving the ideas in his head for the next time he wakes up.
🐾 because of that, every time tsuzuru finishes a script for the next play, his tendencies of passing out right after handing the script to somebody else significantly lessens. tsuzuru doesn't know if the cat is just trying to be annoying or if she just wants him to get some sleep, but either way he doesn't really mind because he gets to stop himself from overworking. well sorta
🐾 juza almost never approaches koko. like never. it feels like he is openly avoiding the cat for some apparent reason, and nobody knows why, but in reality he is just scared as shit of the damn cat. what if koko gets mad at him? what if she suddenly gets aggressive and scratches him? honey you're way bigger than her, and koko wouldn't hurt you... really it's okay
🐾 juza's way of offering affection to the cat is to give her some portions of his meal during dinner, sometimes breakfast. he tries to be sneaky about it, but he legitimately has no idea that everyone knows. it becomes more obvious when koko already made it a habit to sit on the chair behind juza every meal time to get more food. that still happens even after omi just filled up her fucking bowl. nobody comments about it though, they find it hilarious
🐾 koko always tries to test homare's patience, but for some reason homare literally doesn't give a single fuck. every time he is writing something down, high chances are koko would spread the ink all over his paper. sometimes she'd try to crawl her way in his coat sleeve, and homare, he just....... doesn't mind.
🐾 if homare is actually busy however, he'd take out his necktie from his vest if koko doesn't want to leave his lap. most of the time, she actually plays with it like it's a teaser. homare is fine if the necktie gets destroyed, he has a lot of neckties in his closet and some of them are specifically for the purpose of koko messing with them
🐾 not to mention that he also finds it really amusing that koko gets overly excited when it comes to lasers. homare is curious why this would be the case, so he usually uses the laser to play with koko when he has free time. he doesn't think of where he points the laser though, so his wooden desk ends up having a lot of scratches. again, he knows and he doesn't care in the slightest.
🐾 misumi adores koko so much. her ears are triangles, her paws are triangle, her nose is triangle. she is a fucking triangle. with the help of kazunari, he already has a whole album of koko's best pictures in polaroid films. most of them are in a photo book so that everyone has a physical copy to look at, while some of them are taped on misumi's wall. the ones on misumi's room are particularly the ones where her ears are especially prominent.
🐾 at least twice or thrice a week, misumi brings koko out of the dorm and brings her to other groups of stray cats that misumi deems trustworthy. nothing bad happens to koko gladly, because only god knows what would happen once misumi's instincts tell him something horrible is about to happen to their pet cat, and they're always spot on
🐾 citron has ZERO sense of personal space when it comes to koko. citron would literally touch koko anywhere, thinking she is fine with it. unfortunately, there are times when citron pets koko on parts she doesn't want to be touched, particularly the tail and the area around it. citron's hands always end up covered in scratches. over time, he memorized where he should and shouldn't touch like the back of his hand
🐾 citron made a koko jr. which was completely intended to be for display purposes. the cat saw it as a new mouse toy however, so it didn't take a whole day for koko jr. to look like a ball of messed up wool. it doesn't look like a damn cat anymore, though it passes as an extremely fluffy and distorted alpaca
🐾 sakyo never shows affection to the cat. no pets, no strokes, nothing. the most he does to koko is spare her a glance, and sometimes he even glares at her from a distance when sakyo gets too absorbed in his thoughts... despite that, everyone wonders why every time sakyo comes home, she gets more energetic greeting him compared to how she'd greet the rest of the boys when they come back to the dorm
🐾 azuma knows. he would sometimes stay up for late night talks with sakyo, and through their conversations that's when azuma learns how much sakyo cares. azuma often helps sakyo out on trimming koko's nails when they're getting kind of long, trying to be as careful as possible so as to not hurt her.
🐾 azuma is also amused at the fact that sakyo tries to ignore koko resting on his lap, or when he pretends not to notice the cat trying to slip in the pockets of his coat. knowing sakyo, he'll definitely complain about the white fur on his black coat later on. as funny as it is, azuma knows better than to say a word about it.
🐾 before kazunari realized it, his camera roll is pretty much filled with random pictures of koko. most of them are just derp pictures, though... kazunari captures her weird quirks, like how she likes to fall asleep with all fours spread out like a starfish, or how she constantly make noises on the door stopper if she wants to get in the room. the picture with koko's most horrified face on it was when banri threw her high up mid-air, and that is never going to get deleted.
🐾 they find everything the cat does very adorable, even though she is just drinking water from her bowl. or when her tongue gets stuck on the ice tray omi brought out from the fridge. or when she yawns and taichi sticks a finger in her mouth and she doesn't know what to do next. or when she squints her eyes at homare when he gets in a blabbering rampage. literally everything.
🐾 at some point, kazunari thought it'd be a good idea to have those cat tunnels mounted on walls so there will be more room for koko to play. he just said it out of nowhere, but everyone agreed on that idea. after a week or two, the whole dorm is basically a cat playground with a crapton of shelves, slides, and tunnels on the walls, save for the practice room, bathroom, and the bedrooms.
🐾 did sakyo said that they are never, ever getting another pet after koko? yeah right, there's no way that's actually happening. high chances are they got more cats so that the cat playground they all built together will get utilized. the more, the merrier!! even though sakyo complains a lot about the expenses, they all know he isn't against the idea, though they better not tease him for it or sakyo will definitely take it back
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