#i have summer schoolwork to do!! and sleep to catch up on!! | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

sunny-reis · 9 months

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hi! can i request akito shinonome x reader where they get into an argument? maybe it takes them a few days to make up because akito is stubborn and reader is a bit shy and overthinks like "what if he doesnt want me anymore" or whatever. oneshot please..! thank you, and have a nice day!! dont write if you dont wanna :)

oneshot - post-argument tension w/ akito

i wish i never ever told you all about it, but i just had to let you know; never meant to hurt you, tho

notes: pjsk req woohoo 🤠 i'm not sure if you wanted them to make up after the whump so ,.,,.,. we ball lmao

tags: gender-neutral reader, you're friends with ena, an, and kohane

word count: 1,987

thirteen hours and twenty-six minutes.

that’s how long you’ve gone without hearing the familiar ding! of a message from akito. it’s almost half past nine now, you note, double-checking the small alarm clock on the side table by your bed. it's been more than half a day since you’ve talked to the redheaded idiot you call a boyfriend, and you can't help but be pissed (and worried sick, but you're too angry to think about that right now. he doesn't deserve my worry, you think).

it all started late yesterday, when he was supposed to come over to your place after his afternoon dance practice – the two of you had made plans to visit a cute new bakery opening on main street. needless to say, he completely ignored your texts and calls, replying hours later with a simple “sorry, i forgot. catch up with you later.” being human, you replied with a series of passive-aggressive texts, inevitably leading to an explosive argument. you sat on the couch for what felt like hours after, kicking around the stupid cow plushie he won you at a summer fair now on the ground. how hard is it to call ahead? or keep a stupid promise?

and so, here you are, listening to music in bed and staring emptily at the ceiling. a single thought floats around in your head: what the hell’s up with akito? he’s never been the type to be dry, not even on the numerous times when he's been frustrated out of his mind with schoolwork, or fed up with family politics and his dad. the night goes by slowly, and after far too much moping, you huff and sit up against the headboard. pausing your music, you open the messages app to (wishfully) check for a text from akito, only to be met with the same “hey aki, call me when you're free” you sent hours ago. sighing, you text the one person you think would know where he is: ena.

you - 10:32

hey ena !

is aki home? he won't reply to me

minutes later, a message bubble pops up.

enanan - 10:37

umm yeah

but he looked pretty tired when he came home an hour ago

you bite your nail, a force of habit; akito’s dance practice ends at 3:20 at the very latest. what on earth has he been doing for the past six hours?

you - 10:38

oh okay ;-;

ena - 10:38

did he say something to you?

i’ll kick his ass if he did something stupid

just say the word !!

you let out a small laugh, wrapping the covers tighter around yourself. count it on ena to keep him straight.

you - 10:39

nonono i was just overthinking !

poor guy’s probably exhausted :(

ena - 10:40

probably

get some rest though !! no man’s worth losing sleep over

you - 10:40

yeahhh i probably should

you too !!

ena - 10:41

eh i’ll try

night y/n :)

you - 10:41

nighttt

unfaithful to your words, you do not get some rest. instead, you spend far more time than you should mindlessly scrolling through anything and everything you can find on your phone to distract yourself from your thoughts, somehow ending up playing through a particularly spicy story on episode at two am. looking up from the dim screen, you sigh. ena’s right - no man’s worth losing sleep over. tapping furiously through the rest of the episode, you toss your phone under the pillow next to you and shut your eyes, trying to sleep.

although you managed to get a good six hours of sleep, you find your eyes shooting awake at 8:37 am. although it's the weekend, a sunday, you've become accustomed to waking up at the ass-crack of dawn to get ready. sitting up and stretching, you quietly pad down to the bathroom to fix yourself, being rid of last night's woes.

after a small breakfast of cereal and orange juice, you make a list of everything you plan to do today; an, a member of akito’s dance group and one of your closest friends, proposed you, ena, and kohane go out for lunch at one of the numerous cafes on main street. going outside definitely sounds better than sitting at home and sulking, so you set off to the cafe an send the address to at noon.

a little bell chimes as you open the door, instantly hit by the sweet aroma of various pastries on display. you see everything, from blueberry muffins to finely decorated cakes; your wallet feels lighter at the sight of them. making your way over to a table in the secluded corner where an waves at you, signature smile plastered on your face, you sit down on the booth. next to you sits ena, and across, an and kohane.

“hey, y/n, good to see you!” says ena, followed by a small wave from kohane.

“hello hello! i haven't seen you in a while, kohane, how’s everything going?” you ask, setting your bag down next to you.

“sorry,” she replies sheepishly, “we've been so busy with practice and school, i barely get the energy to catch up!”

“aw,” you frown, once again thinking about akito, “don't tire yourself out too much.”

“ah, it's only for a little bit! once we finish nail last routine, we’ll be done with practice and ready to perform!” an laughs; kohane only sighs.

“yeah, but it's so hard…toya and akito have been cooped up at the studio for ages, now. if it’s hard for them, imagine how hard it is for me!”

“hey, don't sell yourself short, kohane! i’ve seen the way you dance, you make it look so easy!” says ena, taking a sip of the her coffee. you nod in agreement.

“trust me, whatever you're doing is working! aki’s tried teaching me some moves – let's just say it didn't end well.” the four of you chatter away giddily until a waiter brings over a fancy rack of desserts to sample, courtesy of an. there are a humble few slices of cake, and far too many small treats you don't know the name of.

“wow, an, you sure have a keen eye for desserts!” says ena, happily finishing her coffee with a cat-shaped cookie.

“of course i do, i haven't been working at a cafe for nothing!”

“oh, you!”

a little while after you all finish, you say your goodbyes to an and kohane, leaving you an ena at scramble crossing.

“so…do you wanna walk around, or go back home? i have some time to kill.” she asks, the two of you crossing the road as the cars come to a halt.

“i’m fine with walking, i don't really have anything to do at home.” you shrug, checking your watch. it’s only 2:45 and the only thing waiting for you at home is a full washing machine, so you opt to wander around the city with ena.

somewhere around the local playground, the two of you have a heart-to-heart on the far-too-small swings.

“has everything been okay with you and akito?” she asks, leaning against the chain, “i feel like something’s up. you can talk to me about it if you want.” you sigh.

“well…kind of? i think he's been ignoring me and i’m really worried. i don't think i did anything to upset him, and he’s been really exhausted lately.”

“oh, yeah, he's been coming home later too. i don't blame him, really. i guess perfectionism is a family disease.”

“definitely,” you shake your head, “i'm not angry at him at all, but i feel…hurt.” she sits up alertly.

“why? did he say something?”

“no, no, that's the problem! he missed our date the other day, but he said sorry and we fought over text. i feel so bad, but i know i’m not being irrational, and he's ghosting me! we’ve fought before, but what if this is it?” ena mumbles under her breath, something about a “stupid kid”.

“you both really are perfect for each other, you know that?” you tilt your head in confusion.

“how so?”

“you're both so hard-headed,” she laughs, “and stupid, sometimes. although that's more him than you.”

“i guess so.”

“but seriously, let me talk to him at home. maybe then he’ll get the balls to apologize and it’ll all be okay again.”

“you don't need to get tangled up in this mess, ena, don't worry-”

“oh, shut up! no man is worth lowering your standards for, that applies to him, too! maybe it’ll do you both some good, too.”

“you're the best, really.” you say, squeezing her hand.

“oh, i know.” ena flounces; you laugh, getting off the swing and brushing the sand off your lap. the walk to your house is short, or so you assure ena, but she walks back with you anyways.

“don't worry about akito, okay? i’ll handle him.” she says, walking down the steps to your house. you nod, waving at her as she leaves. deep down, the two of you know that won't be happening – worrying about akito is a part of the package, so you’ve come to realize.

you decide to spend the rest of the day lazing around on the couch, snacking on popcorn as you binge chick flicks. as you subconsciously replay the events of the past two days in the back of your mind, the guilt settles in. you sit up, checking your phone for any messages and signs of life from akito, and flinching at the sudden brightness. looking around, the state of the living room is as pathetic as you feel. there are popcorn kernels where you tried (and failed) to throw them in the small trash can, pillows strewn all over the floor, blankets folded messily, each mess driving you crazier by the minute. pausing the movie, you sigh, getting up to clean whatever you see. although you still feel like garbage mentally, seeing the room decently clean makes you feel slightly better.

before you realize it, you're yawning and no longer paying attention to mean girls playing on the laptop in bed. sitting up and stretching, you set it on the nightstand, wrap yourself up in a blanket cocoon, and begin to fall asleep.

you're woken out of your peaceful slumber by the abrupt ring of the doorbell. rubbing your eyes, you pad to the front door, opening it to see none other than-

“aki? what are you doing here, it’s the middle of the night?” he’s drenched, clearly having walked here in the ongoing downpour behind him. how cliché. you let him in, helping him feel off his jacket and fetching him a towel.

“so, are we gonna talk about the elephant in the room?” you ask, sitting down next to him on the couch. he looks down at his feet.

“yeah, we probably should.”

“speak your peace, then, i’m listening.”

“well…i’m sorry i've been an ass,” akiro sighs, “everything’s been so overwhelming lately.”

“i’m sorry, too. i shouldn’t have been so passive-aggressive, it clearly only made things worse.” he shakes his head.

“no, i get it. i was in the wrong and i lashed out at you for no reason. i missed our date, too! i’ve been really shitty to you, you don't deserve any of that.”

“i understand why it happened, aki,” you say, giving him a small smile and grasping his hand in yours, “you can talk to me when things get rough, though, you know what.”

“i know, i know, and i'm sorry.”

“no use dwelling on the past now, i guess, yeah?”

akito nods, laying down on your lap; you play with his hair absentmindedly, listening to him mumble about his week. the weight on your chest is lifted just by the sight of him opening up to you again, and you feel much better.

“hey, aki, promise me something.”

“hm?”

“don't ghost me again, or i’ll kick your ass.”

#asks #reqs #anon #pjsk #akito x reader #akito imagines #akito oneshots #pjsk x reader

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reki-of-the-valley · 2 years

Text

Summer Time (Family) Madness

It's been a hot minute, hasn't it? And it's not even new content rip. But still, have these 5k words that will replace the poorly written original chapter 2 of this trainwreck that holds a special place in my heart.

First | Chapter 2 | Next >

AO3 | Original Chapter 1 | Original Chapter 2 | Original Chapter 3 | Original Chapter 4

“Langa…”

Reki rolled onto his back, dropping his book on his face and groaning. Langa watched as the boy spread out like a starfish on his bedroom floor, not moving the book away and seeming overly dejected. He was still wrapped up in his usual yellow hoodie, sleeves rolled up to his elbows. Always that yellow hoodie, always wearing that thick sweater despite it being the end of July. He was still in that sweater, the bright yellow one that had started to fade from the overexposure to sunlight, the one that never failed to draw Langa’s eyes towards the boy. Or so that’s what he told himself as he wrapped his arms around his knees, physically holding his leg back from swinging and landing a kick to Reki’s side in an attempt to jolt the boy back to life.

Despite the summer having finally rolled around, schoolwork never stopped, which kind of sucked. There were no more of those summers where Langa would just lounge around the house, watching cable television while his parents worked. There were no more summers spent at his grandparents, summers he would spend playing in their yard. There were no more summers free of school work; Japan hadn’t caught on that the hot months of the year were supposed to be spent not thinking about school. Or maybe it was that there was so little summer heat in Canada – unlike in Japan where it was just constantly hot – that the people in charge of the education system decided to enjoy their summers not working. Langa never really got why summer meant vacation, but that wasn’t his problem. Not anymore at least, now that he had to spend his summer doing homework.

Thankfully, he had Reki to share his homework with. That was if the boy had any intentions of working on their assignments before the last day of break. Knowing Reki, he was most likely going to repeat last summer and rush through everything, resulting in a week’s worth of detention due to the poor quality of his work. And as much as Langa hated the idea of working on assignments, he wasn’t ready to miss out on a week worth of fun just because Reki hated schoolwork even more than he did.

“An hour a day. We agreed on an hour a day to get your grades up.”

“Not like yours are that much better than mine.”

Reki’s voice had been muffled by the textbook still resting on his face. If he stayed like that any longer, Langa would have expected the ink from the pages to have imprinted itself onto the boy’s face, but before he could even entertain the idea of studying off of Reki’s cheeks, he flipped onto his stomach with yet another groan. It looked almost painful for him to do, but once he was comfortable again on his floor, the textbook neatly tucked under his folded arms and chin, Reki let his eyes skirt over the words. He was back to work.

For five minutes. Reki had lasted five minutes before falling asleep, snoring softly into the gutter of his math book. The hums that usually filled the air as they studied together had been replaced by a steady breath, a sound Langa had grown far too accustomed to over the course of the year of impromptu sleepovers. It was just easier to crash in the same room after a night spent at S. It saved Reki the detour of dropping Langa off. It allowed them to catch a few extra minutes of sleep before the morning alarm started to blare in their ears. Or at least that was what Langa told himself.

With a sigh, Langa set his own book aside to poke Reki in the side. The boy yelped as he jumped, grabbing his waist in an attempt to avoid being poked again.

“Dude! What the hell? Don’t just… Don’t do that!”

“You fell asleep.”

“Yeah well, I… Maybe I need the rest! We’re supposed to be on break, after all.” A smile curled onto Langa’s lips as Reki flopped to the side, still whining. “Can’t we go out and skate instead? This is so boring.”

Langa sighed, slumping his back against Reki’s bedframe. His eyes didn’t shift away from the body on the floor, his eyes trailing across the sun-kissed skin, his gaze forming constellations with the pale freckles that ornated Reki’s face. Or at least, he did so until he noticed what he was doing. Quickly, he shook his head, the words he had meant to say finally tumbling out.

“I can’t today. My mom is going to kill me if I don’t show Emmy around like I promised.”

Reki shifted on the floor, slumping his back against his closet door to face Langa. The short-lived nap must have gotten to the boy, his eyes a little duller than usual as he stared at Langa. They lacked their usual shine of excitement, instead seeming a little foggy.

“Your girlfriend?”

“Cousin, Reki. She’s my cousin.” Langa shook his head at the boy. “I don’t know how many times I have to tell you that she’s my cousin and not my girlfriend.”

Had he lacked the self-control, Langa would have muttered something about being too gay to have a girlfriend, but instead, Langa bit his tongue and simply watched Reki squirm across from him. Maybe he should have said something. Maybe if he had said it, Reki would stop assuming every girl in his life was his girlfriend. It was always “How is it possible that you, Prince Langa, haven’t at least had a girlfriend back in Canada?” and never why he didn’t have a boyfriend. Then again, it may have been rude to assume someone was gay.

Langa huffed, thinking back to the time he had managed to render Reki speechless. It didn’t often happen, but with just enough confidence, he was capable of anything, even rendering Reki speechless. It was a surprising moment, really; he hadn’t done much besides lean closer to Reki with a smirk, asking him if he was jealous of the girl who had just asked him out. He hadn’t expected such a strong reaction from Reki, flames taking over his face as his eyes grew wide, his voice cracking over fragments of words and stammering worse than usual before stuffing his hands in the pockets of his hoodie and kicking his skateboard into motion. He had rarely raced off so quickly and Langa swore he heard Reki mutter something resembling a yes, but that must have been wishful thinking. If Reki were to be jealous, it wasn’t of the girl; he, too, deserved to be asked out and gifted chocolates and love confessions every other week, even if the thought of it made Langa’s stomach twist.

“Can I come with?” Langa blinked at the boy who was once again sprawled across the floor. “I’m just so bored at home!”

Langa shrugged, closing his textbook. Thinking he’d get any extra work done was purely hopeful and naïve thinking. “Sure, but Emmy’s not exactly… fluent in Japanese.”

“Neither are you.” There was a beat of silence. Then Reki sat up again. “Wait, no. You’re pretty fluent, just…” Reki reached out, his fingers curling around one of Langa’s notebooks and flipping through the pages. “You write like shit, dude. How do you even revise with these notes?”

Heat formed under Langa’s cheeks as he snatched his notebook back. “I’m not that bad!”

“Pretty sure the twins have better handwriting than you and they’re not even in school yet!”

“You know what?” Langa got up, half-glaring at Reki as he messily stuffed his homework back into his bag. “No, no you can’t come. You’re going to have to deal with your boredom all on your own.”

“No!” Arms wrapped around the boy’s ankles, not letting him move away from the body on the floor. “C’mon! Don’t be like that! I’m sorry! I’m just teasing!”

Sometimes, Langa’s cold exterior came in handy. It took a lot for him to crack, no matter how badly he wanted to smile or laugh. He was more than aware that Reki was just teasing him – not that he was wrong; Langa’s handwriting really was shit – but part of him wanted him to feel at least a little bit bad. Nothing major, not for too long – he wasn’t evil after all – but just for a bit. Or maybe he was evil. Was it evil to purposefully make your best friend feel bad after he just insulted your handwriting? Langa didn’t know; he had never had friends who would tease him the way Reki did.

“C’mon dude, please? Please let me come?”

“Fine.” A smile finally blossomed across Langa’s face as Reki let go of his ankles. “But I’m not translating your endless rambles about boards. You go way too fast and the words are just gonna…”

The softness of Reki’s smile as he got up to be eye level with Langa almost made him melt. “I know, man. I know you have a hard time switching between languages.”

Reki was always so understanding. While his brain was constantly buzzing, ideas bouncing around at the speed of light, Langa’s seemed to shut down at the most unfortunate times. Whenever he needed it to work for him, such as when he was put on the spot and was expected to give an answer, it just decided to go on vacation, leaving him a silent, panicking mess. Or at least, he felt like a panicking mess; others, more often than not, either assumed he was too cool to be answering questions or that he was a total airhead, which he guessed was fair. Maybe he was a little bit of an airhead at times, but most of the time, it was just his brain refusing to cooperate with him. Most of the time, it was the anxiety, or maybe it was just all those high expectations. Regardless of what it was, all he knew was that when someone asked him for an answer, he froze up.

A few people had asked how it was that he was so bad at everything except skateboarding, but he hadn’t given them an answer. Except for Reki. He had answered Reki, but that was probably because Reki had been gentler when asking how it was possible for Langa to know all the answers when it came to skateboarding. And he had answered honestly: he didn’t think then he was skating. He was good at it because he didn’t think; everything went so fast, he didn’t have time to think. He just acted, all his answers for himself and himself alone. He didn’t need to be in someone else’s head when finding answers. He just had to do what felt right to him. Nobody expected anything of him, nothing except what he normally did which was what he wanted.

Skateboarding was easy. People… not so much.

“Quit overthinking this. I’m sure we’ll manage something. And if not, we’ll just mime stuff at each other until we get each other.”

A light chuckle escaped Langa as Reki mimed miming, his arms waving through the air. He had no idea what the boy was trying to communicate with his charade, but neither one lingered too much on that. Instead, he calmed, his focus suddenly lingering on the small point of contact between the two boys, the warmth of Reki’s body against his.

“You know,” his voice was back to its usual coolness, though he could feel a stutter on the tip of his tongue, “there is this thing called a translator app. Not perfect, but better than me.”

“Aw, man, don’t be so hard on yourself!” Reki leaned even more into Langa, his head on the boy’s shoulder. “I’m sure you’re gonna be a great translator!”

As Reki peeled himself off of Langa, the warmth dissipated almost immediately, leaving Langa cold once more. Despite the sun beaming down on all of Okinawa, Langa still felt cold when Reki wasn’t next to him, touching him, cuddling him. It wasn’t weird for best friends to cuddle, was it? People could cuddle platonically, right? It had to be a thing. Girls did it all the time at school, all huddled together, some on each other's laps, arms linked as they giggled together. So it wasn’t weird to have Reki cuddled into his side while they watched skateboarding videos, buried under blankets, in the dead of the night.

“C’mon, man! You’re zoning out on me again! Race you to your place?”

Langa blinked a few times before giving him a curt nod, dropping his skateboard and pushing off after Reki. He wasn’t going to think about cuddling Reki. Nope. No way. Not happening.

Once again, it wasn’t hard to spot the girl sitting on the curb of the road. Her blond hair shone under the hot summer sun, bright against the dull color of the apartment building. Her phone screen also helped with the shine, rays of sunlight reflecting off of it as she continued scrolling mindlessly. If Langa had to describe the girl, phone-addict was one of the first things he’d say; she didn’t do much other than scroll through the countless apps she had. Really, all she did was pull her knees to her chest and stare at a screen all day, which was probably why Langa’s mother had asked for him to take her out for the day.

At the sound of the screeching wheels of two skateboards coming to a halt, Emily lifted her head, seeming a little disoriented. She blinked at them, as if not recognizing the boy in front of her, but as soon as the connections were made in her brain, a grin broke across her face as she bounced up.

“About time you got here! I’ve been–!”

Brown eyes flickered towards Reki, a color breaking across her cheeks as she bit her lower lip. Her fingers picked and pulled at her phone case, a nervousness so uncharacteristic from the girl Langa remembered from his childhood, and yet, it made him bite back a smile.

“Hello, I mean,” she fumbled with her words and her phone, worse than Langa had on his arrival in Japan. “Hello,” she repeated in highly English-accented Japanese.

A cold sweat swept over Langa. As much as he wanted to laugh at the girl and her struggles, he was suddenly more concerned and aware of his own presence. Was he to play translator or was he supposed to let her try and communicate on her own? Was it rude to let her struggle or would it be ruder to cut her off and just tell her that he’d translate whatever she said? Had it been a mistake to let Reki join him today? Should he have told him that he was busy and couldn’t come with him?

“Hello, I… I hope I not…” Reki leaned closer, whispering to Langa in his native Japanese. “How do you say ‘intruding’ in English?”

“Bother.” The English rolled off of his tongue far more naturally than the Japanese ever did despite having spent years speaking it and having lived in Japan for the past year. “I hope I’m not bothering.”

“Bot–! Bot… I…” Reki grinned, pointing at Langa. The clunky attempt at English was quickly replaced by a smooth Japanese. “That! Whatever Langa said, that.”

It would have been easy to have ignored the situation, make nothing of it. Nothing spectacular had happened, after all; Reki had tried to speak English just as Emily had attempted to speak Japanese. Except everything had happened and Langa felt like he could just die. And not just because he would have to play interpreter between Reki and Emily.

It was ridiculous, really. It had no business making his heart skip a beat in his chest the way it did. It wasn’t even like it was the first time he was hearing Reki try to speak English! And yet, here Langa was, the corners of his eyes prickling with potential tears, the urge to curl up in a ball on the ground, knees pressed to his chest, stopped by the mere fact that he was not dramatic by nature.

Reki was cute. Reki was absolutely adorable and it was going to kill Langa. His accent was everything, an accent Langa had never really noticed since Reki never spoke English aside from the couple of words he had to utter during English classes. And Langa had never really thought about speaking English with Reki; the most that would happen would be him turning a word over in his mouth until he found the Japanese translation. He had never seen Reki try so hard to communicate in a langue that wasn’t his own, the concentration so visible on his face as he tried to repeat the words Langa had given him. And when the sheepish grin spread across his face as he gave up? That was it. Langa was gone. Langa was lost to the brightness of the boy, to his ridiculously adorable ways. How was it possible that he had somehow gotten even cuter than he already was?

“Hey, Langa?” Emily’s voice drew Langa back to reality, her fingers curled around his forearm. “You good there? You look like you’re about to have a panic attack.”

“Cute attack actually.”

The words were already out by the time Langa was clasping his hands over his mouth, eyes widened with shame. It was too late; there was no taking them back now. They were out for the world to hear rather than in the safe space in the corner of his mind. His deepest, most embarrassing thoughts had been verbalized, and there was no doubt about that given the way Emily was biting her lip, failing to conceal her laughter.

“You…” A snort escaped the girl, her laughter falling like a waterfall now. “You have it so bad! How have you not slipped up yet?”

“This is your fault!” Heat rose to Langa’s cheeks as he hissed at the girl. “This is all your fault! You—!"

The corner of Langa’s eyes caught on a wisp of red, red that drew him in as always. Amber eyes had been cast down, staring at his fingers picking at the fraying hem of his sleeve. There was a shadow over Reki’s usual brightness, a shadow Langa had learned to quickly notice. It came with the tugging of sleeves, something Reki only did when he was uncomfortable. Something he only did when he felt unwanted. Something he only did when he felt out of place, the last thing Langa wanted him to ever feel; Reki should never feel out of place next to Langa.

“Reki?”

“It’s okay, Langa. I… I’ll just go home. I’m sure I can do something for my mom and you, well, it’ll be easier for you.” He forced a smile as his eyes met Langa’s. The grin looked as fragile as Langa’s heart. “You’ll come around later? Or like, you’ll text me tonight?”

“No.” A pause. Downcast eyes and slender fingers grabbing for the soft yellow fabric. “Yes. No, Reki. Please.” The eyes rose like sunshine in the morning, pulling a grateful smile from Langa. “Please don’t go. I… I want you here.”

“And,” the voice was shaky but held a lot more confidence than what Langa had mustered up all those months ago when he first arrived in the new country, “I understand. Just… Just go slow please?”

The Japanese words were slow and slightly butchered by an English accent, but still, they left a pool of relief in Langa’s chest. He wouldn’t have to translate everything, all the back and forth between Emily and Reki. He wouldn’t have to play interpreter, a job he knew he was terrible at. He’d just get to sit back and listen, something he enjoyed quite a bit; talking was such a tiring thing.

“When’d you…”

The question wasn’t fully out by the time Emily was looking at him, her eyebrow arched, some sort of invitation for Langa to finish his sentence. She often did that, looking at him in a way that meant “go on, I dare you.” But Langa knew better. He knew she knew the rest of the question without needing him to spell it out for her. She was good at predicting what would come next; or maybe Langa was predictable when it came to his questions.

“I’ve been practicing a bit.”

The girl shrugged as she turned on her heel, turning her attention to Reki. So that was why she was using a lot more words than he remembered her knowing. And sure, they weren’t perfect, far from Reki’s native Japanese, but it was nonetheless impressive to Langa. After all, out of the two, he was by far the more “Japanese” one.

Back in Canada, he was the one that people went to when looking for a “foreign” kid, despite his light hair and blue eyes. He was the one people heard speak Japanese with his parents. He was the one that had weird things in his lunches, which now that he thought about it, weren’t even that weird. He was the one that looked the most Asian when he stood next to Emily, Emily with her big brown eyes and her glistening blond hair. Out of the two, he was the one that had embraced the Asian heritage a lot more. Or maybe, he just grew up in an environment where being Asian didn’t mean being a freak. Or maybe he was just used to being alone while Emily hated it. Who really knew.

None of that really mattered anyway. They weren’t grade-school kids back in North America anymore. They weren’t the strange kids that didn’t look like the others anymore. Well, yes, they still were, but they were older and it didn’t really matter anymore. What mattered right now was that Emily had her arm looped with Reki’s, her shoulder pressed to his as they walked ahead, chatting like old friends. Fragments of Japanese and English words filled the air, both stumbling over the language they still struggled with. Reki still mostly answered in Japanese, his flow simply slowed down quite a bit in hopes of Emily grasping at least a part of the meaning of his words, while she simply repeated English words over and over again until the Japanese equivalent made its way on her tongue. They both made such efforts to understand each other, eyes bright as they went back and forth. Both seemed so happy in each other’s company that now, it was Langa’s turn to feel out of place. It was his turn to stand back, kicking rocks as he followed them like a sad puppy.

“So, any lucky girls in your life?”

If he hadn’t been grasping the words thrown around before, this series of words didn’t fly high over his head. These ones struck a chord within him. These words had been unmissable and unmistakably Emily’s attempt at getting fresh gossip. She was going to badger Reki until someone snapped, though it was unclear in Langa’s mind who would snap first.

“Emily…”

His voice was low and warning, a tone he hadn’t heard out of himself in ages, and yet, it didn’t chill the girl the way it had chilled him. If anything, she looked amused at his tone, grinning over her shoulder as her eyes twinkled. As always, there was that mischief, mischief that scared Langa more than he could ever scare her.

“Cool it, Twig Boy.” Slick English filled the air, her words like a song unlike the clunkiness of her Japanese. “I ain’t tryin’ to steal your man. Just trying to figure him out, y’know?”

She shot him a wink which made his stomach turn. She knew what she was doing to him, no doubt about it. She knew he hated every moment of this. She knew the power she had over him, the power to drive him to insanity. And yet, she didn’t make any sign of stopping. If anything, she did the opposite, turning to Reki with a grin.

The boy glanced awkwardly between the two. Confusion glazed his eyes, a look which normally would have worried Langa but left him with unnatural relief. By his look, there was no way he had understood the English. He was left in the dark. He was left at Emily’s mercy.

“Well?” She leaned into him, her blonde locks nearly mingling with the wild red wisps. “Girls? Pretty ones? Interesting ones?”

Reki’s eyes grew wide before softening again and falling to the ground in front of him, vanishing from Langa’s view.

“Ah, well…”

Langa had seen that movement a thousand times already, but never did he get used to it. His eyes always followed the freckled skin, the calloused fingers as they reached for Reki’s neck, rubbing the spot sheepishly. Who knew what the boy’s face looked like; was he blushing? Was he thinking about some of the pretty girls from around town, from school, from S? Langa would have loved to know what Reki was thinking, who he was thinking of, but Reki’s mind was a forbidden place. No one but Reki was allowed into his thoughts.

“No, not really. I… I don’t know? I mean, I, I haven’t really had time to think about girls? With skating and school and all that? My mom’s not super happy about my grades, so I can’t go ‘round thinking ‘bout girls all the time, y’know?”

A nervous chuckle fell from Reki’s lips as he glanced back at Langa. Big amber eyes shot a shiver down Langa’s spine as a relieved sigh left his lips. No girls. Reki wasn’t thinking about girls, not that Langa wasn’t aware of this. Or rather, Reki had never brought one up to him and Langa, perhaps naively, believed it meant that none had caught his eye.

There only ever had been boards for Reki; it was all he would gush about. It was always “Look at the shape of this one!” or “The colors look freaking awesome when you flip this one!” and never… whatever it was that straight boys said about girls. Girls had never been an issue, and Langa couldn’t have been more thankful. He had no idea what he would have done if Reki had confided in him about a crush on some girl in their class. Or one of the older girls that S. Was Reki maybe into older girls? He talked to a lot of girls their age but never mentioned any, but he rarely talked to the older ones under the harsh midnight lights at S. Maybe he was too shy around them because he found them pretty. Or maybe he—

“What about boys?”

“Emily!”

The name tumbled out of Langa’s mouth quicker than his mind was going. Reki wasn’t into any girls, he had just confirmed that despite Langa’s racing thoughts. Reki was still just Reki, his Reki, his best friend. But such a confirmation didn’t mean that he had any interest in guys! Emily was just being annoyingly nosy, asking inappropriate questions to someone she essentially just met.

“What?”

She had that shit-eating grin on her face again, the one Langa knew too well, the one that more often than not made his cheeks burn bright. There was no blaming the sun for this one; the blush was there, probably a deep crimson, and it was definitely that she-devil’s fault. It was her fault and… and… It was her fault because she couldn’t ask Reki questions like that! They were uncalled for and inappropriate! And Reki absolutely did not need to answer or—

“No? I mean, I don’t know? I…” Reki rubbed his nose with the sleeve of his hoodie, the yellow bright like the sun, the yellow giving his pretty face a glow like the setting sun. “I haven’t thought about it?”

The hesitation in Reki’s voice made Langa’s heart skip a beat. What was it doing there? Reki didn’t have to seem bashful or anything about it; he could have easily just said no and moved on with his life. But it was there, clear as day, clear as the blush that Langa tried desperately to make disappear. Perhaps he had just misunderstood the question. Maybe that hesitation stemmed from him trying to decipher what Emily was trying to say to him rather than a consideration of what she was saying, since he didn’t like boys. It was just obvious: Reki did not like boys, at least not the same way Langa did. Reki liked girls and that was that.

“Do you—”

“How about,” Langa squeezed between the two, pushing Emily away a little forcefully. She stumbled next to him, snapping her mouth shut as her words vanished from existence. She shot him a look that Langa ignored, simply grabbing both Reki and Emily by the wrists and dragging them along. “How about we go grab something to eat? Since I’m supposed to be a tour guide, we might as well—”

“Explore what you know best?”

Emily burst out laughing at Reki’s proud grin. And Langa couldn’t even bring himself to be mad at the boy; he was right after all. All he really knew was where he could fill his stomach. All he really knew were the places where he and Reki fit in best, sunken deep into an old booth, two best friends sharing a carton of fries and occasionally some sickly-sweet drink at the crack of dawn.

“Let’s just go.”

The words were accompanied by a sigh, but the smile didn’t even try to cover itself. How could Langa try to seem frustrated when Reki was smiling like that? How could he even dare try to seem annoyed when Reki was there? It was impossible to try and act like he would have rather be alone.

And Reki, he didn’t seem like he was less excited at the prospect of getting food with his best friend. Or with Emily. Who knew who Reki was more excited about, not that Langa would try to pull the answer out of the boy. Emily, on the hand, still seemed ready to go fishing for more information, yet another thing Langa wouldn’t allow to happen.

Today just wasn’t the day Langa would try to open the can of worms called sexuality. Today wasn’t the day he’d try to learn if Reki exclusively liked girls or not. Today wasn’t the day he would be finding out if all his terrible attempts at flirting had been in vain or not. No, today was going to be the day where he got himself a burger and just spent a nice day out, not getting his life turned inside out by some nosy cousin he hadn’t seen in forever. Today was not the day he was going to be dealing with yet another emotional crisis.

#Hello hello have an updated revised version of chapter 2 #:))#I will try to work on something new soon since I just finished midterms #Lets gooooo!!!!!#reki #langa #reki kyan #kyan reki #hasegawa langa #langa hasegawa #renga #sk8 #sk8 the infinity #stfm #lils writes

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moonlightcrusader · 2 years

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Hey, how are things going :)

hello Anon :p thank you for checking up on me!!

I’m doing okay, for some reason my mood keeps swinging up and down, I’m not sure what it is but I’m hoping it get resolves soon, it feels so weird :( I might have to take a summer class for a requirement so I’m a bit sad I might have to do schoolwork again..I really just wanted this break off ☹️😞

I think once I catch up on my sleep I think it will help but I feel very slow and sluggish so I’m just like mehhh :((

#moonlightcrusader #college life

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caitlynkruger-designs · 1 year

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Perfectionism & Burnout

As the term is coming to an end burnout is a word that keeps popping up. I'm currently in a work, stress, and health psychology class so I'm learning all about burnout. I learned I am currently dealing with burnout right now. It's a lot. I was no stranger to procrastinating but this is on a whole nother level. As a Capricorn (/s) I deal with a lot of perfectionism. So on top of the burnout, I've also been feeling guilty. I tell myself I'll just try to take a quick 20 minute power nap but it's so hard to get up if I even end up falling asleep. Most of the time I spend the 20 minutes feeling guilty and worrying myself so much I end up staying up and taking another 20 minutes and so on.

I think there's a lot contributing to my burnout. I have an autoimmune disease and other chronic illnesses which lead to a lot of fatigue and brain fog. Being neurodivergent doesn't help. I'm also taking 5 classes compared to last term when I only took 4. Throughout this burnout and the process of dealing with it, I've learned that I really need to give myself a break. I don't always need to turn in work that is A+, sometimes it's better to just turn in work and get some sleep than stay up all night reading the same essay hoping something new comes to mind. I've been talking to a lot of students that have been at WSUV longer and they feel the same way.

You really have to make time for self-care, because if you don't your body will make you make time. Burnout is something that most students go through and it's important to deal with it before you get stuck in it. Over the summer my boyfriend's parents are taking us out of the state and I'm excited to get some birdwatching in. However, I can't wait till the summer to try to counteract my burnout. We have to try to find small things to do every day. I try to get in as much backyard birding as I can. Even if it's just staring out the window as I'm brushing my teeth. You have to find ways t o give yourself little breaks daily even if you can't leave the house.

Next term, I'm only taking 4 classes so I hopefully won't have so much on my plate. I want to turn in quality work and I still am but I know taking fewer classes will give me more time and energy to work on projects. I'll also only be going to classes M-Th and I'll have Fridays off. This term I'm taking a Friday class and although it's only a couple hours, I do miss having my Fridays clear for work or catching up on schoolwork. It's important to know the warning signs of burnout before you get there. As I setting into WSU and working I'm sure I'll pick up on my warning signs bor burnout and learn more coping techniques.

#Student #WSUV #Student Thoughts #Personal #Perfection #Burnout #Student Blogging

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incomingalbatross · 3 years

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Okay, but consider:

When Amy and Rory get stuck in New York, they try to leave at first. I mean, of course they do, they’re not idiots. If the Doctor can’t come here, why can’t they just get out of the center of the paradox? And even if he still can’t pick them up....well, no reason not to see some of the world by the slow path.

It’s just not that simple. As it turns out, the contortions of time and the way it’s adhered to them trap them physically, not just temporally. When they try to leave NYC, time goes...weird. They find themselves back where they started, or time slows to a crawl, or starts skipping and fracturing for them. They wait for trains that never arrive, or drive all day and get nowhere, or walk and find their strength sapped away. You get the picture. So...they stay. They poke their boundaries every so often, but mostly they just stay.

It’s not so bad. If you had to pick one place to be stuck in for the rest of your lives, New York City from the 1930s onward certainly won’t be boring. And River can visit, occasionally, even if the Doctor can’t. (Sometimes she leaves them gadgets to keep them equipped for any timey-wiminess that may arise, like the thing that looks like an egg timer and detects artron anergy within the city confines. They always wonder if she has a Reason for these things, but they don’t ask.)

They build their lives. Rory stays in medicine, of course, even if being a male nurse is a little more unusual in this period. Amy writes, fantasy stories about little lost girls and brave boys and strange wizards with funny blue houses.

(In her stories, children always find their way home in the end.)

After WWII they adopt a little war-orphan baby named Anthony. He, more than anything, anchors them. Life goes on. They settle, like the foundations of a house.

Until one day in the 60s when Amy (older, but not slowed down yet) bursts into the house, grabs Rory, and says “She’s going to be HERE.”

“What?” says Rory.

“1969. The Moon.” Amy waves a copy of a magazine with headlines about the space program at him. “MELODY.”

“...OH.”

Whether or not they’ll try to find her is barely even a question, after that—potential damage to the space-time continuum, versus the fact that their little girl will be out there alone and hurting and in danger right now?

They’re Pond-Williamses. You know how this story goes.

So they start trying, again, to escape. They’re in New York, and she’ll be in Florida; they even know exactly when and where they’ll be able to find her. They’re so close.

But they can’t. get. out.

They try and try and keep on trying, as the next few years pass and the city feels more like a prison than it ever has. They do everything they can think of—which isn’t much, sadly, because they don’t have the Doctor and they can’t reliably contact River, and she doesn’t show up for these years. (They wonder if that’s a good or bad sign.) So their options are limited, and mostly consist of the blind, dogged obstinacy that’s a family trait. But...it doesn’t seem to pay off, this time.

They watch the moon landing through tears, at home on the couch, holding each other.

(They’re going to keep trying, of course, but...they won’t know where she is now. They’re back where they were when they first lost her, in a way, and it feels like reliving Demons Run.)

The next few months are...strange. Empty, almost. Listless, even as they keep testing their boundaries—because is there really a point anymore? They had their chance—their daughter’s chance—and they blew it.

And then, one night, the egg timer starts wailing. Not the usual even chime that signals River’s popped into this time, but an earsplitting wail that makes itself heard through the walls.

They stare at each other, baffled. A silent agreement passes between them. They grab the artron energy detector, head out the door, and start driving.

It’s a long, frustrating game of “hot or cold” circling through the city and arguing over whether the gadget they’re holding between them—which has dropped in volume to a quieter, fluctuating sort of alarm—is getting louder or softer. They both know they won’t go home as long as there’s any noise at all, though. Whatever this is—the Doctor? River in trouble?—they can’t ignore it.

And, finally, they find a dirty alleyway, with a little girl lying on the ground. The artron energy detector stabilizes into one long, steady keen as they near her, and Rory finally shuts the thing off. The little girl, crumpled and still, hadn’t even stirred at the noise, but he can’t take it anymore.

As he kneels down beside her, though, one hand reaching to steady her head while he checks for a pulse—then, as he gently touches her, the little girl stirs. Her eyes open, oddly fearless given the circumstances, and fixed on his. She raises her head a little, leaning toward him, and he adjusts to support her.

Then, as this little girl sits up and looks from him to Amy, her lips part, and a little breath of gold escapes.

Amy gasps, suddenly, the breath punched out of her. (Although, really, part of her already knew. But she hasn’t seen that gold in a long time.)

Their little girl smiles. “Mummy,” she breathes, and then she looks back to Rory with those same bright, fearless (trusting) eyes. “Daddy.”

And Amy falls to her knees beside Rory, and Melody flies into the circle of their arms.

“But how? How did you know where to find us?”

Melody laughs, delighted in her discovery and in being able to share it, as she was/is/will be at every age. “I read your books,” she answers. “I read Lost Songs, and Summer Falls, and the Garden of Forgetfulness. I knew it was you, Mummy. I knew your stories.”

(After all, Melody—as befitted the weapon of the Silence—had been born with a very good memory. And during those days at Demons Run, when it was only them, Amy had been the one to tell Melody her very first stories.)

So they take her home. They introduce her to Anthony, who’s in college now and takes his big sister River being reintroduced as his little sister Melody remarkably in stride. And...always wondering when the paradox might strike...they keep her.

They try not to tell her too much about her future, specifically. Spoilers, you know. But they keep her safe and well and happy, as she grows (more slowly than other children, but that’s all right). And they tell her there’s a long and twisting road ahead, but they will be there, one way or another. And she will find happiness there, and she will make them proud, always.

And they tell her that they love her. That she will always be loved.

And that’s enough, for a good while. But they’re getting older, just as Melody is. On Rory’s 82nd birthday, Melody catches him apologizing softly to Amy. She smiles and calls him an idiot, but there are tears in her eyes.

He dies at 82, and when Amy reaches 87 and suddenly starts putting her affairs in order, Melody and Anthony have an idea of what’s coming.

(It’s hard, sometimes, having parents who know the future. Even harder when they can’t change it.)

But what actually happens that year is a car accident. Amy doesn’t make it.

Melody, who was driving, doesn’t either.

At least, she doesn’t live through it.

“I don’t want you!” the little girl shrieks, twisting in her now-much-older brother’s arms. “I want Mummy and Daddy!”

“They aren’t here, Mel,” Anthony says desperately. (Last week, she was a young adult. He didn’t think this was how regeneration was supposed to work.) “They’re gone. I’m sorry, honey, but they just can’t be here.”

“I want them!” she insists. “Let’s find them!” And the tears start up again. “They said...they said they’d always be here.”

Anthony frowns.

Left to himself, he wouldn’t have thought of it—he’s an adult, after all, nearly fifty, and he can survive the loss of his parents. But the little girl in his arms...well, she shouldn’t have to.

And maybe that’s what makes several childhood stories click together in his head. Some told by his parents, and some dropped by River when she hadn’t known he was listening.

(Maybe it’s just that his sister is a bad influence, he thinks in amusement.)

“Okay, then,” he says. “Let’s find them.”

The tears stop. “Really?” the little voice says, suddenly quiet and hesitant.

“Really,” Anthony says, hoisting her more securely into his arms. “Do you remember Mum and Dad ever telling you about a sleepy little town called Leadworth?”

And that’s how, in 1994, an American named Anthony Zimmerman and his adopted little girl Mel (”I was close to her parents”) settled in Leadworth, England. Mel was a little spitfire, but she promptly befriended the neighbors’ girl of the same age, Amelia. They played together, shared secrets, and when Amelia developed her obsession with her imaginary Doctor, Mels was the most eager audience for her stories.

After all, Amelia had always been Melody’s first storyteller. And Melody had always been Amelia’s first listener.

Because the most important thing about Amelia’s stories—even if Amelia didn’t know it yet—was that, in the end, the children always found their way home.

---

(AN: full disclosure is that I’m sure I got the bit with Amy’s books guiding Melody home from some other fic where she writes them in order to help Melody--although I don’t think it worked there? Not sure. I’m definitely not the first one to use that idea, anyway, though I do love it.)

#my fic #doctor who #new who #the ponds #river song #melody pond #anthony williams #amy pond #rory williams #this was not planned it just happened #although it's been my headcanon for a while #give melody her parents 2kforever #this is 1600 words #WHY is it 1600 words #i have summer schoolwork to do!! and sleep to catch up on!!

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katcoquette · 3 years

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Protect Me From What?

Draco Malfoy x Fem!Reader

Requested: Yes! “Reader x Draco where they have been together for years and when Draco gets the dark mark. He loves the reader but wants to protect her so he decides he has to break her heart so she would stay away from him. But then he catches the reader crying and just tells her everything.”

Word Count: 2.4k

TW: language, mental illness triggers

“You ready to go to class?” You shift the books that were in your arms and look expectantly at your boyfriend.

He had been distracted recently, though you didn’t know by what. He had casually brushed you off every time you asked him about it, saying he hadn’t been sleeping well, or that he was behind in his schoolwork. You knew it had to be something bigger than that, it wasn’t like Draco to brush off assignments. However, you didn’t want to push him to open up, so you did your best to cheer him up, going out of your way to make sure he knew you loved him and would be there when he was ready.

“Hey…” You repeated your question, softly rubbing his arm. He snapped out of his daze and looked down at your hand running over his sleeve. He takes a step back, out of your reach, before looking into your eyes. It was the first time in days he had his full attention on you.

You notice sadness, maybe even pain in his gaze, but only for a second. The next second, all emotion had left his face, leaving a cold demeanor that you weren’t used to. It was like he had flipped a switch in his mind. “Y/N, I think we need to talk.”

And just like that, your two-year relationship with Draco Malfoy ended. Your head started spinning, and you were having trouble focusing on what he was saying.

“-it’s just not working anymore, Y/N. I’m not happy with you.”

You furrowed your brows. “That doesn’t make any sense. What happened with you over the summer? Why can’t you tell me what’s going on-“

Draco interrupts you, “Enough.” He sneers. “Why don’t you understand? You’re not good enough for me, and I don’t know why it took me this long to see it.” You physically recoiled at his words. You would end up regretting what came out of your mouth next, but you couldn’t help how hurt you were in that moment.

“Fuck you.” You spit out, lips pursed, but your eyes tearing up. You turn on your heel and walk in the direction that would take you furthest from him. With your back to him, you keep your head down, and let the tears that had built up finally fall. “Hey Y/N-“ Ginny stops when you look up at her, face red and stained. You silently plead to your best friend to get you out of there. She nods, holding you at her side as you walk away from the person you had loved the most.

Draco’s POV

“Fuck you.” I kept my expression steady as the words came out of Y/N’s mouth, trying not to show how much the situation was really affecting me. Breaking up with her was a last resort to keep her safe. As long as we were together, as long as he knew I had a soft spot for her, she would be in danger.

I knew she wouldn’t give up on what we had so easily, so I had convinced myself the only way would be to completely break her heart. Telling her she wasn’t enough for me; she would never forgive me.

My heart tore in two to see her like this, especially when I had caused it. I saw Ginny Weasley pull her into her arms. She glared back at me like she was ready to kill me. I had to get out of here before anyone saw my real reaction.

Your POV

Ginny spent the next few weeks attached to your side, warding off any questioning looks, or comments directed towards you. You were grateful for the shield she provided. After spending several nights crying nonstop and wondering what had happened to make Draco act this way, you decided you needed to try and move forward. You knew it would take months, months, to even begin to get over him, but you had to try.

You spent more time outside of your room with Ginny, and occasionally, her brother and his friends. You were smiling more now. Although there were still hard days when it became too much again, you were feeling better. You were starting to get used to the new you, the Y/N that existed without him.

You were sitting next to Hermione and Ginny in Charms, going over an assignment when you caught them staring at something behind you. “What are you guys looking at?” You slightly laugh, turning to see what was going on. “Y/N, don’t-“ Ginny tried to stop you, and you realized why once you saw what was happening behind your back. Your face immediately fell at the sight of Draco and Pansy Parkinson sitting awfully close. He was smiling at something she had said and leaning over the textbook the two were sharing.

And just like that, you were back to square one. “I can’t do this…” You mutter to Ginny, gathering your books and swiftly walking past your ex and the giggling girl beside him. He looked up when you passed, but you didn’t notice, focusing on getting out of the room. The girls got up after you, and so did Draco, who moves to follow you. Hermione puts a hand on his shoulder to keep him in his seat. “I think you’ve done enough.” She frowns, as Ginny leaves the classroom to comfort you. It takes her ten minutes to find you, and when she does you fall into her arms. The two of you sit on the floor of a random corridor until your sobbing quiets. “I don’t know what I’d do without you, Gin.” You whispered, holding onto her arms as if your life depended on it.

The next week was harder than any other you had spent without him. You hardly got any sleep, tossing and turning all night, or being plagued by nightmares. The lack of sleep had started showing on your face. Your eyes seemed hollow, with dark bags under your eyes. These days, you spent most of your time sitting alone in the Astronomy Tower. You had run out of tears, instead feeling numb to your emotions.

You knew your friends were worried about you, especially Ginny. She had seen the entire thing firsthand and didn’t know what else to do aside from being there for you whenever you needed her.

On the days when you made it to class, you were barely present, instead staring blankly in front of you. You felt like nothing else was important.

Today, Friday, you had attended class. You’re walking back to your dorm when you feel Ginny come up next to you, linking her arm with yours. “Hey Y/N/N, some of us are hanging out in the Gryffindor common room, would you be up for it?” You appreciated the gesture but being with a group sounded like the last thing you wanted to do. You give her a sad smile, “I need some time to think about everything that’s been going on. I feel like I still haven’t accepted it all.” She squeezes your arm, “Find us after if you have time.”

You nod, slightly waving to her as she heads to her common room. You take a deep breath and decide to head to the spot you had been spending so much time at. The Astronomy Tower.

It also happened to be the place you and Draco had lived through an entire love story. He had asked you to be his girlfriend there in your fourth year at Hogwarts. Since then, it had been your favorite place to sneak off to when you wanted time together away from prying eyes.

You take your time walking the steps to the tower, reminiscing on every memory that had occurred in this place. It was time for you to find closure. You run your hands along the stone wall that winds along the staircase. When you reach the top, you close your eyes, almost able to feel his arms around you.

You feel tears start to well up from deep inside you where you had pushed all your feelings down. Tonight, you wouldn’t hold back. Your pain was spilling over and needed to be released. You could almost see your past self running around the tower, Draco close behind her. There, now she was leaning against the wall, forehead pressed against his. He was telling her how much he loved her, how beautiful she was. He was telling her he would never leave her, and he was kissing her.

You start to pace around, remembering every moment, every kiss. Your sobs only increase with this, until you’re gripping the railing and breathing heavily, almost hyperventilating.

Draco’s POV

I hadn’t been to the Astronomy Tower since losing Y/N, but tonight I felt drawn to it. One last visit to move on. It had been hell without her but knowing that she was safe made it worth it. I could handle the pain if it meant she could move forward and live a happy life. She seemed like she was doing better, I had seen her with the Weasleys smiling and laughing. She was starting to move on.

I reached the bottom of the stairs, still lost in thoughts of her. As I started to climb, I remembered racing her to the top after a bet in our fifth year. She won that time. I chuckled at the memory of her standing proudly at the top. I never heard the end of it, especially after talking myself up. I sighed continuing up the staircase. The sight when I reached the top was one I’d never get out of my head.

Y/N was there, my Y/N, gasping for air over sobs that were wracking her body. She was facing away from me and hadn’t noticed I was there. That’s when I made the most important decision of my life.

Your POV

“Y/N?” You freeze at the sound of his voice, still gripping the railing in front of you. ”Y/N/N…” You slowly turn to face him.

“You don’t get to call me that anymore.” You say blankly. “What are you doing up here?” You were wary around him.

“I don’t really know.” He confesses, taking a step toward you. “I haven’t wanted to come up here since we broke up.”

“You mean since you dumped me.” You correct him, moving further from him. Your grief had transformed into frustration that he had found you like this, exposed, and caught off guard. The last time you had spoken, he was insisting you weren’t right for him. Now you had walls around your heart.

“I think you should leave.” No matter what he had done to you, saying those words to him left a pang in your heart. You could visibly see that they had hurt him as well.

“No.” You slightly tilt your head at this. “What?”

“I’m not leaving. Not again.” Your heart skipped a beat, but you didn’t let it show on your face, instead taking a deep breath. The frustration you were feeling turned into confusion, and you weren’t really sure where this conversation was going. However, you didn’t feel the urge to flee like you had when you saw him close to Pansy.

Neither of you say anything for a few moments, until you break the silence, taking a few cautious steps toward him. “You broke my heart that day. You know that right? I don’t really know what you expect to say now.” You pause as you’re brought back to that moment. “You made yourself very clear.”

Draco rushed forward, grasping your arms at your elbows. His face contorted with sadness, “I didn’t mean any of it. I swear, Y/N. I thought forcing you away from me would be the safest way to protect you.”

You didn’t move from his hold, “Protect me from what?”

“From this.” He took a step back, rolling up his sleeve. You took a sharp breath in instinctively at the dark tattoo marking Draco’s arm, your hand covering your mouth.

“Why didn’t you tell me this was happening?” You barely whispered, reaching out to lightly trace it. Draco flinched, hating everything about the mark and what it represented. “I didn’t have a choice.” His eyes glisten. “He threatened my family, and those threats extended to you. I thought you’d hate me for having it, and I needed to distance myself from you, so he thought I no longer cared about you. But I do! I do so much, Y/N, you have no idea.”

You were both crying at this point. You knew his family circumstances weren’t the best, but you’d never imagined your sweet boy would be forced into getting the Dark Mark. You threw your arms around him and he clung to you. “I would never hate you for something you couldn’t control.” You mumbled into his shoulder, holding him tighter.

“We’re a team, okay? We have been for years. I know you were trying to protect me and I appreciate it, but living without you is so much worse than anything Voldemort could do to me.” You lean back enough to reach both hands up and wipe the tears from his face, then cup his face. “Besides, you know I could kick his ass.” You let out a laugh between the sound of your crying, and Draco joins you after that comment.

You were both a mess of sniffles and puffy eyes.

“Promise me you’ll let me help you instead of pushing me away.” You say softly, leaning your forehead against his. He had one hand around your waist, the other at the middle of your back, so you were completely wrapped in his arms. You feel him nod against you. “I promise, Y/N. Of course. Forever.”

His hand slides across your back, pulling you closer to him. He tilts his head down, gently touching your lips with his for the first time in a month and a half. Your hands find their way up his neck, tangling themselves in his hair. Your motion deepens the kiss, and you continue this way for a few minutes.

When you finally pull away, your knees feel weak. Being away from him had been horrible, but this moment felt like you were kissing again for the first time. In a way, it was your first kiss. The first of many now that there were no more secrets.

You would face his tasks together, holding him up throughout and keeping him sane. He would find moments of happiness in you through the darkness that accompanied the next few months. He didn’t know it now, in this moment, but he would come to realize that without you, he wouldn’t have survived his sixth year.

“Forever.”

A/N: yeah <3. Thank you for all the support! It’s been fun to share the scenarios that have been getting me through quarantine lol.

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chrisevansluv · 3 years

Note

Here is the 2012 Detail Magazine interview with chris evans:

The Avengers' Chris Evans: Just Your Average Beer-Swilling, Babe-Loving Buddhist

The 30-year-old Bud Light-chugging, Beantown-bred star of The Avengers is widely perceived as the ultimate guy's guy. But beneath the bro persona lies a serious student of Buddhism, an unrepentant song-and-dance man, and a guy who talks to his mom about sex. And farts.

By Adam Sachs,

Photographs by Norman Jean Roy

May 2012 Issue

"Should we just kill him and bury his body?" Chris Evans is stage whispering into the impassive blinking light of my digital recorder.

"Chris!" shouts his mother, her tone a familiar-to-anyone-with-a-mother mix of coddling and concern. "Don't say that! What if something happened?"

We're at Evans' apartment, an expansive but not overly tricked-out bachelor-pad-ish loft in a semi-industrial nowheresville part of Boston, hard by Chinatown, near an area sometimes called the Combat Zone. Evans has a fuzzy, floppy, slept-in-his-clothes aspect that'd be nearly unrecognizable if you knew him only by the upright, spit-polished bearing of the onscreen hero. His dog, East, a sweet and slobbery American bulldog, is spread out on a couch in front of the TV. The shelves of his fridge are neatly stacked with much of the world's supply of Bud Light in cans and little else.

On the counter sit a few buckets of muscle-making whey-protein powder that belong to Evans' roommate, Zach Jarvis, an old pal who sometimes tags along on set as a paid "assistant" and a personal trainer who bulked Evans up for his role as the super-ripped patriot in last summer's blockbuster Captain America: The First Avenger. A giant clock on the exposed-brick wall says it's early evening, but Evans operates on his own sense of time. Between gigs, his schedule's all his, which usually translates into long stretches of alone time during the day and longer social nights for the 30-year-old.

"I could just make this . . . disappear," says Josh Peck, another old pal and occasional on-set assistant, in a deadpan mumble, poking at the voice recorder I'd left on the table while I was in the bathroom.

Evans' mom, Lisa, now speaks directly into the microphone: "Don't listen to them—I'm trying to get them not to say these things!"

But not saying things isn't in the Evans DNA. They're an infectiously gregarious clan. Irish-Italians, proud Bostoners, close-knit, and innately theatrical. "We all act, we sing," Evans says. "It was like the fucking von Trapps." Mom was a dancer and now runs a children's theater. First-born Carly directed the family puppet shows and studied theater at NYU. Younger brother Scott has parts on One Life to Live and Law & Order under his belt and lives in Los Angeles full-time—something Evans stopped doing several years back. Rounding out the circle are baby sister Shanna and a pair of "strays" the family brought into their Sudbury, Massachusetts, home: Josh, who went from mowing the lawn to moving in when his folks relocated during his senior year in high school; and Demery, who was Evans' roommate until recently.

"Our house was like a hotel," Evans says. "It was a loony-tunes household. If you got arrested in high school, everyone knew: 'Call Mrs. Evans, she'll bail you out.'"

Growing up, they had a special floor put in the basement where all the kids practiced tap-dancing. The party-ready rec room also had a Ping-Pong table and a separate entrance. This was the house kids in the neighborhood wanted to hang at, and this was the kind of family you wanted to be adopted by. Spend an afternoon listening to them dish old dirt and talk over each other and it's easy to see why. Now they're worried they've said too much, laid bare the tender soul of the actor behind the star-spangled superhero outfit, so there's talk of offing the interviewer. I can hear all this from the bathroom, which, of course, is the point of a good stage whisper.

To be sure, no one's said too much, and the more you're brought into the embrace of this boisterous, funny, shit-slinging, demonstrably loving extended family, the more likable and enviable the whole dynamic is.

Sample exchange from today's lunch of baked ziti at a family-style Italian restaurant:

Mom: When he was a kid, he asked me, 'Mom, will I ever think farting isn't funny?'

Chris: You're throwing me under the bus, Ma! Thank you.

Mom: Well, if a dog farts you still find it funny.

Then, back at the apartment, where Mrs. Evans tries to give me good-natured dirt on her son without freaking him out:

Mom: You always tell me when you think a girl is attractive. You'll call me up so excited. Is that okay to say?

Chris: Nothing wrong with that.

Mom: And can I say all the girls you've brought to the house have been very sweet and wonderful? Of course, those are the ones that make it to the house. It's been a long time, hasn't it?

Chris: Looooong time.

Mom: The last one at our house? Was it six years ago?

Chris: No names, Ma!

Mom: But she knocked it out of the park.

Chris: She got drunk and puked at Auntie Pam's house! And she puked on the way home and she puked at our place.

Mom: And that's when I fell in love with her. Because she was real.

We're operating under a no-names rule, so I'm not asking if it's Jessica Biel who made this memorable first impression. She and Evans were serious for a couple of years. But I don't want to picture lovely Jessica Biel getting sick at Auntie Pam's or in the car or, really, anywhere.

East the bulldog ambles over to the table, begging for food.

"That dog is the love of his life," Mrs. Evans says. "Which tells me he'll be an unbelievable parent, but I don't want him to get married right now." She turns to Chris. "The way you are, I just don't think you're ready."

Some other things I learn about Evans from his mom: He hates going to the gym; he was so wound-up as a kid she'd let him stand during dinner, his legs shaking like caged greyhounds; he suffered weekly "Sunday-night meltdowns" over schoolwork and the angst of the sensitive middle-schooler; after she and his father split and he was making money from acting, he bought her the Sudbury family homestead rather than let her leave it.

Eventually his mom and Josh depart, and Evans and I go to work depleting his stash of Bud Light. It feels like we drink Bud Light and talk for days, because we basically do. I arrived early Friday evening; it's Saturday night now and it'll be sunup Sunday before I sleeplessly make my way to catch a train back to New York City. Somewhere in between we slip free of the gravitational pull of the bachelor pad and there's bottle service at a club and a long walk with entourage in tow back to Evans' apartment, where there is some earnest-yet-surreal group singing, piano playing, and chitchat. Evans is fun to talk to, partly because he's an open, self-mocking guy with an explosive laugh and no apparent need to sleep, and partly because when you cut just below the surface, it's clear he's not quite the dude's dude he sometimes plays onscreen and in TV appearances.

From a distance, Chris Evans the movie star seems a predictable, nearly inevitable piece of successful Hollywood packaging come to market. There's his major-release debut as the dorkily unaware jock Jake in the guilty pleasure Not Another Teen Movie (in one memorable scene, Evans has whipped cream on his chest and a banana up his ass). The female-friendly hunk appeal—his character in The Nanny Diaries is named simply Harvard Hottie—is balanced by a kind of casual-Friday, I'm-from-Boston regular-dudeness. Following the siren song of comic-book cash, he was the Human Torch in two Fantastic Four films. As with scrawny Steve Rogers, the Captain America suit beefed up his stature as a formidable screen presence, a bankable leading man, all of which leads us to The Avengers, this season's megabudget, megawatt ensemble in which he stars alongside Scarlett Johansson, Mark Ruffalo, Robert Downey Jr., and Chris Hemsworth.

It all feels inevitable—and yet it nearly didn't happen. Evans repeatedly turned down the Captain America role, fearing he'd be locked into what was originally a nine-picture deal. He was shooting Puncture, about a drug-addicted lawyer, at the time. Most actors doing small-budget legal dramas would jump at the chance to play the lead in a Marvel franchise, but Evans saw a decade of his life flash before his eyes.

What he remembers thinking is this: "What if the movie comes out and it's a success and I just reject all of this? What if I want to move to the fucking woods?"

By "the woods," he doesn't mean a quiet life away from the spotlight, some general metaphorical life escape route. He means the actual woods. "For a long time all I wanted for Christmas were books about outdoor survival," he says. "I was convinced that I was going to move to the woods. I camped a lot, I took classes. At 18, I told myself if I don't live in the woods by the time I'm 25, I have failed."

Evans has described his hesitation at signing on for Captain America. Usually he talks about the time commitment, the loss of what remained of his relative anonymity. On the junkets for the movie, he was open about needing therapy after the studio reduced the deal to six movies and he took the leap. What he doesn't usually mention is that he was racked with anxiety before the job came up.

"I get very nervous," Evans explains. "I shit the bed if I have to present something on stage or if I'm doing press. Because it's just you." He's been known to walk out of press conferences, to freeze up and go silent during the kind of relaxed-yet-high-stakes meetings an actor of his stature is expected to attend: "Do you know how badly I audition? Fifty percent of the time I have to walk out of the room. I'm naturally very pale, so I turn red and sweat. And I have to literally walk out. Sometimes mid-audition. You start having these conversations in your brain. 'Chris, don't do this. Chris, take it easy. You're just sitting in a room with a person saying some words, this isn't life. And you're letting this affect you? Shame on you.'"

Shades of "Sunday-night meltdowns." Luckily the nerves never follow him to the set. "You do your neuroses beforehand, so when they yell 'Action' you can be present," he says.

Okay, there was one on-set panic attack—while Evans was shooting Puncture. "We were getting ready to do a court scene in front of a bunch of people, and I don't know what happened," he says. "It's just your brain playing games with you. 'Hey, you know how we sometimes freak out? What if we did it right now?'"

One of the people who advised Evans to take the Captain America role was his eventual Avengers costar Robert Downey Jr. "I'd seen him around," Downey says. "We share an agent. I like to spend a lot of my free time talking to my agent about his other clients—I just had a feeling about him."

What he told Evans was: This puppy is going to be big, and when it is you're going to get to make the movies you want to make. "In the marathon obstacle course of a career," Downey says, "it's just good to have all the stats on paper for why you're not only a team player but also why it makes sense to support you in the projects you want to do—because you've made so much damned money for the studio."

There's also the fact that Evans had a chance to sign on for something likely to be a kind of watershed moment in the comic-book fascination of our time. "I do think The Avengers is the crescendo of this superhero phase in entertainment—except of course for Iron Man 3," Downey says. "It'll take a lot of innovation to keep it alive after this."

Captain America is the only person left who was truly close to Howard Stark, father of Tony Stark (a.k.a. Iron Man), which meant that Evans' and Downey's story lines are closely linked, and in the course of doing a lot of scenes together, they got to be pals. Downey diagnoses his friend with what he terms "low-grade red-carpet anxiety disorder."

"He just hates the game-show aspect of doing PR," Downey says. "Obviously there's pressure for anyone in this transition he's in. But he will easily triple that pressure to make sure he's not being lazy. That's why I respect the guy. I wouldn't necessarily want to be in his skin. But his motives are pure. He just needs to drink some red-carpet chamomile."

"The majority of the world is empty space," Chris Evans says, watching me as if my brain might explode on hearing this news—or like he might have to fight me if I try to contradict him. We're back at his apartment after a cigarette run through the Combat Zone.

"Empty space!" he says again, slapping the table and sort of yelling. Then, in a slow, breathy whisper, he repeats: "Empty space, empty space. All that we see in the world, the life, the animals, plants, people, it's all empty space. That's amazing!" He slaps the table again. "You want another beer? Gotta be Bud Light. Get dirty—you're in Boston. Okay, organize your thoughts. I gotta take a piss . . ."

My thoughts are this: That this guy who is hugging his dog and talking to me about space and mortality and the trouble with Boston girls who believe crazy gossip about him—this is not the guy I expected to meet. I figured he'd be a meatball. Though, truthfully, I'd never called anyone a meatball until Evans turned me on to the put-down. As in: "My sister Shanna dates meatballs." And, more to the point: "When I do interviews, I'd rather just be the beer-drinking dude from Boston and not get into the complex shit, because I don't want every meatball saying, 'So hey, whaddyathink about Buddhism?'"

At 17, Evans came across a copy of Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha and began his spiritual questing. It's a path of study and struggle that, he says, defines his true purpose in life. "I love acting. It's my playground, it lets me explore. But my happiness in this world, my level of peace, is never going to be dictated by acting," he says. "My goal in life is to detach from the egoic mind. Do you know anything about Eastern philosophy?"

I sip some Bud Light and shake my head sheepishly. "They talk about the egoic mind, the part of you that's self-aware, the watcher, the person you think is driving this machine," he says. "And that separation from self and mind is the root of suffering. There are ways of retraining the way you think. This isn't really supported in Western society, which is focused on 'Go get it, earn it, win it, marry it.'"

Scarlett Johansson says that one of the things she appreciates about Evans is how he steers clear of industry chat when they see each other. "Basically every actor," she says, "including myself, when we finish a job we're like, 'Well, that's it for me. Had a good run. Put me out to pasture.' But Chris doesn't strike me as someone who frets about the next job." The two met on the set of The Perfect Score when they were teenagers and have stayed close; The Avengers is their third movie together. "He has this obviously masculine presence—a dude's dude—and we're used to seeing him play heroic characters," Johansson says, "but he's also surprisingly sensitive. He has close female friends, and you can talk to him about anything. Plus there's that secret song-and-dance, jazz-hands side of Chris. I feel like he grew up with the Partridge Family. He'd be just as happy doing Guys and Dolls as he would Captain America 2."

East needs to do his business, so Evans and I take him up to the roof deck. Evans bought this apartment in 2010 when living in L.A. full-time no longer appealed to him. He came back to stay close to his extended family and the intimate circle of Boston pals he's maintained since high school. The move also seems like a pretty clear keep-it-real hedge against the manic ego-stroking distractions of Hollywood.

"I think my daytime person is different than my nighttime person," Evans says. "With my high-school buddies, we drink beer and talk sports and it's great. The kids in my Buddhism class in L.A., they're wildly intelligent, and I love being around them, but they're not talking about the Celtics. And that's part of me. It's a strange dichotomy. I don't mind being a certain way with some people and having this other piece of me that's just for me."

I asked Downey about Evans' outward regular-Joe persona. "It's complete horseshit," Downey says. "There's an inherent street-smart intelligence there. I don't think he tries to hide it. But he's much more evolved and much more culturally aware than he lets on."

Perhaps the meatball and the meditation can coexist. We argue about our egoic brains and the tao of Boston girls. "I love wet hair and sweatpants," he says in their defense. "I like sneakers and ponytails. I like girls who aren't so la-di-da. L.A. is so la-di-da. I like Boston girls who shit on me. Not literally. Girls who give me a hard time, bust my chops a little."

The chief buster of Evans' chops is, of course, Evans himself. "The problem is, the brain I'm using to dissect this world is a brain formed by it," he says. "We're born into confusion, and we get the blessing of letting go of it." Then he adds: "I think this shit by day. And then night comes and it's like, 'Fuck it, let's drink.'"

And so we do. It's getting late. Again. We should have eaten dinner, but Evans sometimes forgets to eat: "If I could just take a pill to make me full forever, I wouldn't think twice."

We talk about his dog and camping with his dog and why he loves being alone more than almost anything except maybe not being alone. "I swear to God, if you saw me when I am by myself in the woods, I'm a lunatic," he says. "I sing, I dance. I do crazy shit."

Evans' unflagging, all-encompassing enthusiasm is impressive, itself a kind of social intelligence. "If you want to have a good conversation with him, don't talk about the fact that he's famous" was the advice I got from Mark Kassen, who codirected Puncture. "He's a blast, a guy who can hang. For quite a long time. Many hours in a row."

I've stopped looking at the clock. We've stopped talking philosophy and moved into more emotional territory. He asks questions about my 9-month-old son, and then Captain America gets teary when I talk about the wonder of his birth. "I weep at everything," he says. "I emote. I love things so much—I just never want to dilute that."

He talks about how close he feels to his family, how open they all are with each other. About everything. All the time. "The first time I had sex," he says, "I raced home and was like, 'Mom, I just had sex! Where's the clit?'"

Wait, I ask—did she ever tell you?

"Still don't know where it is, man," he says, then breaks into a smile composed of equal parts shit-eating grin and inner peace. "I just don't know. Make some movies, you don't have to know…"

Here is the 2012 Detail Magazine interview with chris evans:

The Avengers' Chris Evans: Just Your Average Beer-Swilling, Babe-Loving Buddhist

By Adam Sachs,

Photographs by Norman Jean Roy

May 2012 Issue

"Should we just kill him and bury his body?" Chris Evans is stage whispering into the impassive blinking light of my digital recorder.

"Chris!" shouts his mother, her tone a familiar-to-anyone-with-a-mother mix of coddling and concern. "Don't say that! What if something happened?"

Evans' mom, Lisa, now speaks directly into the microphone: "Don't listen to them—I'm trying to get them not to say these things!"

"Our house was like a hotel," Evans says. "It was a loony-tunes household. If you got arrested in high school, everyone knew: 'Call Mrs. Evans, she'll bail you out.'"

Sample exchange from today's lunch of baked ziti at a family-style Italian restaurant:

Mom: When he was a kid, he asked me, 'Mom, will I ever think farting isn't funny?'

Chris: You're throwing me under the bus, Ma! Thank you.

Mom: Well, if a dog farts you still find it funny.

Then, back at the apartment, where Mrs. Evans tries to give me good-natured dirt on her son without freaking him out:

Mom: You always tell me when you think a girl is attractive. You'll call me up so excited. Is that okay to say?

Chris: Nothing wrong with that.

Mom: And can I say all the girls you've brought to the house have been very sweet and wonderful? Of course, those are the ones that make it to the house. It's been a long time, hasn't it?

Chris: Looooong time.

Mom: The last one at our house? Was it six years ago?

Chris: No names, Ma!

Mom: But she knocked it out of the park.

Chris: She got drunk and puked at Auntie Pam's house! And she puked on the way home and she puked at our place.

Mom: And that's when I fell in love with her. Because she was real.

East the bulldog ambles over to the table, begging for food.

What he remembers thinking is this: "What if the movie comes out and it's a success and I just reject all of this? What if I want to move to the fucking woods?"

Shades of "Sunday-night meltdowns." Luckily the nerves never follow him to the set. "You do your neuroses beforehand, so when they yell 'Action' you can be present," he says.

And so we do. It's getting late. Again. We should have eaten dinner, but Evans sometimes forgets to eat: "If I could just take a pill to make me full forever, I wouldn't think twice."

Wait, I ask—did she ever tell you?

"Still don't know where it is, man," he says, then breaks into a smile composed of equal parts shit-eating grin and inner peace. "I just don't know. Make some movies, you don't have to know…"

If someone doesn't want to check the link, the anon sent the full interview!

#chris evans #cevans #Details Magazine #2012 #interview

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ateezmakemeweep · 4 years

Text

you’re the one that i want (part 24)

word count: 5k

fluff

(part 23) (series masterlist)

it was crazy how long days used to feel during this time just last year, after winer break started and the draining third and forth marking periods of school started.

usually, you’d be crumbling.

working your hardest to maintain your grades while also dealing with a toxic home environment. you loved school because it served as a safe haven away from that but it also drained and exhausted every bit of you.

but four months of your life now passed by unbelievably fast and you were handling everything well, good people around you that made schoolwork just a little more tolerable.

when you were struggling with math, mingi would help you during lunch. if you needed someone to test you with flashcards, yeosang would reward every correct answer with a piece of food. when a particular teacher gave you shit for anything, wooyoung was quick to cause some sort of chaos even if it meant getting detention.

and when everything just got too overwhelming and you never wanted to look at another book again, seonghwa was quick to clear your desk and drag you to bed. lay you down and hold himself above you until you were smiling and giggling as he pecked kisses down your neck.

you think it was solely because of him and the others and your aunt that june came so fast, only two weeks left of school and everyone buzzing with excitement; even with the whines and arguing coming from your lunch table.

“you’re really gonna make us stay in a hotel for the whole summer?” wooyoung asked, looking at seonghwa with distrust and hurt in his eye. “i thought we had fun at your house that time.”

because with only two weeks left of school meant only two weeks left of you and seonghwa commuting back and forth.

of seeing wooyoung, san, mingi and yeosang every day who have really grown to love this dynamic; so much so, they’ve been all but begging to spend the whole summer there with you two.

but to no one’s surprise, seonghwa wasn’t for the idea.

“no, you guys had fun. i was one second away from flinging myself off a fucking cliff.”

“that’s not fair,” san whines.

but the dirty blonde only quirks an eyebrow and asks if it was fair that he had to sleep on the floor on his own bedroom every night. or be rudely woken up and forced to make breakfast. or share his girlfriend and-

“no hotel, you guys could always stay with me,” you interrupt sweetly, a small smile on your face that only widens when you feel seonghwa glaring at you. your head cranes over to look him up and down, a smirk crossing your face as you shrug your shoulders carelessly.

“what?”

“yeah, what?” wooyoung asks, mimicking your higher voice causing you to narrow your eyes at him.

“really? what?” seonghwa asks, annoyance and exasperation in his tone. “i don’t want you burning my girlfriend’s house down, that’s what.”

“girlfriend, this. girlfriend, that. we all know you have a girlfriend, okay.”

“what? girlfriend? i don’t have a girlfriend.”

everyone’s heads snap to the side when a new voice stammers those words out, yeosang finally arriving and standing there looking incredibly panicked and guilty.

it makes you in particular cock an eyebrow, the other boy’s “where the hell did you come from” and “we know you loser,” quickly turning back into whines and protests to seonghwa.

but for the the rest of lunch, you could only focus on how...odd yeosang is acting.

peeking at you every now and then before smiling awkwardly, checking his phone and trying to hide his smile, needing mingi or san to repeat themselves several times because he just seems so dazed and out of it.

when lunch ends, seonghwa is quick to stand up and grab your hand as per your usual walk to class together. but you take your hand from his hold and place it on his arm, standing up on your tippy toe to peck his cheek.

“can you go without me?” you ask softly, using a voice you know will always get him. “i wanna talk to yeosang for a second.”

“oh?” he mumbles, tucking a piece of hair behind your ear casually. “what about?”

“i don’t know, he was acting strange,” you say quietly, turning to see him gathering his stuff and checking his phone once more. “i wanna make sure he’s okay.”

the dirty blonde looks to yeosang and hums quietly, looking over his friend who meets his gaze.

“what?”

“why are you being a weird fuck?”

“seonghwa!” you squeal, smacking his chest before quickly ushering him away.

he lets out a loud chuckle before squeezing your hand once more, telling you he’ll meet you at the end of the period and meeting yeosang’s middle finger with one of his own.

“your boyfriend’s such a dick.”

a small smirk crosses your face as you shrug, looking the boy over with a suspicious look in your eye. a look that he catches and turns an endearing but humorous shade of red because of.

“why are you looking at me like that?”

“because i think you got yourself a girlfriend,” you say, poking his arm as you two walk through the crowded, bustling hallways. he lets out a scoff before bumping into you, remembering to be gentle;

because the last time he did that, you smacked into a wall and he paid for it dearly - curtsey of seonghwa’s fist in his stomach.

“what makes you say that?”

“just a vibe,” you say, the sweet smile on your face morphing into a teasing one when he raises an eyebrow. “and you’re little ‘who me? i don’t have a girlfriend!’ was the icing on the cake, really.”

he stares blankly at you causing you to giggle, shrugging your shoulders as you promise you won’t tell anyone if that’s the case.

and it takes a little bit of persuading, just a pout on your lips before you remind him how mean he was to you when you first met for good measure.

“that’s not fair,” he sighs out, a smirk on your face as you shrug your shoulders.

and just as you knew you would, you find out he’s been seeing a girl for a few months. that they’re not official or serious, only having been on a few dates but enough time for him to really like her.

“she kind of scared the shit out of me at first,” he laughs out and you have to suppress the squeal threatening to leave your lips at the sappy look on his face. “she still kinda does but she’s also really fucking cool. i don’t know, i just like her.”

and once he sees the bright smile on your face, he knows he made a grave mistake.

“but don’t tell those shitheads yet, i wanna ask her out first.”

“oh? when you are going to? today? oh, my gosh and how?” you squeal excitedly, the initial budding of a romance something that always makes your heart soar. but it proves to only make yeosang roll his eyes, the sound of the bell blaring through the hall saving him.

“perfect timing,” he quips, your arm shooting out to push at him before he rushes down the hallway to his class.

“perfect timing.”

san narrows his eyes at you a few hours later at the cafe, a smirk crossing your face when you see wooyoung wave to you from the window; it’s almost the 6th shift in a row the boy has made him late for but he looks all too pleased with himself.

“he has no shame,” you hum lowly, giggling softly when you see a blush cross san’s face. “and neither do you, apparently.”

“stop,” he whines, hitting you lightly in the arm. “you have to be nice, we only have a few weeks left together here.”

because as much as you love san and this cafe, commuting during the summer would’ve been an absolute nightmare. and his parents had been the ones to suggest it, telling you they would never in a million years fire you but wanted you to enjoy your summer.

“and you can’t do that if you’re trapped in a car ten hours a week,” they said, before taking notes from their son and promptly pushing free cookies and cakes down your throat.

but you’re really gonna miss this place. even if you’re only away from it for a few months, it acted as a safe haven when you really needed one. was one of the only places where you’d have a smile on your face and not feel like your life was falling apart at the seams.

“what do you mean? you guys are staying with me,” you say, looking at him like a confused puppy in a way that makes him smile.

“seonghwa’s not gonna allow that.”

“well luckily, it’s not up to seonghwa. it’s up to me and my aunt.”

san bites the inside of his cheek to hold back his smirk, looking at you with a quirked up eyebrow causing you to mirror his expression.

“what?”

“just keep that energy when he’s around too,” the boy teases before his eyes dramatically bat and his face becomes one of a lovesick teen. “but seonghwa, pleaseee,” he whines, doing a lousy impression of your voice that makes you smack his shoulder.

but your fight and quarreling is quickly interrupted by the uncharacteristically abrupt entrance of bo-ra, the once shy girl coming out of her shell a little bit more everyday.

you were happy you were able to keep your friendship with them despite the fact they were at different school, always having at least two customers a day who you could guarantee would make you and san smile.

“you guys will never believe this.”

and right when bo-ra tells you jojo has been seeing a boy for a few months now, you almost don’t believe it. not only because of the crazy coincidence that yeosang, too, has been seeing a girl for the past few months but because it might be jojo.

it almost seemed as if the girl had sworn off any and all high school boys because they are “mean, idiotic assholes who think with the wrong, less impressive head.”

and yeosang being the one to change that perspective? you couldn’t help but laugh at the irony of it all.

how yeosang, at one point, was the exact description of that. how, really, all of them were like that except the sweet blonde throwing his head back in laughter at this information.

“no way, who is he? and what’s wrong with him?”

you both let out a snort and hit the boy playfully, bo-ra putting a finger to her lips as she looks at san chastisingly.

“stop it, they’re coming any second now! i ran ahead because i could not stand to watch them awkwardly bump arms and blush any longer. but act natural. pretend i didn’t tell you. in fact, maybe you guys should act like you don’t even-”

but the second the door rings open, san is up and over to them in a second. he’s so hot in pursuit he doesn’t even realize it’s the familiar brown-haired boy, teasing eyes on jojo as he greets them with a tray of cookies.

“i gotta give it to jojo, i never thought anyone would be able to-”

and it’s at hearing the lowly mumbled “shit,” under his breath that makes san stop talking, snapping his head over to see no other than yeosang looking at him with a half annoyed, half guilty expression.

“yeosang?”

the last two weeks of school for you, and mostly everyone else, were great. the work was light, the teachers were lenient and every single person was in good spirits and anticipating the fun and relaxation that came with summer.

the last two weeks of school for yeosang, however, were...disastrous. because not only was everyone giving him shit for having a girlfriend, they were chastising him for keeping it a secret.

“it wasn’t a fucking secret! i just hadn’t asked her officially yet and i wanted to wait until-”

“we went through this shit before and we’re not about to do it again,” mingi says, whacking the top of the brunet’s head before looking at you and seonghwa. “no offense guys.”

“none taken,” you giggle out as you shake your head, seonghwa rolling his eyes before pulling you into him further. you smile softly against him and meet his gaze, smirking at the look on his face and leaning up to peck his cheek.

it’s a look that only gets more annoyed and tense as the conversation goes into summer, his arm still tightly around you serving as the only thing to keep him grounded and sane.

the same way you’re the only thing keeping him sane now, you in the front seat of his car while wooyoung, mingi, san and yeosang all flail around and hit each other in the back. the trunk is full of suitcases and bags filled enough for two months because, of course, he had lost that battle.

“i’ll definitely be a better surfer, are you fuckin’ nuts?”

“no fucking way, you’re too lanky.”

“well you’re too short! did you stop growing at age eight?”

seonghwa looks over at you, a pained expression on his face at the juvenile conversation in the back and you can only tighten your hold on your intertwined hands.

look down and smile at not only the banter of the boys and your boyfriend’s utter annoyance but the way his hand holds yours so securely.

how they fit together perfectly as you trace your other fingers over the black rings and veins of his hand.

“it’s gonna be fine,” you tell seonghwa softly, surprised he can even hear you despite the chaos in the back. “they could always stay with me if you need a break.”

but he only looks over at you and shakes his head, bringing your hand to his lips before he tightens his hold on you.

“absolutely not, i could never put you through that.”

you let out a snort before wooyoung’s head is directly between you both, his arms on the console and neck snapping back and forth as he begs seonghwa for surfing lessons to prove mingi wrong.

and much to the taller boy’s dismay, wooyoung actually did prove to be the better surfer.

because after only two days of you guys going down to the ocean, seonghwa’s reluctant help in teaching him, though nowhere near as thorough as the lessons he provided last year, proved that the brunet was just somehow naturally gifted at it.

“how does it feel to fucking suck?” wooyoung laughs at mingi, watching the boy roll in clumsily after being knocked by waves. his wet hair’s a mess of tangles and seaweed and yunho can only watch from the beach with a frown on his face.

“he’s trying though,” the tall boy whines to you, a giggle leaving your mouth as you shake your head.

“i know, he really is,” you say, the two of you laughing again as mingi jumps up and tries to dunk wooyoung under water. you two watch as the shorter boy gets away, much to mingi’s annoyance, and he looks at you two with a dejected look.

“come here,” yunho yells down to mingi, his large hand flagging the boy over. but he only lets shake his head and tells him to go there, that he needs his help now and is gonna cry if he doesn’t.

and what mingi wants from the boy, he gets almost immediately. because you don’t know if you’ve ever seen yunho move so fast, rolling your eyes at how easy he gives in before you lay back down and enjoy the warm sun on your skin - but only for a few moments.

because then you feel a familiar pair of arms around you, your eyes shooting open just in time to see you’re being thrown over seonghwa’s shoulder as he’s heads to the ocean. you squeal and hit his back and tell him he better not throw you in but you don’t even have to see him to know there’s a smirk on his face.

he goes in until it’s waist deep before promptly throwing you down, the freezing june water making you squeal out before popping up with a gasp.

“seonghwa!”

“i’m sorry, baby, but i had to,” he whines, circling his arms around your waist. you narrow your eyes but welcome his touch anyway, even jump up and wrap your legs around his hips in a move you’re all too familiar with in this ocean.

“you really didn’t,” you whine softly but he can only kiss your salty lips and you smile against them, meeting the chaste, sweet kiss back immediately. your arms wrap around his neck when his tongue slips in just a little teasingly, pushing yourself further into him and smiling when he pulls back.

“it’s broad daylight,” his deep voice chokes out warningly, your one hand snaking down to trace the lines of his stomach teasingly.

“you started it,” you quip back playfully, trying so desperately to remember there are far too many people around to repeat what happened several times right in this ocean.

but how could you forget? especially with the scoffs and splashing coming from just a few feet away from you.

“hey sickos, i’m pretty sure you can get arrested for that,” yeosang yelps, seonghwa pulling away to sneer at him while you hide your face in embarrassment because he’s probably right.

you can feel the dirty blonde smile against your head as you hide in his neck, seonghwa’s fingers threading through your hair before pulling your face back to look at him.

he can’t help but snort when he sees the pink flush on your cheeks, knowing it’s not from the sun because he made sure to put sunscreen on you before coming down to the beach today.

“did you put on sunscreen?”

your face drops and the guilty look in your eyes causes him to groan. he drops his board and takes the black bag from his back, zipping it open and pulling out a bottle of sunscreen.

“here.”

and you already know better than to refuse, taking it with a wince and quiet “thank you.”

he watches you rub it over your arms and shoulders, feeling your cheeks warm as his eyes stay on you. “did you put some on?” you ask, in an effort to distract yourself from his piercing gaze.

but he only nods his head, picking his board up and dusting off some sand and dirt as his eyes remain on you. you squirt some more on your hand before giving it to him with a grateful smile, rubbing it in and then wiping the excess on your face.

“thank you,” you tell him. “i always forget to put it on which would explain why i’m a little-”

“missed some,” he hums lowly, his hand slowly reaching out so his thumb can rub in the lotion on your cheek.

he does everything so smoothly and nonchalantly while you inhale sharply, your lips parting and watching him with wide eyes. it was the first indication that his touch was gonna be gentle this week, his hands softer than you expected. his eyes meet yours when he pulls his hand back, raising his eyebrow when he sees your face.

“you good?”

yeah, i’m good, you think, i just have a handsome boy touching my face about to put me in cardiac arrest.

he plays the memory over in his head and can’t help but smile, your eyes catching his dazed look along with the softer look in his eye.

“what?” you squeak, cocking your head to the side in confusion.

“nothing,” he says, shrugging his shoulders before tightening his hold on you. “i just love you.”

because he can’t help but think about those times last year, when he was bitter and jaded and so closed off to feeling anything positive. it’d all been a mask, of course, but he’d worn it for so long he didn’t know if he’d ever learn how to be without it.

but that was until he saw you, started everything with you right here in the form of soft, guiding touches that lingered just a little too long and shy looks back and forth that should’ve made him realize this was gonna be the result.

him so easily telling you he loves you, with any and everyone around to hear him say it so surely. biting back a smile and feeling his heart lurch in his chest when your face softens and mouth drops open.

because even though you know he loves you, know that he says it several times a day and means it every time, it’s these random little moments that make your heart flutter the most.

when he’s saying it for no other reason than that he wants you to hear it, that he becomes fully consumed by the feeling just from watching you smile or feeling you against him.

but you still can’t help but blush as you softly tell him you love him too, his skin littered with water droplets and the sun shining behind him so devastatingly familiar and handsome.

your arms tightly wound around his neck before he twirls you around and nearly sends you flying under water, your giggle and seonghwa’s deep chuckle echoing through the salty air.

but it’s quickly cut off by another voice, one much harsher and not so giddy.

“jesus christ,” yeosang grumbles, you and seonghwa snapping your heads over to see him looking at you both. “please don’t tell me i’m gonna look this pathetic.”

“fuck off,” seonghwa snaps. but you can only smack him lightly and look at yeosang with a raised eyebrow, because you’ve actually seen him and jojo together and can confirm they’re just as pathetic as you two.

“of course you do,” you say, your eyes moving back to shore as a small, teasing smile crosses your face. “because look, jojo just got here.”

and the way yeosang’s face brightens and his head snaps to the side is the first indication you’re absolutely correct. his eyes roaming the beach and softly spoken “where is she?” making you feel just a little bit bad for lying.

the girls did, however, make it just a few days later for a weekend trip. yeosang greeted jojo just as pathetically as he feared to look, his arms wrapping around her body and pressing a kiss to her head like they hadn’t seen each other in months.

mumbled that he missed her and how pretty she looked and you had to turn your face into seonghwa’s chest so you didn’t squeal.

it was nice to see them both so vulnerable. when you first met them, they were harsher and colder, with walls not so easy to break down that always made them sneer in the face of love. made them question couples that made it seem like the end of the world when they were apart.

but now, they’re going through that dilemma firsthand with all the other couples, when talk of a girl sleepover and boy sleepover happen, san being looped into the former purely due to bo-ra’s request.

“what, no,” wooyoung whined, arm reaching out to pull the blonde back by the shirt. “he has to be with us. he’s technically a boy.”

“technically?” san asks, snapping his head to the side to look the pouting boy.

"but there’s already too many of you, yunho’s parents will go crazy,” you say, walking over and smacking wooyoung’s hand off the blonde. “and you get to see him all the time. bo-ra and jojo are only here for the weekend.”

“b-but,”

“i’ll be back to you in the morning, drama queen, since i’m only technically a boy,” san says, secretly far too excited with a night away from them; he loves his friends and woo but sometimes they get even a little too crazy for him, having grown used to spending all his time with you.

and of course, you don’t miss your own boyfriend’s reluctance to let you go but can only assure him with a sweet smile and teasing shake of the head before you all run inside and lock the doors.

it takes your aunt all of two seconds to fall in love with your new friends, a spread of dessert and soda in wine glasses (except for her own) keeping you occupied well into the night.

you all laugh until tears are in your eyes and your sides hurt, the boys just a house away hearing the ruckus through the open windows.

“do you think...they’re talking about us?” wooyoung asks seonghwa and yeosang, the dirty blonde rolling his eyes as yeosang’s mouth drops open.

“oh, my god do they do that?” the brunet asks, shock and horror in his voice as both boys turn to look at seonghwa.

the dirty blonde is tapping on his phone before he feels eyes on him, looking over to see his two friends staring at him wildly.

“what is wrong with you guys?”

“let’s sneak over. i can’t take not knowing what they’re laughing about.”

“what if they’re talking about our...”

another loud chorus of giggles and cackles rings through the window and it causes yeosang and wooyoung to shoot away from the window, paranoia quickly creeping up on them.

“shit! they’re they go again. what the hell could be so damn funny?”

“they must be getting details from jojo now,” seonghwa says casually, wooyoung snorting as yeosang’s head snaps to him in outrage.

and while you guys might’ve been talking about them a little, you’d never let them know that. you’d never let them know you actually shared about how sweet and thoughtful they could all be, even given their flaws.

but somewhere between talking and laughing and then going out in the pool, stormy clouds rolled in and before you knew it, rain and thunder was pelting against your window.

blankets and pillows were sprawled out across your aunt’s couch as you all laid there cuddled into one another, san’s head on your foot while your head rested on jojo’s shoulder.

it took one movie to knock them out and then another for last girl, now just you with the darkness and roaring weather outside quickly making you miss the boy next door.

you’d gotten used to having him every night; more often than not, you slept together and woke to one another and now you’re feeling just a little hypocritical for tearing wooyoung and san away from each other so easily.

because you’re quick to sneak away from your three sleeping friends, cover them with blankets and turn of the tv, before sneaking into your room.

one particularly loud crack of thunder causes you to jump, cursing yourself when you check the pockets of your pajamas and realize you forgot your phone downstairs.

“shit,” you mutter under your breath, about to turn around and make your way back down when you hear a knocking on your balcony door.

and then suddenly, your life feels very much so like a horror movie - no means to communicate with anyone, the howling wind and darkness outside, a mysterious knocking at a door that the character is stupidly going to investigate.

but maybe it’s because, somehow, you knew your soaking wet boyfriend was gonna be standing on the other side.

“i texted you,” he says simply, like he’s not standing out in the pouring rain or giving you a mini heart attack.

“you could’ve rang the doorbell!” you whisper-yell, pulling him inside before telling him to stay there. you run frantically around your room for a towel and an extra set of his clothes you ‘borrowed’ before throwing them at him.

“why did you do that, you’re gonna get sick!”

and despite your rush of adrenaline to save him, another crack of thunder causes you to jump and he can’t help the smirk that crosses his face.

“you’re really asking me that?”

“i told you i’m not scared of thunder,” you say surely, taking his wet clothes and hanging them in the bathroom before seeing he made himself quite comfortable in your bed.

it’s upon hearing another boom outside, shaking the house and causing a squeal to leave your mouth, that you quickly scurry in next to him. cuddling yourself into him and resting your head on his chest as he wraps an arm around you tightly.

he smiles against your head and doesn’t comment on the pounding of your heart against him, how any time a loud crack of thunder comes, you cling onto him just a little tighter the way you always do during a storm.

“i’m not scared,” you insist, a deep chuckle leaving his mouth as he presses a kiss to the top of your head.

“i know, baby, i just missed you,” he mumbles against your head, bringing your face to his so he can place a kiss on your lips. he tightens his hold on your hair when you deepen it, reach up and part of your mouths before moving up to straddle his hips.

and despite the growing hardness you feel underneath you the more you kiss, he never tries to take it further. you just kiss and giggle and smile against the others mouth until you rest your head back on his chest, the feeling of his hand rubbing your back and softly spoken “i’m here, baby,” lulling to the sleep despite the storm outside.

even though you’ll both be awakening to a different type of storm tomorrow, when wooyoung and yeosang discover seonghwa had snuck out and made his way to the house next door.

(part 25)

tag list: @chogiout ; @psshwa ; @yeocult ; @seongghwaa ; @cherryeonii ; @chaoticbanqtan ; @8teenee ; @nczenniez ; @atinyarmyx1 ; @mingtopiaa ; @chubsluda ; @joongiebug ; @mochibabycakes ; @jisungity ; @skz-on-my-mind ; @nlost21 ; @myonlyaurora ; @closer-stars ; @kuaenam3g ; @byungaji ; @floweryjh ; @joeycheungg ; @lostscenarios ; @atinyxtopia ; @sanisms ; @kpopnightingale ; @simpforhyunjin ; @89staytinyzen21 ; @lokicaramel ; @hwaxbum ; @sakura-uji ; @songsoomin ; @toffee-hwa ; @deobitiful ; @hyunjeansuniverse ; @chrryhwa ; @i-know-you-know-lee-know ; @tiny-whatsername ; @fairieofeternity ; @yixing-jaehyun ; @sleepyseonghwa ; @revehosh ; @atletino ; @yeol-wish ;

#these last 2 are just fluffy nonsense tbh <3 #i have a migraine so this was bare minimum #srry :/#seonghwa #seonghwa fluff #ateez #ateez fluff #seonghwa scenarios #seonghwa imagines #ateez imagines #ateez scenarios

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amjustagirl · 3 years

Text

The sky of the sky (of the tree called life)

Pairing: Suga x reader

AO3 Link Here:

Summary: She doesn’t take much notice of him at first, not when he’s one of thirty nine faces that greet her with varying degrees of interest when their teacher introduces her to the class.But then he hits her in the face with his friendship and she starts to get to know him - through the smallest things, in the littlest ways.

Author’s Notes: This is the first fic I wrote and initially posted as a lone (AO3 link (was still getting the hang of Tumblr lol). Lifted the title from ‘I carry your heart’ by E.E. Cummings. Anyways - this is my humble attempt at a fic, my love letter to one Sugawara Koushi.

Ume doesn’t take much notice of him at first, not when he’s one of thirty nine faces that greet her with varying degrees of interest when their teacher introduces her to the class. She doesn’t take much notice of anyone really, not when her mind is consumed with thoughts of college prep and exams and chores, so he remains a stranger, even after weeks of sitting next to him in class.

Still, he greets her every morning with a pleasant ‘Ohayo’, and doesn’t take offense when she merely responds with a small smile. He offers up his notes without comment when she asks to check her English notes against his, and even occasionally slips her a banana from the stash he always seems to be carting around. His grades are decent and his homework is always submitted on time so he’s popular with their teachers, even though he seems to spend most of his break time sketching what looks like volleyball plays or buried in heated discussions with Sawamura.

Overall, he seems like a nice boy - if a little obsessed with volleyball.

She looks at her lunch box in dismay. There should be food in it, rice and tamago and fish that she most definitely packed last night, but her lunch box sits on her desk, clean and empty. She groans, glancing at the clock. Five minutes after the lunch bell. She ponders on whether to wait until dinner or be jostled to death by a thousand teenagers, but then her stomach growls, loud enough for Yuna-san in the front row to turn and stare at her, so she supposes there isn’t much of a choice.

As she approaches the canteen, she can hear the usual bustle and sound of too many students trying to feed themselves in too small a space - but then she hears a shrill shout - ‘cream buns for sale’, and the immediate cacophony of excited shouts that follow makes her think that her chances of getting food in the next half hour plummet to precisely zero.

Her assessment is right, but that doesn’t stop her mouth from dropping in horror as the canteen practically descends into a warzone, her schoolmates collectively losing their minds. The girls’ tennis team looks like they’re leading a charge through the left, but they’re being resisted by the concert band. The volleyball boys’ team seems like they’re causing plenty of chaos down the centre. Sawamura-san, engaged in a vigorous shoving match with the basketball captain, and Azumane-san - the large, quiet boy she shares home economics class with, cowering while trying to swim through the crowd with a feral looking boy perched on his back.

She apologises silently to her stomach and turns to head back to class.

‘Imai-san!’ Sugawara waves at her from the back of the crowd. ‘I’ll help you get some buns! What do you want!’

‘Oh – two buns, any flavour?” she calls back, a little dazed. He answers with a cheerful thumbs up.

She watches bemusedly as he expertly weaves his way through the crowd to Azumane-san, gesturing wildly to the little boy on her back, before combining forces with a bald boy to shove Azumane-san bodily through the crowd to the front of the queue. The boys grab armfuls of buns each, elbowing the displeased soccer team in the face.

Sugawara spins around, and there’s a glint in his eye that she can recognise from far away (courtesy of being an older sister to two troublesome younger brothers), but her legs don’t move despite her mind hollering at her danger, danger, Imai Ume, even as he raises his arm to toss the buns to her.

One bun lands neatly in her hands. The other smacks her right between her eyes.

She yelps, hands clapping over her face, checking to ensure her glasses are still in one piece. A curry bun may be relatively light and fluffy, but it still hurts when used as a flying projectile.

She hears footsteps clatter towards her. ‘Oh my god, I’m so sorry - please don’t cry!” Sugawara says, his voice high pitched in worry, hovering next to her awkwardly. “Daichi will never let me get over it if I make a girl cry.’

She snorts despite the sting between her eyes. “It’s fine, Sugawara-san. Thank you for helping get some food’.

‘Are you sure? Maybe we should go to the nurse’s office just in case!’ he fusses, shuffling his weight from one foot to the other nervously, ‘I’m such an idiot, I can’t believe I missed that toss, I should just resign from the volleyball team already - ‘

‘Eh eh eh? Suga - what’s this talk about resigning from volleyball!’ The small, feral boy from earlier leaps onto Sugawara’s back.

‘How can you resign? This is the year we’re making it to Nationals!’ the bald boy rounds up the rear, yelling at Sugawara indignantly.

‘I missed a toss at my classmate, I’m no longer qualified to be a setter.’ Sugawara wails, unfazed by the weight of his two juniors on his back. ‘I should just die now’

‘YOU THINK YOU’RE ASAHI NOW EH, DRAMA QUEEN!’

She takes advantage of their chaos to slip back to class. They don’t get a chance to speak to each other again for the rest of the day, kept busy with classes on calculus and chemistry for the rest of the afternoon. But the next morning he crows a loud ‘Ohayo’ at her, and she smiles at him, wider than she did before.

-----------------------------------

Spring passes into summer surprisingly quickly, and Ume slowly, but surely, gets used to hearing the song of the cicadas in evenings instead of the rumble of cars in the streets, to the uphill bike commute she takes to ferry both herself and Yuji to school and kindergarten respectively.

Becoming accustomed to something doesn’t mean liking it though. She remembers her mother saying that things would be easier when they move to Karasuno from the city. That living with family in a close knit community like Karasuno means more hands on deck to keep their family afloat. For the most part, Ume supposes her mother’s right. Her grandparents are sweet and try their best to help out, if a little too old to chase Yuji around the house or fetch him up and down the mountain to preschool every day. Their neighbours always offer them too much food, and their grandchildren provide Yuji with enough entertainment most evenings for Ume to catch up with schoolwork and revision.

But sometimes, after she’s corralled an unruly Yuji to bed, and shooed a sullen Keiji to sleep, and she herself can’t fall asleep because the cicadas are too damn loud, Ume wonders if her mother uprooted them to Karasuno so she could run away from the fact that she’s stuck raising three children alone, disappearing off on such long business trips that Yuji doesn’t even ask her anymore if their mama’s coming home.

Thankfully, Yuji, with the short memory of a six year old, finds living in the countryside a joy. He joins the neighbour’s children in catching cicadas, and when she tells him that it’s cruel to catch animals for sport – even ones as annoying as cicadas, he laughs and promises that he always lets them go.

Keiji, though, remains quiet and withdrawn, hiding in the bedroom whenever he’s home from school. She tries chatting with him at the dinner table but her efforts are usually met with the surly silence of a thirteen year old. So she doesn’t push him too much, too fast - she already asks too much of him as it is, sharing most of the chores and supervising Yuji so they don’t become a burden to their grandparents.

So it’s a surprise when Keiji asks if they can head to the park for a picnic on a clear summer’s day, but she agrees immediately, swallowing her shock, making sure to pack onigiri and fruit and strapping Yuji to her bike. It’s strange when Keiji drags them all over the park looking for the perfect picnic spot. It’s even stranger when he decides that the playground, full of shrieking children, should be the appropriate spot for a picnic. But there’s a tree for shade and it’s convenient enough for her to watch Yuji while he runs loose in the playground, so she holds her tongue and spreads their picnic mat on the floor.

‘Can I get us some ice cream?’ Keiji asks.

She’s about to tell him to wait til he has proper food in his stomach before moving on to dessert, but catches sight of Keiji staring at the ice cream stand intently, hands in pockets, cheeks flushed pink. She follows his gaze. The ice cream stall looks fairly old, run by an oba-chan and a young girl with short hair and a cheerful smile. Oh.

‘Why don’t you go get an ice cream for yourself? Yuji and I can get some later’, Ume replies, busying herself with the picnic basket to hide her smile.

She settles on the mat, back against the tree, setting her textbook on her lap. The summer air is crisp and cool, and the sunlight shining through the leaves dances on her skin.

‘Hey Imai!’ Suga stops to greet her, hand raised in a friendly wave.

‘Hello!’ she waves back. ‘No volleyball practice today?’

‘No - we have a mandated break on Saturday afternoons’, he walks over to her. ‘Despite what my unruly kouhai think, overtraining causes injuries. Besides, we need time for summer homework’.

She nods, noticing the stack of books under his arm, and before her brain processes her sudden impulse fully, she asks ‘Do you want to join me? We can share the mat’.

He blinks at her, and she cringes internally, expecting him to politely decline. He may chatter at her absentmindedly about his team, and she may share her notes with him when she notices he’s distracted, but it’s not as if they’re friends outside of school. To her surprise though, he agrees easily, kicking off his shoes to join her on the mat. They sit together in silence, absorbed in their respective work. The sun is warm but the breeze is cool and crisp, so it’s comfortable and altogether pleasant.

‘Onee-chan’, Keiji calls, running back over. He raises an eyebrow when he notices Suga and drops into a slight bow before turning to his sister. ‘Can I have my onigiri? I want to pass it to my friend.’

She opens her mouth to nag him to make sure that he has lunch, but promptly shuts it. Instead, she tosses him two onigiris - hers, and his. ‘Make sure you eat, Keiji’, she calls, and he’s off, running with the wind.

‘Hey, Imai, I packed too much food. Share some of it with me?’ Suga offers mildly. She’s about to say no, thank you politely, but her stomach growls - traitor, and he just chuckles at her, snapping his lunchbox open and pressing half his sandwich into her hands. She thanks him, taking a bite and has to stop herself from moaning in delight because it’s full of egg mayo and chicken katsu and it’s so, so good.

‘It’s delicious, right?’ he says, grinning around a mouthful of his half of the sandwich. ‘You can’t study on an empty stomach, that’s against the law’.

She laughs at that and splits her stash of strawberries and watermelon with him.

Later, she shocks herself again when she tells him as he’s about to leave that she’ll probably be at the park again next Saturday - and he’s welcome to join her if he pleases. She wonders if he can see the uncertainty in her eyes, but he shoots her another smile and agrees.

-----------------------------------

She packs two extra onigiris next Saturday, and the Saturday after that. She also starts including peaches from her grandparents’ farm because she learns that he has a weakness for them.

Keiji ignores Suga for the most part, leaving for the ice cream stand as soon as they arrive in the park. Yuji, on the other hand, soon learns he can get Suga to do whatever he wants if he pouts long enough. Suga, for his part, does not help, often buying the little boy far too much mochi and ice cream.

‘Stop it Yuji.’ Ume says wearily. ‘Suga needs to study and you’re distracting him’.

‘But he’s the only one I know who can push me hard enough on the swings’, Yuji whines, scruffing his shoes into the ground.

‘It’s fine, I’ll take it as my break’, Suga says, smiling kindly down at the little boy. ‘Shall we see how high you can fly, Yuji-chan?’

She watches, shaking her head as Yuji cheers, dragging Suga off in the direction of the playground.

‘You seem good with kids’, she remarks when he returns - thankfully after a short while since Yuji, with the typical attention span of a six year old, is quickly distracted by the other kids playing a game of tag.

‘You think so?’ Sugawara responds, turning back to his books. ‘That’s good to know. I’m planning on going to college to train to be a teacher.’

The image of him dressed in a rumpled shirt and tie greeting his class with a cheerful ‘Ohayo’ every morning flashes in her mind. She imagines him smiling wide and indulgent at his student’s pranks, listening patiently to his students’ questions and problems, diligently pouring over his students’ assignments late into the night.

For some reason, her heart clenches. She doesn't know why.

-----------------------------------

‘Tohoku Medical school?’, he asks, eyeing the flyer sticking out of her bag.

‘Mm.’ she mumbles, distracted by the peach juice running down her hands. Then she realises what he’s just said and wrinkles her nose. ‘The entrance exam is hard though. Not a lot of people pass.’

‘Ugh, stop that, your grades are so good- negativity begone!’ He nudges her teasingly with his elbow. She rolls her eyes at him in response.

‘Why, though?’ he asks, before quickly adding. ‘If you don’t mind saying’.

She’s about to rattle off her prepared answer of heeding the noble calling of saving lives and making a difference one person at a time, but for some reason, she doesn’t.

Instead, she jerkily answers - ‘My dad was a doctor’.

She can feel him raise his eyebrows at her use of past tense (and not present tense) and suddenly the peach in her hand doesn’t seem as appetising as it was before.

‘Cancer’, she finds herself saying. ‘Last year’. She looks down at her feet, refusing to see what she expects will be pity in his gaze.

But he doesn’t say anything. He leans his shoulder against hers, and they stay that way for a while.

She doesn’t protest this time when he comes back from the ice cream stall with far too much ice cream, and the tightness in her chest dissipates as she watches him let Yuji flit between his chocolate and vanilla cones like a honeybee, even though she knows she’s going to have a hard time putting the little boy to bed tonight.

-----------------------------------

'I like Suga-san very much.' Yuji declares later as she tucks him into bed.

'So do I', Ume says. So do I’.

The call of the cicadas don’t seem as loud, and she falls asleep easily that night.

-----------------------------------

‘You should be studying’, she reminds him, playfully rapping on his knuckles with her pen.

He scratches the back of his neck sheepishly, looking up from his sketches on volleyball plays. ‘A couple more minutes and I’ll get back to work’.

She shakes her head indulgently at him. ‘You spend far too much time on volleyball as it is’.

‘I suppose I do’, he hums, busy drawing indecipherable pictures in what she’s termed his volleyball notebook.

She’s suddenly reminded of Yamada and Takashi, the two basketball idiots in her class, goading Suga about ‘being a loser for losing his starting position to a first year’. Sawamura usually erupts in anger when he hears them as he’s wont to do whenever he encounters the basketball club, but Suga, for his part, only responds with a serene smile.

‘Is it worth it?’ she asks, before she can stop herself. ‘Sorry’ she says frantically, as her brain catches up with her mouth. ‘That was rude of me’.

He breathes a rueful laugh through his nose. ‘It’s fine, I’m not offended’. But he stops his scribbling, and his mouth slants downward in a way that Ume doesn’t quite like.

‘It’s worth it’, he then says, voice quiet but full of conviction. ‘It’s worth it to play with my team. I want us to keep getting stronger, I want us to keep playing together, and I want us to go to Nationals and win’. He gazes into the distance and smiles, bittersweet. ‘And everything else doesn’t matter’.

It’s her turn to lean into him with her shoulder.

‘I’ll bring Yuji to watch you at the finals’, she says. ‘And we’ll watch you at Nationals on our TV’.

He laughs and she smiles, wide and bold and bright.

----------------------------------

Sugawara spends their lunch breaks talking about his team’s latest exploits all the time. She laughs when he tells her about the hijinks that the team constantly gets up to, from setting fire to the Vice Principal’s very obvious toupee, to an all out prank war with the basketball team featuring copious amounts of dead fish and paint bombs. She particularly enjoys Suga’s impression of Nishinoya’s ‘rolling thunder’ war cry, and rather suspects the whole team is intent on driving Sawamura into an early grave.

Despite having a tendency to smile indulgently at his team’s penchant for chaos and hellfire, it’s clear that Suga cares deeply for each and every one of his teammates. He broods about Tsukkishima’s lack of ambition and desire to bond with the team, Yamaguichi’s lack of confidence, Kageyama’s and Hinata’s inability to communicate like regular human beings. Even when he jokes about Ennoshita’s latest attempt to evade Sawamura’s talks about ‘passing on the captainship’, she can sense the undercurrent of worry and concern.

Perhaps that’s why she volunteers to give tutoring Tanaka and Nishinoya a go, after he explains that they’ll end up missing the Tokyo Training Camp that Takeda-sensei went through so much trouble to arrange. She also tells herself that the reason she’s doing it is because Second year Math is covered in the university entrance exams - and absolutely not because Suga practically lights up with relief when she waves his thanks away.

----------------------------------

Tanaka and Nishinoya remind her of Yuji and even Keiji (well, before), rowdy and loud and full of boyish mischief. They fall out of their chairs when they notice Kiyoko-san walk by the classroom deep in conversation with some boy, and she has to rap them on their knuckles with a pen to get them to focus on solving question number two - please and thank you - before they settle back down.

Still, they’re surprisingly attentive and almost respectful even when she’s trying to impress upon them the dryer points of Math, so it’s easy to become fond of them. They get through vectors after she likens the trajectory of vectors to the movement of a volleyball. Statistics were a struggle, but fortunately, volleyball statistics save the day. Calculus seems to be the biggest hurdle, but she’s hopeful they’ll get it, once she finds a way to relate it to volleyball or better yet, convince them that differentiation and integration are very, very manly pursuits.

That said, it doesn’t help that the basketballers in her class seem to have a deep rooted grudge against the volleyball team - though from Suga’s stories, the animosity is probably mutual. Yamada in particular seems to take special pleasure in taunting the two boys.

‘Eh, Baldy! Y’all lose another game yet? I saw you guys crying the other day after school’.

‘They’d probably win more games if chibi-chan here grew a few inches’, Takashi, his fellow basketballer sniggers.

‘Ignore them’, she tells the two growling boys firmly. ‘You don’t need to get kicked out of your team for starting a fight with these guys’.

‘Awww… are you two kouhai hiding behind your female senpai? ’ Yamadai jeers, leering at them. ‘What losers, just like your Suga-senpai. Heard he got turfed out of his starting position by a first year’.

At that, Tanaka and Nishinoya practically levitate out of their seats as one, snarling ‘Huh?!!! You fucking -’

‘Bit rich of you to pick on them, eh Yamada?’ Ume interrupts. ‘I heard Ono-senpai say last week that if you fail your tests one more time, you’re going to get kicked out of the basketball team. Who’s the loser now?’

‘Bitch!’ Yamada growls, hands slapping his desk.

‘Maybe you’d have a better shot at passing your exams if you spent your time studying instead of disturbing others - who unlike you are actually working hard,’ she adds, smiling at him sweetly.

Thankfully, Takashi has some sense of self-preservation and drags Yamada kicking and screaming out of the door. Tanaka and Noya swivel their heads towards her, twin expressions of shock on their faces.

‘Holy shit, that was so manly?!’

‘Imai-senpai, you’re almost as cool as Kiyoko-senpai!’

‘Yeah - almost as good as the time she ignored us when we asked her to marry us.’

‘No - better, but not as good as the time she slapped me’

‘Thank you’, she responds dryly. ‘Can we get back to differentiation, please?

‘Yes, Imai-senpai!’ They snap into a salute.

----------------------------------

‘I hear from Tanaka and Noya that you’re very manly’. His eyes twinkle at her.

‘Psh’, she says airily. ‘They exaggerate’.

But she laughs when he slips her half his sandwich as thanks.

----------------------------------

Noya and Tanaka pass their exams (by some miracle, thank god), and they graduate from her tutoring sessions.

She passes her exams too, tops her cohort even.

Her classmates start to take more notice of her, requesting for copies of her notes and tutoring sessions on topics they don’t really grasp. It's not really that much of a problem to just have an extra set of notes for her classmates to copy (she learnt her lesson when Takashi spills juice all over her precious biology notes - an accident, of course), and extra tutoring sessions are a good way for her to revise what she previously learnt - so she doesn’t really mind.

Of course she knows they think they're picking her brains and hard work, but it's not as if she minds. They're reasonably polite when they approach her, and she can pretend she doesn’t hear them gossip about her behind her back (that her parents are rich enough to send her to not one, but two cram schools, that they must know the principal who leaked the exam topics to her somehow).

Still, she can’t help but feel a spike of irritation when Yamada manages to corner her alone in class one day after school.

‘Oi, Ikai. Can you give me a copy of your math notes? I hear they're pretty good.'

She blinks innocently at him. ‘My notes cover whatever sensei taught in class if you were listening’. Which he probably wasn't, considering he seems to spend most of his time tossing spitballs or bouncing a basketball obnoxiously against the wall.

‘Tch.’ He leans towards her. ‘Come on, don’t be a stingy bitch. Just lend them to me for a bit.’

She narrows her eyes at the audacity of this bugger. 'No.' she says simply.

'Eh?' Yamada glares down at her.

'Did a basketball hit you too hard in the head yesterday? I said no.' She turns her back on him, packing her school bag, keeping her sharpest pencil in her hand, just in case.

He takes a step closer towards her, both hands heavy on her desk. 'But you share your notes with everyone else!’

‘Well, yes - but that’s because they're tolerably polite when they ask, and unlike you, they actually get my name right.’

He slaps her table hard with his hands. ‘Stop being a bitch, just give me your notes already'.

She should just give him what he's asking for or placate him with the promise that she'll give him a copy tomorrow - but she suddenly feels so sick and tired of giving more and more of herself - to her mother, her brothers, her classmates, and now this rude asshole - and she's so done, goddamnit.

'No.' She snaps, lifting her chin defiantly at him. 'What are you going to do about it?'

He snarls, grabbing hold of her wrist. 'Stubborn bitch, just give me the notes already!'

'Let go, pig!', she shouts, trying to wrench her wrist away, mind whirring to calculate the force and speed needed to shove her pencil into his face. His grip tightens, and he digs his nails into the thin skin of her wrist.

He smirks down at her. She tries not to flinch.

'Hey, Imai. Got worried about you when you didn’t turn up at the library.' Suga calls out, loud and clear from the door. Ume exhales a breath she didn’t even know she was holding as he walks deliberately towards them.

‘Yamada-san. I always knew you were an asshole, but I didn’t know you stooped so low you’d bully a girl’.

Yamada takes a half step back, but does not release her hand. 'Piss off, Suga. It’s none of your business'.

‘Perhaps’, he responds, humming diffidently. ‘But I thought I should remind you that if you get just one more strike on your disciplinary record, you’re off the basketball team’. His mouth stretches into a semi feral smile. ‘For good.’

Yamada coils back, looking as if he’d like nothing better than to strike Suga in the face, but then, seemingly thinking the better of it, he drops Ume’s wrist and smirks again. ‘We were just having a friendly discussion, eh Imai?’

‘Remind your thick skull to keep it that way.’ Suga says, meeting Yamada’s glare with an even gaze of his own.

Yamada looks away. 'Tch. I can't be bothered with you dumbasses', he sneers, stalking out of the class.

‘Are you ok?’ Suga asks her immediately, glancing at her once over, stopping short when he spots the red welts ringed around her wrist. ‘Did he do that to you?’ he asks, voice dangerous.

‘I’m fine.’ She follows his gaze and yanks her sleeve down, hiding the marks from view. ‘It’s nothing.’

He opens his mouth, about to insist that it is very much not fine, but she cut him off quickly. ‘Really! It’s my fault he got annoyed with me. He wanted a copy of my notes and I was very rude and didn’t want to give them to him,’ she laughs awkwardly. ‘Besides, it’s a good thing you stepped in when you did, or I’d have gotten into more trouble - because I was about to stab him with my pencil’.

Suga’s mouth drops open. ‘With your what?’

She unfurls her palm to show him her pencil, pink and sharp but altogether unconvincing.

He bursts into cackles, wheezing. ‘Maybe Tanaka should’ve taken his time to get me. I would’ve liked to see you try to fight Yamada with that’.

She snorts. ‘I’m just glad Tanaka showed some self-restraint and didn’t jump Yamada himself.’

‘Well, I’m pretty sure that’s because Ennoshita was there to stop him.’ Suga says wryly. He drops his gaze back to her wrist. ‘But seriously, if I’d known he hurt you, I’d have jumped him too’.

She looks at him sharply. ‘Suga… If any one of you get suspended, you can’t play in the Inter High Preliminaries.’

‘Not if we don’t get caught for it’. He gives her a zen smile as she splutters in shock. ‘Anyway, don’t you usually leave school to pick Yuji-chan up by now?’

‘Oh no, Yuji’s probably waiting for me!’ She cries out in alarm, dashing across the classroom.

At the doorway, she comes to a pause and turns around. ‘Suga!’

‘Mm?’ He tilts his head at her.

She smiles shyly. ‘Thanks’.

He smiles back.

----------------------------------

She ends up preparing a copy of her notes for Yamada anyway. He’s stubborn and stupid, and she figures that Suga’s interference, while welcome in the moment, is only likely to spur him on to pester her again. But when she walked into class the next morning, Yamada is nowhere to be found.

‘Did you hear Yamada-kun got caught with the vice principal’s burnt wig in his locker?’ she hears Yuna whisper to Mizuki before the bell rings.

‘Oh no! Is he in a lot of trouble?’ Mizuki gasps.

‘I don’t know, but I heard from Takashi that he’s been suspended from the basketball team indefinitely!’

‘No! Don’t they have a game next week?’

Ume looks over her shoulder at Suga, sitting with a self-satisfied smirk on his face.

‘I may have mentioned to Noya what happened with Yamada-san. Tanaka, of course, was very happy to help out’, he says simply when she corners him after school.

Yamada does return to class eventually, but he refuses to even look in her direction for the next month. She figures she’d much rather not press for answers she suspects she wouldn’t like. Instead, she spends the night cutting out twelve crow charms from black felt with the help of a very eager Yuji, hand stitching each member’s number in white thread and leaving them in Suga’s bag for him to find.

------------------------------------

She sneaks Yuji with her when the school buses students in for Karasuno’s match with Shiratorizawa.

They all watch with tears in their eyes when the final whistle blows and the boys win.

‘Congratulations, Suga’, she tells him the next day and adds. ‘I think Yuji’s found a new way to fly’.

He grins at her, his eyes burning proud and bright.

------------------------------------

Fall fades into winter. The days start looping, one after another.

Wake up. Get Yuji to kindergarten. School. Homework. Pick Yuji up. Make dinner. Pack leftovers for lunch. Do laundry. Revision. Tuck Yuji into bed. More Revision. Sleep.

Rinse. Repeat. Rinse. Repeat.

She curses when the cock crows every morning, and falls asleep before her head hits the pillow every night, so she wonders how he manages to survive with practices lasting daily into the night. Or maybe he doesn’t, she thinks to herself, watching the shadows beneath his eyes grow, grey and dark.

‘Is it worth it?’ she asks. (Do you ever regret it, she implies.)

‘Yes.’ he says. (At least I hope I don’t, he sighs.)

----------------------------------

She notices immediately when his seat is empty. Sawamura tells her it’s to be expected, Suga always catches a cold in winter.

‘I don’t mind helping to bring his homework to him’, she volunteers. ‘You’re going to be staying late in school for practice anyway’. She avoids Sawamura’s knowing look as she writes Suga’s address down, his homework tucked safely into her bag.

His mother beams, surprised and delighted when she appears at their door. She’s promptly shooed upstairs, and Yuji is lured into the kitchen with promises of mochi and ice cream. She knocks on the open door. He’s crouched on the bed, watching a replay of Karasuno’s finals match against Shiratorizawa.

‘Hey. I brought your homework.’ She frowns, noting the paleness of his face despite the redness of his cheeks. ‘Shouldn’t you be resting?’

‘I’m watching the match to fall asleep!’ he says defensively.

‘The match is at least two hours long! If you’re well enough to watch the match, you’re well enough to do your homework’.

‘Give me a break’. He groans, sneezing into the crook of his elbow. ‘I’m dying here’.

‘I’m pretty sure you can’t die from a common cold’ she says dryly.

‘Says the one who wants to be a doctor’, he playfully responds.

She rolls her eyes. ‘Don’t argue with me. Get some rest. You don’t have much time before you head off to Tokyo for Nationals, and the Center Shinken* is just after that’.

His smile drops, and he suddenly looks troubled. ‘Do you think I’m crazy?’

(For chasing too many dreams?)

She blinks, confused by his change in mood. She glances at the Miyagi University of Education pamphlet pinned to his wall - only one in three applicants get in. She furrows her brow, thinking about him spending every lunch break, every afternoon and night in their rundown school gym, even as everyone else is spending their days buried in schoolwork and revision.

But then she hears the echo of his words - It’s worth it. I want to play with my team, the cries from the huddle of boys, the memory of him holding a trophy under bright lights and her face softens.

‘Where’s all this self-doubt coming from?’ she says lightly. ‘You already achieved your dream of going to Nationals with your team. Now all you have to do is pass one exam.’

‘As if it’s so easy!’

‘Well, it’d be easier if you rest up so you can get back to work faster!’

‘Ugh, spoilsport’, he pouts at her.

‘Onee-chan’, Yuji pipes up, poking his head into the bedroom. 'Obaa-san said it's time for Suga-san to eat his medicine and take a nap.'

‘Hello, Yuji-chan!’ Suga waves at Yuji, who gives him a gap toothed grin in response.

‘You should tuck him in and tell him a bedtime story’. Yuji tells his sister seriously. She chokes and thinks she should have taken the chance to dump him under a bridge when he was a baby.

Suga laughs so hard he wheezes. 'I won't mind a bedtime story' he chokes out.

Both boys turn to look at her expectantly. 'Fine.' she says, relenting. 'I’ll tell you a bedtime story if you promise you'll try your best to go to sleep'.

They grin and settle down, Yuji on his sister’s lap, Suga laying against his nest of pillows.

She begins telling them a story she’s told Yuji many, many times these past months - about a kind-hearted Prince in a kingdom troubled by a yearly winter plague, who set out to find the cure for this illness, flowers that bloom on the highest of mountains in the deepest, darkest winter days. A Prince who tries to scale the mountain to find the cure, year after year, but is thwarted by blizzards and avalanches and snow monsters.

A small smile grows on his lips as she describes the Prince’s companions - the stalwart captain of his guards, the burly woodcutter with a heart of glass, and he stifles a laugh when she recounts how the Prince manages to trick his frosty hearted little brother to join them along the way. His breath evens out when she reaches the end of her tale, when the Prince and his companions scale the mountain and look down on a field of flowers, green and gold.

'And they lived happily ever after?' Suga murmurs, half asleep.

'And they lived happily ever after' Ume agrees.

She pulls his blanket up under his chin as he slips into sleep, hesitating as warmth furls and unfurls in her chest, before brushing her hand tenderly against his cheek.

----------------------------------

Third years are released from school for self-study.

She works alone at home. The winter days grow long and dark and hard.

(Her heart clenches. It starts to ache.)

----------------------------------

They graduate on a spring day, a shower of pink and white petals blessing their way. He catches up to her in the hallway after the graduation ceremony, hand at her sleeve.

‘Congrats on Tohoku’, he tells her, bright eyed. ‘I knew you could do it’.

‘Congrats on MUE’, she responds with a laugh. ‘See - you weren’t crazy after all’.

‘I suppose I’ll be seeing you around Sendai City? Your campus isn’t too far from mine.’

She opens her mouth to tell him not to be silly - Sendai City is nothing like Karasuno town, a million people within its bounds, and the probability of them meeting randomly on the streets is very, very small, but her throat suddenly becomes dry.

‘Suga’ she begins, balling her hands into fists.

‘Mm?’ he beams at her, brighter than the sun, and it’s all she can do to not to look away.

‘Thank you’, she says quietly. ‘For bringing some light into my life’.

‘I should be thanking you’, he replies earnestly. ‘You’ve been a good friend to me this past year. I don’t think I’d have passed my exams without you’.

“No, Suga,’ she says. ‘I mean - I like you’.

‘Oh.’ he breathes. ‘Oh’.

‘I like you’, she repeats, her voice growing stronger. ‘Because you were kind to me when there was no reason to. You bought bread for me, even if you ended up throwing it in my face. You stole and burnt a wig for me, just to put Yamada in his place. You spent your summer days buying Yuji too much ice cream, swinging him so high he thought he could touch the sky.’

‘I like you, Suga,’ she says finally. ‘Not just as a friend - but as a girl likes a boy.’

He stares at her, eyes wide. A few beats of silence pass.

‘I’m sorry’. He grimaces. ‘I don’t know what to say’.

‘It’s fine’, she finds herself saying. ‘It’s ok’.

(Her heart clenches. She wills it not to break.)

----------------------------------

Ume does not look back. Her bag is packed, and she leaves for Sendai City that week.

Her apartment is small, but she shares it with a few other girls. At night, she re-acquaints herself with the sound of cars rumbling on the street. The song of the cicadas haunts her in her sleep.

(Her heart clenches. She does not break.)

----------------------------------

Suga prides himself on being relatively observant and good with things like subtlety and tact and feelings - things that volleyball obsessed idiots like Daichi wouldn’t even notice if it hit him in the face.

He observes people and notices things, the way Kiyoko isn’t as indifferent to Tanaka as she seems, the way Yamaguchi’s serve suddenly improves when Yachi shouts ‘Gambatte’, the way Yui’s vocabulary immediately regresses whenever she’s talking to Daichi - though to be fair, he’s certain the only person in their level to not know about Yui’s crush on Daichi himself, so maybe that doesn’t count.

(‘I like you, Suga,’ he hears her say. ‘Not just as a friend - but as a girl likes a boy.’)

But then his brain short circuits and stutters to a stop, and it’s all he can do to watch dumbly as Ume turns on her heel and walks off, head high, back straight, he wonders if he’s not much better than the rest of them after all.

----------------------------------

‘Imai Ume said she likes me’. He finds himself telling Daichi, as they walk home from school, pork buns in hand, for the very last time.

Daichi grunts something unintelligible through a mouthful of pork bun.

‘Use your words, Daichi’. Suga can’t help but snark. Daichi grumbles and swallows.

‘Yes. I knew that already’. Daichi says simply. He starts on his second pork bun.

‘What?’ Suga retorts. ‘What do you mean you know? How did you know?’

This time, Daichi chews and swallows before he responds. ‘It was obvious to me.’ He turns to look at Suga squarely. ‘So what are you going to do about it?’

----------------------------------

(‘I’m Sugawara Koushi! But everyone just calls me Suga’. // ‘Imai Ume. It’s nice to meet you.’)

To be honest, he didn't think much of her at first when she joined their class. She had a habit of keeping to herself, never lingering in class before or after lessons, eating lunch alone at her desk, nose buried in a book, but he was brought up with good manners - so he kept greeting her every morning until her small nods turn into quiet smiles.

Of course, he just had to embarrass himself by hitting her in the face with a curry bun (Noya and Tanaka will never let him live it down), but in hindsight that probably kickstarted their friendship. And he’s very grateful for it. She's always passing him copies of her notes for lessons he’s missed or summaries of exam topics she thinks might come in useful, all painstakingly handwritten and colour coded - and even gives him the go-ahead to share it with Daichi. She volunteers to tutor Noya and Tanaka, and he’s sure that it’s in no small part due to her effort that they pass and get to attend training camp.

Yet he’s never considered her more than a friend. Right?

Right?

If he analyses the case of how he feels about one Imai Ume carefully, sifting through the puzzle pieces one at a time, he realises that he's not quite right.

There are little things that come to mind. Like his heart skipping a beat when he hears her laugh for the first time. The flush of his cheeks when he finds out she actually brought Yuji to watch their games. The rush of pride and joy when she tells him ‘I think he’s found a new way to fly’.

And maybe there are bigger things. Like the burst of blind panic in his chest when he hears Tanaka shout for him. The burning urge to break Yamada’s jaw and wipe that smirk off his ugly face when he sees red marks marring her skin. The cold satisfaction in his chest when he (and half the volleyball team) strike that bastard exactly where it hurts.

He remembers the sunshine dancing on her skin, the warmth of her shoulder pressed against his. The touch of her hand ghosting against his cheek. The faint memory of a fairytale about a Prince who gave his all and finds everything he set out to seek.

('And they lived happily ever after?' he asks // 'And they lived happily ever after' she agrees.)

The puzzle pieces fit. It finally clicks.

‘Shit,’ he swears, dialing Daichi’s number.

‘It’s midnight’, Daichi mumbles, voice rough with sleep. ‘What could you possibly want from me?’

‘I like Ume’, Suga says - and just saying it feels right. ‘I like her, Daichi’.

He hears an almighty yawn - and then he can almost see Daichi smile.

‘So what are you going to do about it?’

----------------------------------

What is he going to do about it?

Get hold of one Imai Ume and tell her that his mouth moved faster than his brain (and heart), of course.

----------------------------------

But what can he do about it?

Not very much, as it turns out.

For starters, he realises they’ve never exchanged numbers. He never felt the need to, they were classmates, no, seatmates, so she was always there, like the sun and stars in the sky.

He tries to find where she lives by asking around but soon meets a dead end. Karasuno Town isn’t large by any measure, the main shopping street fanning out into a smattering of small rural neighbourhoods. But he knows for a fact that Ume stays with her maternal grandparents, and she’s never once mentioned their surname, so he’s left with little to go on.

‘At least I know she’s moving to Sendai City’, he mopes to Daichi over a steaming bowl of ramen.

Daichi, probably tired of the number of times he’s heard him repeat this, just slurps his noodles noisily.

----------------------------------

He and Daichi rent a flat from a little old lady who pats their chests and pinches their cheeks. It’s halfway between their schools, five minutes from the convenience store, and the rent is pretty cheap.

They soon settle into the rhythm of university life. They cycle to school in the mornings for lectures, struggle with tutorials, and fight over chores. Their social life isn’t too shabby either - they both make plenty of friends and even join volleyball teams.

Still, Suga can’t help feeling like something’s missing. ‘Someone, not something, you dolt’, his inner voice tells him, sounding suspiciously like Daichi.

He starts seeing the ghost of her everywhere.

He stares when he sees the slant of her shoulders in his classmate in the front seat. He crashes into Daichi when he thinks he hears the birdsong of her laughter float down the street. He picks up a habit of doing a double take at almost every girl he meets.

‘Stop it’, Daichi tells him crossly. ‘People are going to think you’re some kind of freak or pervert.’

He tries, he really does. But then months pass, and he starts to think that maybe Sendai City, with its million residents and a million more trees, might have hidden her out of his reach.

----------------------------------

Summer arrives, and he returns home to Karasuno. He and Daichi and Asahi find themselves back in the school gym often, and he finds himself being dragged into practice match after practice match with his unruly kouhai. It’s a good way to spend his holidays, but he can’t help thinking if there isn’t a route he hasn’t explored yet.

‘No, Sugawara-kun, I can’t give you the contact details of our alumni, even if they’re your old classmates’, Takada-sensei says indignantly. ‘And don’t even think about breaking into the staff room at night!’

Eh. At least that was worth a try.

----------------------------------

Tashiro senpai means well, he really does. But Daichi lets it slip that he’s been moping over some girl (‘For months!’, he roars), so on a Friday night, Suga finds himself thrust head first into a party at Tashiro’s apartment, surrounded by way too many people and not enough food. Daichi’s chatting with Yui (Go, Yui!), and he doesn’t know anyone else, so he doesn’t say no when Tashiro pushes cans of beer and cups of cheap spirits into his hands.

He’s a few months short of being able to legally drink, and it’s the first time he’s drinking outside his family home - but well, what Daichi doesn’t know won’t kill him. Soon though, the living room feels far too warm and the music is far too loud, so he figures he may as well seek fresh air and whatever refuge he can get on the cramped balcony beyond the kitchen.

He leans his forehead against the bannister. Gah. His head hurts. His stomach churns.

A raindrop splatters on to the back of his neck, then another, and soon he can hear the gentle patter of rain against the roof. He rights himself with a groan, and begins to head back inside. As he slides the glass door open, he turns and sees the silhouette of a girl emerge into the balcony, two apartments down, clearing her clothes from the laundry rack.

He stops. He can almost hear Daichi roaring at him at the back of his mind, but Suga can’t help but stare and think ‘there’s something awfully familiar about that girl’, but then - hasn’t he thought that about almost every girl he’s bumped into these past few months?

She takes a step forward and her face is lit by cheap fluorescent lights. He can see her clearly now, recognises the tilt of her chin, the curve of her cheeks and - by god, it’s her. His legs move and he lurches to the edge of the balcony, shouting her name like a loon.

Their eyes meet.

She yelps. And promptly drops her laundry basket, scrambling back inside.

He dashes back into Tashiro’s living room and trips into the corridor, ignoring Daichi’s shouts as he slams his fists into her front door. Her door remains stubbornly closed, and he keeps yelling, keeps beating her door. He can hear Daichi follow him, and he’s certain he’s going to get a bollocking tomorrow morning, but he doesn’t care, he’s finally found her in the midst of a million people and a million more trees and nothing else really matters.

The door swings open, and Imai Ume stands in the doorway looking livid. ‘My roommate is this close to calling the police,’ she hisses.

Daichi yanks him back with his shirt and snaps into a low bow. ‘Sorry for the trouble caused’, he says, and adds - that sly dog, ‘He may have drank a bit too much Umeshu’.

‘For God’s sake, Sawamura’, he faintly hears her squawk. ‘Can’t you take care of him a little better? He looks like absolute shit’.

Suga stares at her glassy-eyed. All he wants to do is to take her hand and tell her all the things he’s dreamt of saying these past few months (starting with I’m sorry I was an idiot- and ending with I missed you) - but his mind is suddenly foggy and his ears are ringing and his stomach keeps bloody churning and he suspects his body might have just given up on him completely.

‘I told you’, he manages to say. ‘I told you we’d see each other again’.

He pukes at her feet and promptly passes out.

----------------------------------

When he wakes up, the sun is high in the sky, and he knows because he’s pretty sure it’s trying to stab him between the eyes. He flops over to his side.

What happened last night?

He cracks an eye open. He’s pretty sure he isn’t wearing his own pyjamas. The sweatshirt he has on is a touch too snug, the pants a touch too short - so definitely not Daichi’s either. He can’t be in Tashiro-senpai’s room either, because one, he’s pretty certain floral bedsheets aren’t his thing, and two, if he squints, he can see a pile of medical textbooks in the corner that definitely does not belong to him.

He groans, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed, groping bleary eyed for his phone.

- You have 7 messages! -

[Daichi, 12.48am]: You are a very lucky man [Daichi, 12.48am]: Imai didn’t call the police on you [Daichi, 12.49am]: I had to clean up your puke [Daichi, 12.49am]: Wanted to lug you home but you’re heavier than you look [Daichi, 12.49am]: So she said to leave you and walk Michimiya home [Daichi, 12.50am]: Figure you’ll thank me anyway [Daichi, 12.51am]: Stay safe. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do

‘You have got to be kidding me’, he moans. Fuck. His head still hurts.

Ume pokes her head into the room. ‘Oh, you’re awake. Feeling better?’

He snaps his head up and immediately regrets it. ‘Ow’, he whines, dropping his head in his hands.

‘I guess not’, she says. ‘Here’, she pokes him in the side. ‘Spare toothbrush. Wash up, and I’ll get breakfast ready so you can eat some meds’. She tugs him to his feet and pushes him into the bathroom.

This isn’t how he imagined meeting Ume again would be like. Getting piss drunk, puking at her door, and passing out in her bed? He’d take getting arrested over this any day, he thinks, moping to himself. Not to mention Daichi's probably going to kill him when he gets back. He shudders, then winces as he splashes cold water into his face.

Ume waves him into the kitchen. ‘Sit’, she says, and so he does. She sets a bowl of rice and fish and miso soup in front of him. ‘Eat’ she says, sliding a bottle of aspirin and a cup of hot tea at him. His stomach still hurts, but he's not about to let her effort go to waste.

‘Ittakimasu’, he says, putting his hands together, inclining his head slightly. Ume nods and sits across him, sipping her tea.

‘Thank you’, he says contritely. 'I'm sorry for the trouble I caused last night'.

‘It’s no problem. I managed to convince my roommates you were just a drunk ex-classmate, not some rapist or serial killer so they let you in', she hums, amused.

He groans. ‘I’m so sorry’.

'It's fine', she says, waving him away. 'I think Sawamura was a lot more mad than my roommates, since he had to clear your mess and then wrangle you into clean clothes’.

‘Well I think Daichi got to walk Michimiya home last night, so I don’t think he’ll be too mad’, he says drolly. She laughs at that, turning to clear the dishes into the sink.

‘Hey, Imai’. He takes a gulp of his tea, his throat suddenly dry.

‘Mm?’

‘'I - I missed you - you know, as a friend', he stammers at his hands. 'And I’d like to see you again. Maybe we could catch up over dinner sometime this weekend?'

She stills for a few seconds. 'I don't think it’d be a good idea to do that', she finally says.

His heart clenches. He wonders if he’s too late - if the distance that Sendai city with its million people and a million more trees has put between them is too great, if she no longer remembers their shared smiles and golden summer days. But then he sees the stack of blankets tucked into the corner of the couch, sees the food she must have woken up early to make, and wonders how his past self could have been so blind.

‘Imai’, he says. She keeps her eyes resolutely on the dish sponge in her hands. He exhales, and tells himself that it’s his turn to be brave. He takes a step towards her.

‘Ume’, he repeats, taking her hands into his. ‘Look at me’.

‘Stop it Suga! My hands are soapy’, she cries.

‘Nevermind that’, he says stubbornly. ‘Listen - I’m an idiot - and a coward. I meant it when I said I missed you, but I didn’t mean it as a friend’.

‘Wha-’, she begins to say but he cuts her off.

‘I like you, Imai Ume’, he breathes, bringing her hands close to his face. ‘I really like you - as a boy likes a girl. I want to keep holding your hands. I want to see you again - see you everyday, if you’ll let me'.

Her eyes widen, then she blinks slowly - once, twice, thrice.

‘Do you mean it?’ she asks, her eyes meeting his, and he’s struck by the thought that the stars in her eyes are so bright they can light up the night sky.

‘Why would I lie?’ he answers. ‘I’ve been looking over my shoulder every day for the past six months, hoping desperately to see you again.’

‘Oh', she breathes. ‘Oh’.

She gives him a look so full of affection and warmth - like sunlight breaking through the rain - that he knows he was right to be brave, knows that the past six months of searching and dreaming and longing hadn’t been a waste.

‘So… I take it you want to see me again?’ he asks cheekily.

‘Maybe’, she says, but her voice is teasing and she leans on to her toes to press her lips gently against his cheek.

‘I - I take that as a yes?’ he stutters and hates himself for flushing a bright pink, but refuses to release her hands.

‘Let me wash my hands first. Then - yes’, and she laughs, wide and bold and bright.

----------------------------------

Coda

----------------------------------

He opens the door and smiles at what has become a very familiar sight these past few weeks - Ume fast asleep at the kitchen table next to a half empty pot of tea, head pillowed against her textbooks. Usually, he’d just scoop her up and put her to bed, but they’ve not had much time together this week, what with him running all over the prefecture with his fledgling team for practice matches, and she with work and exams, so he decides to be a little selfish.

‘Ume’, he calls, shaking her shoulder gently. ‘Dearest. Wake Up.’

‘Mmph. Five more minutes. Go away.’ She mumbles, pushing his hand away.

‘Ume. Ummmeee,’ He drags out her name, finding extra syllables where there were previously none until she stirs, grumbling incoherently and he has to stifle a laugh when she swipes her hand across her mouth.

‘Oh! It’s you. Welcome home’, she folds herself upright, rubbing her eyes slowly. ‘Where’s Yuji? How was the match?’

‘Of course it’s me – who else would it be?’ he chuckles. ‘I dropped Yuji off at Kei-kun’s place for a sleepover with the team, they promised not to stay up all night eating junk and watching crappy movies but I don’t believe them. The match was great - we won! Yuji-chan did really well, he earned quite a few points and saved a few balls. You would’ve been proud of him. I know I was.’

‘That’s good, I’m sure he’ll tell me all about it tomorrow when he’s back.’ She nods towards the fridge. ‘I made mapo tofu for dinner – not too spicy though, your stomach will thank me after that long bus ride back.’

He hums a thanks, sliding the plate into the microwave, narrating a play by play of their match today, stopping only when he hears a loud yawn.

‘Go to bed, Ume’, he frowns at the lines of exhaustion on her face. ‘I shouldn’t be keeping you up, you have a morning shift tomorrow.’

‘Mm – I will, later. Was waiting for you. Mm’ not that tired,’ she protests, but then yawns again so widely he’s pretty sure he hears her jaw crack.

‘Bedtime, sleepyhead’, he says teasingly, lifting her into his chest.

It’s a testament to how tired she is when she doesn’t try to swat at him as she usually does, choosing instead to wrap her arms around him, pressing her face into his neck. His breath hitches, and he wants nothing more than to hold her close and hide in bed preferably forever, but reminds himself that they’re adults now (with awful things like jobs and responsibilities and worse, bills to pay), so he settles her onto their bed, tucking the pillow beneath her head, the sheets under her chin.

‘Goodnight, sweetheart. We’ll catch up properly on the weekend’, he whispers, pressing a kiss into her dark hair.

‘Mmph, love you’, she mumbles, half asleep.

‘Love you too’, he shuts the door with a click, a soft smile on his face.

He’s mentioned off-hand to her before that they’re lucky to be this happy.

‘It’s not all luck’, he remembers her replying. ‘Happiness isn’t easy to come by. It’s a choice. It takes effort and hard work to earn that choice, and you need to take the time to build it up, brick by brick, piece by piece.’

He used to wonder what she meant by that - but six years in, and he thinks he finally understands what she means.

She’s meticulous in the way she makes him happy - the way she catalogues his quirks and deals patiently with his follies. How she knows to always leave food in the fridge for him after work so he won’t get cranky. How she tries her best to stay up and listen to him complain about his frustrations with pushy parents or irresponsible kids, how she tries to watch every one of his (and Yuji’s) games should time permit. He can see it even in the way she smiles indulgently when she sends him off with Daichi and Tanaka for izakaya and drinks.

For his part - he wonders if he does enough. He wakes up early most mornings to hitch a ride with her to work so they get a chance to chat about their day. He buys flowers from the florist down the street for her every week, and slips sandwiches and post-it notes in her work bag when he knows she’s had a long shift. He holds her close when she collapses on the couch, boneless and exhausted from a hard day.

He thinks about the life they share - weeknights spent sitting together, him sketching lesson plans and volleyball plays and she reading up for exams and work cases, weekends spent in grocery stores and parks and volleyball games. Six years together - they’re happy, and they show it in the quietest of ways.

They’re driving back to Karasuno this weekend - ostensibly to celebrate Keiji’s birthday and meet a couple of friends. But he’s conspired with Keiji and Yuji so he can sneak her away to the park for a picnic under the tree where they share memories of long, quiet talks and golden summer days. He’s hidden her ring in a picnic box full of homemade onigiri and sandwiches, strawberries and peaches.

He plans to go down on one knee and ask if she’d like to continue working on being happy with him forever.

He hopes she’ll say yes.

(She does.)

#haikyuu #haikyuu fic rec #haikyuu imagines #haikyuu angst #haikyu x reader #sugawara #sugawara fic #sugawara headcanon #sugamama #haikyuu fluff #karasuno #haikyuu fic #sugawara x reader #suga

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labelleofbelfastcity · 3 years

Text

fig and gorgug’s excellent adventure

word count: 1.7k

read on ao3 here!

“Bill, my most esteemed colleague…”

Fig looks over at a quietly snoring Gorgug, his face softly lit by the shadows of Bill and Ted on her crystal. Even after a year of knowing each other, a few months of which were spent in a cramped cell together, she hadn’t known he snores. It had never been quiet enough, she had never been quiet enough, to notice that about him.

If Fig focuses, she can feel the rumble of the tour bus against her back, and, if she leans her head against the metal wall by her shoulder, the vibrations of tires over asphalt rattle around in her skull. They’ve only been on the road for a week, with just two concerts under their belts, and Fig is already kind of exhausted.

It’s a lot. The managers and the calls home and the makeup assignments for missed schoolwork. She probably wouldn’t even be doing the latter, but Gorgug spends his allotted midmorning time sitting at their extremely tiny table, with papers of Barbarian Theory and Engineering 1 scattered around him, and she’d feel like an asshole to just watch.

Fig hasn’t been sleeping well, either. The little bunk seems to press in around her, shoving her into an even smaller version of herself. Which feels stupid to complain about, because Gorgug is over a foot taller than her, since his growth spurt over the summer, and he’s sleeping just fine.

As if to prove her point, Gorgug shifts in his sleep, curling closer into Fig’s side. It’s just past one in the morning, and they have a gig tomorrow so Fig should really be sleeping too, but she’d felt like crying, for some reason, alone in her bunk. She’d crawled into Gorgug’s, instead, and pulled up Bill and Ted while he blinked blearily at her. It didn’t take him much longer to fall back asleep—now with his arm tucked around Fig’s shoulders—and Fig continues to hide from her emotions by watching Ted philosophize.

“Hey, Gorgug,” Fig hisses, burrowing her head into his chest in a way she knows will stick him with her horns. “Gorgug.”

“Hrmgh,” he grumbles, shifting more so that Fig can’t really poke him anymore. “Go to sleep.”

“No. Gorgug, hey. Come on, dude, I have an idea.” She doesn’t, really, more the idea of an idea, just like how Bill and Ted only operate on negative brian power and a pretty homoerotic bromance.

Homoerotic. She must’ve texted Kristen too much yesterday.

“Sleep is my idea,” Gorgug says, but it’s more of a sigh and a yawn wrapped up together and stretched like a yawning cat.

Fig’s brain unhelpfully supplies an image of sleepy Riz—ears cocked all funny and pupils absolutely giant. She shoves it back into the little chest lovingly marked “Bad Kids” that she’d constructed the second they drove away from Elmville because Fig is great at compartmentalizing and hiding her feelings. Totally.

“I’m bored, I want to do my idea.”

“You’re watching Bill and Ted.”

“No, I’m not. I’m talking to you.”

“Then stop talking to me and go to sleep.”

Fig huffs, about to say something just into the realm of mean, but then she feels Gorgug smile against the top of her head, and she relaxes a little.

“What’s your idea?” He asks, still sleepy, but also endearing in that goofy and sweet Gorgug way.

There’s a pause, while Fig tries to come up with her idea. The bus trundles along and Bill and Ted continue to kidnap historical figures. Finally, she says, much quieter than is warranted, like it’s some big secret she’s been holding close to her heart, “I’m gonna find a chronomancer so we can go back in time.”

“Like Augefort?” Gorgug yawns again.

“Absolutely not, Augefort doesn’t have Rufus energy.”

“I guess you’re right.”

“Maybe not a chronomancer, then, but like, someone who’s fucked with time, ya know. It would be cool to hang out with someone who’s fucked with time.”

“Like Augefort?” Gorgug says, before amending, “No. Wait. Rufus.”

“Yeah, Rufus,” Fig agrees. “Except if Rufus were hot, I think it would be more fun if our Rufus was hot.”

“Rufus is already hot. He’s got… sunglasses.”

Fig giggles and Gorgug snorts too. “You need your eyes checked, dude.”

“We watched the,” he yawns, “the Matrix last month. That’s what you said about Neo.”

“Uh. Neo is Keanu Reeves so just, automatically hot. Which. Speaking of. Bill and Ted are right there, dude.”

Gorgug laughs, quietly, voice still gummy with sleep, as he pokes her gently in the side, “I thought you liked older men.”

Fig makes a face that is very scandalized and very affronted. “That doesn’t mean I like Rufus.”

Gorgug shrugs, as best he can while in cuddle-mode. “I don’t know…”

Fig huffs and whacks him on the arm. “Maybe we should go to sleep.”

“Works for me,” he says, and settles back down.

“Hey. Hey! Don’t go back to bed, Gorgug. I’m still talking.”

He grumbles and turns his head even further into hers, trying to shield his eyes from the crystal’s light. “Watch your movie.”

“This is our movie, Gorgug. It’s ours.”

“It’s too late for it to be ‘our’ anything.”

“You’re no fun, you know that? No fun.”

“I’m sorry,” Gorgug says, way too sincerely for her to continue down that line of teasing.

“Hey, no, it’s fine. You’re tired, I should let you rest.”

Gorgug’s hand moves where it’s on her shoulder, rubbing over her sleep shirt, and then pausing, “Hey, is this mine?”

“Um,” Fig says, because it is, in fact, his. He’d left one of his Owlbears t-shirts on a chair, right after they unpacked all their stuff onto the tour bus, and she’d thought about it for approximately three seconds before snatching it and chucking it at her pile of clothes.

That first night, neither her nor Gorgug had gotten any sleep, sitting on the floor of the bus between their bunks, anxiously going over lyric and style choices for the next night’s show. So the shirt had waited until after their first concert, when both of them had been too tired to do much more than change out of sweaty, smoke-filled clothes and fall into their respective beds. It had smelled comfortingly of the Thistlesprings’ homemade fabric softener, but Fig’s varying states of cleanliness have not helped the smell stick around.

Now, though, cuddled up against Gorgug’s chest, she doesn’t miss the shirt’s smell. It’s nothing compared to the real thing.

“It’s okay if you took it,” Gorgug says, cracking a small smile. “It looks better on you anyway.”

“Since when do you have an eye for fashion, Mr. Hoodies-In-Summer?”

He reaches around and pokes her on the cheek, “Hey, my hoodies are a catch for women ages thirteen to twenty-eight.”

“We did sell, like, a literal ton last night,” Fig says, snorting.

There’s a lull in the conversation. Bill and Ted shred some sick air guitar.

“...It’s a little weird,” Gorgug says, eventually, in that introspective tone of his that promises paternal questioning.

“What is?”

“That we’re sophomores in high school and have so many people, like, caring about us. Or, I mean, watching us. Like, I guess we’re famous, or something? That’s weird.”

“Huh.”

“What?”

“I guess I never thought about it like that.” Fig’s been too caught up in the whole being famous thing to think about what it means for her, a fifteen year old, to be famous. She isn’t a fan of thinking about it, actually, and decides to put it off even further. This is why Gorgug’s the thoughtful, considerate one.

“That’s probably why you’re better at songwriting than I am,” Gorgug muses. “You just do what feels right.”

Fig shifts a little, so she can look at him better, his features cast in the shifting colors of the crystal. “Dude, that’s like all drumming is. Like, just playing your emotions and not overthinking it. And you’re literally the world’s best drummer.”

“Oh,” Gorgug laughs, “I wouldn’t say that.”

“You are. What other teenager gets to go on a tour while they’re still in high school?”

“Um. The Jonas Brothers?”

“I mean this in the nicest way possible, but if you compare our music to the Jonas Brothers again I will stab you with my horns.”

“I really don't think they’re poky enough to do that—”

“Stab, Gorgug. With force. You wouldn’t like it.”

“Okay, fine. I’ll take your word for it.”

“Wo-ah,” Ted says, on the crystal.

“Wicked,” Bill chimes in.

“What if we talked like them at our next concert?” Fig asks, “Just come out with full Bill and Ted voices and keep them up the whole show.”

“That sounds… hard.”

“No, it would be fun! Like, um,” Fig switches into the voice, drawing out her vowels and smiling dumbly, “we’ll totally get babes like this, dude.”

“You can get princess babes,” Gorgug says. “I’ve got Zelda. That’s basically the same thing.”

“Oh my god, you’re too cute,” Fig burrows closer to him, back in her usual voice.

She can tell Gorgug’s blushing by the bashful tone of his silence. “Um, thanks. I should probably call her tomorrow.”

“Do you mind if I join too? I really like her, she’s nice. And sick as hell.”

“Yeah, that would be fun! We can show her our set, maybe.”

“Totally! If school wasn’t on right now we could’ve brought her along.”

“I don’t know, wouldn’t that, like, Beatles us?”

“Did you seriously just mention another boy band? Also, beyond that, did you use the Beatles as a verb?”

“Er.”

“Sometimes, I wonder how you ever made it into the punk-rock scene. And then I remember that I invited you.”

“Thanks for doing that,” Gorgug says, wrapping his other arm around Fig’s shoulders. “I never really said it before, but, thank you. This has, um, it’s meant a lot to me.”

“Oh, it’s nothing, dude.”

“It’s, like, kind of everything right now, Fig.”

“Oh.”

“So, I guess, um, thank you. For inviting me to join a band with you and taking me on tour.”

“I, uh… Of course. Thanks for being my drummer, Gorgug. I’ll always take you on my adventures.”

“And I’ll always go with you.”

Bill says, “Excellent,” on the crystal screen, smiling at Ted with big eyes.

Yeah, Fig thinks, as Gorgug sighs and smiles into the top of her head. Excellent.

#bellewrites #this one was short so i figured id post it like this #fantasy high #dimension 20 #fig faeth #gorgug thistlespring #i want more content about them so i decided to make it #fic #fanfic #hopefully the formatting works if it doesnt i sincerely apologize

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enternalempires · 4 years

Text

A Surprise Visit

This is a Lukanette fic, with majority of fluff and a lil hurt. Hope you enjoy! Haven’t figured out how to use links yet but my Ao3 username is the same!

“Did you know,” Marinette said, twisting an ebony and silver ring around on her finger. It was one of Luka’s and she rarely, if ever, took it off. When he went off to college and moved to Lyon, a mere two hour train ride from Paris, he gave her a couple pieces of his jewelry, his favorite hoodie, a Jagged Stone t-shirt, and a promise of returning. “That I miss you?”

“Yeah, Melody, I know.” The Musician’s voice was clearly wistful despite. “I miss you too, more than you can imagine.”

“I think I can imagine it well enough,” She whispered back.

They were on a call, speakerphone allowing them to lay back on their separate balconies and star-gaze. The black spaces between the stars seems farther apart than usual, the moon more alone than before.

The distance felt longer than it was.

The days went by so slow, each hour lacking something and each night dragging on and missing a vital piece needed for good sleep. That wasn’t a piece, however, but a person— Luka. She wanted him closer, close enough to hold and laugh with and see that dopey smile he always had around her and blush at his sly comments and cheek-nuzzles after he kisses her forehead.

She misses the boy that, for the last couple of years, had become her best friend.

Alya was… supportive and an amazing friend but she just didn’t understand.

Luka did, though.

Whenever she needed someone to listen without judgement or without trying to solve her problems for her— to just listen, he was there. And when the musician needed someone to talk to him, to distract him from his thoughts and whatever was making his mind a too-heavy place to be, she was there for him.

He was her shoulder to cry on and who made her laugh and she was the same, holding him when his heart ached in his chest with memories it couldn’t forget.

They were each other’s rocks in an otherwise chaotic, always shifting tsunami of a life.

Marinette fully supported Luka following his dreams and going to college and getting a degree that will push him along and better his musical career— she just wished it didn’t hurt so much to be away from him.

She had half a school year left before her time in Lycee would be up and she’d be, coincidentally, going to the same university as him. It didn’t seem to come quick enough, though.

They were both busy. Luka had gigs with his new band called the Silver-hearts of Serpents, practice, and extracurricular activities and she had to work on her designs for anyone who commissioned MDC— the name on her website— and they both had schoolwork and classes to attend to so that meant little to no time to catch up with each other during the day.

Thankful for being in the time zone, they tried to make it work and usually called before going to bed and when they woke up and texted in between classes or things that kept them on a constantly shifting schedule.

But it wasn’t the same as just being able to go across town and curl up into their favorite person’s arms and just sleep the weight of the day’s events away. It wasn’t the same as laughing when stranded in a heavy downpour because neither of them checked if it was going to rain. It wasn’t the same as chasing Andre’s Sweetheart Icecream around for half the day just to drop it from tripping over themselves seconds later even though neither of them believed in the magic behind it.

It just wasn’t the same.

It wasn’t fair either, Marinette decided, that the boy I fell in love with and who genuinely likes me back has to be so far away.

But she didn’t tell him that— not when she knew it would make Luka feel even guiltier for leaving. They were each other’s greatest support system and they always would be, and he didn’t like being gone when she was handling so much.

That so much being Alya unable to understand that Marinette simply didn’t like Adrien anymore— her falling for Luka and falling for him hard; falling for him in a way that felt deeper and closer than anything she ever did for her former crush— and still creating schemes to get them together, to the point where it was getting dangerous and rather ridiculous.

She had homework, exams coming up, commissions, hours needed to help her parent’s in the bakery, other hours dedicated to helping friends, and being Ladybug and the burden that came with the earrings (not that, to her knowledge, Luka knew about).

To top that off, she dealt with a lot more frustrating people at Lycee than she did at Dupont, including belligerent teenage boys who don’t understand the word no or respect boundaries.

So she really missed him.

So much so that it left her heart aching.

Only a couple months, she reminded herself. It would only be a couple more months till the summer. Till they would be at the same University (and sharing the same apartment— it’s less expensive and they always used to joke that they’d make great roommates with how often they spent over at the other’s place).

“Melody,” Luka said, voice deeper than before but just as smooth. “Did you fall asleep on me?”

“No,” Marinette yawned, covering her mouth with a small squeak as she curled up and turned towards her phone, squinting at the bright screen that showed his contact picture— dopey smile and all. “I just got lost in thought, sorry.”

“It’s okay, baby.” He reassured and she felt her mouth tug up into a warm smile. She loved when he called her that or his other pet names for her, it made her feel special. “But you sound tired and I know you have a test tomorrow morning, you should go to bed.”

“But Luka,” She whined. “I want to talk with you more. I really missed you today and, and I have more things that I want to tell you.”

“Come on, my Melody,” He coaxed and she pouted. He knew she’d do what he wanted when he used that stupid, attractive, comforting voice. It simply wasn’t fair. “Both of us are free tomorrow afternoon, remember? You’re only going to watch Kitty Section practice then going home and I only have my own practice to attend to. I’m sure we’ll be able to talk after.” Then his voice got softer. “I’ll always be here for you and I’ll always listen to what you have to say, but I don’t want to keep you up when that risks your grades and, more importantly, your health.”

“I hate it when you’re right,” Marinette grumbles, groggily getting up and moving over to her hatch where she easily slipped into her bed and snuggled under the covers. “Can you at least talk to me until I fall asleep?”

“Of course, beautiful.” Luka agreed, making a sleepy blush to climb her cheeks. “Anything in particular?”

“Just about things that make you happy.”

“Well, I know this one girl and she’s the most incredible person I ever met. She had amazing blue eyes and is a very talented fashion designer. Her smiles, man, her smiles make me melt and—”

“Luka,” Marinette giggles. “Not about me.”

“But you make me the happiest,” He protests.

“Sap,” She smiles, eyes closing as she laughs quietly one more time, head sinking into her pillow. “Can you… can you sing me something?”

“Mhm,” Luka hums and it’s not long before she’s falling asleep to the sound of her song, of the one he made for her.

That night she dreamt of two tattooed arms holding her and teal dyed, messy hair falling in front of aqua-blue eyes and woke up alone with tears staining her pillow— Tikki offered her a warm smile and a pat on the cheek but it didn’t seem to help the cold, lonely feeling in her chest.

* * *

The day had not been kind to Marinette.

She woke up with a headache, didn’t have enough time for a proper meal but remembered to grab a granola bar after Luka texted her and reminded her to eat, got a pretty bad bruise on her wrist from getting it slammed in a closing door, tripped multiple times, and managed to ruin her lecture’s notes with her coffee.

On the brightside she kept Luka’s hoodie clean— as today she decided to wear it over a simple white t-shirt and paired it with a black skater skirt, lace stockings, and combat books— and managed to not face-plant into anything by the time school ended and she was allowed to pack her things and start the walk to the boathouse to watch Kitty Section preform.

Since Luka was in college and lived too far away they had to find a new guitarist, just like Luka had to find new members to form a band.

Luckily Juleka mentioned Marc, Nathaniel’s boyfriend and the writer to his artist, played the guitar and was really good at it so within no time they were back to practicing and finding a new dynamic for the group.

Luka got lucky with some of his old friends and formed his new band which was just as good, if not better, than his old one but that was only due to a lot of extra practice and more opportunities to grow.

Axel was the band’s bassist, Bash was the drummer, Tyra was the back-up vocalist and keyboardist, and Luka was the guitarist, lead vocalist, and leader.

Marinette couldn’t wait until she could see them perform live. Luka had sent her videos and recordings of their music and songs or just of him singing or playing guitar but she knew first hand that nothing compared to seeing it in person.

And she knew that, either way, his band would be amazing.

“Marinette!” A soft voice called from behind her, making the young bluenette startle and turn slightly on the sidewalk to see who was calling her. It was Rose, a sweet smile on her lips and she tugs her girlfriend along.

As soon as her and Juleka catch up, Marinette tilts her head to the dark-haired girl’s silent greeting and drifts to the side so the couple wouldn’t have to awkwardly get out of the way.

“You’re watching us practice, right?” Rose asks. There’s an energetic bounce in her step that Marinette can’t help but to be suspicious of, and the slight smirk on Juleka’s lips don’t help.

“Yeah,” Marinette says, adjusting her purse to be in front of her as a group of obvious tourists cater to the side and almost crash into her, not wanting Tikki to get tossed around. “Do you know what you guys are playing yet? I heard Ivan mention something about revamping one of your original songs.”

“Oo!” The blonde giggles, wide eyes excited as she starts to rant about the different things her and Ivan were brainstorming earlier to improve their old work.

Her girlfriend nodded and added a couple quiet things here and there while Marinette listened, pilotely following along with the conversation and her mind strayed to Luka and thinking about what he was up to.

No doubt working on his own songs, hanging out with his band mates as they practice.

“Mylene is coming too,” Rose tells her and Marinette blinks back into reality, narrowly dodging a man skating with a yelped out apology. “So even if you won’t be alone, you’ll have company!”

“Uh,” She pauses, racking her brain to know if she missed something in the conversation. “Who’s going to watch the practice other than Mylene? Is Nate coming to support Marc?”

“Nate?” Her friend paused her skipping to let out an excited squeal. “Oh, you don’t know! Well—”

Juleka suddenly spun her girlfriend into her arms and pulled her into a kiss, causing Marinette to step away awkwardly but not retreat. Paris was a welcoming city and full of diverse and accepting people but there would always be that one jerk who had a problem with people loving other people and finding a problem if they happened to be the same gender— so she would keep a look out just in case someone wanted to cause a problem.

When the pair of girlfriends broke away a couple seconds later, Rose seemed too flustered to continue or even remember what she was saying and the bluenette laughed at how smug the blonde’s girlfriend looked.

A couple minutes went by filled with light banter between the couple and an amused Marinette refusing to join a side before the three of them got to the docs and made their way onto the boathouse.

“The rest of the band will be here soon and I want to be here when they do to ask Marc something,” Juleka says, a smirk just visible under the half of her face hidden by hair. “Can you do me a favor and grab me an extra sweater from Luka’s side of the room, Marinette? I started to keep some of my things in there when he left.”

“Uh, sure?” The bluenette nods, frowning slightly. “But didn’t he say not to—”

“Oh!” Rose suddenly bursts, whipping around to face her girlfriend. “That’s clever! You—”

And then they start kissing again and that’s Marinette’s cue to go.

She passes Anarka on the haul and gives her a friendly wave that the older woman returns with a wide smirk that she now knows her daughter inherited and quickly went below deck and crossed over to where Luka’s room was.

She grips her elbows with both hands, rocking on the balls of her feet with every step as she paces down the hallway, trying to hype herself up enough to actually go into his room.

It would be so… strange.

She was never in there without him being there before and it would be full of his things but the most important ones gone— the wall of guitar picks packed up and now put up in his apartment’s living room from what she saw from the video he sent, the little trinkets gone from the desk now bare, and his bed only having a bare mattress and the walls without postures or any pictures.

She doesn’t know how it would feel but she knows that it won’t be good, she knows it will make the empty ache in her heart stretch all the wider.

But now she’s in front of Luka’s door and she doesn’t have a choice.

Marinette took a deep breath and turned the hatch on the door, the metal giving a slight creak to it as she awkwardly used her bodyweight to open it, grumbling to herself as it hung heavily halfway open— not noticing the group of three that were holding their breath at her entry from the middle of the room— and one of the sleeves that were way too big for her got caught in one of the crooks on the edge.

“Aw,” Her brows furrowed and she pouted as she tried to tug the sleeve free, but of course the world was against her and she somehow made it worse. “Mr. Sleeve, I’ve had a really bad day, can you please just— ahah! Thank you!”

Freeing herself from the door, Marinette pulled the sleeves over her hands for better control of the jacket and twisted around to begin the search for Juleka’s sweater when she met a pair of vivid brown eyes— eyes she definitely wasn’t prepared for.

“Eek!” Squeaking and startled, the young heroine takes a stumbling step back and ends up falling onto her butt, skirt thankfully in place and with her wide, blue eyes traitorously filling with water.

“Oh my God, she fell!”

“Shit, Bash, you scared her!”

“Aw, that’s a cute skirt. Do you think she’d tell me where she got it?”

Came the voices of the three strangers that were now all focused on her, eyes pinned onto the girl that fell as she stared right back, a slow race of tears from the day’s stress finally snapping trailing down her cheeks.

“W-Who are you guys?” Marinette stammered out, mind reeling and anxiety having already taken hold of her even before she noticed the trio, just noticing the sting in her palms and the burning heat of the ripped open skin. “You, you shouldn’t be in here, this is a p-private room!”

“I’m Bash Vulcan,” The guy with vivid brown eyes— and the one who scared her— had slicked back blonde hair, a thick black sweatshirt, ripped skinny jeans with converse, and a shit-eating grin on his face as he offered her a hand up.

She refused and just remained on the floor, not trusting her legs to keep her up if she stood at the moment. Feeling extraordinarily pathetic, Marinette just couldn’t focus on anything besides her pounding heart. She defeated Akumas on a weekly basis but couldn’t handle a couple strangers?

It made her feel so weak.

And those stupid tears were still falling.

“Sorry this asshole scared you, he didn’t mean to. I’m Axel, by the way. Axel Jupiter?” The one who swore and reprimanded Bash gave her a sympathetic smile that she barely registered and waved at her, his light brown hair flopping in front of his face from where it reached his shoulders. He had a punk style to him— and he said his name like it was supposed to mean something.

Maybe it was.

Maybe on a good day or with a slightly calmer heart Marinettte would’ve placed who they are but she just came up blank. Blank and panicking.

The only girl in the Trio had a pixie cut that was a pastel green and a nose ring and anyone with eyes could tell that her style was gothic anad that she simply didn’t give a shit by the tilted smirk of her lips— that only deepened as she pointed to Marinette’s skirt and asked, “Where’d ya get it, girly? I’m Tyra Bellona, I guess since these idiots gave their last name too.”

Tyra. Axel. Bash.

They’re in Luka’s boathouse. They’re in Luka’s room. They’re in Luka’s band.

The Band.

Luka.

“L-Luka?” Marinette sniffled, wiping away her tears as she sat up and winced at the way her palms stung, the broken skin and forming scabs still tender. “Why are you guys here without Luka?” She asked, using the hatch’s edge to pull herself into a standing position.

It was Bash’s turn to look suspicious and he stepped closer and pointed his finger at her, eyebrows raised, “Everyone was supposed to know why and where. So who are you, huh? Whatcha doin’ here? Are you some crazy fangirl that snuck on board?”

“What?” The young heroine swiped at her tears again, voice slightly croaky as she took a shaky step back. “N-no! I’m not a fangirl! I was getting a sweatshirt for Juleka and—”

“I smell lies! What’s your name? Don’t lie. I can smell them. I can.”

“Man,” Axel throws something at the back of Bash’s head, making his bandmate back up. “Leave the girl alone, you prick. Look at her jacket? Look familiar?”

Tyra and Bash looked her up and down, the gothic chick laughing after a second before she shoves the latter in the shoulder with a cocky look playing on her features, “Just wait until Couffaine finds out you made his girl cry, Vulcan. I can’t wait to see him flip his shit.”

“Wait,” Marinette drew the attention back to herself. “Luka is here?”

“Aw, he didn’t tell her,” Bash snickered making Axel hit his gut before gesturing to the other door that leads back to the deck but on Juleka’s side, and explaining how Luka snuck up there thinking that ‘his melody’ wasn’t there yet and wanting to make sure that his demon of a sister didn’t get too smug and spill the beans.

Marinette tiredly, but with excitement running through her veins, dashed back through the hatch door— being quickly followed by the bandmates, because who would want to miss the drama?— and ran all the way up to the deck.

Anarka laughed whole-heartedly as she passed and yelled out, “Go get ‘em, lass!” that had her blushing up to her ears but she was simply too happy to care.

Luka was here! In hugging distance!

And the jerk didn’t even tell her!

She saw Luka sitting on the couch, his guitar next to him and his leg bouncing with nervous energy. He ran his hand through his hair and tugged, an anxious look on his face as he talks to Rose about something, eyes closed as he grumbled.

Which was perfect because he didn’t even see Marinette and didn’t get the choice until she was throwing herself on top of him, legs on either side of his and knees tucked into his hips as she wrapped her arms around his waist and buried her face into his neck.

“Oomph!” Luka let out a loud breath, eyes flying open at the abrupt weight settled onto his person but then softening as he saw the girl in his lap, his arms coming around her and holding her to him just as tight— his nose nudging the top of her head as he took in her scent of chocolate cookies and vanilla. “Melody?”

Rose was squealing somewhere in the background while Juleka and Bash snickered, Axel cooing at them while Tyra complained about the disgusting gooey-ness but all of that lended into the background.

All that mattered was the two of them— the fact that they were here, in the same space, breathing each other in, holding onto the other as tightly as they could.

All that mattered was them.

Not Juleka’s scheming falling into place, not Rose’s excited chatter or how smug his mom had been or how horrible the day had been leading up to this point. Just her and just him.

“No,” Marinette mumbled, flexing her arms around him as she fully relaxed into him. “You don’t get to talk. You might forget to tell me something very, very important. Like, I don’t know, coming back to Paris?”

“I’m sorry, baby.” Luka nuzzled his hand against her hip, rubbing his thumb in circles as he mumbled into her hair. “I wanted it to be a surprise.”

“I missed you,” She replied, forgiveness in her tone. “But let me be prepared next time.”

“I will,” He kissed her forehead, putting the tiniest amount of space between them. “And you know I missed you too, right?”

She shook her head.

“Liar,” Luka tapped his fingers on her sides and dug them in a bit, tickling her and making Marinette giggle loudly as she still refused to move away from him. “You just gonna stay there, baby?”

“Mhm,” The young heroine hummed, placing a light kiss onto the edge of his jaw.

“Did you meet everyone already?” He asked. “Assuming that’s how you found out I was here— seeing them, I mean?”

“She met us,” Tyra cut in, a cackle in her voice that doesn’t go unnoticed. “Vulcan made her cry and scared her, she fell down and hurt her hands I think.”

“He also then got all up in your girl’s face and accused her of being a crazy fangirl.” Axel oh-so-helpfully replied.

“Traitors!”

“Bash.”

“Oh, fuck.” The aforementioned boy squeaks out at Luka’s growl. “Dude, I am so sorry, I didn’t know she was—”

“We’ll talk later about it,” Luka brushed him off— which, coming from a Couffaine, is never good as they are people who like to be blunt and solve issues as soon as possible. To delay it means that, well, you screwed up majorly. “Melody, let me see your hands.”

“No.” Marinette grumbles, earning laughs from Tyra and his sister, who the guitarist quickly flips off. “I’m comfortable and it’s just scraped and I missed you.”

“Good luck getting her off in the next hour,” Juleka said, her hair pushed out of her face so when the young heroine peeked out from his neck she could see a sly smile spreading across her features. “Marinette’s been whining about not seeing you for weeks and she’s as stubborn as they come.”

Marinette flips her off, too.

“Aw!” Rose giggles, bouncing on her toes. “You’re becoming a real Boat Kid, Mari! They’re all adorably crass like that!”

“Says you, Rose,” She shot back. “I’ve known you for years and you’ve always sworn like a sailor so it was no surprise to me that you started dating one.” This got laughs from Axel and Luka, the latter’s chuckles she could feel in her own chest.

“Hey,” Juleka said, wrapping an arm around her girlfriend. “Leave my Manic Unicorn alone, it’s cute that her favorite word is fuck.”

“I watched your Manic Unicorn swear out a teacher when we were seven.”

“I genuinely would’ve paid to see that.”

“Oh!” Rose squealed, a soft expression on her face. “I remember that, she was so rude! Mrs. Palanchi never did anything about the girls who bullied Mari. It made me cry.”

“Aw, it’s okay. Marinette can’t get bothered by them now,” Juleka patted her head and blew a raspberry onto her cheek that had her girlfriend’s sullen expression go all giddy again.

After knowing Rose for so many years, she knew the blondie was a walking mood-whiplash, so she wasn’t really surprised.

“Wait, wait,” Azel held up a hand, drawing attention as his eyebrows pinched together. “Your girl’s name is Marinette? I thought it was Melody!”

“Nope,” The young heroine says. “It’s Marinette, you can call me Mari though. Rockstar here just calls me Melody.”

“Well then it’s nice to meet you, Marinette.” Axel did a playful bow, reminding her of a different boy in black. “This prick was always shy about the details even when he could go on and on for literal hours about you. Where’d you meet?”

“Erm…”

What was an appropriate way to say ‘his room because I was having a breakdown over a different guy that I was in love with and we sort of just clicked from there after he teased me about my stutter’?

“Jules had her over to watch the band practice,” Luka, thankfully, cut in— probably having felt her body tense slightly. “We became friends after that and just got closer since then.”

Not as close as she wanted, as she’d rather be a girlfriend than best friend but this was Luka and she’d take as much as him as she could and love it until she didn’t know how to anymore.

“When did you guys start dating?” Tyra asks, popping the gum that she just put into her mouth. “Couple years, right?”

Luka’s silent for a painfully long second before informing, “We’re not dating.”

Someone Marinette doesn’t see who but would take a wild guess that it’s Bash as he starts choking on the water he had been trying to swallow and the other two bandmates start protesting their confusion.

Sometimes she questioned if Luka still liked her— but Marinette had her fair share in experiencing unrequited feelings and she knows that this is not what that looks like— and it’s times like these that she hopes against hope that he likes her as much as she likes him because she fell and she fell hard and she can’t be the only one who fell.

Not again, not this time.

Not with him.

The next hour passes by in a breeze. Mylene and Ivan show up with Marc and soon Kitty Section is practicing, the other band handing out advice and compliments where they’re earned and Anarka drifting off to an unknown place to let the teenagers ‘cause mayhem as they please’.

Ivan and Mylene left early for a double date they had been planning with Alya and Nino and somehow they managed to convince Marc to drag Nate along so it was a group date.

Eventually everyone settled down into a circle around eight at night, having eaten and caught up or got to know each other better.

Marinette learned that Tyra was a little snarky but overall entertaining in the way she so passionately hated everything but loved to mess with Bash— Bash himself was a bit of an idiot but a goofball and it made him loveable enough to forgive the scabs on her palms (Luka didn’t agree with this). Axel was Luka’s best friend and he was a generally sane person but he was fiercely competitive and loved to cause arguments.

It was the most fun the young heroine had in a while and the boy she loved was by her side, so what could go wrong?

“Let’s play Truth or Dare,” Rose giggled, turning to Juleka with wide, puppy-dog eyes. “Oh, please! Can we?”

And like the lovesick fool Jules was she gave in.

Marinette knew something was either going to go wrong or horribly embarrassing from her by the wicked gleam in the purple haired girl’s eyes and, not even five minutes later (and after Bash was dared to drink hotdog juice), Luka got a dare.

Do Seven Minutes in Heaven with ‘his Melody’.

Stupid Juleka.

But also thank you Juleka.

Which— after making sure it was okay with her— he agreed to so it was safe to say all her nerves were on fire. And it absolutely didn’t help that Tyra snarkingly called out, “If you start bumping uglies, put on a sock on the door.” after them.

“One of these days,” Luka sighed out as he closed his bedroom door behind them. “I’m really going to kill my sister.”

“I’ll help,” Marinette giggled at her, though her face was still a burning red at what Tyra had insinuated— which they, of course, wouldn’t be doing.

“So,” He said and her smile widened at his semi-awkward tone, her hands bracing herself against the hatch as she watched the musician sit on his bed, twisting the bracelet on his wrist. “What now?”

She wouldn’t say it was entertaining watching Luka be so nervous but it definitely wasn’t something she saw very often so it definitely was amusing in some sense of the word. Usually she was the awkward one who didn’t know what to do with herself, not him.

“What?” She raised an eyebrow. “You don’t know how to play?”

Luka gave her a flat look, “I’m in University now. Of course I know how to play seven minutes in heaven.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“Baby…” He sighed. “Don’t get me wrong, because I do want to kiss you, I just— I don’t think… fuck, this is why I have my guitar.” He grumbled. “Words are not my thing.”

“That’s okay,” Marinette smiles at him, tugging his jacket’s sleeves down further her arms. “I mean, you’ve seen my stammering. We’ll just not be good with words together.”

“Together?” Luka questions, a slight quirk to his lips as his head tilted, teal hair obscuring his eyes.

“Mhm,” She nods. “Together. You and me.”

“I like the sound of that,” He smirks back at her, reaching slightly to tug her forward, the young heroine now standing between his legs. “You asked if I knew how to play— it’s my turn for the question. Want me to teach you how?”

“And you say you’re not good with words,” She sasses, a giggle falling from her mouth as Luka rolls his eyes and takes her chin into his hand, dragging her face down so they are eye-level, both of their eyes closing, and kisses her.

It’s not a heated kiss, not one that had Marinette’s heart racing but… it was one that made something slot into place in her mind, like something was missing before but finally found its way home.

As his mouth moved against hers, she leaned into his touch, hands fluttering through his hair and tugging as the strands, his own moving to cup the back of her neck and to the side of her jaw, angling her head for better access.

The emotions spilled out between them; the love they kept tucked into their sleeves, the joy, the passion and overwhelming amount of just… feeling safe and comfortable with each other.

It was by no means a kiss without soul.

Luka would go back to his university and she’d be stuck here for another month, their lives were so different and they were busy. Marinette had the responsibilities with the Miraculous and he had his band and they both had classes and a future neither could write out a solid plan for no matter how hard they tried.

So maybe it wasn’t the best timing, maybe it wasn’t the best situation or the best reason to kiss or the best way they could have gotten together, by a surprise visit nonetheless— but they were together.

And, at the end of the day, that’s all that matters, isn’t it?

#lukanette fic #lukanette #luka couffaine #band #marinette dupain cheng #ladybug #viperion #fanfic #lukanette prompt #surprise visit #hurt/comfort #fluff #angst

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phantom-of-nrc · 3 years

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Hello! First of all, thank you for doing this, I would like to have a twst matchup.

I'm not a minor, an ENTP Aquarius 8w7 self-preserve and chaotic evil. Am a decisive and assertive person, basically a natural-born leader. Though I like to procrastinate and lazing around, I always finish my job in perfection. Academically, I excel in school easily though I am not a perfectionist. I am a messy and quirky person, I don't mind imperfections. Am a stubborn and rebellious person, I would question laws and I don't mind getting into an argument as long it would be beneficial in long-term investment. I can't cook nor swimming, just naturally bad at it. People call me different, unique, yet passionate and cheerful. I don't adjust myself to others, I believe everyone has their originality and I hate stereotypes. I rarely get carried over by emotions. I wouldn't say I am responsible, but I am independent.

My hobbies would include sleeping, reading, gaming, and surfing the net. I am a really curious person so I don't mind challenges or unfamiliar stuff. I am confident as I always try to keep a good face in public through fashion and makeup. I have a soft spot for animals, I found them adorable and need to be protected.

My preference is someone intelligent as I value knowledge and leaning toward the introvert side to balance my extrovert-ness.

Additional information: Oh wait I forgot to mention am a girl on my previous ask, Once again, thank you!

ℌ𝔬𝔴 ℭ𝔬𝔪𝔢?

🦁 Well, well. This is a surprise.. It seems that you’ve caught the attention of the lion himself!

🦁 As lazy as this man is, he is far from airheaded, this beastman has plotted his way through, if he wasn’t such a sloth, I have no doubt he’d be one of the bright students of NRC. All he really needs is some form of motivation... Perhaps in the form of a fellow lazy little herbivore..?

🦁 While you do finish your job, Leona here isn’t exactly... That responsible for his school duties, opting to nap under a tree instead of attending classes so he could graduate out of the school.. Not that he’d complain, he prefers living on the campus rather than the place his oh-so noble brother rules over. I have a feeling that there might be friction between the two of you, an enemies-to-lovers trope, perhaps? This might be interesting...

🦁 He wouldn’t really pay that much mind to you, thinking you might just be another herbivore but imagine the surprise if he sees how bold you are.. In a way, he did stereotype you. A bad move on his part, but it did leave an interesting discovery on his part.. You’re definitely not a herbivore.. You are now hereby dubbed as ‘Omnivore’.

🦁 There are plenty of students with leader-like qualities in this school. For goodness sake, the dorm leaders of each dorm wasn’t a dorm leader for nothing. But perhaps it’s the streak of rebelliousness in you that got him looking your way. Most people usually like to be organized.. Take Riddle and Vil for example.. Discovering that not only are you rebellious, but you can also be messy and quirky, you don’t mind imperfection?? Now that got Leona’s eyebrows lifting up. Adding your originality, your uniqueness, now that got him hooked on curiosity... Alas, this man is too lazy to get up from his napping spot to even approach you.

🦁 There was one thing though, once the two of you spoke to each other, he’d learn how you’re not one to bend on your knees that easily. It... It somehow irks him, I guess that comes with the charm.. The two of you may clash foreheads somewhere in the near future.. It seems that Leona made not one, but two rivals now..

🦁 He’d be surprised once he learns you’re naturally bad at swimming or cooking. He’d be ordering Ruggie to come to save you if someone ever dares to push you in some source of water, but if there’s no one around.. He’ll have no other choice but to save you himself. He wouldn’t want entertainment to leave him now.

🦁 Sleeping and napping is the number one must-do in your quality time with him, he doesn’t know why but the nap is much better with you. If you’re not in the mood to sleep, opting to play games, read or just surf the internet, please let him sleep on you or your lap.. Not like you have a choice, he’d just lay on you without a word-

🦁 The curiosity and confidence you have is something he’ll grow fond of. Although he won’t know it, the fondness would creep on him before he realizes it. Also, fashion and make-up? Please help this hopeless beastman.. This man wears SANDALS in his school uniform-

🦁 Once this man spots you, whether in the crowd or in the hall, from afar.. His pupils would dilate. If you take a closer look, you’d see his eyes dilating like a half-overgrown cat he is. If you noticed his dilating eyes and you point it out, he’d be denying your... ‘Claims’..

𝔐𝔢𝔢𝔱𝔦𝔫𝔤:

Yet another clear day in the land of Twisted Wonderland, a calm and gentle breeze, the sun up high in the sky, the rustling of leaves as the wind weaved through them. Indeed, it was the perfect day for a nap. With peace, the lion can fulfill a satisfying nap under a tree.

It was one of those rare days where the Ramshackle residents get a whole day for themselves, no overblots, no problems from other dormitories that the Ramshackle residents need to clean up, no Headmaster Dire Crowley shoving tasks to the students of Ramshackle. Finally, a day you can dedicate for yourself, the constant responsibilities Dire Crowley would put on the two of you despite the other schoolwork that required your attention can get tiring. So to finally have a day for yourselves is a blessing itself...

With a perfect day, it was a chance one couldn’t pass up for outdoor activities. Being one of those few people who decided to catch some fresh air, perhaps find a shade to take shelter on as you resume catching up with the internet. What better place to go to than the Botanical Garden and its beautiful floras?

It took a while to reach the Botanical Garden. You had to admit, it was difficult to choose a spot to relax in when there were so many aesthetically pleasing and relaxing spots to choose from. After a slightly long time of searching for a spot, a rather large tree had come to catch your eye. Its trunk was thick and sturdy, branches were covered with leaves, the shade cast by the leaves was more than enough to protect you from the heat of the sun.

Settling underneath the tree, into the shade it cast, you opened the book currently in your arms. Savoring the aesthetic of the situation, it felt calming. A good temporary change of pace compared to the days of running around with Yuu and Grim. A much-needed relaxation after being dragged into another world and a much-needed time free of any interruption.

You were invested in the book, never looking away from the words as the occasional rustling of leaves didn't bother you. That was until...

“Leona!”

You saw a boy with animal ears and tail, hyena ears and tail. You’ve occasionally seen many of them around the campus. Your eyes then traveled to wherever the hyena boy was looking. What greeted you were half-lidded summer green eyes, looking back at you.

There was something about meeting his gaze that made your heart jump. It wasn’t love, but perhaps you were only startled. Was it the slit of his eyes? Perhaps.

Somewhere in the future, those slit eyes that somehow startled you will no longer startle you, but make your heart spike up in love. Those slit eyes that would startle you would dilate the moment his gaze lands on you.

#twst wonderland #twisted wonderland #twisted wonderland x reader #twisted wonderland matchups #twisted wonderland matchup #twisted stars #twst matchup #twst wonderland x reader #twst matchups #Matchup #Matchups

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spookyboywhump · 3 years

Note

Mayhaps a cool prompt??? Young Everett and Eli at home, sitting together, Everett comforting Eli through fears about future planning?

Hi hello I loved this, and also I’m so sorry in advance for the second half of this drabble because it just kinda happened. Also apparently everything I write with these boys ends up being 2000+ words and a lot of dialogue

CW: Mentions of a neglectful parent

***

Elias tiredly stared at the screen in front of him, reading and rereading the same paragraph several times, trying to will his brain to cooperate and focus for once. His eyes kept straying away though, glancing around the dark room, looking back to the screen and going over the several tabs he had open, occasionally he’d switch tabs to choose a new song to play on low volume, he usually wasn’t able to focus without music- though right now, even that wasn’t enough.

He sighed and moved the laptop off his lap, setting it on the bed and tiredly rubbing his eyes. It was almost midnight, and he already dreaded school the next day because he knew he wouldn’t be getting much sleep. He considered going to try and find something to eat, wondering if that might’ve helped him focus, but he already knew he wouldn’t find anything and he didn’t want to waste his time, not more than he already was anyway.

He perked up when he heard the front door to the apartment open, Everett always tried to be quiet so he wouldn’t wake their mom but the door creaked no matter what they tried to do to fix it. Eli liked the warning, liked not being startled when someone came home. It took all his self control to not leap off his bed and go to greet him, he was usually tired when he got home from work and he didn’t want to bother him, though he knew Everett would say he wasn’t. It didn’t take long for him to wander back to their room though, coming in with a plastic bag from the store down the street hanging off his arm.

“Hey,” Eli said, looking up at him from where he sat, “How was work?”

“Exhausting.” He sighed, reaching into the bag and taking out a can, passing it to Elias as he sat down at the desk between their beds, facing his younger brother. “What are you up to?” He asked, gesturing to the computer.

“School stuff. Looking at colleges and all that, or, trying to anyway. My eyes keep unfocusing.” He said, popping the tab off the energy drink and taking a swig from the can. “Actually, all of me keeps unfocusing.”

“You should go to bed then.” Everett told him, though he had been the one to bring him more sugar to keep him up through the night, even getting a can for himself. “Why are you worrying about schools and stuff anyway, aren’t you like, only the second year in high school? You have time, right?”

“I guess I have time but, it can’t hurt to start looking early. It’s more wishful thinking than anything.” He shrugged, leaning over to the computer, switching tabs to turn off the music still playing.

“What do you mean “wishful thinking”?” He asked.

“I mean, it’s not like I’m going to actually be able to go to any of them.” He shrugged.

“What makes you see that? You’re a fucking genius, Eli, you could get into any school you wanted.” He leaned forward, arms resting on his thighs.

��“It’s not a matter of intelligence or grades, it’s a matter of money. You know, that thing we’re chronically lacking in.” He snickered, setting the can he held on the desk beside him.

“Yeah, but aren’t there like, scholarships and shit? I don’t know, I didn’t really get that far, but I’m sure there’s something you could do.”

“There is, if I could somehow manage going to school all day and working every hour that I’m not at school, homework and assignments be damned. I don’t know if I could even get a job though, and if I lost that job then I’d be fucked.” He said, having already overthought every terrible scenario that could come to pass. He sighed, anxiously running a hand through his hair. “There’s no way to guarantee that it would work out, and that’s assuming I even got accepted in the first place.”

“Don’t worry about the money thing, you know I’ll help you.” Everett assured him. “I don’t want you trying to work and go to school at the same time anyway, that would be too much. Besides, you still have time, if you really wanted to you could try working in the summer to save up at least some money.”

“It’s not… It’s not just the money thing.” He finally admitted, staring down at his lap. “I already know where I wanna try to go, and I’ve already looked at scholarships and stuff, it’s just… it’s out of state, y’know? So I would… I would have to leave…”

“... Yeah? Isn’t that a good thing?” He laughed. “I would’ve fucking killed to get away from here when I was your age.”

“Would you come with me then?” He asked, almost hopefully. “If… if we could just… move there… if you were at least close by, then, I don’t know, maybe…” He said, slowly trailing off when he saw the look on his brother’s face, he already knew what he was going to say.

“Eli, you know I can’t leave, not for good like that. Mom needs me around, and… and I think it would be good for you to go out on your own like that. You don’t need me around, you’re more than capable of handling yourself.” He told him, moving to sit beside Elias on his bed. He put his arm around his shoulders, pulling him close as he anxiously picked at the skin around his nails.

“It would be easier with you around though… I’ve never just… been away from you…” He’d always been anxious over the thought of being away from Everett, when he was little he’d even cry when he left the house. A part of him knew it was kind of inevitable, either Everett would leave eventually or he would, if only to get away from their mother. He didn’t like to think about it though, the thought of it made him sick.

“Well… it might be good for you to be away from me. You’re a super smart kid, Eli, and I know you have big plans for your career and all that. You shouldn’t hold yourself back just because we’d have to be apart. It’ll happen someday, might as well give it a try now- or, well, in two or three years that is.” He told him.

“Yeah, but- but what if something goes wrong? What-what if I get hurt, or sick, what if you get hurt? What if I need you?” He asked, rambling away as his anxiety got the better of him.

“Hey, hey you’ll be fine.” Everett said gently. “We’d still be able to talk, you would come home on breaks, it’s not like it would be for forever.” He told him.

“But it would still be a long time. Longer than I’ve ever been away from home, away from you… and that’s even assuming I could get in. I still have a lot of work to do before then, I sure as hell have to keep my grades up-”

“Kid, I’ve seen your report cards, I don’t think you’ve ever had below an A.”

“Yeah but-but what if something happens?!” He cried, getting worked up all over again. “What if- I don’t even know! What if I just suddenly forget how to do anything, what if I start messing up, what if I miss a few days and I can’t ever catch up, what-what if-”

"Elias.” Everett said sternly, and it was enough to shut him up, his brother hardly ever used his full name. “You’re working yourself up over nothing. Just because you can come up with some wild scenario doesn’t mean it’s going to happen, if anything, it’s really, really unlikely it will. I told you, you’re smart, you shouldn’t let all your anxiety hold you back. You could do fucking anything you wanted, you have got to take advantage of that.” Elias groaned, pulling away from Everett only to hide his face in his hands.

“Every time I think about it though, it’s… it’s fucking terrifying. It’s so fucking scary, and on top of, well, everything else, the schoolwork I already have, and the chance of mom ending up in the hospital again, and you working all the fucking time… it’s scary, and thinking about what’s gonna come after I graduate is even scarier…”

“You don’t have to think about it right now then.” Everett told him, putting his hand on Eli’s back. “I’m sure it is scary, so give yourself a break. You still have a lot of time to figure it out, at least for right now, just take a break.” He said. “And you know, you can talk to me if you need to. I might not understand everything you have to say, but at the very least I can listen, and try to help you the best I can.”

“But I don’t wanna bother you…” He murmured.

“Eli, you could never bother me. I don’t think you’ve ever bothered anybody in your life-”

“Mom would say different.”

“She doesn’t count. Listen, I just want you to know, I’m always ready to listen to you, I’m always ready to help you. I’ve been with you this far, I’m not leaving anytime soon.” He told him. Elias was silent for a while before finally lowering his hands, lifting his head to look at him.

“Promise…?”

“Of course I promise.” He smiled at him, reaching up and ruffling his hair before pulling him into a tight hug, Eli finally cracking a smile as he leaned into him.

He could never figure out how he did it, but Everett always knew what to say to calm him down, to slow the frantic flow of thoughts that would make him panic when left unattended. He knew that someday they’d have to exist away from each other, and he didn’t know what he would do when that day came, but for right now, all he could do was cling to his brother, and be thankful he was here for him in the moment.

***

Everett sat on his bed, staring at the card in his hand. It was early the next morning, Eli had just left for school and he was only awake because he always made sure to say goodbye before he left. He was alone now, staring at a phone number he’d been debating calling. The man who had given him the card wasn’t as shady as his offer was, he was older, well dressed, he clearly had money and he seemed polite. He wasn’t pushy, unlike everyone else who had offered him a shady job, which made him feel a little less uneasy about this.

The man had told him if he changed his mind, he should call him, and he’d handed him that card. He’d dismissed it at first, left it in his jacket pocket and almost forgotten about it. The job he had now was fine, but the man had offered more money, at the time though, he didn’t think it was worth it to risk it, but the offer was starting to appeal to him more and more. He’d gotten Eli talking the night before, and while his brother was in the shower he’d looked into the school he was interested in. Even if he had his tuition covered, there was still the cost of necessities, money in case of an emergency, the cost of getting him there and home on breaks. He couldn’t blame the kid for getting nervous, it was a lot, but maybe, if this offer was as good as it sounded, it would be manageable.

He knew there was still a couple years until they had to worry about that, but even easing their current financial issues sounded good to him, and he knew it would take some stress off Eli. He knew their mom wasn’t doing well, she’d already spent time in the hospital twice that year and at this point he was the only one who could provide for them. He was just barely making enough to pay rent, keep their phones and internet going, only for Eli to be able to do schoolwork, and he knew they never had enough food- even though he knew he gave money to their mom. If he had the time he’d do the shopping himself, but he didn’t, and he knew Eli didn’t, and even though he felt guilty for it, he was angry that their mother was so unreliable, and that his brother was suffering the most for it.

He’d eventually reasoned with himself that it couldn’t hurt to call, couldn’t hurt to get more information. If this really was some miracle, if it was as good as it sounded, then he’d be happy he did it and things would improve, and if it turned out to be a scam or another desperate pervert, then he could forget it ever happened and go back to struggling like normal. It couldn’t hurt though, so finally he dialed the number, and hoped for the best.

#not whump #my writing #my oc's #wren #Everett #this is comfort kinda but #it's comfort that made me sad #just cuz #we know what happens #is it obvious i never looked into colleges and stuff #probably rip #eli was listening to vocaloid in the beginning i dont make the rules #Anonymous

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quicksilversquared · 4 years

Text

Mishaps and Misunderstandings

In which Hawkmoth is an ass, Adrien is sarcastic, and Nathalie wildly misunderstands the situation.

links in the reblog

Hawkmoth was really becoming a pain in the butt now. For the past month and a half, he had been sending out akumas every other night, disrupting Ladybug and Chat Noir's sleep.

Maybe it wasn't the strongest akuma every time- in fact, most of the time, they seemed like bottom-of-the-barrel akumas, low on both powers and creativity- but that didn't change the fact that it dragged the superheroes out of bed and woke them up enough that they lost at least an hour every time. The akumas during the day didn't drop off, either, and between that and all of his civilian responsibilities and activities, Adrien was starting to feel more than a little bit spread thin.

It was exhausting, and he had to wonder how long he would be able to keep it up before he simply collapsed from exhaustion in the middle of- well, anywhere. At school, at a photoshoot, during fencing, in the middle of an akuma attack.

If he could make it to summer, Adrien was pretty certain that he could get caught back up again. But the problem was going to be getting to summer, which was still several months away. His friends were already starting to notice that something was wrong, and if they were noticing, then Adrien was willing to bet that it wouldn't be long before-

"Adrien, your last several photoshoots have been completely subpar. Your father is quite displeased with your work."

-his father's staff noticed, too.

Nathalie looked completely disapproving as she set a folder down on the table next to Adrien. A couple photos peeked out from the top. Peeking out from under the folder was the edge of another piece of paper, probably an updated schedule of what Adrien was expected to accomplish for the week.

"I understand that most of the photoshoots have been early, Adrien, but that's because we're trying to schedule around your other activities," Nathalie chided him, tugging out the piece of paper, and- yep, it looked like Adrien was right. Another photoshoot had been added, it looked like, and an additional fitting. Not that the fitting was really necessary, since the photoshoot was going to be with stuff he had worn before, but that hardly made a difference to the Gabriel staff. "Either we continue doing photoshoots before school, or we'll have to start pulling you out in the middle of the day to get them done while there's still decent light."

"No, then I'll fall behind!" Adrien protested, his mind already spinning with dread at the thought of how much more difficult keeping up with everything would be if he got pulled during school. He would have to stay up even later than he already was to catch up on the class that he was missing on top of what he missed during akuma attacks, and then- well, he could say good-bye to sleep, probably. "I can't miss class!"

He was only just making things work now. The mere idea of missing more class- and several hours for each photoshoot, probably, and in the middle of the day when he had his toughest classes- had panic welling up in Adrien's throat. The walls might as well be closing in on him, and his heartrate was already picking up.

Nathalie set the schedule down, fixing Adrien with a stern look. "Then we expect that you actually look awake and engaged during photoshoots. I don't see why that's a difficult thing to accomplish, it shouldn't be that hard-"

It shouldn't be that hard. Oh, really? Frustration welled up, sudden and overwhelming and shoving his growing panic to the side. Just like that, something inside of Adrien snapped, and he slapped his fork down on the table hard enough to make the entire setting rattle.

"Why is it a difficult thing to not look like I'm falling asleep? Maybe it's because I am falling asleep! And why would I not be?"

"Really-" Nathalie started, eyes rolling heavenward in clear exasperation, but Adrien didn't let her finish. His frustration had properly taken over now, words spilling out completely without his permission.

"I have a million and one activities that I need to be giving 100% in, all the time. I have to get up crazy early for photoshoots so that we can get them done before school, and we've been doing way more of those than usual because of all of the shoots that we have to redo because Father thought that it would be a good idea to humor Lila and let her participate even though she couldn't model at all. For some reason, you've decided that waking me up early or pulling me out of school makes more sense than pulling me out of fencing or skipping Mandarin or piano lessons for a week, or even just using some other model instead." It was all quite infuriating, really. It was hardly as though there weren't other teen models that had practically the same measurements as Adrien, and it wasn't as if his father couldn't make the executive decision to swap out models for a couple shoots. "And pulling me out of school is even more of a bad idea right now than it's ever been before! Do you want to know why?"

"Adrien-" Nathalie tried to cut in again, sighing, but- well, Adrien was tired and fed up and frustrated and just really, really tired and he wasn't going to let her get a word in edgewise.

"We've fallen even more behind schedule in classes than we did last year because of the akuma attacks," Adrien told her, jutting his chin out stubbornly. "And the teachers don't want the school year to extend into summer vacation again like it did last year, so they're trying to catch us up by cramming more and more into lessons during the day and giving us more homework and having us take online courses to help catch up even more. And that means hours more homework every evening and then I can't get to bed on time, even if I don't have extra lessons that day. And then when akumas show up at night- well, it's not like I can just sleep through a supervillain rampaging through the streets, can I? It wakes me up! Every! Single! Time!"

Nathalie paused, leaning back in her seat. "Oh. I see-"

"So if father is displeased by my work, well- tell him to make the nighttime akuma attacks stop, and maybe I'll actually be able to get enough sleep to do a decent job during photoshoots!"

With that, Adrien pushed himself up from the table- he didn't have an appetite anymore, and he had eaten most of his dinner anyway- and headed up to his room before Nathalie could respond. Once he was on his own, Adrien let out a long breath and slumped into the chair at his desk, massaging his temples as though that could make the headache that was starting up go away. Plagg floated out of his jacket, eyeing Adrien cautiously.

"Are you okay, kid?"

"Yeah, yeah, just- just tired," Adrien admitted, turning to his computer. He might as well at least pretend to get some schoolwork done before Nathalie came up to chide him for being disrespectful. "And then Nathalie deciding that now is a great time to add more to my plate- well, I'm a bit tired of it. So I blew up. Not that it'll do me any good."

"You don't think so?"

Adrien snorted. "What, do you think that Nathalie and Father will suddenly grow a heart and back off on my schedule? That's unlikely. They're going to get mad at me for being 'emotional' and blowing things out of proportion, I just know it. Emotional and also being unreasonable at the end there. Like, out of everything in the city that my father can actually control, making the night attacks stop isn't exactly one of them. And bringing that up as though he can actually make that happen as some sort of solution... well, he's going to see that as being emotional and ridiculous and immature. It's not like he can treat Hawkmoth and his akumas just like he does any other problem and just throw money at it to make nighttime akumatizations stop."

"Huh." Plagg considered that, then shrugged. "Well, at least Nathalie has a better idea of what you have on your plate now, with all of the school stuff. Maybe that'll make a difference in her planning, even if she does scold you for getting emotional about it."

"Yeah, maybe." Adrien glanced towards the door, honestly surprised that Nathalie hadn't followed him up yet, then turned back to his computer. "If only I could get so lucky."

Downstairs, Nathalie slowly pushed herself to her feet, each movement slow and deliberate as her brain muddled through the shock.

She had thought that they had been careful. They had figured that having Adrien out of the house would lessen his chances of stumbling on their secret. Making Mr. Agreste largely unreachable and his schedule unpredictable- and pretending that he had gone out of the country when he really hadn't- was supposed to ensure that no one found out about their secret identities unless they told someone. And yet, despite how careful they had been, despite all of their precautions...

There was no other way to interpret Adrien's words, of that she was sure.

Nathalie knocked on Mr. Agreste's office door, then let herself in. Across the room, Mr. Agreste glanced up.

"Nathalie- what's wrong?"

"Sir, there's a problem," Nathalie told him, now starting to tremble. If Adrien knew- well, they hadn't explained everything to him. Adrien didn't know what was at stake, or how important it was for Hawkmoth to win. There was no way for them to know who else he had told, or if he had figured out what Hawkmoth's goal was. If he got mad at them and decided that revenge was more important than saving his mom... well, the police could be on them in under an hour. He hadn't yet, probably because he didn't want to lose his father, but- well, Adrien sounded close to cracking from the stress he was under. That put them in a much more dangerous position. "Your son- he- he's figured out your secret identity."

"He- what?"

Adrien was officially baffled.

Overnight, Hawkmoth had practically done an about-face. There were no more akuma attacks after 8pm or before 9 in the morning, and they seemed to have dropped back to normal, pre-Heroes Day levels of akumatizations. The concentrated efforts to simply run the superheroes into the ground and defeat them that way just... stopped.

Not that Adrien didn't appreciate it! Because he totally, totally did. He had managed to get caught up on pretty much everything and do his first better-than-decent photoshoot in weeks. The timing was perfect, too, because he and Ladybug had both been pretty close to collapse. If they had continued at the same rate for even a week longer, Hawkmoth probably would have been able to get their Miraculous with no problem at all.

He and Mayura had no way of knowing that, of course. Ladybug and Chat Noir had always done their best to hide their exhaustion during akuma battles so that he wouldn't know when to press his advantage. So maybe Hawkmoth had expected them to cave sooner and had decided that their campaign of exhaustion wasn't going to work. Maybe the supervillain himself was getting really tired of staying up at night to try to find anyone who could possibly be akumatized. Maybe Hawkmoth was getting in just as much trouble at work as Adrien was getting in at school because of his absences and exhaustion.

Whatever it was, Adrien wasn't going to complain. He appreciated the break, and he was finally feeling properly human again. Ladybug clearly felt the same, if her more relaxed attitude during attacks was any indication.

Would it be better to have no akuma attacks and to have Hawkmoth (and Mayura) behind bars, or at least have a lead ? Of course- that was the ideal, after all, as long as he and Ladybug still hung out on a regular (and frequent) basis. But at least this was so much better than what it had been before.

He wasn't going to complain, but he was going to be a bit suspicious. Was Hawkmoth planning something? Ladybug certainly seemed to think so, and Chat Noir was inclined to agree. Both of them agreed to take the reprieve to relax a bit, but also not let themselves relax so much that they weren't catching up and getting ahead a bit with their civilian responsibilities. They didn't know when the other boot would drop, after all.

So when Nathalie approached Adrien after dinner with her tablet and a schedule balanced on top after several weeks of slow akuma attacks and also a relaxed civilian schedule, he was reading ahead for his Literature class, able to properly enjoy the story for the first time in a while. He glanced up as she approached, tucking a bookmark in to mark his spot before setting the book aside.

"Catching up on classes still?" Nathalie inquired, setting her tablet down. Adrien shook his head.

"Working ahead, actually," he told her, glancing at the schedule- or rather, schedules- that were balanced on top of her tablet. There seemed to be two versions, and Adrien had to wonder if she wanted to gauge how much he would be able to do- and do to a good quality- before settling on one or another. Or maybe she wanted his input, which- well, that would be new, and much appreciated. "So I can feel a little less stressed if things get busy again."

"Very good." Nathalie nodded in approval, then picked up the schedules. "So I wanted to talk to you about your schedule for the upcoming week. As requested, your father has stopped akumatizing people at night-"

Adrien's mind screeched to a dead halt, even as Nathalie kept talking, explaining the two versions of the schedule. He- he couldn't have heard that right, except- well, there was nothing else that she could have said, but why on earth would she just-just throw that out like it was the most normal thing in the world? "I- I'm sorry, what?"

Nathalie paused, her brow furrowing briefly, and then something that looked rather like worry spread across her face. "Uh..."

Adrien shot to his feet, even as he started feeling woozy from- from what, exactly, he couldn't put his finger on and there were more important things to think about anyway. "Did- you said that Father stopped akumatizing people at night! Father- he's Hawkmoth! Oh my god, I can't- I can't believe this-" The walls were closing in on him. He'd been fighting his father this whole time. His father had been the one behind the mask when Hawkmoth came out and tried to hurt them. Which meant- oh god. Which meant that Nathalie was Mayura.

He wasn't safe in this house.

"Ah, I mean, uh..." Nathalie stammered all of a sudden, clearly about to backpedal, but her expression- well, it gave away that yes, he had totally heard correctly the first time. "That is..."

Adrien turned and bolted.

Nathalie felt like she was about to faint as she approached Gabriel's office on unsteady legs. Out of all the mistakes that she had ever made during her career- during her entire life, really- none were anywhere near as serious as the one that she had just made. Part of her wondered if it might be smarter to simply turn around and flee the city- or maybe even the country- instead of facing up to her mistakes.

But she had to warn Gabriel. It- it was the responsible thing to do. They had held off on sharing more information with Adrien before just because they had figured that he wasn't going to run off and tell anyone- if he hadn't before, then surely he had figured out why his father was Hawkmoth and had at least partially approved- and because he was busy and Gabriel hadn't wanted to distract Adrien while he was catching up on schoolwork and redoing much-needed modelling shoots last-minute. Now, though?

Adrien hadn't reacted to the news well, though maybe that was to be expected considering the way that Nathalie had shared it, and she hadn't been able to pull herself together in time to convince Adrien that what his father was doing was actually good. That meant that their entire plan was in danger, and it would take both her and Gabriel to get any decent damage control done.

If it wasn't already too late, that was. She- well, she had been so in shock over the realization that Adrien hadn't known that several minutes at least had passed by before she had been able to move.

Gabriel glanced up as she entered, and immediately straightened with a frown. "Nathalie? Are you feeling unwell? You look like you're about to collapse."

Nathalie nodded, then shook her head, forcing herself over to Gabriel. He was going to be furious, she just knew it, but there was no getting around it. "Sir, it appears that, ah." She paused, struggling with what she should say. "It appears that there has been a, ah, misunderstanding."

Gabriel frowned at once. "A misunderstanding about what? I thought you were just going to talk to Adrien about his schedule, surely whatever misunderstanding you had can't have been... that..." He trailed off, following her gaze towards his painting of Emilie, and then his face turned white. "No. Not that. There can't- no. Nathalie, tell me that there wasn't a misunderstanding about the Hawkmoth situation! That- it's impossible!"

"I'm sorry, sir," Nathalie managed, her voice dropping to a whisper. An angry Gabriel was like a thundercloud, ready to lash out at anyone and anything at any moment. "I didn't think that there was any other way to interpret what Adrien said before, but he- he must have been being sarcastic or something, I don't know-"

"We have to fix this," Gabriel announced, pushing himself to his feet and reaching for his brooch, rubbing it almost absentmindedly as he headed across the room. "We've come so far, there's no way that we can let our whole plan fail over a misunderstanding!"

Nathalie nodded at once, pushing herself to her feet. She followed Gabriel towards the door, eager to help rectify her mistake. Before they could get far, though, the ground shook violently under their feet, hard enough to fling them off of their feet. Gabriel and Nathalie both flailed, trying to grab for anything and everything that might help them get their balance back.

And then a bright light flashed across the room, and then- well, then there was nothing.

It didn't take Ladybug and Chat Noir long to recover the Butterfly and Peacock from the rubble of the Agreste Mansion, along with the rest of the Miraculous-related things that Mr. Agreste had accumulated. Nooroo was quite a bit of help in finding things, though- well, the fact that the mansion was a tiny bit destroyed from a combination of Cataclysm and the Dragon's lightning made navigating their way around a tiny bit difficult, at least until Ladybug cast her Cure and put everything back together again.

"The lightning probably would have been sufficient," Nooroo commented dryly as Ladybug tucked yet another scroll away in the pocket dimension of her yo-yo, followed by the tablet that she recognized as Master Fu's. "It would have knocked them out, and you would have been able to accomplish everything just the same."

"And deny Chat Noir the opportunity to be dramatic?" Ladybug asked in amusement. "Never."

"And they might have dodged the lightning if they hadn't already been knocked off-balance by Cataclysm!" Longg chirped from their spot on Ladybug's shoulder, where they were chomping down on a biscuit to recharge. "It was quite the nice combination. And it got the police's attention, didn't it?"

They all glanced out the window, where red and blue lights still flashed outside of the gates. The two superheroes had carried the knocked-out former supervillains out to the waiting ambulances and police cars earlier, just to get them out of the way, and Mr. Agreste and Nathalie had been hauled away at once. The superheroes had given enough of a statement that the duo would be able to be held overnight, but they would probably have to go in to the station in the morning and talk to the police a bit more in order for them to file charges. Now, only a lone car remained, keeping the gawkers away while the superheroes finished up.

"It felt pretty satisfying," Chat Noir admitted. He had recharged once the mansion's walls went back up and he could run to his room to grab some cheese out of his mini-fridge. He shifted closer to Ladybug. "Though I didn't exactly intend to get my room, too. It just got a little out of control."

"Which is understandable. And it got fixed anyway." Ladybug did one last glance around the room, then snapped her yo-yo shut. "I think that's everything. And it's not like we're not going to be able to come back."

Chat Noir let out a shaky breath. "Right. Well, uh..." He floundered for a moment, glancing away and then back. "I guess I'll see you tomorrow, then?"

Ladybug blinked at him, openly puzzled. "What are you talking about, Chat Noir? You're coming home with me, obviously. I'm not letting my kitty go home to an empty house."

"Really?"

Ten minutes later, Marinette found herself trying to calm down an incredibly excited Adrien so that he wouldn't wake up her parents with his bouncing around her room. He was over the moon about learning Ladybug's identity, and even more so because she was Marinette instead of- well, literally anyone else.

Marinette was pretty sure that she was permanently red now thanks to all of Adrien's gushing after they landed in her room and she detransformed. It- well, it was a lot. And yes, it was really flattering that he had such a high opinion of her, but- but he was just so incredibly passionate about it and it was Adrien's sweetness and Chat Noir's enthusiasm and heart-on-his-sleeve-ness and it was just- it was a little overwhelming. Add in the fact that he had clearly picked up on her crush at some point, and- well, despite his father's and Nathalie's arrests, Adrien was clearly walking on air.

Eventually, though, Marinette managed to steer Adrien into bed. He passed out almost as soon as his head hit the pillow- too much excitement and ping-ponging emotions had clearly exhausted him- and Marinette was left lying next to him, petting Adrien's hair as he burrowed into her side and trying to process everything that had happened in the last couple of hours.

Maybe most of the time, misunderstandings- well, big misunderstandings, at least- weren't exactly a positive thing. But this time?

Well, this time, it probably couldn't have gone any better.

#Miraculous Ladybug #my writing #adrien agreste #100% not meant to be serious

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