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risestarkiss · 4 months

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Being Baby Blue

Rise Ramblings #313

Leonardo Hamato is…an interesting individual.

As a middle child, he doesn’t have to shoulder the responsibilities of the oldest, nor is he fawned upon or babied over like the youngest. Therefore, he ends up having more of a lackadaisical approach to life.

In his free time, instead of training like Raph, Leo can normally be found reading comic books.

And for good reason! Someone has to be up on the latest issues of Jupiter Jim and his space odysseys.

But, other than being a Jupiter Jim superfan, who is Leonardo Hamato?

If you ask Leo, he's...*takes out a list*: “Primetime,” “First,” “The Best,” “Number One,” “The Champion,” or some other iteration of all of the above.

...Huh. Anyways...

Of course, the first thing Leo would tell you is that he's the team's "Face Man."

As the "Face Man," he’s the one that turns up the charm when they need to schmooze their way out of, or into, something.

He's the face of the group! It's a very important title, right?

Well, in this scene with Hueso, we learn what Leo really feels about his place on the team.

"There's no team with just a face man." "I'm nothing without them."

Hmm. If he thinks that he is nothing without his brothers, then what's the deal with all of this "Number One" and "Champion" talk?

I believe that Leo is exhibiting a form of Reaction Formation.

Reaction Formation is a primitive defense mechanism that involves transforming one's unacceptable feelings or emotions into the opposite.

"Solicitude may be a reaction-formation against cruelty...romantic notions of chastity and purity may mask crude sexual desires, altruism may hide selfishness, and piety may conceal sinfulness."

Leo has been creating these grandiose titles and this larger-than-life persona for himself as a means to cope with his feelings of insecurity, his anxieties, and combat his self-deprecation.

Gee, forming a larger-than-life persona to counteract their suppressed feelings also reminds me of someone else we know…

But, I digress...

Behind the fabrications, his insecurities, who he pretends to be, and who he wants to be, the real Leo is still on display, starting as early as the first episode.

He's attentive, he understands the team's strengths and weaknesses, he assesses situations, he comes up with great plans on the fly, and he is a voice of reason.

These are all the characteristics of a great leader.

However, something happens when he’s actually appointed as such.

There he goes again. He's cocky, arrogant, and act's as if he's unphased even by the prospect of loosing his brothers. If this is Reaction Formation, then what is he trying to mask with these behaviors?

Previously, he was masking his insecurities, his anxieties, and his self-deprecation, but with the faces he pulls when he thinks no one can see them, I want to say the newest emotion is fear.

He is terrified of being the leader and floundering under his new responsibilities. He's scared of the consequences of his actions, and what those consequences may mean for his brothers. However, instead of voicing his insecurities, or communicating with his team, he doubles down and falls back into old habits.

The "Face Man" persona is turned up to an 11, and things get worse and worse until...

His greatest fears have been realized.

He has failed as a leader. He has failed his brothers. He has failed to stop the invasion, and they are all going to die because of his failures.

Now he's faced with the harsh reality of his own mistakes, thus he finally faces himself.

"It's scary to be responsible for the lives you protect, your team...your family. But we do it anyway because that's what it means to be a hero."

He may be speaking to Raph, but he's talking about himself.

His words are his true feelings, the same feelings that have been holding him back this entire time. By opening up, he's able to surrender to himself and let it all go.

And it's the breakthrough we all have been waiting for.

What Leo doesn't know is that through letting go, he's able to become the true face of the group he is destined to be.

He's the face of hope.

○○○○

Previous | Being Big Red

Next | Being Purple ○ Part One • Being Purple ○ Part Two • Orange, Baby!

Finale | Being Hamato Yoshi

2K notes · View notes

brighteststar707 · 11 months

Note

Lollipop 🍭 for Saeyoung (⁠◍⁠•⁠ᴗ⁠•⁠◍⁠)⁠❤

She/her pronouns. Maybe like mc falls for him not expecting much back but then with time realizes that he might have feelings for her too? I think this would be fun to see in the post SE timeline when Saeyoung can take time falling in love. And MC wasn't pushy or invasive in his route, she was understanding! She helped Saeyoung bring Saeran back and kept supporting him any way she could during Saeran's recovery. As she spends more time with Saeyoung she realizes that she has genuine feelings for him and she notices that he might be feeling the same way. This might be a bit too much backstory for a drabble 😅 do feel free to add or change anything you like! I'm excited to read it ♥️♥️ congrats again for 300 followers!🥳💕💕

Lucy! Thank you for your patience!

This request was a lot of fun to write, though it did take me some time to figure out how best to frame it. Don't apologise for the extra backstory, I love hearing about the ideas you have in mind!

The concept of Saeyoung and his MC falling for each other slowly after the events of his route is one I really enjoy. It's probably a lot healthier than what happens in the route. He needs his time to come to terms with everything else before ever considering love.

I took most of your prompt and changed the perspective a bit, so it's Saeyoung realizing his feelings after everything is said and done. I hope you enjoy <3

✧ Lollipop ~ Having a crush

Today’s outing takes a detour to a little coffee shop. After a few hours of walking around the park and exploring different shops, they’d both like a break. It’s an unremarkable building, the kind of place that’s easy to miss if you’re not paying attention but surprisingly, the inside is warm and welcoming, like a little hideaway from the streets outside. Saeyoung likes it from the moment they enter. How she ever found this place, he doesn’t know.

They pick a good variety of pastries from the case to go with their drinks – they’ve never been the type to do half-measures – and then settle into a booth by the window. He sits opposite her, and the table is small enough that his legs risk bumping into hers. He tucks them under his chair instead.

Since the twins' lives had settled into a new sort of normal in the bunker, Saeyoung had found himself with a lot more free time on his hands. Saeran did not need him in the ways he once did (in fact, his independence is key to his recovery). The agency had imploded and his father had finally been served justice. He wasn’t sure what was left for him to do except stare at the walls of his office. He had never had any ambitions beyond the life he had been previously living. They were never allowed.

She had caught him in the middle of a crisis where he had spent weeks closed up indoors panicking about the openness of his future. She encouraged him to come outside with her, it had been so long since they had last seen each other, after all. They went for a walk around the empty land surrounding where he lived, talked about life, the little things, and then later the big scary things.

This gesture of hers had awoken in him a feverish desire to catch up on everything at once, the life he had been missing all this time. They immediately started making plans for when to meet up next, where to go and what to do.

No two outings so far have been the same. Sometimes, they just pick random exits off the highway to go exploring. Other times, they went to the cinema or a museum. The RFA joined them sometimes, like the time they managed to convince Jumin to hold a game night at his penthouse (those shiny new consoles were just begging to be used) and the time they all went together to watch Zen perform in his latest show. Saeran even agreed to join once or twice, like when they got ice cream at the park or when they went to go visit an art gallery. A lot of the time, though, it was just the two of them.

They didn't mind it that way. It was no secret that they had always been closer than the others. Even from the beginning, when they were just strangers in a chatroom, they managed to still joke around in ways the others didn’t understand. There was an understanding between them, a product of their personalities and the things they had been through, that would be difficult to replicate with anyone else.

Even now, as they sit in the café sipping their drinks, the silence is comfortable. He can read the expression on her face as she watches the people walk by from the quirk in her eyebrows and the slight smile that curves the corners of her mouth.

She catches him watching her, though, and quickly locks her eyes on his.

She flashes him a cheeky smile and says, “Something catch your eye?” and his stomach does somersaults. Did she always look like that?

Despite all the time they had spent together, both before Mint Eye and after, sometimes it felt like he was still just noticing things about her he probably should have noticed before this. The smell of her shampoo when she got into his car earlier today. Her arm brushing against his when reaching for a book on a shelf next to him. The proximity of their knees under the table.

If he looks visibly flustered, she doesn't let on. She instead replaces her question with another one. She asks him about how life is going in the bunker. How he is coping, how Saeran is coping.

He tells her that he is looking at houses, that he's trying to find the best way to broach the idea of moving to Saeran. How to involve him in the process, so he has a say in where they end up living. He tells her that it's getting easier on most days to talk to each other.

He doesn't give her the half-answers he's used to giving. How could he? She has seen him in his entirety, at his worst as well as his best. It's no use lying to her even if he wanted to; she has been involved with their reuniting and recovery since day one.

She is the reason he survived the whole ordeal at all. When he was falling to pieces at the apartment, she was the one who brought him food, who didn't try to pry. She stubbornly refused to let him punish himself for things that weren't his fault. Then, when it was time for him to go and rescue Saeran, she agreed to go with him without question.

He remembers waking up at the hospital and finding her curled up asleep on a very uncomfortable looking chair. She hadn’t left, even after they got rescued. No, she remained until he was discharged, bringing with her well-wishes from the others and news on Saeran’s recovery. She is the one who broke the news to him about V and who let him air out his frustrations as well as his grief.

When he was finally discharged, she promised him that she was just a call away. He thanked her (he will likely never stop thanking her) but promised himself that he would not burden her with any more of his troubles.

He went on to focus on Saeran’s care. It was worse than he could have imagined, to see his brother in that state. The anger, he could take. He deserved it. But the emptiness, the apathy he saw from the person he once knew to be so joyful scared him like nothing else. He could rescue Saeran from Rika and the drugs she put him under. He could not force him to keep living if he didn't wan to, however.

That’s how he ended up calling her again. From then on, she often accompanied him to hospital visits. She’d wait for him in the waiting room every time he went in, and on days when he couldn’t, she would go in instead. Afterwards, she’d encourage him to talk about the things on his mind. She was the first person to hear about his plan to break Saeran out of the hospital.

He allowed himself to accept help from her and offered her the same support in return. On more than one occasion he stayed on the phone with her till she fell asleep because memories of the basement cell and gunshots and screams were keeping her up. He understood that some things she’d never be able to explain to anyone else.

As he rebuilt his life, she was an essential part of it. He survived because of her friendship and promise that he would never be alone if he didn't want to be.

The time passes quickly as they share pastries and discuss the pros and cons of the different types of houses he is considering. He isn’t sure when their adventures became more about seeing her than doing whatever activity they had planned. When he started calling her just to ask her what she was doing and to hear the sound of her voice on the other side. He is already dreading dropping her off at home later and returning to the bunker by himself. Without her, things feel off-kilter.

There is a small voice telling him that he knows what he's feeling. That he had felt it once before, in a time when she was just a grainy figure on CCTV footage and a voice over the phone. The spark of something that had been stifled by everything that came after.

He leans forward to show her a listing on his phone, and their legs bump under the table. It doesn't look like she notices but he can feel his heart racing. He must say something funny, because she tips her head back to laugh and the sunlight catches on her hair.

And then all the pieces slot together like the world's most obvious puzzle and he is left dumbfounded by his own obliviousness.

Before he can process his realization, before he can try and figure out what it means, the words tumble out of his mouth.

"I love you."

There it was, out on the table with whatever was left of the pastries.

She immediately straightens up and looks at him with wide eyes.

"What did you say?"

Is he imagining things, or does she sound flustered?

"I... love you." He says it slower this time and it sounds almost inadequate.

"Oh."

He's not imagining things. She fiddles with her sleeves and looks down at the table as if it'd be able to hide the smile that's slowly growing on her (definitely blushing) cheeks. Before he can think of something (anything) else to say, she takes a breath and looks at him. She's smiling shyly, it's a look he has never seen on her before.

"That makes me so happy, Saeyoung."

"Does that mean..."

Her smile widens and she nods. "Me too."

"What- why didn't you say anything?"

"I didn't want to dump my feelings on you after everything. I thought it would ruin things."

"As if you could ruin anything."

They hold eye contact for a second before they both burst into a fit of giggles out of relief and the absurdity of it all.

He reaches for her hand across the table. Their legs bump and cross under the table, and he doesn't mind how much the contact makes his heart race. In fact, he relishes it. He wonders what it would feel like if she were closer, whether it would simply stop beating all together. He can't remember the last time someone was this close to him.

They have spent the last few months catching up on life he has missed. As he squeezes her hand between both of his and digests the certainty of their confessions, he realises that this is only the beginning.