#shoes beauty primer

[meekahy]

Mascara Runs

HI, this is my first NHL fic! Please let me know what yall think! This is based on my roommates lmao and don't judge the order on how I put on my make up okay??? ALSO this isn't edited and I just spit out my thoughts. Sorry lmao

Requests are open!

Sitting in your bed, you grasp your phone in your shaky hands as you try to text your boyfriend, Quinn. 

“My roommates are being terrible again,” is all you managed to text him through a wall of tears. You tossed your phone onto your bed and rubbed your eyes as tears kept falling, waiting for the familiar ding of Quinn’s reply. 

After a few minutes, that ding sounded in your quiet room. Wiping your eyes one last time before unlocking your phone to see Quinn’s reply, “Oh baby, what happened?”

You typed as fast as you could, “They’re just putting me down about the things that I enjoy. And they are being very passive aggressive about me being here.”

“What did they do this time?” He responded.

“They invited me to dinner and then left without me, changing restaurants without telling me. I only know because of Life360. It’s so stupid. It’s like I’m being stood up. I hate this,” you sent Quinn with a large sigh.

“Let me take you out,” he quickly texted back.

“I have to redo my make up,” you groaned as you hit send.

You stared at the screen, waiting for him to reply. A beat later, he sent, “Baby, take your time. I’m going to change and then I’ll pick you up.”

A tear fell as you sent, “You’re the best. I love you.”

“I love you too. See you soon,” Quinn sent.

Wiping your eyes one last time, you got up and looked in the mirror. You groaned as black streaks flowed down your cheeks. Grabbing a make up wipe, you rubbed your eyes and cheeks to rid your face of the runny mascara. 

“I really should invest in waterproof mascara,” you mumbled to yourself. After wiping your face, you grabbed your make up bag and opened it revealing the plethora of make up products that you possessed. You snatched the primer from your bag and rubbed it all over your face followed by your foundation. After that, you put on a powder and blush. Then, finding an eyeshadow palette that matches your dress, you started to brush the powder into your eyelids, swiping colors across your eyes. When you we satisfied with the eyeshadow, you, again, put on mascara. After letting it dry for a bit, you put the eyelash curler up to your eyelashes to get that volume.

When you were finished, you heard the familiar ding of your phone. Smiling, you grabbed your phone to see the “here” message from Quinn. Quickly plucking up your purse, you slid on your shoes and ran out the door.

Quinn was outside his car, leaning on the passenger side door waiting for you to come outside. You bounded down the apartment stairs and right into his waiting arms. The smell of his cologne filled your nose as you breathed him in. Letting it be a source of comfort for you.

After a second, he whispered, “Let me look at you.” You pulled back as he held your hand making you twirl your dress around. “Absolutely beautiful.”

“Oh stop it. You’ll make me cry,” you muttered shyly as you looked at your feet. Quinn raised your hand and gave it a kiss before opening the passenger door for you. 

On the way to the restaurant, you went into detail about your roommates. About how they do little things to purposely irritate you or say things that make you feel bad about yourself. Quinn listened intently to you. He pulled up to the restaurant and opened the door to let you out. 

You both got sat in the back corner of the restaurant. It was quiet and secluded, just how you guys liked it. You were able to talk to each other and he wasn’t easily recognized. 

After eating a bit, you kept thinking of your home situation with your roommates and how shitty it is. Tears started to bubble up into your eyes. 

Looking up, Quinn asked, “What’s wrong?” 

You looked into his eyes at his question. The tears fell like a floodgate being opened. “I don’t want to go home. They don’t even want me there, that’s clear. It’s like I’m slowly deteriorating on the inside from how they treat me. I’m miserable,” you confessed.

“Oh honey. I’m so so sorry that’s how you feel,” he cooed at you, “I’ve been meaning to ask this for awhile.”

“Ask what?” you hiccupped. 

Quinn smiled, “Ask you to move in with me. I think it would be good. Good for me to be closer to you and good for you to be out of that living situation. What do you think?”

You sniffled and dabbed your cheeks, “Really? You want me to? You would be okay with me invading your space?”

He reached for your hand with both of his, “Yes, really. I would absolutely love for you to move in. You in my space would be the best. Please? I need you in my space.”

You heart fluttered at his words. You wanted nothing but to be included and wanted. “Okay, of course I want to move in!” you exclaimed.

Quinn’s heart jumped, he loved you with all his heart, and couldn’t wait for this next step with you. He leaned over the table to give you a kiss. You met him halfway, pouring all your happy emotions into that kiss.

#quinn hughes x reader #quinn hughes #quinn hughes imagine #quinn hughes imagines #nhl imagine

[pyreofsunflowers]

How to make the Sims 3 look its best in 2022

so simming is a long time pastime of mine, and I've - in my humble opinion - perfected the look of the game without turning it into a yassed out modeling agency. (if you've ever looked for cc you know what I'm talking about) so in this first of probably many posts - here is a complete list of all my graphics mods!

Firstly, though, I should note that I have a very strong pc with a very strong graphics card. Please please please don't overload your computer, and explore options that will work best with your specs. What looks best for me might not look best for you.

Ahem, with that out of the way let's start with my default graphic settings.

This keeps my game looking beautiful while running smoothly (hence the low reflection and edge smoothing)

Now let's get into the mods!

Lighting and Environment

Burnt Waffles' Moonrise Kingdom Lighting - Self explanatory, textures for the skybox, weather overlays, and general lighting. Make sure you pick the water that matches your world!

Simsi45's Reworked and Improved EA Lights - tones down the brightness of some lights, fixes directional lighting for covered lamps, light colors made more consistent, and other such fixes.

dDefinder's Outdoor Lighting Tweaks - removes that nasty blue hue at nighttime, adds more dynamic shadows, adds new weather types and can make nighttime darker!

Neim's Sims Blog's Default replacements for Garden Bushes and Orchard Trees - Replaces the textures for plants like tomato vines, apple trees, and onion plants - creating a much more lush looking garden.

Aminovas' Plant Retextures - softens the bright, garish colors of EA plants to be more appealing. In two parts, and available as non-defaults.

CAS + Create-a-Pet

Kurasoberina's Primer Skin + Buhudain's You are Real - my skin mod and a default replacement pack with upped realism. The skin was designed to be used with You are Real, just a heads up.

I don't use any nudey mods out of personal preference - but I hear good things about Cmar's and Geck.o's work. Here is a link to a bunch of nsfw sims stuff, if that's what your into. I also don't really use sliders outside of the hat slider, a glasses slider and a height and posture slider. this is again out of personal presence, as I am generally making an entire neighborhood's worth of sims at a time and don't have the energy to be nitpicky with sliders on every single sim. That being said, OneEuroMutt complied a really nice list of CAS sliders AND a list of animal sliders if your interested in that.

Bloom's Sexy Feet and Cyo's Cute feet for children - realistic foot retexture, the op is long gone so this is a forum post. May not work unless sim detail is set to high!

Shady's Loney Eyes - subtle eye retextures available as both a contact and a default replacement. I'm currently not using any eyelash retextures - mostly because I haven't found any that work. If anyone has suggestions, let me know!

MaryJane's, Firefox's, AND Agnelid's Hair Replacements - replaces defualt hair with much better looking CC from other creator's - I mix and match between the three. Note that these are far from complete, and I still work with pleanty of EA hair.

I like teh Sims CAS overhaul - less shine, and hides rather than deletes mostly unused items (i always have this weird paranoia that deleting them form CAS will delete them in gameplay...)

One Euro Mutt's Less Shoe Shine - self explanatory, fixes that weird shine that's on so many default shoes.

Simple Life's Lipstick, Blush, Eyeliner, Beards, Eyebrows, and Age Details - Simple Life is my go- to for facial updates, do note however the textures may look funky if your sim detail isn't set to high. (They don't have individual pages for each item, so you'll have to scroll - my apologies)

Ketheira's Freckles and Moles - self explanatory, more realistic face marks.

Eternal 2nd Kira's Insect Wing Replacements for Fairies - replaces the EA textures with high-def insect wings, I just think it looks neat mostly.

Brinwood's HD Dog Coats and Eyes - Also includes more colorable options for dog coats, such as inner ears and individual paws.

Lazy Duchess' cat and dog addons - adds whiskers, primarily, but also edits some face textures and adds more facial markings

Kale and Traelia's HD cat skin and eyes - better meshes for cats.

Dimitri Dane's and Elin Fredriksdotter's EQHD - a FULL retexture and remodel of EA horses with better textures of coats and eyes, and optional stallion junk if that's what your into (I'm not... lol). you will have to download custom saddles, bridles, tack, and poses as EA meshes will be incompatible - but I will probably make a separate post with all my horse CC... lol.

Misc. Textures

Pretty obviously, I use the No Build Sparkles and No Intro mod that everyone gets when they set up there CC folder for the first time. These little details make a big difference!

JustMiha's Clean UI reskin, which is currently still in development (hence the default graphic menu... lol)

Velocity Grass's remove stencil tool to remove any unwanted stencils from cabinets, beds, or toyboxes.

Simsi45's Tileable Items Fix - you know how you go to place a row of bookshelves and there's the lighting gets all messed up on a few of them? yeah this mod fixes that.

Jane Sambroski's Wood Grain re-textures - fixes a lot of the EA woods to have much nicer looking grains, and fixed an issue that caused the grain to become pixelated when zooming.

Plastic Box's Doorway Lighting Fix - fixes lots of the broken lighting with doors and archways, so now all glass doors will cast light through them and all arches of similar size will cast the same amount of light through them

Aminovas' Cow Textures - retextures the cow in the Milkin' It Corral store item to be more realistic. That's it.

And that's it! Yes, I know it's a lot, but I like my game GOREGOUS.

#ts3 #the sims 3 #ts3cc #s3cc #the sims #sims cc #simblr

[dreambird21]

The Ultimate Guide To The 2014 It Girl

Fashion

Anything Victorias Secret (iconic vs pink striped pjs, purses / totes, makeup bags, luggage, + accessories)

Animal, floral, tribal, & geometrical prints

Pastel + neon colors

Crop tops, short shorts,

Accessories: Flower crowns, chokers, bold statement sunglasses

Shoes: adidas, converse, vans, ballet flats

Other brands to shop for that fit the aesthetic (I highly recommend thrifting or online second hand apps like Poshmark): Forever 21, Brandy Melville, Hollister, American Apparel

Beauty

Face: Maybelline babyskin primer, Maybelline bb cream, nyx angel face primer, nars blush in orgasm, benetint, benefit hula bronzer

Eyes: Urban Decay eye primer, Naked eyeshadow palettes, Maybelline great lash mascara, Maybelline lash sensational mascara, Too Faced Better Than Sex mascara

Brows: Anastasia Beverly Hills dip brow

Lips: EOS lip balms, Maybelline babylips

Music (artists)

5SOS

One Direction

Ariana Grande

Halsey

Clean Bandit

One Republic

Selena Gomez

Lana Del Rey

Imagine Dragons

Charli XCX

Youtubers

Zoella

JENeration DIY

RCLBeauty

Bethany Mota

#not a poll #aesthetic #girlblogger #girlblogging #girlblog aesthetic #girly things #girl blogger #blog #blogger #2014 pink #feminine aesthetic #femine #feminine style #2014 style #tumblr 2014 #2014 #2014 girl #2014 grunge #bring back 2014 #2014 aesthetic #2014 tumblr #2014 revival #2014 nostalgia #i miss 2014 #2014 vibes #2014core #it girl #soft vibes #soft coquette #coquette

[ashintheairlikesnow]

Make the Fire Burn

Bones in the Ocean Masterlist

Kira had gone through a phase, during her apprenticeship, where all she read were swooning, brainless romance novels. Her days, after all, were spent filling her mind with magic, learning symbols and their combinations. The silly stories of beautiful women and handsome men were the only things she’d found that held off the worst of the headaches. 

She had traded the precious few copper coins she had to spare for these tales, damsels in distress or troubled lovely lads with torn bodices and breeches rescued by the strong prince or princess, knights in gleaming armor sweeping them off their feet. The blood that must have stained them during the floridly described battles against wicked villains was never mentioned but implied, somehow deliciously implied. She’d stayed up too late many times reading by candlelight and magic the way these heroines would come undone and then… well, she would usually stop reading before the final chapter.

She often lost interest before the books could make it to the happily ever afters. The final cooing happiness was so much less important, to her, than the breathless ways they got there.  

Now, though, Kira was beginning to realize the books - many of which featured captivity, thrilling references to bonds both real and magical - had left out one very important truth. Perhaps the most important descriptor of them all.

None of them had ever made it clear how deeply, achingly, excruciatingly boring being held captive would be. 

This room, with its portraits of the dead who had suffered her fate before her staring down at her from the walls, was a very pretty cage, but it wasn’t a very entertaining one. The servants brought her meals but refused to answer her questions, only giving her sad smiles. Occasionally she woke up in horror to find herself wearing different clothing than she had gone to sleep in. At least there had been no more breakfasting at the dining table - melting the silver in her hands despite having had her magical tools taken from her had apparently made an impression on the loathsome Lord Wentworth.

That, she had to admit, was a little satisfying.

Still, she hadn’t been able to make it happen again, and so she was trapped here in this room torn between hours of lying on the bed and staring sightlessly at the ceiling and frantic attempts to discover some sort of secret here she could use to free herself.

So far… no such luck.

She had found some dust-covered books shoved between the back of the bed and the wall, but they appeared to simply be old primers for some long-dead child learning to read. The pages, scrawled in childish loops and swirls, had nearly crumbled under her fingertips. 

In the wardrobe there were out-of-date dresses, ribbons for her hair, even shoes that didn’t fit. She had… eventually tried on the shoes. It was something to do, it used up at least a few seconds of her otherwise eventless existence.

No wonder the damsels in her romances had been so desperately grateful to their dashing rescuers. She’d rip her bodice off herself just to have someone to talk to.

She wasn’t even entirely sure how long she’d been trapped here. It had to have been a month, right? The full moon had come and gone, waned day by day back to a sliver of itself lit like silver, with the rest only barely implied in the shadowy sky.

The sliver was widening again, working itself back to fullness. Perhaps six weeks, then, and had no one come looking for her? Did Kiraya Losna’s life matter so little, in the scheme of things, that not even her landlady had come looking for her when rent was due and she was gone? Had they sold off her clothes and books to make back a little bit of what she owed, or simply tossed it all in the gutter with the trash, to be torn apart for any hint of value by strangers?

Her heart twisted if she thought about it too long.

Her diaries might make an entertaining night’s read for some scoundrel who wanted to amuse himself with the pain of a girl who must learn on her own how to make herself a woman, when her body wasn’t correct without some help. The life of a girl with too much magic but no mother must make for quite the tale, indeed, for someone who did not care about the real person behind the pen-marks on the pages.

Would whoever had found her diaries in the refuse laugh over her joy when she had unlocked the secrets to the spell that made her reflection match her inside and out? Would they mock her dreams, even if they’d been fulfilled?

It didn’t matter. Not really.

She was never getting those diaries back. Hells, she was never even going to leave this place, and she knew it. She would be held here, and then die here, and have no choice in how it happened. Guilford Wentworth had declared her the betrothed to himself - or his son, she still didn’t quite understand - and her fate was to be the tame magician-wife for a lord whose demands would be great. And still, another would have to be taken to bear him children, which Kira could never do. 

So even in her captivity, she would damn someone else to the same fate. She felt very like the siren, in that way - trapped as a way to trap others in her same prison, this labyrinthian hell. If only she could have spoken to him again, she might have felt less lonely, more able to bear the boredom.

Some nights, at least, her restless attempts to sleep were broken by the siren’s mournful song winding up through the walls, a mourner’s wail of wordless melody, but he didn’t try to talk to her again, or even to control her.

He was trapped in his own lovely prison.

Although, honestly, at least he could have a swim in his.

Kira had resigned herself to her third read-through of the only genuine book she’d found in this room - hidden under some lovely scarves in the wardrobe, it was a story about pirates that absolutely had been written by someone who had never so much as seen a ship or an ocean and was more or less simply inventing how it might work as they wrote. It was absolutely worthless, and yet it was the only thing she thought might be keeping her sane here.

At some point, she blinked out of her stupor and realized she could hear the sound of horses’ hooves, the rattling of carriage wheels. Kira shot to her feet, the book dropping to the floor immediately and thankfully forgotten. She raced to the window, curving her fingers around the cold iron bars, listening.

She couldn’t see much from here, but-... yes, that was definitely a carriage. Had someone come to look for her, finally? Had someone realized she was still here?

Had someone noticed she was gone?

There were voices she didn’t recognize, pitched just too low for her to hear. Men’s voices, maybe one woman. She pushed her face between the bars, listening as hard as she could. Babbage was definitely one of the voices, and Wentworth, but she didn’t know the others. Wentworth and Babbage seemed perfectly chatty and friendly, setting Kira’s teeth on edge, but there was something to the other voices that didn’t sound the same.

The voices faded and were replaced by the stablehands moving the carriage horses to the stables, she assumed, and she slumped against the window, staring down at the topiary maze that led to a small fish pond below. Her heart had briefly raced - now it shuddered back to its usual slow beat. Even her heart could not find a reason to either fear or hope in this endless repeating nothing.

How long she stayed like that, she didn’t know. Her brain and body seemed simply to… pull away from the larger world around them. She was here and not-here, despair and absolutely nothingness warring within her. 

She had been an idiot to feel even that single bright spot of hope.

She had gone back to pick up the pirate book when there was a knock at the door. It wasn’t time for any of the meals brought to her, nor was it early enough to be the washbasin needing refilled. Kira swallowed, slowly standing up straight. She kept her eyes on the door as she slowly backed up, until she bumped into the wall and nearly knocked down one of the portraits that watched her sleep.

She said nothing.

They would come in or not - she knew by now it had nothing to do with whether she wanted it to happen. At least she would be awake this time. She lifted her chin, crossed her arms in front of her, and tried for all the world to look like she could do anything at all if they decided to drag her down to the siren and rob her of her mind right here and right now.

The door swung open, and there stood a man she had never seen before, but she knew immediately just looking at him that he was Guilford Wentworth the Fifth, here in the flesh. He had the same sort of look to his face, but so much younger, with a thick head of hair and wider eyes he must have gotten from his mother. He was tall and lanky where his father’s waistline had thickened over time. The family look was there, yes, but the young man was clearly his own person, too.

The lord himself stood behind his son, with a hand on his shoulder. “Here she is,” Lord Wentworth said, his voice thick slime as he gestured, stepping inside and pulling the younger Wentworth with him. “Your bride.”

Kira lifted her chin just a little more, so she had to look down her nose at the two of them. “We will see about that.” She kept her posture loose, unbothered, even as she felt her fingernails dig into her skin and her heart start to race. “I have my own thoughts on that,” Kira said, voice flat. “And you are…?”

The younger man swallowed, his Adam's apple bobbing visibly as he shifted, working himself out from under his father’s hand. He turned cold eyes on her. “Guilford Wentworth the Fifth,” He said, hostile and sharp. Only when the lord shoved at his back did he stumble forwards, brushing imaginary wrinkles from his waistcoat and pants before reaching out for her hand, bending forward at the waist with a straight spine.

He intended to kiss the back of her hand.

“Absolutely not,” She said, and did not move an inch.

The young man dropped his hand, one lip curling in a sneer. “Rude.”

“Oh, I am ever so, especially when held against my will. You’ll find my impolite instincts much harder to suppress without the siren to silence me.”

The young man snorted. “You find yourself terribly clever, don’t you?”

“Maybe. Could anyone think more of themselves than your father? Doubtful. Now, is there anything I can call you besides your father’s son?” She asked, tipping her head to one side. Her hair fell slightly against her cheek - she hadn’t bothered putting it up in at least a week and it hung in a riot of tangles down past her shoulders. She tried not to feel the Lord Wentworth’s eyes as they moved over her, and focused instead on the clearer, cleaner feel of his son’s dismay and hostility. “You must go by something, and I assume only the one man allows himself to be known as the lofty lordship here.”

To her surprise, she caught a slight twitch at the corner of the young lord’s mouth, as if he very nearly smiled before he got himself back under control. He had to duck his head just a little so that his father didn’t see it. “Ford,” He offered her, voice softening - just a little. “I go by Ford, where I live in the Colonies.”

He offered his hand again.

“Ford, then,” She acknowledged, hesitantly. This time, she allowed him to take her hand, felt his warm, dry lips press against her knuckles. She wiped her hand on her dress when she took it back, and watched his mouth twist again at the sight. “I am Kiraya Losna.”

“I know,” Ford said, and his eyes flickered towards the looming, smug presence of his father and then back to her. There was something to the look on his face she struggled to read. “I have been… told about you.”

“In preparation for our wedding, I imagine,” She said, dryly, and then turned abruptly away to look outside again. “For the sake of honesty, I should say I don’t intend to go through with it.”

“It won’t matter,” He answered, and she glanced back at him, eyebrows furrowing a little. He didn’t sound smug, like his father, but instead a little… battered. Perhaps he had witnessed rebellions before, or at least their aftermath. She wondered if he had ever rebelled, himself. “I will be… kind to you, Miss Losna, if I can-”

“I think that’s enough,” Lord Wentworth said, and clapped his hands together, just once. Ford flinched at the crack of palm on palm, even though Wentworth was all the way across the room. Her chest went cold as she saw how he hunched over himself, and then just as suddenly straightened his spine and set his shoulders back, jaw locked at a harsh angle. “Come, Ford. You and your sister need to see to your rooms, unpack your things… get settled in. The twins will be here within the week, as well, after all-”

“The twins?” Ford’s head shot up, and he turned on his heel, moving back to his father with a sudden burst of energy and speed. “The twins are away at school, Father, why-”

“For the wedding,” Guilford said, smooth as a snake’s belly soundless along the ground. “I thought you were fond of them, Ford. Was I mistaken…?”

“No, not mistaken, just-... I wouldn’t-... want to interrupt their studies, is all-”

“Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that. In any case, Miss Losna, you’ll be joining us this evening, won’t you?”

Kira’s eyes moved from one to the other. “I… suppose that’s… your prerogative, Lord Wentworth,” She managed, her voice seemingly speaking with perfect polite without her consent. “I will… see you at dinner, I suppose, Ford.”

“Right.” Ford rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. As he walked out the door, he slunk past his father, his steps hurrying him past the man as quickly as he could go. “At dinner, Miss Losna.”

He was gone. 

Guilford lingered in the doorway, looking back at Kira, his eyes moving over her body in a way that held entirely too much possession. It made her want to show up to dine with a bag on her head, draped in the comforter until no piece of her could be seen at all. Not that she thought it would make any difference. He would lust over what was beneath whether he could see it or not. 

She wondered if she could melt his bones with the wild magic that had worked on the silver, if he hurt her badly enough. If she only could become angry enough. It was only with effort she kept her voice calm and seemingly careless. “Will you be sending Nadette to help me prepare, Lord Wentworth? These dresses here were made for a woman with servants, I cannot do them up myself.”

He smiled at her, and it brought no warmth to his expression whatsoever. Only seemed to freeze her further. “A lovely image to hand to me, my dear.” 

“I am not your dear,” Kira sneered, leaning back against the wall, her hands pressed against its gentle texture, her palms somehow freezing and burning right to the tips of her fingers. Her heart raced within her, trying to run from the confines of her imprisoned body. “And I will never be your anything. I will not be your son’s, either. No matter how he must hate you.”

Wentworth paused, framed by the door, and chuckled, shaking his head. “You will, Miss Losna, be the loving wife to my son at the end of the next month. You will adore him wholly and utterly. And the both of you will adore me just the same.”

She pressed her palms back harder. The feeling of the wall made them ache but it was the only thing that kept her voice steady. “And his feelings on this marriage? He didn’t seem to agree-”

“What does that matter?” Wentworth blinked, as if surprised by the question. “My children do as I bid them, Miss Losna. They always have, and they always will. Or they cease to have a reason to be alive. Much like you.”

He closed the door and left her there.

The key turned in the lock.

She could hear him humming a jaunty tune until his voice faded entirely, and she was - once again - alone in her gilded prison cell. 

Kira stepped away from the wall, panic making her nerves spark and muscles jump under her skin, with no way to run, nothing to run away to. She took one step, and then another. Somewhere down below, the siren began his song again. There was no magic in it. He was only crying, in the way of his kind, and his despair echoed hers.

Kira ran, flinging herself onto the bed and burying herself beneath the heavy covers, pulling her pillow over her face with its lavender scent and screaming into it until her throat was raw. Her lungs burned for air and her throat ached, but still she kept screaming. 

At some point, screams became heaving sobs, hot tears that soaked into her hair, her pillow, and seemed to boil their way down her cheeks. 

She wept until there were no tears left. Then, she lay in silence and simply waited for the next step in what felt like an inexorable slide off a cliff into the darkness below. The siren's song rose higher and higher, slipping underneath her skin.

Sleep, He must have sung to her. Sleep now and dream of better things.

She drifted off, and knew only that his voice felt not like chains, now, but like a hand on her head, arms around her, the way her mother had once held her after nightmares.

If only this had been one.

If only she were able to wake up from this.

Where she had been standing, two handprints had burned black into the wall. Magic smoked, sparked embers, and then faded to soot unseen.

-

Taglist: @grizzlie70 @burtlederp @finder-of-rings @theelvishcowgirl @whump-for-all-and-all-for-whump @bloodinkandashes @squishablesunbeam @mj-or-say10 @apokolyps @wildfaewhump @shrimpwritings @there-will-always-be-blood @latenightcupsofcoffee

#bones in the ocean #original writing #fantasy writing #original fantasy #fiction writing #my writing #writing #whump #captivity #reluctant whumper #magic whump #magic whumpee #captured #captive

[cainnleacghlovers]

My beautiful girl - MØ

Paring: Martin Ødegaard x Fem!Reader

Summary: Even with her hair in rollers, and Bronzer? Contour? Wait, concealer? All over her face, actually, never mind, same thing. Y/N is the most beautiful girl he has ever seen, and he wants her to know it.

Warnings: Smut (but like really soft smut🥹) and fluff because Martin? Duhhh

“Gotcha you sly bastard!” You cheer, as you finally get the last roller in your hair. You had a habit of getting it stuck, getting frustrated, and instead of gently taking it out, you just rip it out. With half of your hair. Oh well.

You were heading out to lunch with a few friends, and you had the afternoon free (finally) from University. Getting a little glammed up wouldn’t hurt.

Legs crossed, a hot-water bottle draped between your thighs. You can already seen the red patch on your legs from where the heat contrasted the coolness of the London February’s.

Taking a sip of water, and fanning your face, why work out when you can put rollers in your hair? You reach over, hoping you’ll be able to grab your makeup bag without moving, knowing that if you do, you’ll get that weird ‘i just moved now i’m absolutely freezing’ feeling. Grabbing the end of it, you tip the bag over.

Mid fall, you completely regret your decision. Hearing the bag plop on the floor, you cringe.

My Fenty bronzer better not have cracked. You think to yourself.

Lifting the bag, without getting up, scooting on your butt, you inspect the bag. Looks good so far.

A sigh of relief escapes your lips. If there was a fire you’d save the Fenty bronzer, then the Rare Beauty blush, then Martin, and then yourself. Priorities.

As you begin your skin prep, making sure everything is clean. You heard the door open, and a pair of shoes fall to the floor.

A smile stretches across your cheeks, as you apply your moisturiser.

“I’m home kjælighet!” You hear booming up into your shared room.

“Upstairs!” You shout back, your hands moving to find cotton pads as you tip some micellar water onto it, gently rubbing it into your skin.

As you do that, you hear feet stomping up the stairs, and about half way up, there’s a loud noise, with a voice following it. “I’m okay!”

Only Martin, the man who was silk with a football, weaving it through defender and defender, would fall up something so simple as stairs. He was a silly boy, but he was your silly boy.

He stumbled into the room, you checked to see if he had all four limbs. Arm, other arm, leg, other leg. Amazing.

“Did you fall?” You snigger, as his beautiful blue eyes meet yours. His hair a little messy from training. The sun hitting him perfectly. You were one lucky girl.

“Fall for you? Absolutely.” He stated, as he pretends to faint, before sliding on his socks across the wooden floor, and landing beside you as he pulled you in for a hug, careful that he didn’t move your rollers.

Placing kisses all across your face, he pulled away, his tongue hanging out in disgust.

“You taste horrible.” He said, not really mad.

“It’s a gourmet fine wine.” You teased, holding up the bottle in front of him. He was quick to pull you in for another kiss. This one landing on the crown of your forehead, as you melted into his embrace.

Rubbing your hand slowly, he picked up random bits of your makeup.

“Does this all do something different or?” He asked, picking up two of the exact same products. Yes they were the same, but it was on deal. Well, it wasn’t actually on deal. You literally gaslighted yourself into thinking that, knowing you’d cringe if you ever looked at how much you spent in Sephora.

“No I just buy loads of the same stuff, of course it does different stuff.” You retorted. Picking up your primer, squeezing a few drops onto your hands before rubbing it onto your cheeks.

He admired how delicately your fingers moved across your face, and he couldn’t help but smile. God, this boy was in love.

“This is bronzer?” He questioned, his eyebrows peeking up at you as he held your contour stick. You couldn’t help but smile at the way he pronounced ‘bronzer’ his accent making it sound more like ‘bron-steer.’

“Close but no cigar, that’s contour baby.”

“Contour, bronzer. Tomato, Tomato. Same thing.” He huffed. He hated being wrong.

“Forward, right wing. Same thing.” You retorted. He’s explained, how many times? You’d lost count. But you still didn’t get the difference.

He grinned at the joke, and pulled you into him, tickling under your arms. You were a teenage giggling messing fit, as the beautiful boy teased you.

“Martin I have perfect aim of your balls. Let go.” You breathed out, exhausted from the wriggling and wiggling.

“Low blow. Literally.” He joked, making both of you roll on the ground with laughter.

He swore his cheeks were going to fall off from smiling, but your laugh was everything to him. He’d give up everything if he thought it would make you happy.

You two sat in a comfortable silence as he watched you prep your skin for makeup. As you carved out your eyebrows, he bit his lip.

“What do you want?” You teased.

“Can I do your makeup?” He asked.

“Absolutely!” You grinned. Normally, you wouldn’t let anyone touch your makeup, let alone your face, but Martin wasn’t just anybody.

“Well take a seat in the chair.” He joked, raising his eyebrows at you, as he glanced down to his lap.

“Well you behave?” You teased back, sitting down on his lap, his hands protectively finding their way to the small of you back, holding you in place.

“Of course I can. Now let’s get this started!”

—

As he pumped foundation onto your face, he stuck his tongue out in concentration as he began to dab it in with a brush.

“Martin baby, that’s the wrong end. Flip it round.” You said, feeling the stick prod into your gums.

“Oh did I hurt you?” He asked, his eyes searching yours for any discomfort.

“You’d give my orthodontist a heart attack if she thought you were sitting poking at my teeth.” You joked, as he laughed along. This time rubbing the foundation into your face with the soft part. Much better.

As he moved slowly along your face, careful not to hurt you, you leaned your neck the other way, as the tv caught your attention.

“Mhm eyes this way Skatten.” He scolded, as he used his free hand to pull you closer to him by your neck. You couldn’t lie, that erupted butterflies in your stomach, and the ache started between your legs.

“That’s better. I wanna see those pretty eyes, yeah?” He said, looking in your makeup bag, for what he thought was next. Powder.

This was going to be fun.

—

As Martin continued across your face, you suddenly didn’t care about going out with your friends. It would be a shitty move to cancel on them, but… coke on now! They’d cancel too if they seen the sight in front of you.

“I’m almost done!” He said, looking about for lipstick. He couldn’t seem to find it.

“Under your ass Martin.” You said, and he lifted himself up to see that the lipstick was in fact, under his ass.

“You could say it was, under my nose this whole time.” He joked, in a weird British accent. You’d watched Bond recently, and he was obsessed was speaking in a weird cryptic tone.

You laughed as his joke literally made no sense.

“There’s no one like you baby.” You said, as you patted his thigh and felt his breath hitch. He knew you noticed, and gave you a sheepish smile, as he uncapped the lipstick.

‘Please don’t smudge that Martin. It’s Morphe.’

As he gently brushed the lipstick across your lips, he couldn’t help but stare at them. You couldn’t help but stare at his.

If this was a movie, everyone would be screaming for you to kiss.

“All done!” He said, clearly chuffed with himself. He helped you up, pulling you out of your day dream, as he dragged you into the bathroom so you could see.

Making eye contact with yourself, you can’t lie, you were impressed. Other than the fact, he forgot mascara, he done a pretty good job.

“I think there’s a career as a Makeup artist in the future. Forget football.” You joked, as he moved closer to you, pushing your back against the counter of the bathroom, as he lifted you up onto it, slotting between your legs. His nose brushed yours, as he placed a light kiss on your lips.

“Oh football was just a stepping stone for me to become a makeup artist. That’s my real passion.” He mumbled against your lips.

Sick of your rollers, one had been digging into your head all day, and it was pissing you off, so you not so elegantly, took them out. Martin seen what you were doing, and after watching a few times, he realised what to do, and helped you with the rest.

As you took the last one out, you put your hands through your hair, as he looked at you. Jaw on the floor.

“You look absolutely gorgeous, wow.” He mumbled against your neck, as he worked his way up softly to your lips.

The kiss was sweet, and full of love, as you two melted into each other. However, the soft moan that left his lips as you lightly rubbed on the strands of hair at his neck, switched his mood.

He bit your lip softly, silently asking you for to open up, as he slid his tongue into your mouth. His tongue met yours.

The kiss was passionate, as Martins hands slowly left the back of your neck, and travelled down to your hips, slightly rubbing them, as he mumbled ‘i love yous’ and ‘you’re so beautiful’ into your mouth.

Rubbing his hands down your thighs, you wrapped your legs around his waist, as he hands gripped onto your ass, as he slowly guided both of you onto the bed. Slipping on the way there on your micellar water.

“That stupid micellar water. Tried to poison my earlier, and now it’s trying to break my legs. Absolutely dirty.” He said, making you laugh, as he felt the vibrations in his lips, as his lips made their way down your neck.

As he licked and sucked lightly on your skin, he found that spot above your collarbone, and you moaned, and you felt him smirk against your skin in response.

Untying your robe, he slowly slid it off of your shoulders, placing a kiss to each one, before you moved it out of the way. He trailed back down your body, until he reached the valley of your breast. Nudging his nose slightly, he sucked slightly, feeling your breath hitch, as your back arched against him.

Using his hands, he pushed your hips back down lightly, before he lifted them to push your bra strap off of your shoulder. Placing a kiss there, yet again.

“The back baby.” He said, and you moaned at the nickname. Loving the way it sounded with his accent.

Arching your back, he unclasped your bra, and quickly began his work on your boobs.

Starting with the right, he lightly sucked the skin around your nipple before he took the left nipple in his finger, toying slightly on the hardened bud. He switched his attention to the left, and did the same thing, he did in the right.

As good as this felt, the aching between your legs only increased as the sight of his swollen lips and messy hair.

“Martin please- do something.” You moaned, as he moved his way down to your stomach, playing with the waist band of your shorts.

“Tell me what you want baby.” He said, his boice husky from lust, as you felt his hardened dick across your thigh, only adding to your arousal.

“I don’t care, just t-touch me.” You managed to get out, your hands finding his hair.

“That’s all I needed baby. Now you sit back and look pretty.” He said, flashing you a wink, before he placed a wet kiss on your lips, as he trailed back down your body to your shorts.

“You’re so beautiful. So damn beautiful.” He said. You wouldn’t blushed at the compliment, but the cage was becoming painful and you just wanted him to do something.

He pulled your shorts down your leg, placing light kisses on your hips. He took the top of your panties in his teeth, as he slowly pulled them down your legs, eventually taking them off when his hand, as he placed wet, warm kisses on your inner thighs.

He worked his way up your thigh, giving you one last smile, as his lips found your aching core. Your back arched immediately at the contact, and your thigh closed around his head. He pried them back open with his hands.

He lightly sucked your clit, before trialing his finger up to your dripping pussy. One hand drew patterns in your thighs, and you felt the vibration of his moan against your clit as you tugged on his hair.

“Fuck Martin, that f-feels so g-good.” You managed to get out, that only added fuel to his fire, as he pushed a finger inside of you.

It was embarrassing honestly, how you were such putty under his hands, but god was he good with his tongue.

As he continued to suck on your clit, he added another finger, and he began to pump them out of you painfully slowly.

“Martin p-please.” You begged.

“That’s my name yes.” He replied smugly, as he looked back up at you. His dick twitching in his shorts as he seen your naked body, slightly red from the marks he’d made.

“F-faster.” You begged, eyes at the back of your head, as you felt the familiar feeling in your stomach.

“Since you asked so nicely.” He twisted, pushing his fingers back into you at a much faster pace. When he reached the spot he knew you loved, he began to scissors his fingers. He felt your walls clenching tightly around him, and he knew your body better than you.

“Cum all over my finger’s beautiful.” He said, as your orgasm washed over you, and your vision became foggy.

You didn’t even see him move back up, but you felt your lips against his, and you tasted yourself.

“Have I told you you’re so beautiful?” He said, sounding like a broken record. Your favourite broken record though.

“Have I told you you’re really good with your tongue?” You moaned, as you used your hands to tug his t-shirt off. The sight of his abs making you weak, in your already weak knees.

He pulled his shorts off, and he stood there in his boxers, as he pushed a strong thigh in between your legs.

His tongue, which has just been in your dripping pusey, now roamed your mouth. And you began to rub yourself up and down on his thigh.

His breath hitched, as he too, felt the friction between your pussy, and his clothed dick.

Pulling his boxers down, you reached down to give him a few strokes, his eyes closing, and mouth opening as he moaned lightly in response. Leaving down beside your ear, so you could hear him. His slightly damp hair brushing against your forehead.

“You make me f-feel so good baby. No one l-like you.” He moaned, as you seen pre-cum leak from the top of his dick.

“N-need you so-o bad gorgeous.” He breathed out, his forehead resting against yours, as you both panted into each panted mouths.

He slotted himself between your legs, and look down on you to get confirmation. You nodded your heard, unable to speak from the pure pleasure that has washed over you.

“Need you to tell me what you want baby.” He said, as he brushed a piece of curled hair behind your beard, rubbing your cheek lightly, as his eyes looked lovingly into yours.

You never felt closer to him, than in moments like this.

“P-please keeping going Martin.” You breathed out, as your hands rubbed lightly down his toned abdomen.

He wasted no time in pushing into you lightly, giving you both time to adjust. Both of you moaning from the contact. He pushed himself back out of you, and into you again.

“So fucking t-t-tight around me. Always s-so good.” He moaned into your lips, as he pulled you in for a kiss. You back arching off of the bed, as he began to pick up the pace. His lips trailed down to your boobs, and he began to kiss around them.

His hand snakes up to find yours, as he held your hand beside your head. The bed slightly shaking from Martin moving in and out of you.

As he thrusts became sloppier, and less precise. You knew he was close, and that feeling in your stomach returned.

“Cum for me Martin.” You breathed looking into those beautiful blue eyes.

Feeling your eyes on his, he looked into yours, and smiled.

“I love you Y/N. So so much.” He moaned, as your walks began to clench around him.

“I love you too Martin. So so so much.” You moaned back into lips, as he threw a few more sloppy thrusts before he came inside you, muttering nothing but loving words in Norwegian to you, as he played with your clit softly, and it wasn’t long before you too, came around him.

He stayed in you, smiling down at the sight in front of him.

Messy hair, swollen lips. He’d never seen anything more beautiful.

As you two both caught your breaths, he pulled out of you, whining at the loss of contact, he collapsed onto the bed beside you, pulling you into his chest.

Rubbing ‘I love you’ into your back, you snuggled into him.

“We need to clean up.” You said, this was your least favourite part of sex.

“Good thing there’s a modern day invention called the shower!” He lightly joked, before picking you up bridal style and heading into the bathroom.

This man was everything to you, and you too, were his everything.

Eehh! I actually really like this!! Let me know if you want a part 2 of the shower scene🤭

#footballer imagine #martin odegaard #martin odegaard imagine #martinodegaardsmut #martinodegaardfluff #martinodegaardxreader #martinodegaardfanfic #martinodegaardxyou #footballer x you #footballer smut #footballer fluff

[moonbeamwritings]

wc: 1.3k, spoiler free!

jolyne x fem!reader

suggestive, alcohol mention

Friday nights mean only one thing in your tight-knit friend group — girls night out. It’s an evening jam-packed with bar hopping and drinks; with music, snacks, and sleepovers. And as you always do before a big night on the town, you, Ermes, and Foo gather in Jolyne’s bedroom to get ready.

Ermes and Foo crowd each other in the bathroom in a flurry of limbs and excited conversations. The blow dryer stops and starts again and again to punctuate their gossiping and teasing. Clothes and shoes are strewn across the tile as they decide which of Jolyne’s outfits to commandeer this weekend. You emerge from the bathroom, a slight sheen of sweat clinging to your brow from the heat of the blow dryer (and from being packed in Jolyne’s bathroom like sardines). 

Leaving your friends behind, you face a new challenge.

Shoes and clothes and open chip bags litter Jolyne’s carpet like landmines, and you hesitate to take a step, weary that something may explode or crunch beneath your heel.

Jolyne sits on the opposite side of the room, makeup palettes strewn about in what can only be described as organized chaos, wrapping around her as she sits on the floor in front of her full length mirror.

She looks devastatingly beautiful with her hair cascading down her back in perfect waves, makeup immaculately blended to accentuate the high points of her face and the color of her eyes. You try not to gawk as you stand behind her, watching as she applies highlighter to her cheekbones, but you feel locked in place. Completely mesmerized.

Is your heart supposed to race like this watching your friend do her makeup?

No, you think as it practically thunders in your ears as Jolyne’s lips pout to spread lip gloss across their silky surface. Definitely not.

“Hey, want me to do yours too? I’m almost done.”

You barely hear her over the sound of the music and the hammering of your heart. You watch through the mirror as she spritzes setting spray across her features, no doubt gaping at her like a fish.

She pays you no mind, smiling a little as she waves you over. “C’mere. I have the perfect eyeshadow for your outfit.”

You nod dumbly and make your way across the carpet, narrowly avoiding Doritos bags and platform heels along the way. You settle beside her and her grin widens.

“You know the drill,” she tells you, sweeping stray hairs away from your face. “I’m gonna be all up in your business.”

“That’s fine,” you manage to squeak out, praying that she can’t feel the heat of your cheeks beneath her fingers.

“Just,” she leans around you to prop some pillows up behind you, “Lean back. I think the angle’ll be a little easier.”

Doing as you’re told, you press your back into the mountain of pillows and adjust until Jolyne seems pleased. Without another word, she moves until she’s straddling your hips, skirt riding up as she does.

You practically choke as the strong, smooth expanse of her thighs presses into your sides. In all your years of friendship, in all the times she’s done your eyeliner or eyeshadow, she’s never done this before. Is this the up in your business she was talking about? As you concentrate on settling the pounding of your heart and deciding where to put your damn hands, Jolyne sets to work, crowding your space even more to dab primer onto your eyelids.

“This okay?”

You’re thankful your eyes are closed because you can practically hear the smirk in her voice. How considerate of her to ask, you think as you start planning your own funeral at her proximity. “Mhm.” You try to act natural despite the way your cheeks burn. “I’m fine.”

“Okay,” Jolyne drawls, pulling away. “You just sit there all pretty and I’ll be done before you know it.”

Your hands find a home at your sides, mere inches from her bare knees, and you feel like a horny teenager as you think about how close you are to ghosting your fingertips over her skin.

With your eyes closed, you feel like she’s everywhere. You can faintly smell watermelon from her favorite gum, the subtle hints of coconut from her shampoo. Her long hair tickles your cheek as she leans impossibly closer, swiping and blending eyeshadow across your lids. God, you don’t think you’ll survive.

“Will you open for me?”

You blink open and, just as you suspected, her face is a hair’s breadth from your own. Her green eyes sparkle in the lights of her bedroom as she inspects her handiwork.

“Mmm,” she hums thoughtfully, lips pursing and brows furrowing in thought. “Close ‘em again.”

Jolyne spends another few minutes blending, shifting around in your lap as she picks up and discards different palettes. It’s made all the more painful when she takes your chin between her thumb and forefinger, tilting your head this way and that to peer at your eyelids. When she’s satisfied, she instructs you to open your eyes again.

“So pretty,” she croons. Your chin is still locked in her grip, and you watch in disbelief as her gaze flickers between your eyes and your lips. “I’m just gonna add eyeliner and lipstick, if you want it, and then you’ll be golden, okay?”

“Sounds good.”

You feel her breath on your lips, causing goosebumps to rise across your skin. “My creative vision’s being realized.” She holds your cheek to keep your head in place, dragging the cool tip of the liquid liner across your lash line. Silence falls between you for a second before she continues, “This might be my greatest work yet.”

“Oh yeah?” you tease, a smile pulling at the corners of your mouth. “You think so?”

Her chest presses closer as she does the other eye, and her knee brushes against your fingers with the movement, her hips dragging ever so slightly against yours. Your breath hitches.

Quietly, sweetly, she tells you to open your eyes again, and when you do, she has a look on her face that you can’t quite place. And for a moment, as your eyes flicker from hers to her lips to the dip in her shirt that exposes the smooth skin of her chest, you forget about girls night, and about your friends in the bathroom. You forget about the vodka cranberry you left on her bedside table. Hell, it feels like you even forget your own name. All you can think about is Jolyne Cujoh and her pretty eyes and the curve of her cupid’s bow. The heat of her thighs against your hips. About how badly you want to ruin your friendship.

“Yeah,” she murmurs after another beat of silence. “I think so.” She caps the eyeliner and drops it somewhere along the carpet, eyes not daring to separate from yours as she does. The blow dryer hums in the other room, Foo and Ermes still distracted, and you pray you have another moment alone.

As if reading your mind, Jolyne leans into you further, tilting your chin up. “Can I?”

Heat rushes to your cheeks, and your fingertips ghost over the curves of her knees. “Please.”

It’s a desperate plea that spurs Jolyne into motion, dragging your lips to hers in a kiss that sears your skin. And just as before, she’s everywhere. Her palms on your cheeks, her fingers in your hair. Her weight settling over your hips, pushing you further back into the pile of pillows. It’s as if heaven has crashed right through her ceiling to make a home in her room, in your lap.

Jolyne’s chest heaves as she pulls herself away with a quiet, but lewd smack. She drags her thumb along the now plump, swollen swell of your bottom lip and smirks. “Well, I don’t think you need lipstick anymore.”

You catch your reflection out of the corner of your eye and notice the slight shine of lip gloss, her lip gloss, across your lips. You bring your gaze back to hers to find her already looking down at you. Squeezing her hips, you ask, “How do I look?”

“Pretty,” Jolyne whispers earnestly. “Really pretty.”

#jolyne cujoh x reader #jolyne x reader #jolyne cujoh imagine #jolyne imagine #stone ocean imagine #stone ocean x reader #jjba x reader #jjba imagine #im SO down bad for her no one look at me #im BI thank you very much

[kingedmundsroyalmurder]

Addendum to the chapter 1 post that I thought of later:

“Not this afternoon—haven’t got time. I must mosey up to the North End to see a man who has got a lovely throat. Nobody can find out what is the matter. He has puzzled all the doctors. He has puzzled me, but I’ll find out what is wrong with him if he’ll only live long enough.” This is Eric's best friend, a well known doctor, cosplaying as, like, 1900s Dr. House. No concern for the patient's well being, just a Mystery that must be solved. No wonder Eric has such a low opinion of doctors!

(Sidenote: those of you who Anne, what is Gilbert like as a doctor? Because TBC didn't have a great opinion of them, and this book is not shaping up to be too complimentary either. Did LMM just have a fairly poor opinion of doctors in general that colors her work?)

On to chapter two, and we meet an actually sympathetic character! Larry West seems like a lovely young man, and I hope he recovers fully and that he and Agnes Campion are blissfully happy together. Unlike either Eric or David, Larry actually seems to care about the people under his charge, i.e. his students. I already want him to be our protagonist instead.

"The former looked more like a benevolent old clergyman or philanthropist than the keen, shrewd, somewhat hard, although just and honest, man of business that he really was." Kilmeny of the Orchard, sponsored by the Better Business Bureau! There is absolutely an interesting thread to tease out across LMM's life and work that connects Eric Marshall to Barney Snaith, but I want to read more of this book before I make further commentary on that. But it does appear that Maud's opinions on rags-to-riches businessmen, uh, Evolved over the years.

Actually never mind, I'm gonna girl who's only ever read The Blue Castle this book a tiny bit more. Compare:

"And then those girls were as pretty as pinks, now weren’t they? Agnes was the finest-looking of the lot in my opinion. I hope it’s true that you’re courting her, Eric?”

and

“Prettiest girl in Montreal,” said Dr. Redfern. “Oh, she was a looker, all right. Eh? Gold hair—shiny as silk—great, big, soft, black eyes—skin like milk and roses. Don’t wonder Bernie fell for her. And brains as well. She wasn’t a bit of fluff. B. A. from McGill. A thoroughbred, too. One of the best families."

Women aren't really people, they are trophies and objects to be collected and revered. Barney grows out of this mentality through his travels. Eric... well it remains to be seen about Eric, doesn't it?

"Perhaps I am. When a man has had a mother like mine his standard of womanly sweetness is apt to be pitched pretty high." So we're getting the standards by which Eric judges a future wife and the role she will be expected to play. He wants a society hostess, a woman who can step seamlessly into his mother's shoes. He wants her to be sweet and serene and, presumably, beautiful and delicate like his mother in her portrait. David and Mr. Marshall both basically want him to marry Ethel Taverse -- beautiful, well brought up, good lineage, of the Right Sort. Eric... honestly Eric has such fantasy standards for a woman that in a different book the resolution would be that he realizes that he's gay. He's doing that doesn't-realize-they're-queer-yet thing of, "it's not that I don't like [expected other gender], it's just that I haven't found anyone yet with [vague laundry list of impossible qualities]." I know that doesn't always translate into queerness, but it's an experience that definitely rings true to my baby ace teenage years before I had the words or knowledge to accurately describe my experiences.

"In all likelihood the worst thing that will happen to you over there will be that some misguided woman will put you to sleep in a spare room bed. And if that does happen may the Lord have mercy on your soul!” Go to PEI, but don't consort with the locals! The Wrong Kind of Woman might tempt you! This book is a great primer on how classism and eugenics go hand in hand, isn't it?

So our plot has been set up for us. Eric, a young man in possession of a good fortune, is off to Prince Edward Island, where he will soon find himself in want of a woman to be his wife. She will either be a commoner, whom his family and friends think isn't good enough for him but whom he loves and will stand up for, or she will be a secret aristocrat, whom he will pluck out of her shabby surroundings and return to her birthright in high society. I want this book to go with option a, because it's more interesting, but from what I know of it it veers closer to option b instead.

(What he needs is an Anne Shirley to whack him upside the head with a slate and tell him to stop being such a jerk, but I'm not holding out hope.)

#kilmeny of the orchard #kilmeny readalong #I am gonna drag depth out of this book if i have to go in with a pickaxe and mine it myself

[shibyn]

anywhere, with you

toilet bound hanako kun || aoinene || 16k || ao3

Like a crack of thunder, "Yashiro Nene!" jolts Aoi from her thoughts. "What in Heaven's name did you do to your socks?!" Along their line up, most of the girls turn to the offender-- who grimaces, quickly losing the straight-back posture she's meant to have to duck her head in shame.  Aoi can't see the socks in question without bending out of line, but she doesn't have to wait long to get an idea of them: "The violets bloomed this morning!" Yashiro Nene rushes to explain, flustered from the sounds of it. "I really wanted to get a closer look, so I did-- but I remembered what you said last time, when I scratched up my shoes from the shrubs, so I took them off and--" "So you walked in the dirt with just your socks?" Ms. Yako shrieks.  "Yes?" squeaks Nene. 

Eden Academy is an elitist institution that prides itself on being able to streamline young girls into the proper, to-be-seen-and-not-heard ladies of high class society.

When she was told that Yashiro Nene is moving into the empty side of her dorm room, Akane Aoi wasn't expecting for her whole world to turn around.

______________

At ten o'clock sharp, inspection begins.

Ms. Yako, while not cruel, is unyielding and unforgiving. As the instructor designated for uniform inspection, her keen eyes do not miss a single detail. 

Upon stepping in front of Aoi, she does not waste time in pulling at Aoi's lapel, clicking her tongue at a crease Aoi missed while ironing. A tap on the side of Aoi's calf– the sock rests too low on her calf, and therefore is rumpling along the ankle. She does nod appreciatively at Aoi's posture, but does tug on the sleeve of her blazer so that the shoulder sits properly.

"You should know better than this, Ms. Akane," Ms. Yako tuts, voice as sharp as the sound of her fountain pen scratching against her clipboard.

Without much fanfare, Ms. Yako moves to the next girl. Aoi breathes out from her mouth, slow and measured. Not bad, all things considered. By this point, Ms. Yako is essentially nitpicking things about Aoi's uniform that she wouldn't on others to keep from seemingly having favorites. 

It's understandable. Approaching month four since the start of the semester here at Eden Academy, Aoi is the closest thing to a star student here. Each and every assessment they have laid in front of her, she's excelled in-- her peers have begun to assume that there has to be a catch of some sorts, since even with their prideful family titles and standings won't sway the harsh truth of Eden's instructors' evaluations. 

Aoi resists the urge to close her eyes. As pompous as it sounds coming from her, it's all simple– all of the assessments here follow a simple criteria. Do what you're told.

Eden Academy is an elitist institution that prides itself on being able to streamline young girls into the proper, to-be-seen-and-not-heard ladies of high class society. To be a school with such a success rate, the only way to get girls to conform to the aristocratic standard is to let nothing fall out of line. They'll only go short of beating anything not lady-like out of you.

Everything here was designed to be stunning. Polished marble floors in every room, embellished crown moldings along high-reaching ceilings. Portraits of prior headmasters and sponsors hang from nearly every square inch of free walls, regal to each individual stroke of oil paint. Extravagant, solid wood furniture at every corner. Sprawling, handwoven carpets at every turn. 

Beautiful, of course. Absolutely life-draining, as well. 

To be in the halls of high society, you must be high society. Every step you take in these halls, you must be worthy– the polished floors will reflect your every flaw, the portrait's soulless eyes pay due judgment as you pass under, the domed ceilings reaching over like the ribs of a bird cage.

Anything else is stripped away, to be replaced with a coat of fresh primer to cover up any other impurities. Aoi excels only because she knows the right smiles and right words to appease instructors enough to not try and chip past her skin.

Like a crack of thunder, "Yashiro Nene!" jolts Aoi from her thoughts. "What in Heaven's name did you do to your socks?!"

Along their line up, most of the girls turn to the offender-- who grimaces, quickly losing the straight-back posture she's meant to have to duck her head in shame. 

Aoi can't see the socks in question without bending out of line, but she doesn't have to wait long to get an idea of them: "The violets bloomed this morning!" Yashiro Nene rushes to explain, flustered from the sounds of it. "I really wanted to get a closer look, so I did-- but I remembered what you said last time, when I scratched up my shoes from the shrubs, so I took them off and--"

"So you walked in the dirt with just your socks?" Ms. Yako shrieks. 

"Yes?" squeaks Nene.

Ms. Yako trembles with an unbridled fury. And then comes the onslaught– Ms. Yako proceeds to scold Nene within an inch of her life, picking apart her ruffled blazer, the fraying hem of her skirt, the flower petal stuck to her fringe, and, despite her precaution, a scuff on the toe of her shoe. Not to mention the dirt still present in the creases of her palms, the chewed up nails upon each finger…

The list goes on and on. Once on a roll, Ms. Yako can rant for minutes on end. And when it comes to Yashiro Nene… well...

If instructors can have favorites, then they'll definitely have least favorites-- and, unfortunately for her, Yashiro Nene takes up that unofficial position. In the four months the semester's been in session, Yashiro Nene still has yet to pass a single inspection. 

All things considered, she's already leagues better than how she was before: on the first day of inspections, she forgot her blazer, had the last three buttons of her blouse undone, and had colorful doodles winding up her arms like tattoos. 

Ms. Yako had watched over her shoulder as she scrubbed her arms until they were bright pink, nearly the same color as the ink that was washed away.

With the lack of obvious impact on her, the administration seems to be scrambling on what to do. Truly, Nene isn't that bad-- she's just more outgoing than everyone else, more chatty, more eager. She doesn't even act out. When there's rules to follow, she follows. When there's things to be done, she does them. 

But of course, being a lady doesn't include climbing through the brush to get a closer look at a flower.

This time Aoi shuts her eyes, sighing. And, in an attempt to try and decide what to do with Nene before they declare she's helpless, since this godforsaken place only values how obedient they can make a girl, they've made the decision to move Nene into the vacant side of Aoi's dorm room.

Fundamentally she understands what the administration is trying to do. By putting Nene in the same room as one of their star students, they hope Aoi's good habits will rub off on her. Maybe they're hoping she will accept the responsibility of also trying to whip Nene into proper-lady-material outside of the classroom, too.

Privately, Aoi finds that bit to be the most annoying. The headmaster had pulled her aside this morning, smile so squeaky-clean it could nearly be plastic, to spring this sudden transfer upon her. Not a word of why Nene was transferring, or if she was even okay with this arrangement. Just that she now has a roommate, and that she should ' give Ms. Yashiro a little bit of a helping hand.' 

She'd rather chew on rocks. Being a pawn for this administration rubs her wrong in every which way. 

Not that she hates the idea of rooming with Nene, she knows it'll just… be interesting, simply put. Nene is so starkly different from Aoi that she has no idea how rooming with her will be. 

Aoi straightens her spine. It'll be fine. It will be.

______________

At seven fifty-two, someone knocks at Aoi's door. 

When she opens it, it's Yashiro Nene, twenty-two minutes late and panting.

"Sorry!" she bursts, frazzled, shuffling in with the largest suitcase Aoi's ever seen bursting at the seams, "I, uhm-- had more stuff than I thought, and I put off packing until the last minute-- I'm sorry I'm late! I still have to go back and grab some other stuff, but I'd figure I should just do multiple trips!"

Nene talks and moves like a whirlwind, her sentences beginning before they even end. She's constantly in motion, looking around, gesturing with her hands, shuffling on her feet. 

Aoi tries not to get swept up in it.

Before this, they had only orbited each other. In an academy so small, with each class consisting of the entire roster– it would be impossible to not be at least aware of everyone.

Ironically, the two of them are probably the most infamous. Two completely different ends of the spectrum, but infamous all the same. Aoi, to be celebrated, and Nene, to be berated.

Feebly, selfishly, she hopes Nene doesn't find it as an insult to be roomed with her. 

Dismissing the thought, Aoi clears her throat. "It's alright. Do you need any help?" she asks, to be polite. 

"Nope, I've got it covered!" Nene puffs, dragging in her suitcase rather than carrying it. With a great heave , she manages to swing it up onto the bed. The suitcase bounces on the mattress. Nene sags onto the bed next to it, groaning. Five seconds pass-- long enough that Aoi thinks Nene is going to stay there-- but then Nene snaps up, her mouth pursed with determination. When she hurries out the door, she leaves it open, steps echoing down the hall as she seemingly sprints to her old room.

With Nene out of the room, Aoi… doesn't know what to do with herself. She's already offered help, but since there's no need, she… would it be rude to go back to what she was doing?

Well. The thin booklet she had just finished rests on her side table, waiting to be checked out. She had planned on heading to the library eventually– it'll at least get her out of the room while Nene unpacks.

It's not fleeing, she reassures herself. Fleeing would mean that there's something to run from.

As Aoi puts all of her stationary and books into her satchel, Nene comes careening in with her other suitcase. This one she leaves by the bedside with a huff, takes a five second recollection of her breath, and unceremoniously plops onto the ground in front of her dresser tucked beneath the bed.

And… that's that. Nene starts unpacking, and Aoi stands to the side, feeling awkward. Her first roommate had only been enrolled for a month before being withdrawn. It wasn't quite long enough to learn the etiquette of having a roommate, especially for an only child like Aoi. 

"I'll… be in the library, if you need anything," Aoi starts, the words feeling clunky in her mouth. 

Nene looks up from where she's shoving clothes haphazardly into the drawers. "Oh! Okay!" she chirps, her hair falling in a frazzled mess around her face. "I'll see you later, then!"

The smile she gives Aoi is so unwarranted in its brightness. Aoi doesn't think she's ever been smiled at like this before, and doesn't know what to do with that information.

In return, she gives a smile that is so minuscule in comparison that it's almost pathetic before quickly fleeing. 

By the time Aoi returns, Nene has done everything short of renovating her side of the room. Posters and photocards are washi taped to the wall, crooked and unevenly spaced. Figurines, both humanoid and the silly blindbox animal variations, line the back of the desk. A pouch of colored pencils lays haphazardly half-way off the table, the pencils having rolled out from the opening.

Aoi literally did not know they were allowed to bring this much stuff to decorate. She side-eyes her clean cut desk, tidy and meticulous to where every book edge is parallel to the desk's edge. The stark difference between their desks is almost embarrassing– and it's on her part. 

What a way to show she's a stick in the mud: not having a single touch of personalization to her own desk.

Regardless, she finds Nene asleep with her cheek down on an open book, seated at her desk. Even though it's been less than a day, her desk is already a mess of assignments and books.

She doesn't move at all when Aoi leaves to wash up for bed. Nene surprisingly sleeps soundlessly. For someone as upbeat as her, Aoi would have thought she'd snore. Or drool, at least. 

Aoi shakes the thought from her head. Sleeping like that cannot be comfortable in the slightest, neck cricked, back bent. She reaches over to give Nene a slight shake of the shoulder.

Nene jolts, nearly snapping upright. A solid line cuts across her cheek from where it had been pressed up against the edge of a book, telling of how long she had been sleeping. "Euh, uhm–" Nene flounders, flailing, until she sees Aoi. She flushes a deep pink. "Uhm! H-Hi!"

"Hi," Aoi says back, lightly amused. "Sorry to wake you– I doubt that textbook is a nice pillow."

Somehow, Nene blushes even more, her hair flying as she whips her head back around to ogle at the pages. "Oh my god," she whispers to the text. In a flurry of movement, she leaps to her feet, slapping the book shut, rubbing her cheeks furiously– either to smooth out the book-crease on her face or to try and keep the color from her face. "Oh my god. This is so embarrassing…"

Aoi wants to reassure that it's not, because she's definitely drifted off to sleep while studying herself, but Nene is already moving on. She's quick to gather bed clothes and a toothbrush before dashing out the door, presumably to the bathroom.

A sigh nearly breaks through her lips. She presses them into a line instead, put off.

Nene returns soon after, the hair around the edges of her face damp and her cheeks back to their normal color. Recollected. "Thanks," she says, laughing, "I always end up falling asleep when studying! You won't believe how sore your neck gets from just a nap on a book!

She can imagine. Briefly, she wonders if this will be a common occurrence– Aoi having to shake Nene awake, her face pressed against her desk. She wonders if it was something her previous roommate did, too, or if they just left her there.

"Is it alright if I leave the light on?" Aoi asks instead, glancing at the lamp. It's not particularly bright, but it does reside between their beds. "I won't be up much longer– I just wanted to finish this chapter, but I can do it later…" She raises the book in question from where it rested on her lap.

"No worries," Nene says pleasantly, waving it off. "Sleeping with the light on doesn't bother me."

Before Aoi can parse that out, Nene clamors onto her bed. Against Nene's pillows is a small plush hamster that she didn't see before. When she finally settles under the covers, she makes sure that the plush's face is also open to the air, resting against the pillow next to her.

Aoi forces herself to look away.

"G'night, Aoi," Nene murmurs, muffled by her blankets.

"... Goodnight," she says back to the air.

______________

Just like the rest of Eden Academy, the gardens are flawlessly maintained, pruned, and made solely for presentation. Topiaries are spaced out within the garden's limits, as well as a wall of hedges to divide the space into sections. In the dead center is a three-tier fountain with baroque statues as its base, water glittering and clean. Wrought-iron benches can be found throughout the gardens, set only a foot away from the cobblestone. 

For all the grief she privately gives the over-the-top-ness of the academy, Aoi absolutely loves the gardens. 

It's the only oasis she finds in this boarding school. Something about the tranquility of the gardens is entrancing– it's easy to lose time in them, sitting upon a bench, soaking in the sun.

She tries to spend any moment she can out here. During individual study, she'll drift out to a bench to lay a book across her lap. After dinner, when they're allowed to wander, she'll stroll along the pathway, admiring the fresh blooms. And sometimes, when lunch is more of a finger-food rather than something she'll need knives and forks for, she'll post up near the fountain and close her eyes against the mist.

It's a shame the garden's a part of Eden. The things she would give just to be able to stay out here, or to be out here anytime she wants…

Aoi sighs, leaning further back into the bench. Today, Mr. Nagisa graciously released them early from his lesson, cheering about the good weather. Not many of her peers took the opportunity to come outside as well– for a bunch of girls to become as 'delicate as a flower', they sure don't bother to see flowers outside.

Regardless, she's meandered to one of her favorite benches on the outskirts of the garden, just below a sprawling oak tree that is much older than the academy itself. There isn't much time left between the next class– probably less than fifteen minutes, now– but Aoi's not going to let the chance of being out here slip through her fingers.

So she revels in it, closing her eyes with her hands clasped in her lap. Mr. Nagisa was right– the weather is pleasantly mild, warm, with the slightest of breeze pulling against her hair and rustling the leaves above her. If it weren't for the fact that there's another class period ahead, she could fall asleep out here.

"Oh! Aoi!"

Damn. Just when she thought she could have some peace. Aoi straightens out almost immediately, disengaging so smoothly that it's almost second nature. 

The sun casts a halo around the visitor, which leads Aoi to squinting against the light to parse out their face. She knows squinting is a poor expression to have but it's unavoidable here, at least not until they shift closer, under the shade of the oak.

"Nene," Aoi greets, keeping the surprise from her voice. 

It– shouldn't be all that surprising for Nene to be out here, too. Seeing that she's taken at least seven recorded and noted trips traipsing through the garden for flowers, it's likely that Nene's favorite place on campus is also the gardens.

She just… never would have thought Nene would call out for her.

Rooming with Nene hasn't changed much so far. They haven't interacted outside of their shared room yet– Aoi's still the star student, and Nene's still the opposite. Aoi will briefly see her in the dining room for each meal of the day, but aside from that, Aoi does her own thing in her free time, and she assumes Nene does the same.

It's… a little strange, perhaps. When Nene falls asleep during literature, Aoi knows it's from how long she spent up scribbling at the workbook rather from incompetence as the instructors assume. When Ms. Yako scolds her for a stain on her skirt, Aoi remembers the forlorn expression that briefly crossed Nene's face when she realized that there wasn't enough time to run it through the laundry the night before.

For all the grief that she gets, Nene is… just another girl. She's trying. It's not like she's a helpless case.

It makes Aoi feel a little worse every time she's praised by an instructor in the same period that Nene is picked upon. She really, really hopes Nene doesn't think that Aoi feels the same as the instructors when it comes to Nene's shortcomings.

Regardless, Nene carefully steps closer to the bench with a sheepish smile, a respectable distance from Aoi. "Hi! Hey, uhm, sorry to bother you," she says, awkward, like she knows she's encroaching on Aoi's space, "I, uhh, just wanted to make sure you got this back…"

And she's being handed a small book. Aoi blinks, confused, and gingerly takes it from Nene– oh. Masterpieces of Terror and the Supernatural. She recently picked it up from the library. It's one of the few ghost story collections she hasn't read yet; she wanted to read the individual ghost story books before she cracked open a collection, and, well… she's finally exhausted the solo books.

"You left this behind in class," Nene supplies, expression openly curious.

Ah. Must've slipped from her bag. In her haste to go to the gardens, it probably got left behind– it was closer to the opening of her bag since she had been peering at the cover of the book, tracing the straggling font of the title. 

"Thank you," she says. After a cursory glance about its condition, she slips it back into the bag resting at her side. 

To her surprise, Nene doesn't leave immediately. "Do you… like ghost stories?" Nene asks like she's treading cautiously. Aoi blinks at the sound of it.

It's…  almost a foreign feeling, having someone ask what she likes. No one particularly wants to hang out with her, more-less be around her, so no one really knows anything about her. There's a glass wall between her and all of her peers– one that has holes poked in it, so that they're able to exchange pleasantries and small talk, but to never get close to each other. 

Not that Aoi wants to get close. As much as they're all in the same boat at this institute, the other girls don't like her, and she doesn't like them back. Being taught to be elegant and high class ends up creating some haunty personalities. 

But here Nene is. Nene, who hasn't let a single berating get under her skin, who still keeps her charming weirdness regardless of how much she's scolded for it.

"Oh, they're fun," Aoi says belatedly. It's definitely considered one of the 'stranger' things about her– the influx of ghost stories and horror novels she checks out from the library makes the librarian raise her thin eyebrow. Honestly, she's surprised that there's even books in the library that aren't solely educational or especially curated stories of women being obedient wives. "It's what I usually read before bed."

At this, Nene gasps, eyes going wide. "Before bed?" she shrieks, "I was always wondering what you were reading, but I never thought– how do you even get sleep?"

Something tickles at the back of Aoi's throat, something a little like laughter. A small smile pulls at her lips when she speaks. "They don't really scare me." Then, because the answer's a little obvious, "Are you scared of ghosts?"

Like she suspected, the answering wince is telling. "Not– not really, " she says, wringing her wrists, "I can handle them during daytime, but… but once it's dark out, they really give me the heebie-jeebies."

Heebie-jeebies. That's absolutely adorable. 

"I suppose these old hallways are particularly cultivating for ghosts, too," Aoi says casually, trying for a joking tone. Once again, Nene reacts exactly how Aoi expects– she grimaces, shivering visibly.

"They're the worst!" Nene whines. She lowers herself onto the other side of Aoi's bench, rubbing at her eyes as she complains. "I love ghost stories, but every time I turn the corner in the dorm I swear the Crooked Lady is going to be there to nab me! It's exactly the kind of halls that are described in the story!"

Now that she thinks about it– she supposes they are quite similar. The dorm's floors are an older wood that creaks with every other step. The halls are long chutes, fairly similar to the tale's endless halls.

"Well," Aoi smiles, laughing a little, "at least we're not twelve, since that's usually the age that the Crooked Lady likes to grab."

Nene's eyes shine when she peeks through her fingers. "Literally! It's the only thing that keeps me from screaming every time I go to the bathroom at night…" She unfolds from her position, resting back against the bench. A worldly sigh comes from her. "It's honestly just a saving grace that rather than ghosts, I think it's just that the paintings are haunted."

A snort bursts from Aoi, surprising the both of them. Aoi coughs to cover it, hoping her ears aren't burning visibly. "Oh, without a doubt," she says, "Founder Regulus Eden's eyes definitely follow you when you walk by it."

"Right!" Nene exclaims, once again full of energy, like she's finally found someone who thinks the same, "Right! I've been saying that forever, and no one believes me! That portrait has a vendetta against me, I swear!"

The entire hall of prior headmaster's portraits always gave such an awful condescending atmosphere to it. It's one of the halls that lead from the dorms to the main academy building, so every morning and night you get to feel the pressure of hundreds of years old judgment and assessment. 

"I like to ignore his portrait in particular," Aoi says airily, "He can judge me all he wants– he was a pompous, classist idiot who spoke to his kin like they were lower than him, so I don't really care what he has to say."

Nene chokes a little bit, but blinks in revelation like the pieces of a puzzle have come together. "He was?" She scratches at her chin. "That makes so much sense! No one with that kind of powdered wig can be nice."

"Exactly the kind of fellow to make an academy like this, it seems," Aoi says clearly instead of muttering like she wants. She winces after. That wasn't a bright thing to say. Shows a little bit too much of her grudge against this place. If an instructor heard those words, they would probably scold her into the next semester.

But Nene only blinks. Her mouth opens to speak, but the distant toll of the bell cuts her off. 

Whatever she was about to say, she ends up withholding it– simply shrugs, reshouldering her bag, and rising to her feet. "You also have Mr. Tsuchigomori next, right?" she asks.

Aoi's slower to rise. She's expecting to mourn that her peace had been cut short, but she finds that she doesn't mind much. "I do," she confirms, almost puzzled. 

Nene frowns in a way that's almost a pout. Looking side to side, as if checking for anyone else listening, she whispers, "If there's anyone at the academy who gives me 'possessed' vibes, it's him." 

Biting her tongue to keep down another snort, Aoi nods conspiratorially. "You've noticed that he moves strangely, too, huh."

When they arrive to class together, Mr. Tsuchigomori gives them a long, curious look, and so does everyone else. It doesn't seem to bring up any issue, so Mr. Tsuchigomori turns back to the board, chalk in hand, and when the two of them catch each other's eyes from across the room when he simultaneously reads from a book and writes on the board in a peculiar way– well, no one catches the gleam in their eyes.

______________

One night, Nene doesn't come back after dinner. 

Not that it's unusual; Nene usually meanders back to their room an hour or two after the dining hall hours end. What she does during this time, Aoi doesn't know– it doesn't seem to always be the same thing. Sometimes she'll come in with the cuffs of her blouse still wet, most likely from the near eternal dish duty she's put under as general punishment. Then there's the times where she comes in with cobwebs in her hair or grime smeared across her face. 

Regardless of what Nene does, she always comes back with plenty of time to putter around her desk, fall asleep at least once, wake up enough to sleepily redress for bed, and resume sleeping properly, all before curfew and before quiet hours. It's routine, even for someone as spontaneous as Nene.

But today… today, as minutes tick towards nine o'clock, there has been no sign of Nene at all.

It's probably nothing , Aoi thinks, oddly restless. The paperback in her hand cracks along the spine, to which she quickly relaxes her abuse of. She tries to read further along the page. Forces herself to focus.

But she isn't back. She isn't back, as Aoi hears bids of good nights and doors closing down the hall. The instructor on monitor duty walks past the doors at nine-thirty, just before the lights in the halls go out. And Nene still isn't back.

Aoi taps her fingers along the edge of the book she hasn't turned a page in for the past ten minutes. Nene's never done something like this before-- at least, never as she's been Aoi's roommate. Albeit it hasn't been long, but Nene doesn't really seem to be the kind to do that kind of rule breaking. 

So-- so maybe something's happened to her. 

That might be it. It probably is. Aoi sets her book down beside her. 

Does she go look for the instructor who went by earlier? What would they do after that? How would they even find Nene? The academy's massive, and seeing that Nene's exploring places that are probably abandoned– how else would she get cobwebs strung up on her-- there's no telling where she would be.

Ah. That would mean fetching and telling the instructor that Nene is breaking curfew. And, by extension, probably in areas of the academy she's not meant to be in.

She picks her book back up restlessly. 

Nene always comes back from her adventures. She's curious to a fault, but Aoi's never seen her do anything that was particularly reckless. Anything she does that strikes the ire of an instructor is just because Nene doesn't do things in the pristine way they want her to. She doesn't particularly break rules. 

Wrapped up in her thoughts, she jolts hard enough her teeth crack together when the door creaks open, slow enough that Aoi immediately thinks intruder. She rears back her book, and holds.

Slipping in with bare feet-- is Nene. 

She presses close to the wall, like she's actually sneaking in. Something rustles, brushing against the frame as she slides in, but Aoi can't quite see what it is with Nene's back to her. Carefully and slowly, Nene presses the door shut without a noise.

For a moment or three, she's absolutely motionless, still in a sneak mode. Then she exhales with her whole body. 

Oddly, Aoi feels retribution for her own fright when Nene does a whole-bodied jump when she looks up and meets Aoi's. 

"Aoi! Sorry-- you startled me!" Nene stage-whispers, toeing further into the room. Aoi was right– there is an undefinable bundle in her arms. Upon stepping up to her desk, she awkwardly lets everything tumble from her arms to the table top, and drops her shoes with the socks shoved in them on the floor. "Sorry," she apologizes again, "I hope I didn't wake you or anything!"

With no obvious sign of anything wrong, the worry that had squeezed her lungs finally ebbs away. "You didn't," Aoi says, neutrally, slipping off her bed. She doubts that she could have even slept, fretting about where Nene was and what she had gotten herself into.

Nene blinks at her, head tilted. Like she knows that Aoi had more to say. Maybe her fretting isn't as concealed as she thought it was…

"Er," Aoi fumbles, feeling silly for the tizzy she spurred herself into. "I just… was a little worried, since you hadn't come back before curfew."

"Oh!" Nene smiles, busying herself by pulling her hair out of loose pigtails, "Oh, no worries. I didn't mean to take so long, either! I really lost track of time, so by the time I started heading back, it was already late…" 

She frowns. Her nose scrunches with the expression, eyebrows furrowed, and it's so cute that she doesn't even seem upset. "I wish I could have stayed longer, honestly, but this!" she abruptly twirls to her desk, gathering the bundle she had dropped there earlier, " this is totally worth it!"

In Nene's arms are… flowers. A complete array of flowers. Aoi holds back a grimace; she couldn't tell what they were earlier because the flowers are wrapped in Nene's uniform blazer as a poor substitute for wrapping paper. But now that Aoi can see them so closely–

The dogwood, daylilies, and hostas are a familiar sight; they're integrated into the landscaping, breaking the monotony of the near-obnoxiously abundant topiaries towards the front entrance of the academy. The gardenias, she's pretty sure, are more along the back of the building, in tufts along the windows. 

But then there's a shock of pink– two kinds of pink flowers. Rhododendron and azaleas. Both of which are not anywhere on academy grounds.

"Where did you get these?" She asks, stunned. She wants to reach out and rub a petal between her fingers, feel the velvet she knows that they are, but she keeps her wrists pinned to her side.

"In the gardens," Nene says, which is a bold-faced lie. She smiles sheepishly, caught, since she's probably aware that Aoi knows far too much about the gardens– it's the only place she likes being at, so of course she'd be well acquainted with the fact that these flowers are not there. 

Aoi fails to smother a little huff of laughter. Nene's own smile grows a little bit more confident as she leans closer to Aoi, stage whispering, "They're actually in the woods by the horse stables! I saw them after Buttercup threw me off, last lesson!"

That day, Nene has walked in, the white of her uniform nearly terracotta with the dusting of the track dirt. Aoi had tried not to stare too long-- the rip in her stocking revealed the bloody, scabbing mess of her knee, and the paths of clear skin running from her eye to her chin implying that the fall had been as painful as it looks-- but Nene had seen her anyways. And, instead of grimacing, Nene had brightened, somehow excited as she had told her she had been bucked off of a horse.

Aoi had wondered how Nene managed to perk up, even after something that was a little awful. It all makes sense, now, especially with the way Nene is.

They're quite similar, it seems. If Aoi herself had caught a glimpse of those flowers, she, too, would have thought about them all day. 

But then that's where they're different: Aoi would have only tried stealing glimpses of them whenever possible. Nene took matters into her own hands. 

"They're lovely," Aoi murmurs. She would have never known they were here on campus.

Curiously, Nene flushes. She steps back– Aoi hadn't even noticed how close they were to each other– carefully laying the bundle back onto her desk. "Yeah! I really, er, wanted to see them together with the gardenias!" When unfolding her blazer-wrapping, she grimaces. When Aoi peers over, the smears of dirt splotch the blazer's lining. Those are going to be tricky to get out, if not treated when fresh.

Nene hesitates, here. She glances around her abyss of a desktop. There's no hint of what she's looking for– not until the gingerly re-wraps the flowers with the blazer sleeves. 

"Oh," Aoi says, surprising herself, as the pieces connect, "do you need a vase?"

When Nene turns to her, there's surprise on her face, her eyes wide and mouth slightly ajar. There's surprise, and a little bit of hope. "Do you have one?" 

She doesn't. At least, not a proper vase. Nothing would be lovelier than to have fresh flowers in one of the elegant crystal vases that she used to admire back at home, but anything that wasn't useful to her education here simply wasn't brought with her. 

One thing that did come along with her was a tall pencil holder. 

She doesn't really know what comes over her, but the idea of all of those flowers, lovingly picked and carefully arranged, having been snuck through the width of the lawns and down the monitored halls… Aoi takes three long steps to her desk, grabs hold of the pencil holder, and upturns it. The pencils and pens clatter on the table top, only held up from rolling straight off by Aoi's hand.

"This should probably be tall enough, if we cut the stems," she says, tapping the bottom to shake out any debris stuck to the inside of the cup. Once satisfied, she turns and offers it to Nene, who, she only realizes now, hasn't moved an inch and is gaping at her. 

The two of them hold still. Long enough that the absurdity of Aoi stomping forward and pouring out all of her pencils onto her desk finally makes Aoi's face feel hot in the way that she knows she's blushing. 

Before she can rescind her offer and promptly overthink everything for the next few days, Nene reaches out and takes hold of the cup, but doesn't take it from her hands. "Are– Are you sure?" Nene stammers, still stunned. She glances at the mess that now covers Aoi's desk. "I mean, your pencils…"

"It's no worries," Aoi says, assured in the way she doesn't feel, letting go of the cup so Nene has to take it. "I have a pencil pouch to put them in. I don't mind using it for the flowers. It's just a shame I don't have anything prettier to offer."

And, slowly, the shy uncertainty fades away, a smile blooming on Nene's face. 

"No, this is perfect!" she beams. With a sunny bounce in her step, she rifles through her desk to procure a pair of scissors. Her excitement is infectious as she turns to Aoi. "If you wouldn't mind, could you get some water for it?"

And after hurrying to the communal bathrooms to fill the cup with water and fussing with the stem lengths so that the cup won't topple over, the flowers form a charming bouquet together. A little mismatched and busy, but lovely all the same.

"Do you mind if we keep it on your desk? Since then it won't be drowning in a mess," Nene jokes, eyes bright. She hasn't stopped smiling since they started. 

Aoi's heart does a little flutter, like butterfly wings caught in her chest. 

The flower vase takes position in the empty left hand corner of her desk. A bright pop of pink and white and red against the crisp muted tones of Aoi's stationary. Even though it's rough around the edges, with its substitute vase and with some of the flower heads squished together, it's the best thing she's ever seen.

______________

When Aoi walks into their room after dinner to find Nene on all fours, reaching deep beneath her bed, she tries not to be particularly concerned.

"Are you… okay?" Aoi asks, dropping her bag into her chair cautiously. Although Nene does some strange things, they're usually all they are– just strange. She just. Can't image what she's halfway under the bed for.

A crack– Nene yelps and Aoi winces, knowing she just cracked her head into the bedframe.

"Ah! Er, hi, Aoi!" Nene calls, squirming out from underneath the frame. She's rubbing at the back of her head with one hand, embarrassed, but she's also dragging something else out with her. "Yeah– yeah, I'm fine, I was just getting this! I guess I pushed it too far underneath whenever I put it here…"

It's a… shoe-box covered in stickers. When she flips open the top, a handful of cassette tapes slide haphazardly to the ground, having only been kept in the box by the inch of the lid's height.

Aoi steps closer, curious, as Nene dives back under for another item. Some tapes are in cases with printed labels, obviously bought from a store, with names like Don Henley and A-ha. Others don't have a case and are labeled individually with Nene's looping handwriting.

"A ha!" Nene cheers, which almost makes Aoi snort with laughter. "Finally! I got it!" When she climbs out from the dark, she shows her boon to Aoi, excited.

Bright pink with accents of light grey, Nene's cassette player shows the love it's been shown. Stickers similar to the ones on the cassette box adorn the player as well, but are marginally more rubbed off. The transparent case that lends view to the cassette tapes themselves is buffed; it's nearly translucent with the amount of scratches it has. 

"Are we even allowed to have those...?" Aoi wonders aloud, watching as Nene pops the case open and removes the cassette. 

Shrugging cheerfully, Nene chirps, "No idea!" She motions for Aoi to join her on the floor, scooting back to the box. Individually she pulls out each tape, humming approvingly at some, and setting them aside.

Aoi carefully lowers herself to the floor, picking up a tape from what she assumes is the 'Good' pile. The plastic case is black, with the words "ABBA" and "GOLD" across the front. When she pops the case open, the tape inside is transparent, save for the reels and black label on the tape itself.

Briefly, she wonders how Nene even managed to sneak in such a large amount of tapes. Their belongings aren't checked or anything when they first move in, but the amount of tapes Nene has is quite staggering, considering that she probably hid it all away in one suitcase. 

And how dedicated she is-- to bring so many, she must love every single one of them. Couldn't bear to part with any.

"Hey, is there any genre you like in particular?" Nene asks distractedly. The 'Good' pile is increasing fairly rapidly. At this rate, she may as well just pull all of them out and into the pile. "I don't know if I'll have any musician you name, but I have tons of tapes! There will definitely be something you like!"

Aoi blinks. "I don't..." listen to music, she thinks about finishing with. Something like embarrassment squeezes her chest before she can, because of course, some elite, home-schooled kid like her would be above listening to music-- so she clears her throat and says instead, "I don't have a preference."

There was no gramophone, record player, or cassette player in the Akane household. The lacking presence of them made the sharp footsteps echo through the halls all the more. Aoi had been curious about it before, of course, but the interest had petered out as time went on and there were no chances to listen. Even nowadays, with the ability to click the cassettes into the library rented players and listen and rewind and listen again– Aoi hasn't found any interest.

Sharp in her sternum, she remembers the gap between the two of them. Just how different she is from Nene.

Either obvious to the pause or polite enough to overlook it, Nene looks up from the tape she's been deliberating over. Her smile is gummy, twinkling. "I can play my favorites for you, then!"

Her favorites. Nene gives and gives and gives. High in her chest, Aoi feels honored that she's the one that Nene has found worthy of it. That Nene looked at Aoi and trusted her enough to hand over these gifts.

Aoi's just worried she's going to give all of herself away. Down to the bits and pieces.

"Oh," she starts out of politeness, regardless of how much her heart is pounding, "You don't have to--" 

And– Nene slows to a halt, her fingers curling in on the tape in her hands, labeled 'Absolute FAVORITES!!' in glitter pen with looping hearts and flowers around it. Aoi catches a glimpse of Nene's face, a glimpse of a heartbreak, before a curtain draws over it.

"Ah! Er, my bad," Nene says, her smile falling at the edges. Withdrawing. "I shoulda asked if you even wanted to listen at all-- I know it's kinda noise pollution…"

Her shoulders drop lower, like a flower wilting. Yet, as she still manages to smile, her gleaming excitement has been neatly packed up and stowed away, out of sight.

Guilt washes over her, a waterfall. Aoi wants to turn back time five seconds and sew her own mouth shut. Wants to go even further back to find that old roommate of Nene's and pummel them, since she's got the inkling that this has happened before but was only met with dismissal, disgust. 

The– the look of shame on Nene's face– 

"No!" bursts from Aoi, panicked. Both of them freeze, time-stopped, as if the slightest of movement would undo everything before their eyes. 

Christ. She didn't mean for this to happen. She has to salvage this. Has to. Shakily, she clears her throat, but it doesn't get rid of the squeeze. "Uhm. I mean. I…"

Back when she was younger, much, much younger, and was allowed to be a kid, she used to do anything she put her mind to. As long as it was interesting or a dare, she'd do it.

One of which was jumping into the lazy river from the stone bridge in town. 

The murky water of the river was only a few feet from the bridge's bottom, the current so slow the ripples of the water were nearly non-existent. She knew that the river was deep enough that there was no worry about hitting anything prematurely, no where to accidentally crash into and shatter bone. 

All she needed to do was jump and swim.

The boy she used to be friends with, Akane, was the reason they were in that situation, and nearly begged her to ignore the dare he had made. He, unlike Aoi, wasn't all that brave. He stood further back on the bridge, fisting the fabric of his shirt, and tried to plead with her until she took him seriously.

The water's too deep. The current is too strong, he'd say. At some point, he was simply just saying things, anything, in the hope it would dissuade her. The fall is too much. Come on. Please.  

She had scoffed, but when her limbs locked into place, toes just barely off of the stone lip, she was worried she wasn't all that brave, too. 

The water was scary. If she forgot how to swim, she'd sink like a pebble. If the current was stronger than it looked, she'd be cast down the river to wash up God knows where. Something lied just beneath its surface, masquerading in the deep blue.

But then she had breathed in. Held it in her chest until it started to burn, to fray the edges of her lungs. Let it out. Dug her fingernails into her palms. And then she jumped. 

Aoi now breathes in. Holds it in. 

Patiently, Nene waits, waits for an answer, the thin line of her mouth trembling. She clutches the tape in her hands, the skin at her joints white. Nervous, earth shatteringly nervous. But still waiting for Aoi. 

Nene gives so much. So, so much. Doesn't even think to hesitate about it. 

It'd only be fair to give something back. 

Her fingernails bite into the meat of her hands. She forcibly smooths them out against her skirt. "I.. I don't listen to music often. Ever," she makes herself say, fighting against the instinct to keep her mouth shut, to never say these kinds of things. They're not becoming of a lady; a lady doesn't say a damn thing about how she is or what she likes. "It wasn't something my mother found… important. I don't have a favorite song or anything. I…"

Eyes wide, Nene's looking at her, her expression caught between so many things Aoi can't catch a gleam of what it could be. She has to look away before she loses her nerve. "I mean… I'd– I'd love to listen. If. If you'll have me," she peeters out, breathless.

It shouldn't be so hard to say. She misses when she didn't have to watch her tongue with such ferocity– having to watch every word she said, having to filter it, has become a goddamn instinct at this point. Sharing things about herself feels more like carving a cube of her skin out– she has to grind her teeth together and wield the knife herself. 

But, in front of Nene, she wants to be able to say things just as freely. Wants to give just as much, and not feel the wound fester for weeks after. 

When a pair of soft hands rest on her own, Aoi jolts, strung tight. Honey-sweet, Nene's eyes are the softest she's ever seen them.

"Then," Nene says, like a rising dawn, "let's find your favorite song."

______________

The oncoming days are the best Aoi's ever had since she started attending Eden. 

In academic lessons, where Mr. Tsuchigomori stands with a backdrop of chalk-dusted board reading an excerpt, Nene nudges her chair with her shoe. Aoi glances-- a small wedge of paper is pushed her way, under the guise of Nene swiping away eraser shavings. Unfolding the creases reveals an artistically rendered fox, chewing on what seems to be a cartoon interpretation of Mr. Tsuchigomori. 

Aoi has to swallow her snort. She misses the next three lines of notes in exchange for drawing a crude piranha chewing on his arm. 

Nene does snort out loud. Her punishment is to read the next passage, but the second she's done and Mr. Tsuchigomori starts up again, she doodles and passes back a cat doing a handstand. 

At seven-on-the-dot, Aoi slips into her seat, across the grand mahogany table from Nene. The dining hall is silent aside from the shuffling to their proper seats, the clinking of their dishware being put into place. 

At no point does Nene pull back her feet from where they nudge Aoi's, nor does she try not to smile or make a face whenever Aoi makes eye contact with her. Aoi bites her tongue to keep a stoic expression, but Nene's eyes crinkle and her nose scrunches and it's so cute that she can't really help the smallest grin from her lips.

In sneaking moments, Aoi folds the napkin across her lap into a crooked off-shoot of a swan. It's awfully sad looking– which is fair, considering Aoi had only practiced origami once before and had nearly forgotten most of the steps. 

When she drops it onto the floor and passes it closer to Nene with her foot, she signals her to look with an exaggerated glance downwards. Nene unsuspectingly lifts the table cloth and looks. 

Her eyes gleam. In a way that is so conspicuous in its attempt to be inconspicuous, she looks side to side, reassuring that the instructor isn't looking, and then slides down infestismally in her seat. With a quick duck down, she reemerges and winks at Aoi. A quick flash of the crumpled swan head confirms she has it in her hands.

The main dish ends up being a beef wellington with roasted vegetables, elevated to be more pretty than appetizing. For the actual mealtime, they dine like normal, but Aoi catches a particularly cheeky look in Nene's eyes. In discreet glances, she watches as Nene mashes the potatoes and carefully sculpts it. 

Another glance around– then she lifts the plate slightly to Aoi. The potatoes are in the shape of a teddy bear's head. 

Aoi covers her smile with a well timed sip of water. She squishes a carrot, using the fork tongs to shape a bowtie. Feeling daring, Aoi keeps watch of the instructor, and quickly reaches across the table to drop the bowtie-carrot onto Nene's plate. 

Nene absolutely lights up. She puts the bowtie on the potato-bear accordingly. When she lifts her plate again, Aoi flashes her a thumbs up– putting down just in time for the instructor to glance her way.

Their peers, prim and properly eating the meal, knife-in-left-hand-and-fork-in-right-hand, look at Aoi like she's lost her mind. 

When they're not in the gardens together, they're in the plush chairs tucked in the library. The librarian doesn't mind them chattering as long as there's no one actively near them studying, which means they're regulated to just writing small notes on the margins of notebooks to each other. 

Nene isn't as much of a reader as Aoi, so when Aoi settles down with a new book to read, she steps through the isles looking for any book spine that sounds interesting enough to be pulled out. Usually, they're books full of pictures– Nene pulls out notebook paper for these, and tries to copy what's already on the pages. Sometimes she forgoes the paper and draws straight on the back of her palms when the colorful pens she's brought.

Aoi only hesitates for a moment before she leans over the herbarium Nene's pulled out, finger shyly pressed below the image of a poppy. 

A bright cardinal red, the resulting poppy drawing curls around her wrist, hidden just so by the cuff of her blouse. She still gets caught– not that she cares. Ogling at it in the middle of class isn't exactly being sneaky, but she doesn't want to be sneaky in the slightest. Why should she hide something so pretty? So precious?

The only regret she has is that as a result of being caught, she has to wash it off. 

More often than not, she's side by side with Nene at the sinks, scrubbing away at something to get it to the pristine clean that the staff wants. It nearly becomes a bi-weekly ritual.

Aoi's never been good at cleaning things– she's never had to be good, since she's habitually a neat and tidy person, and always had the option of someone else doing it for her. But she's apparently bad enough at it that Nene takes the time to peer over and laugh, sometimes fully in stitches, at just how poorly she's doing. 

It's more than enough to have Nene recover from the slumps she'll get into, when Aoi smears her clothes with the same amount of dirt and Nene's face scrunches, saying No, no wait– you don't have to do that for me. Just from Nene's nature, she's going to get some kind of grime since she isn't limited by things like being presentable or what deems as proper. It usually lands her at being much more mussed up than Aoi, and Aoi kind of hates it. So she makes sure they're even.

Aoi's glad she could give her that– that she can stay by her side when Nene's had to do this all alone before. Glad that she can make her laugh instead of spiraling in the rhythmic silence of washing. 

Besides– she thinks she likes the feeling of ruining something now. Of taking a handful of dirt and coloring the pristine clean into an earthy tone. She could get used to it.

Curfew is no longer a thing that Aoi follows like a clockwork. Once they carefully listen for the night monitor passing by, they sidle together, knees knocking into each other, to file through Nene's cassettes to play at the lowest volume, or to dig into another booklet of ghost stories that Aoi's rented from the library to wonder if they're real or not.

Sometimes they fall asleep like that– with their backs against pillows, Nene's usually the first one out, head resting on Aoi's shoulder, her plush hamster that Aoi now knows is named Black Canyon tucked in her arms. 

Aoi never has the heart to wake her up and move her. So she usually ends up pulling the covers up to their chins, and falling asleep, just like that.

Every moment she has, she tries to spend it with Nene. Every class, every meal, every free period. She's never been so close with anyone before– never had this much fun before.

And– with a warmth in her heart, an excitement bubbling in her chest– she thinks Nene feels the same.

______________

In the middle of the night, Aoi is shaken awake. With the curtains to their room peeled back, the whole world is covered in a navy blue. It takes Aoi a couple of blinks to focus on Nene, who leans at the edge of her bed with stars in her eyes. 

Nene's quiet giggle almost feels like a part of a dream. "Hey, sleepy-head," she says, eyes curved into crescent moons. 

Blurry from sleep, Aoi can only blearily blink at her. "Good… morning?" Aoi says, slow, even though the sun rises at seven. She rolls to catch the sight of her alarm clock. It's a little past one in the morning.

"Sorry, I know it's late-- early? Either way," Nene leads on, quiet– any louder and she may pop the bubble over the night silence. "I was gonna head to the gardens," she whispers conspiratorially, "since it's a full moon tonight! Whenever the moon's out, it almost feels like a different world out there! And the stars are so bright… do–" she falters, a little shy, "--do you want to come with me?"

Aoi has never wanted something more in her life. Never, even when she was finally sentenced to a life indoors to learn etiquette and socialisms, when all she wanted to do was roll in the dirt and look for ladybugs. 

Sleep still stubbornly pulls at the corners of her eyes, but Aoi scrubs them away, rolling upright to throw her legs off the side of her bed. "Of– Of course!" she rushes to say, words tumbling out. 

As much as it deeply scares her to be caught sneaking by faculty, she wouldn't miss this chance for anything in the world. 

Although it's irrational to think it, but she's sure her heart's pounding loud enough to get them caught. 

From the second she threw her legs off her bed and stood up, the thrumming started, louder and louder. We're really doing it, she had thought, following Nene to their room door after they had gathered their cardigans and tugged socks on, we're sneaking out . Nene had eased the door open, still cautious even though after a certain hour the instructor monitoring heads off to bed. Then, with a brief check both ways, Nene stepped out into the hall, motioning her to follow.

She's trembling, she realizes. A slight shake in her hands, her chest so tight that the muscles quake. 

In the last few weeks she's cared less and less about following the strict guidelines that have nearly been branded into her. No longer is she worried about all of the idiosyncrasies of etiquette, of her uniform being in pristine condition, or keeping her words well mannered and articulate. Getting into trouble over that is essentially a slap on the wrist– but here and now, the real threat of being caught sneaking past curfew, sneaking outside, puts a lead bullet in her chest, almost outweighing any excitement she feels. 

What would the punishment be for sneaking out? She'd imagine it'd be more than just a week of dish-duty. A call to the parents? Expulsion? 

It's fine, she forces over her thoughts. Nene has never been caught before. We won't be caught. 

The further they creep down the halls, the more she realizes it's a miracle, really, that Nene hasn't been caught before. The academy building itself is immensely historic; it does not let its age go unknown, floor boards groaning with the shifting of weight, doors creaking on dehydrated hinges with the slightest brush of air. Even a specter could be caught with how much of a warning the building gives upon a presence.

Each noise-- groan, crack, creak-- prickles along the back of Aoi's neck. She jerks to look in the direction of each sound, so on edge that she feels she's going to pop out of her skin.

Someone could be peering from the hallway. Or in that shadow. She can't be sure. It doesn't look like there is, but something made a noise that way, and–

–and, carefully, a hand slips into her own. 

Aoi's heart leaps into her throat. She can dimly see Nene's knowing smile– there's nothing accusing or annoyed in it, which is so, so kind of her. 

And. And she feels a minute tremor to Nene's hand. When she looks back up to Nene's face, she sees it now. Nene's a little terrified, too. 

A squeeze on her hand-- it's alright. 

Even though she's scared, probably more scared than Aoi since she also fears ghosts and these halls are far too old not to have ghosts in them, she's still reassuring Aoi. 

And Aoi believes her. There isn't anything to be so scared of. If Nene can creep through halls that terrify her, then… then Aoi can too. 

Although it takes a couple of steady breaths to be sure, Aoi nods, and Nene gently tugs her further down the hall with their hands clasped together. 

Still, at every noise, she grips Nene's hand tighter, trying to keep her heart from spilling out. It feels ridiculous, she knows it's ridiculous, being so frightened of each sound; especially when Nene doesn't flinch or jolt in the slightest. 

But with every reassuring squeeze back, each reassuring grin flashed her way– even though the urge to hide away is overwhelming, she steels her nerves, and keeps going. 

Nene eventually tugs her towards the line of tall windows in the main hall. Sliding the window up enough for them to climb out is relatively silent, save for squeaks that match each halt in the slide up and lets in the unmuted sound of the crickets' chorus. Nene doesn't even wince at the noise– it leaves Aoi in awe, who had promptly triple checked the doors to see if any instructors came charging towards them at the first squeak.

With a practiced ease, Nene slips over the window's ledge. Leaves crunch as she steps over, both feet solidly on the ground. Ducking back in, she smiles at Aoi, cheeks rosy, and offers her hand.

Wood chips from the landscaping and burrs from the foliage dig into her feet when she climbs over. At her grimace, Nene smiles sympathetically. "Sorry," she whispers, pulling down the window that squeaks only slightly to about a quarter-inch open– just enough to seem closed if glanced over. "Wearing socks helps, but then it gets stuck to your feet more…" she reveals, lifting her foot and brushing off anything caught by the threads.

Hand still clasping Aoi's, she leads her through the mulch, between the topiaries and the bushes. Lit by the moonlight, their trek through the landscaping leads them to the looping cobblestone pathway that connects the entire back of the campus. The stones are cool to the touch, chilly through the thin socks she wears. 

They walk through a cloud of gnats at least once along their path, causing both of them to swat away at the air. They pass a conglomeration of frogs, croaking obnoxiously overtop each other. Nene whispers a quiet, "I think they're having an argument," and both of them giggle at the prospect of it. 

Nonetheless, their stroll eventually ends at the academy's extensive gardens, surrounded by the pruned hedges. And the further they step into the gardens, the more Aoi understands what Nene means.

Aoi forgets how much of a difference simply the moon being full in the sky does for the night itself– regardless of how much time she spends in the gardens during the day, there's nothing quite like it now in the night. Most of the flowers have closed up with the lack of sunlight, but a few are still open, their petals nearly iridescent with the moonlight they catch.

She wishes she could stay here forever. The world holds its breath for them, here.

"Oh!" gasps Nene, squeezing her hand– Aoi didn't even realize they were still holding hands– "Fireflies!" 

At first, she doesn't see them. Small blinks of light, regulated mostly to the hedges and the treeline, but then one winks close to Nene's face, lighting her face in the softest of lights, which makes her gasp, delighted. 

"I haven't seen fireflies in forever," Aoi admits softly, transfixed. The bugs must have been startled by their approach– now that they're used to the new presence, they've begun dotting between the bushes.

One blinks near her arm. Gently, Aoi lifts her hands and cups the firefly, mid air. Soft fluttering brushes against her fingers until the bug settles. When she opens up her palms, the bug seems content to stay, lighting up her palms and her face after a few moments. 

"Woah," Nene breathes next to her, leaning in closer to knock their shoulders together. She's warm, comforting against the chill of the night. 

Aoi turns more towards her, profering out her hands. The firefly flashes only a couple times more before taking flight, gently bumbling up and out of Aoi's palms. 

They're so close together. Huddled, essentially– if Aoi looked up to Nene's face, she could probably count each individual eyelash, count each freckle on her cheeks. 

However, Nene ends up stepping away before Aoi can gather the courage to look. She digs into the pockets of her cardigan, pulling out a small bundle–

"I brought cookies, too!" she beams. 

Aoi laughs clear and loud, delighted. "You won't believe this, then," she says, and tugs a napkin out from her own pocket. In both of their hands are the same kinds of cookies they had separately nabbed from the dining hall this afternoon.

Nene cheers loud enough that she's briefly worried that it might alert someone they're out there– she finds, after a moment, that she doesn't care if they're found. 

______________

A crack of thunder.

"Ms. Akane!"

Painstakingly, obnoxiously, Ms. Yako inspects everything thoroughly. Aoi already knows what she'll find. She's already got the itemized list.

Dirt caked beneath her nails. Said fingernails jagged, uneven and unmatched amongst each other. Blouse unironed, crumpled and wrinkly. Socks unevenly pulled up. Shoes scratched up, unshined…

Ms. Yako looks only a couple of seconds away from reaching out and pressing the back of her palm to Aoi's forehead. 

Aoi gives a breathless smile and a little shrug. She doesn't apologize. 

After Ms. Yako scratches furiously at her clipboard, dead silent, she steps to the next girl. Her face twists more.

Nene shoots Aoi a cheeky smile. She winks right on back.

______________

"We're going to start ballroom dance lessons!" cheers Nene when she drops down next to Aoi on the grass. Her presence comes with the departure of some idle butterflies, which she briefly pouts about as she watches them leave. It doesn't bring her spirits down for long, though. "I've always wanted to learn! I was so glad to hear there's actually lessons for it here!"

"I'm surprised it's taken so long to get around to," Aoi says, thoughtful. As part of their curriculum, they dedicate at least a month for a specific elective class that occurs at the end of the day. Longer training was for equestrianism and piano lessons, while things like embroidery and poetry were summed up in a week.

Ballroom dancing is definitely one of the first things imagined when talking about elite family gatherings– galas and parties are still a regular thing, so it's only natural that it should be taught. 

"It's so charming," Nene sighs, leaning back on her palms to look through the tree's canopy. "I've always wanted to, like, entrance someone with how gracefully I dance, y'know?" 

She doubts that something as simple as dancing would be a deciding factor on whether or not someone likes you, so Aoi just rolls her eyes playfully.

But she understands– when she was younger and impressionable and saw a gala with the gowns and the suits and the twirling couples, she had imagined herself amongst them. Having someone in your arms, close together, in stunning outfits and glittering floors… well, it would dazzle any child. 

"I don't know if it's the dance that charms, or if it's the dress," Aoi says conversationally. She doesn't really find ballroom dancing as entracing as she did when she was younger. The idea of being paired up with men she doesn't know or don't care for doesn't really sit well in her chest.

"It's gotta be both!" Nene counters, pouting thoughtful. "Like… if your dress is stunning, but you're going to be stepping on your partner's feet all night, no one is going to want to dance with you. Then if you're great at dancing, but your dress isn't all that flashy, no one would want to dance with someone who isn't… well, gorgeous, I guess."

Aoi blinks, surprised. "You've put a lot of thought into it, haven't you?"

Nene nods enthusiastically. "Well, yeah!" she says, rearranging her skirt across her knees, "I mean, I've got to make sure someone wants to dance with me, be that with a nice dress or proper dance steps."

Confusion pulls at Aoi's mouth. There's… something, underneath that statement. It bugs Aoi enough that she can't stop turning it over in her head. "What do you mean by that?"

"The boys I ask always turn me down, so I figured it's gotta be my dancing that bugs them, right?" she concludes, scratching at her chin, "They've probably seen me absolutely massacre people's feet when I dance! I know I'm a little bit of a mess, so I've got to learn properly!"

In the years that Aoi's been forced to attend parties and galas, never has she ever met a boy who's cared about dancing. They'll only dance because it's proper to, and they'll always botch it, clobbering her toes with their shined shoes, crashing into others when the dance itself is a simple square and a twirl. 

If a boy gives a shit about dancing, they're so snot-nosed that they're not even worth the time spent trading bows with. 

So that means. That means…

Bitterness fills her mouth. She curses all of the boys who have looked at Nene, seen Nene bear her heart out to them in the palm of her soft hands, asking for something as small as a dance, a dance that lasts a minute tops, and turned her away. She curses each and every one of them. 

Because while she's not dainty or proper or graceful, Nene is-- Nene is fantastic. She could never be anything but. 

She hates that the only conclusion Nene's come to is to change herself. Hates it. 

Aoi has to choose her next words carefully. She has to even out her tone, to keep the anger tugging at her heart from boiling over into her voice, because Nene doesn't deserve to hear something so foul. "That's quite some dedication," she says, practiced. 

The compliment makes Nene brighten. "I've really gotta pay attention this time around," she rallies, sitting up with her back purposefully straight, "I'm going to blow Ms. Yako's socks off!"

Seeing Nene so excited does alleviate the rage in her chest, allowing her to smile without forcing it. "I can't wait to see it."

By the time the class period rolls around, the class gathers in one of the spare ballrooms at the academy– because, of course, there's multiple ballrooms. Ridiculous. 

The floors are freshly polished, shiny enough that the chandelier's reflection is another source of blinding light. In the corner of the room, stationed by the massive windows that show a glimpse of the gardens, is an old fashioned gramophone. The two of them are one of the first few people to arrive, so they sit against the wall as they wait for more people to filter in.

Nene's almost trembling in excitement next to her, hand clasped in Aoi's. "This is so exciting," Nene confesses, bubbly. "I can nearly see it! Like, right over there is where the live music is meant to play, and then over there is where the hors d'oeuvres are meant to be!" 

"Oh, that's right," Aoi says, remembering, "the class reunion balls are held in this ballroom, right?"

"Yep! And then the graduation parties are in the main ballroom, and then the Annual Charity Gala is in the one near the music room– can you believe it? I never thought there needed to be multiple ballrooms for a single place, but I guess I was wrong."

"No, you're right," Aoi snorts softly. "Eden loves showing how much money is invested in it, so they have far too many ballrooms. I don't think there's any difference between the rooms other than where they're located." She rolls her eyes secretly, just for Nene. 

Nene giggles, starry-eyed. As more students gather in the room, a tall lady from the main office peers in. She briefly looks over everyone until her eyes land on the two of them.

"Ms. Akane?" the lady calls out from the open door. "There's a call for you in the office."

A… call? 

A small dredge of worry crawls under her skin. There's only one person who would bother to call her, but she squashes the feeling before it can take hold.

Shrugging, she looks back at Nene, smiling with ease. "Hopefully I won't be long," she says.

Nene salutes her. "I'll catch you up on whatever you miss!"

With a small wave, Aoi leaves the ballroom to head for the office. She tries not to let the idea of a call dig into her bones too much, not before she actually figures out who it is. 

However, when she steps into the office, the secretary warily looks up from where she's holding the receiver to her ear. Her lips are pressed together in the specific way Aoi knows exactly who is on the other side of the line.

Ice crawls through her veins until she's frigid, movements cracking like a lake's surface. She takes the phone from the lady's hands, wishing she could throw the whole phone right out the yawning windows beside her, and raises the phone to her ear.

"Mother," Aoi greets, smile perfectly intact, voice unwavering.

"Aoi," returns her mother. Businesslike. That's all it ever is with her. 

Aoi's jaw nearly pops as she opens it to speak her lines in this script. "How are you?" She asks sweetly, because she knows her mother will not ask first, and will not say anything until Aoi does. Idly, she twirls the coiled chord of the phone around her finger, pulling until it tightens and circulation is cut.

And, like expected, her mother twists it all around. "How do you think I am, upon receiving a phone call that my daughter has been acting out?"

Acting out. She nearly scoffs out loud. It's exactly as it is in the eyes of the academy, but it still rakes her nerves. 

Of course, it's only when she's not falling in line that her mother calls. Never before did she ever call her to congratulate her on any aced exams or flawless inspection results. Never.

Idly, she wonders what her mother had actually been told. What the words of the institution were. She hasn't been falling behind in any classes. Her uniform inspections are still passing, aside from the occasional nick that she doesn't care enough about. All she does out of line is have fun. 

"I apologize," she says politely. She'd rather drink arsenic than be genuine.

"If you keep this attitude," her mother says, barbed wire on her tongue, "I will withdraw you from that school. Do you understand?"

A stone plummets in her stomach. For the first time in forever, Aoi shrivels. 

She couldn't care less about Eden Academy. From day one this institution has restitched girls in a way that was more appealing, more flattering, to a class of up-turned bourgeois bores to be showcased as a doll rather than interacted with as a real, live human. This school is a blight of the earth, a smoldering, still-hot ember, waiting for enough oxygen to reignite and incinerate the individuality of young girls.

The only way to avoid crumpling is to bow your head and follow blindly. Don't let it reach your heart or your soul. 

Frankly, she's sick of this place. She's annoyed with having to keep her cuticles clean for inspection, to scrub away and dig out any of the dirt caught her fingernails. Fed up that any glimpse of a grin, any sliver of a smile that's more teeth than the designated lady-like close lipped grimace, is a cause for punishment. Tired of being a proper young lady. 

At any chance to leave this place, she would have gladly taken it.

But now… 

Aoi's finger aches. When she looks down, her chord-wrapped finger is the color of a plum.

"Yes, ma'am. I understand," she relents, quiet. 

"Good. I expect improvement by the end of the week. If not, I'm pulling you out on Monday." And with a piercing click, her mother hangs up.

The dial tone drones in her ear. She doesn't lower the phone, not until the secretary starts looking more and more worried with each glance towards her. Only when she hands the receiver back does she untwist her finger from the chord. 

Her pulse throbs a deep beat in her fingertip as it slowly returns to a better color. Upon the pins and needles, Aoi curls her hand into a fist, crushing the digit as she returns to her room.

______________

Since she's an absolute angel, Nene returns to their room almost immediately after the class is over. 

"Hey," she says, two parts curious and one part concerned. Taking note of the darkness of the room, she doesn't turn the lights on when she steps in. Only the filtered light from the window acts as a guide. "Are you alright? You didn't come back to class…"

"I'm alright," she says neutrally, hands folded in her lap. It was a little awful of her to not go back to class especially since she said she would, but if she had stepped into that room and put her eyes on Nene when the hole in her chest was tearing open, she would have not been able to hold it all together.

What a mess it would have been. What a complete mess it already is.

Nene doesn't look convinced in the slightest, but she graciously doesn't prod further. All she does is let her bag slip off her shoulder, toes off her shoes, and climbs up onto Aoi's bed, slotting right next to her. 

Aoi takes her hand when it's offered and manages to not squeeze too hard. Perhaps it had been silly to think that having an hour of peace would help her keep it together, since it all nearly unfolds right here and now, nearly unspools from her chest and down her cheeks.

"I'll tell you more later," she whispers, definitive.

Nene only nods, giving back a squeeze of her hand. 

In a handful of minutes, Nene's head drops onto her shoulder, breathing slow and quiet. Aoi closes her eyes and wills herself not to shake.

They barely manage to get the remnants of dinner. The staff give them searing side-eyes, but do nothing more than passive-aggressively clean up around them.

Aoi feels a little bad for bothering them. Nonetheless, she piles up her plate and sits with Nene by her side.

Since Aoi's known the art of bottling things up and throwing them out to sea to never be thought of again, she's able to keep a normal conversation with Nene the whole time. Nene, who had looked troubled for a moment, picked up where she was meant to– she now chatters about the ballroom lesson, recounting how Ms. Yako messed up the gramophone and played it backwards and couldn't figure out what was wrong for at least ten minutes.

Aoi listens, but for all of her bravado, she can't keep the tension from her limbs. 

She needs to tell Nene. Needs to. Her mother is going to hold true to her word– and, from the way things are, it's either cut ties with Nene to get onto the instructors' good sides once again, or be cut from Nene.

There's no good way for this to end. There just isn't.

When Nene finishes talking about the steps she still couldn't get a hang of in the classroom, Aoi, desperate to grasp at any chances to spend the time remaining with Nene, softly suggests, "Why don't you show me?"

Nene looks up, blinking curiously, cheeks pudgy with the bite she just took. Her baby hairs are arranged strangely, like she had squashed them down with sweat from dancing and they had dried that way. 

"We can figure it out together," Aoi points out, trying to refocus her eyes somewhere else before she gets too enraptured with how cute Nene is. "It's been a while since I've learned, but maybe with the two of us, we can get there?"

"You already knew how to dance?" Nene gasps theatrically. Her knee bangs against the mahogany table, making the dishes clatter. She winces, ducking to avoid the sharp look a staff member shoots her, but doesn't let her voice down. "You've been holding out on me this whole time?"

"I wouldn't call it 'holding out.'" Aoi says, laughing. "I doubt I would be very good at teaching you how." As an apology, she slides over the remainder of her pudding. With a playful glare, Nene accepts the apology with a spoonful. 

"Tonight, maybe?" Aoi suggests, trying to hide how restless she is. 

Nene nods solidly. "Tonight!"

Creeping through the halls has surprisingly become second nature to her. In the dead of night, so late that there's no chance any hall monitor will be up, Aoi and Nene slip into the halls.

The ballroom paints a completely different picture at night. Moonlight reflects from the polished marble floors not unlike the chandelier, lighting the entire room– and, subsequently, illuminating the gramophone still in its place in the corner of the room. The vinyl record is still in place, so all Nene does is move the arm back over the record, and soft orchestral music begins to play.

The world feels ethereal, right now, in this room, with the starlight and the faint notes of violins. Nene glows with the moon as she twirls into the middle of the dance floor, the shimmery-white of her bed clothes fluttering like curtains in a breeze. 

"Okay, step one," Nene announces, voice hushed, even though they're already being risky by playing music. Sweeping low, she does an over-the-top bow, looking up cheekily towards Aoi. "Properly greet your partner!"

The grandeur of the action makes Aoi laugh softly, easily bowing back. "It's an honor," she says politely, voice light. Usually, during bow exchanges, she keeps her lips pressed tight, only giving her partner a smile that's just a shy bit nicer than a grimace. For Nene– she lets excitement color into her words, feeling silly but having fun with it.

Nene laughs, delighted. "Then, uhm," she continues, then pauses. "Do you want to lead, or should I?"

"You lead, since you're taller," Aoi jokes, holding her hands out for Nene to take. 

"What!" Using their clasped hands, she pulls Aoi closer, peering at the top of her head as if she can tell the difference in their heights. "No way! No way am I taller!"

In truth, it's only a difference of a centimeter or two– all in all not that big of a difference– but seeing Nene gasp like this is adorable. "Why do you think I always ask you to get the books from the high shelves?" Aoi continues, bubbling with laughter. 

"Wha– Ehm!" Nene blubbers, face growing pink. "I just– thought, that– whatever! I'll– I'll lead, then!" She tries to reel back, but the tips of her ears continue to burn, her pout pronounced in a way that she tries to control her expression. "So, uhm, now we… we hold these two hands," she gives one pair a little shake before she lets go of the other, gently guiding Aoi's hand. "And then you put yours on my shoulder, and mine goes on your waist!"

Aoi was worried, infinitesimally, that being so close to each other would be awkward, that she would freeze up with the proximity and the touch. But it's nothing like that– not with the laughter between the two of them, when Nene mixes up where her elbow is meant to be in the arrangement, her hand on Aoi's waist like a reassurance. 

When their giggling peeters out, Nene's gone quiet, a smile curved on her face as she looks at Aoi. She doesn't say anything for a moment or two, and Aoi's heart begins to climb into her throat. 

"And then?" Aoi prompts softly.

A blink. Nene continues as if she wasn't in a brief trance. "And then we… uhm… step back. My right foot. So you step forward with your left!"

It's off to a wobbly start, especially when Nene moves her left foot instead of right. The misstep sends them into a fit of laughter again, and another when Nene yelps as Aoi steps too far and her toes crush Nene's. 

They step in rounds for a couple of minutes, trying to find a rhythm of their own. The waltz is a simple square, but they manage to make it a hexagon of sorts– their pace completely ignoring the beat set by the tinny orchestra. A little bit longer, and Aoi's confident enough to look up from her feet to Nene's distracted face.

She doesn't get very long to admire unnoticed– Nene's eyes flicker up, double taking at the sight of Aoi already looking at her, then she brings her whole head up. When Nene's eyes soften, bright with a smile, Aoi feels her chest flutter, butterflies in flight. 

With Nene like this, her hair silvery in the dim light, soft around the edges and heart on her sleeve, Aoi thinks if she were more brave she could kiss her. Right here. It would be so simple: just a lean forward. 

But she's not brave. Not anymore. 

"My mother called," Aoi whispers before she can hold it back. By will alone is she able to keep her voice even. If she speaks any louder, she won't be able to keep out the warble that's threatening to crack her voice. "That's why I had to miss practice."

Nene hums, a quiet urge for her to continue. The only context Nene has for Aoi's mother are in bits and pieces, scraps of scraps. She knows that it's hard for Aoi to speak about it, so she waits, endlessly patient.

God. Aoi can't be thankful enough for her.

"The academy called her. That I've been 'acting out,'" she says, rolling her eyes. Nene snorts with her, laughing under her breath. It's almost a joke in and of itself– the amount of times they've been chastised for acting out when they were doing things like sharing secret smiles in class or drawing in the library.

Aoi swallows thickly against the tightness of her throat. Swallows again. Whispers. "She… She threatened to pull me from the academy if I didn't get my act together."

Once it's in the air, she feels more than sees Nene's reaction. There's a jump to her– her hands flinch, against her palm, against her waist. She slows their pace to a halt, looking at Aoi with a quake in her eyes. 

"She'd… pull you out?" Nene whispers, fraught. 

She wishes there was anything she could say or do to banish that look from Nene's face. It's written into the laws of nature– Nene isn't made for being sad, for being upset, she should be laughing, gleaming. Her eyes should never glisten this much.

But there's nothing. Nothing she can do. Ashamed, Aoi looks back down to her feet, unable to look at Nene and say worse and worse things.

"Yes," Aoi confirms. The butterflies in her chest riot, unsettled, upset. "She said I have a week to… to get back into the instructor's good graces."

She doesn't know what her mother was told. Doesn't know if they put a bug in her ear about the fact that Aoi has finally found a friend, someone she can confide in and trust, only at the cost of being an obedient lady. 

What a load of shit. They've never cared about her before, and they never will.

"A week," Nene croaks. She swallows audibly– Aoi really, really hopes that that's not the sound of tears, because she could never forgive herself if she made Nene cry.

Aoi lets her forehead drop into the gap of Nene's shoulder and throat. 

After a moment of silence, she says, "Okay." The sound of acceptance in Nene's voice shakes Aoi to the core, jerking back to look at the shuddering expression on Nene's face. "Okay," she repeats, straightening from her slump. "That's alright, then."

Aoi feels hollow. She feels dizzy, sick. "That's– That's alright?" she echoes, scared, scared because what does she mean. 

"It's– it's not great, but it's still possible," Nene starts, eyes unfocused like she's planning it all in front of her. "You already know how to do everything properly and get good scores, so all we need to do is stop hanging out with each other, right? I'll stop bothering you, and then you can stay!"

The only reason Aoi doesn't shake is because she's so tense, so strung up. "What? What?" 

Dispodent in a way that raises the hairs on Aoi's neck, Nene continues, words rushing into each other, "I'm– I'm a bad influence, you know?" Her hands tug away from Aoi's. As if she's infecting her. As if she needs to get away. "I'm always doing the wrong thing, and I shouldn't drag you into that, too. I mean…"

Both of them know the looks that the staff give them. The sneer of disproval at Nene, always at Nene, and the slight disappointment that takes when they look at Aoi. They always look at Nene like she's a mold growing on Aoi's side. A parasite. Just something that needs to be cut off, removed at the root.

Every glance had made Aoi so angry. So fucking angry.

"It's not your fault," Aoi interrupts, holding steadfast before Nene could fully slip away, "It could never be your fault."

Nene grimaces like she doesn't believe it. Something deep twists her gut, because-- because--

"Nene, you're the best thing that's ever happened to me," she says, so truthful that it hurts, but she needs Nene to know, needs her to understand. "I don't care if they think I'm acting out. I-- I don't want to be this… this perfect daughter. I don't care about having perfect mannerisms or bowing correctly or being coy or whatever. I'm having fun. With you. I love going outside and climbing trees for bugs with you. I love exploring the abandoned halls with you. I love sitting in class with you. You've made everything bearable."

Nene ducks her head, hair falling as a curtain over her face. For a moment, she's worried, deep in her chest, that Nene still won't believe her, but her ears are cherry red. When she peaks up from her bangs, the line of her cheekbones are also flushed, eyes glittering. 

"What… what are you going to do, then?" she asks, quiet, so quiet.

Aoi turns away, briefly frustrated. "I– I don't know." There really isn't anything they can do. Going back to how it was before, when she smiled politely and courtesy in the way that got her full marks-- thinking about it makes her shrivel on the inside. She couldn't. 

But at least they would still be able to see each other, even if it was regulated just to when they would resign for the night. It would be better than not seeing Nene at all. But…

It's unfair to Nene, too. At least with the two of them conspiring, they weren't alone. They could botch any lesson, giggle under their breaths, venture off to places they weren't allowed to, but they always had someone to turn to. If Aoi were to turn a new page and go back, Nene would go right back to being the blemish that everyone ignores. The one that everyone thinks is hopeless, even though she tries, tries so hard.

She knows Nene tries to hide it. She's seen Nene try to hide it– seen the muscles in her jaw shift, like she's biting down on her tongue, holding her tongue, when someone says scathing words to her. She's seen the wince, the flash of hopelessness whenever Nene knows she's messed up, when she's blotted her uniform and knows it's unsalvageable. 

No one sees how hard Nene tries. No one. 

It's unfair. It's so unfair. Nene doesn't deserve that. Nene has never deserved to be dismissed like that. She's only trying to survive in this bleak hell.

God. Why does-- why does everything come in the way, right when things seem to be working out? 

"I don't know," she says again, defeated. "I… I can't go home. I can't. But I don't want to leave you, I can't just… cast you off during the day. I…"

"Then– run away with me!" Nene blurts, leaning so close that, for a heart-stilling moment, Aoi thinks she's going to kiss her. She threads her fingers through Aoi's, squeezing tight. She looks– embarrassed, that she's shouted, but she doesn't lose any enthusiasm. "Run away with me," she repeats, more heartfelt, reassured, "If they can't accept you for who you are, then they don't deserve you. We'll find somewhere else!"

Aoi thinks she could cry. She might actually cry. 

"W-Where?" she nearly chokes, her heart in the back of her throat, because it's a ridiculous idea, it would never work, but they could. They could run away. "Where would we go?"

Gaining momentum with the idea now that she's said it out loud, Nene says confidently, "I dunno!" Her eyes still glimmer though, filled to the brim with excitement and hope. "We-- we can just go somewhere! Anywhere we like! We don't even have to have a destination in mind!"

An ember in her heart, Aoi feels so hopeful. She wants to believe in it so badly. She-- she does believe in it. But nothing has ever worked out well for her before– she wants it to, wants more than anything for this to work out, but…

"They'll come looking for us," Aoi has to say, a pessimist. 

"So?" And just like that, Nene blows over that worry. "So what if they do? If they find us and bring us back, we'll just have to leave again, right?"

Softer, finally acknowledging the magnitude of the suggestion, Nene lowering their clasped hands as she talks quietly, "And– and if we don't figure it out, or– or even if we're just tired of running and hiding, we can just come back, you know? Just. We can't stay here. It's killing you."

"And you," Aoi corrects quietly, because she has to. "It's killing you, too."

Nene smiles, something weak and defeated. Her shoulders sink a bit. "Yeah," she breathes out. Almost like an inhale, as well. "Yeah. Me too."

Because while Nene gives and gives, she'll push her own worries down into her heart, where they are never to be mentioned or seen. She'll ignore it, even though it's tearing her apart. She'd ignore it, apparently, just so she can give Aoi hope.

Because while much of this is for Aoi, this is also for Nene. 

Aoi– Aoi wants to give her hope, too.

It's naive. So childishly naive, but Aoi wants to be this naive for once. 

"Okay," she blurts, smile watery and quaking. "We. We can do this. Okay."

And Nene shines, hopeful on her lips.

______________

Towards the end of April, two Eden Academy students were reported missing, with their last known appearance being the final class period of the day, mere hours before. A multitude of personal belongings were also missing, as well as the Academy's standardized bags used for school materials. 

All that remains of them– the only hint of them– were two pairs of the black, shiny flats regulated as Eden uniform, placed at the very edge of the breezeway leading to the gardens.

#tbhk #jshk #toilet bound hanako kun #jibaku shounen hanako kun #yashiro nene #akane aoi #aoinene #nene yashiro #aoi akane #au #alternate universe #dead poet's society and loona yyxy inspired #realized i never posted this here on tumblr lmaooo #in honor of aoinene week <3 heres mine from last year

[miscfandomwrites]

Happy Birthday

A/N: This is from an old challenge I did like two years ago, it's a general story but I'm too lazy to change the college.

Pairing: Avengers x Teen! Reader

Warnings:

Words: 800ish

Tagging: @tyler-t0t

~~

“You’ve got to be joking.” Clint said as he set his coffee mug down, fixing me with a stern look. I felt the room go silent and everyone looking at me.

I shifted in my seat, uncomfortable with the stares directed at me. “Yeah, I haven’t had a real….birthday party since I was kid.” I told him.

“Not even for your sweet sixteen?” Steve questioned me, a mixture of horror and sadness on his face.

“....yeah. Nothing really special happens on my birthdays anyway. It’s just another year.” I replied.

Bucky and Steve started a conversation about how the fuck did I not get a sweet sixteen and Tony was already on the phone. I just picked up my glass and sipped my juice. 

“You’re getting a birthday party.” Tony finally said, setting his phone down. “I’m going to have Pepper and Natasha take you shopping, you’re going to get a dress, and we’re going to throw you a birthday party to make up for all the ones you should have had.” 

I quickly dressed in a pair of black jeans, white tshirt, and my black boots. Pulling my hair up into a ponytail and checking my pockets to make sure I had all my necesites with me, I grabbed my tan flight jacket and ran out the room to the elevator. 

“Took you long enough.” Nat said as I jumped into the elevator.

“Where are we going?” I asked Pepper. 

“There’s a list of places we’re going to go, first, coffee.” 

Two hours later

My venti iced coffee was gone, and my feet and hands were sore as hell. We got coffee, then we went to four different stores for shoes. Shoes. Then we went to three other stores looking for dresses, and then finally settled on one during our third tour of the third one. All my nails got done and I was dropped off at a spa for a wax and cleaning. 

I honestly had no idea what was going on during half of that, only that Pepper and Nat were picking up some of my birthday presents. 

Finally like two and a half hours later, we went and got some snacks and more coffee and headed back to the tower. 

“So, you’re going straight up to your room to get ready, and we’ll have FRIDAY call you down when it’s time. Which is like an hour, so hurry, hurry!” Pepper said as she practically shoved me into the elevator with all the clothing bags. 

“Primer, then foundation, then concealer. Then all the fun stuff.” I told myself as I sorted through my makeup bag. I had my damp hair up in a set of curlers and was wearing a robe as I stood in my bathroom. 

Applying my makeup and blow-drying the curlers, I quickly did a face and hair check before heading out to get dressed. 

A black dress, and a pair of black heels. Thankfully the tower was kept warm enough that I didn’t grab a jacket, and I finished putting on my jewerly just as FRIDAY told me to head down stairs. 

“Alright, here comes the birthday girl…” I huffed as I headed to the elevator. 

“Happy birthday dear (Y/N), happy birthday to you!” The crowd exclaimed as I leaned over to blow out the candles on the cake. Everything was decorated in shades of pink, white, and black. Not my preffered colors, but it was beautiful nonetheless. Lots of balloons and decorations everwhere. And it also seemed that Tony invited everyone he knew. I knew the Avengers, and some of our allies, but jesus christ, I didn’t know there were this many people. I grabbed a slice of cake and headed to the bar, sitting down next to Wanda and Natasha. 

“So, how’s the party?” Natasha asked as I wiped some frosting from my cheek. 

I shrugged. “Didn’t know there was gonna be this many people.” I told her. 

She nodded. “Yeah, when Tony puts his mind to something, he really over does it sometimes.” 

I hummed as I finished my cake. The bartender set a glass of...something in front of me. A sniff test told me it was apple juice. Good for him, not giving the birthday girl liquor. 

Soon enough both Nat and Wanda left somewhere else, and I pushed around the melting piece of ice cream around on my plate. 

#miscfandomwrites #avengers x reader #marvel #marvel x reader

[i-t-guy-in-the-sky]

How I get ready for a birthday date night on the mainland:

Extra long shower - 10 minutes

Dressing in the clothes I picked out this morning - 5 minutes

Hair drying and styling - 5 minutes

Shoes, jacket, checking I have everything I need -5 minutes.

Total time: 25 minutes.

How Selene gets ready for a birthday date night on the mainland:

Bath- 1 hour 13 minutes.

Hair drying and brushing - 20 minutes.

Make-up (which I've never paid that much attention to the process of, but she talked to me the entire time tonight)

- Moisturing primer on her face

- eyeshadow primer on her eyes.

- tape under her eyes and up towards her eyebrows

- darker purple on her lids and then a lighter lilac on her upper eyes, going up to and over the tape.

(All relatively normal so far)

- draws the start of her eyeliner wings, two lines along the edge of the tape.

- tells me all about her friend Marnie and her work crush while she fans her eyeliner with a hand fan to dry the liner.

- paints a line from the top of the first down to the crease of her eye and then down to the top of the lid.

- tells me a 'fascinating' story about the rat she tried to befriend behind the Chinese takeout we use in Camden (note to self, find new takeout place) as she flaps at her face with the fan again.

-fills in the liner wings she made, then paints a line along her eyelid.

- flaps at the liner while she tells me how our new neighbour at the apartment keeps asking her if Scott is single.

- darkens her eyebrows with a tiny brush and coats her lashes with mascara while telling me about Armstrong's latest furball.

-starts to paint foundation onto her face with a smaller brush and then uses a brush roughly the size of a tangerine to 'buff it out' all over her face. She does this while telling me about the Halloween ritual her group has planned.

-dots concealer under her eyes and on random places where she insists spots are lurking even though I can't see them, while trying to convince me to come to the ritual with her.

-brushes bronzer along her cheek bones and under her chin to 'disguise the double chin I'm getting', which is as nonexistent as the spots, while explaining the traditional purpose of a jack o' lantern.

- buffs her face with powder to 'seal it all in and bake it down'. I have no idea why she is talking about baking her face but I've not said a word in the past hour that wasn't a vague agreement to whatever she'd told me, so I didn't ask her to elaborate.

- Spritzes her face with fixing spray to 'stop it sliding off during dinner'.

Time for makeup - 1hr and 9 minutes 23 seconds.

- Looking through her wardrobe while telling me she has nothing to wear -26 minutes

- getting dressed in the clothes she finally picked while telling me all about her brother's trip to Nepal - 18 minutes.

- finding that her other boot had migrated into my shoe box - 6 minutes

Finally getting her into her car and off the island before Alan could convince her to make him a sandwich - 14 minutes

Total time for Selene to be ready - 3hrs 16 minutes and 23 seconds.

Sitting down in a restaurant with a wife that feels and looks beautiful, is happy, relaxed and smiling because I didn't try to hurry her along or tell her she was boring me - timeless.

#john tracy #selene tempest #wife things #wife is a witch #birthday #date night #thunderbirds 2015 #thunderbirds are go #thunderbirdsarego #thunderbirds #thunderbirds fanfiction #wife problems #healthy relationships

[skinslip]

1:30 am. Nothing but the muffled sounds of the TV outside my door, the heart in my chest is beating a murmur, and in the distance a siren sings; inviting me to walk into the ocean and never return. I never go to the beach for a reason.

Thinking back to that shoot on the beach in film school; I was the sound girl, not much to do at the beach, it's all ADR later. We're wrapping up, my stuff was easy to pack. Out of the corner of my eye I swear I can see a girl out among the waves. She doesn't look distressed or panicked, she's just bobbing up and down in the sea; jostling occasionally.

I kick off my shoes and pants, wearing just my shirt and boxers I swim out into the brisk water, it's cold but it's summer so not too cold. I swim so far that the rest of the crew seemed like ants; they begin to line up and stare out at me. Nobody looks panicked or distressed.

And I swear I can hear her behind me, her voice a sweet song of beckoning but when I turn around I only see the ocean as far as can be. I look around and I don't see her, I try to open my eyes underwater but I can't see anything but the ocean.

I begin swimming back to shore but I can feel it in my arms; the exhaustion turning my limbs to lead. I'm not even halfway back and I know I'm fucked. I panic, I am showing visible signs of distress, and nobody pays any attention to me; too busy packing up the shoot.

The huge waves batter me as I fight my body and the sea. And between my gasping breaths and the roar of the next wave breaking I can hear her faint song, sweet as honey right in my ear. I sneak a glance over my shoulder and I see something just over the wave coming.

I don't dare turn back because I am so scared I won't even make it to shore. By some miracle of whatever I crawl out of the ocean with a heaving chest and arms of bricks, I lay half in the surf for long enough the water stars slashing up around my head.

I feel myself being pulled by the ocean and I panic a little and finally crawl the however far to the road that connects to the freeway between Ventura and Carpinteria. I lean on the script supervisor's 90s compact, maybe a Toyota something; with a stupid primer gray replacement door.

I finally pull myself up to my feet, sneaking a glance out to the ocean again. But she's not there, just the unforgiving ocean and the exhaustion that causes me to fall asleep as soon as I get even mildly comfortable. I sleep and I dream of the sea. And her and beautiful oblivion.

#skinslipwriting #valeria's fragments

[returntosaturn271995]

Thursday, December 28th: Winter Cleaning

Whew. Day 2 and I decided before unpacking into my home, I first had to clear old crap out of it. I am the opposite of a hoarder, I like removing old shit and some "still good" shit whenever I can.

Liberating as hell.

Reading:

"You are more than you think you are" by Kimberly Snyder

I'm expanding my meditation knowledge into breathwork and vitality. Some of it feels woo-woo, and some of it feels inauthentic (the author has a skincare line and I did a mirror meditation where I was supposed to ignore all supposed flaws of the body). But there are good practical meditative tricks in there too. I plan to make my own version of a shrine by buying a portrait of Dolly Parton for shits and giggles.

Quietly Hostile by Samantha Irby

Her humor style is amazing. I consider it a primer on my stand-up and one of the easier books I'm trying to tackle in January.

Writing:

Here I am. Some days a journal entry is as far as I go. Still kind of amazing how regularly I write though, eh?

Cooking:

Crispy prosciutto and lemon-pesto pasta with broccoli and parmesan

The new knives rock! I forgot how pleasing cooking with good knives is!

Also went to the grocery instead of ordering food. That's basically one of Hercules's trials for me.

Political Awareness:

I learned (via podcast) about Franca Viola, the first Italian woman in 1960s Italy to refuse to marry her rapist, and the ending of "rehabilitation marriages". Additionally, Vincent Chin, whose murder led to the first Asian-American court case about a hate crime in the 1980s. Chilling how recent so much social progress actually is, but there are more inspiring people than evil people in the world.

Loving Relationships:

Today I'm grateful for Mom, Hannah, Makenna, Nate, and Kiera. <3.

Getting outside:

Walked to get groceries and back. Bumped into my street's newest poodle puppy and an Old English bulldog.

Dressing with Style:

Removed one-fourth of my clothing in a massive closet sweep and donated/sold it at Buffalo Exchange. Only keeping/purchasing beautiful fitting, classic pieces moving forward.

Current outfit: White Paris sweats, fitted black tank top, ponytail, black headband

Cleaning:

What the fuck didn't I clean?

Removed old stackable drawers

Organized and threw out undesirable everything: from socks to underwear to shoes to dresses to jeans to sweats

4 loads of laundry, washed, dried, and hung up or folded

Vacuumed room and charged vacuum

Washed and put away dishes from dinner

Took out trash and recycling

Full set of fresh bedding

Wiped down kitchen counters, stove, and inside of dresser drawer

Cleaned out fridge and stocked it with groceries

Organized shelf above bed and lit a TJ's apple candle

Annnnnd I still have more tomorrow, but feeling waaay lighter in here.

Yoga:

17 minutes of flexibility stretches where I did notice a marked difference in my legs and hips

Meditation:

A Daily Jay on the six specific kinds of self-care:

Emotional- Therapy, Journaling, Creating Art, Music

Practical- Closet organization, looking up new gyms

Physical- Hydrating constantly with tea, healthy eating, enough sleep, walking in the sunshine, yoga, sunscreen, hygiene

Mental- Reading, studying, crossword puzzles

Social- Setting up dates, called mom, seeing friends this month

Spiritual - Time at the beach, meditation

Something I love about meditation is that it stretches time. If you worry about the future, know that you have an endless present around you if you choose to vertically drop into the moment.

Mindfulness baby!

Content I can't stop thinking about:

Saltburn, Our Flag Means Death

And now it's 10 O'Clock. Productive, healthy, and peaceful.

I'm in the zone.

[habanarama]

Cinco Minutos con Mirta De Perales | HAVANARAMA

Cinco Minutos con Mirta De Perales

Mirta De Perales (Mirta Raya) nació el 2 de septiembre de 1922 en Rancho Veloz, Las Villas, Cuba. Conocido como un ícono en la industria latina de cosmetología, belleza y cuidado del cabello. Mirta creció en la pobreza en Cuba, sus padres ni siquiera podían comprarle zapatos.

A mediados de la década de 1930, cuando tenía 12 años, su madre se fue a trabajar a La Habana como empleada doméstica y Mirta a cargo de sus hermanos. Con una fascinación y talento por la belleza de la mujer, descubrió que podía ganar unos centavos cortando y peinando a sus vecinos para ayudar a su familia. Después de un par de días de peinarse en el barrio, había ganado unos dólares y le envió un telegrama a su madre para que viniera a casa porque "ahora somos ricos". 

A los 14 años, Mirta decidió poner un anuncio en el periódico de La Habana en el que ofrecía sus servicios de peluquería y manicura a domicilio.

El 6 de enero de 1944 a la edad de 22 años Mirta se casó con Benito Perales, un farmacéutico 10 años mayor que ella en la iglesia Nuestra Señora del Carmen. Él la ayudó a crear los productos de belleza que la harían famosa. Con el tiempo abrió su propio salón de belleza en La Habana, Cuba, que se convirtió en uno de los salones más grandes de América Latina. Se habían divorciado en la década de 1960.

Cinco Minutos con Mirta De Perales (5 Minutos con Mirta Perales) fue un programa dominical de la televisión cubana. Mirta comenzó el programa como una comercializadora para establecer una relación con sus clientes, tutoriales de productos y discutir temas del día a día. También creó un concurso de belleza que brinda a los niños la oportunidad de viajar a Miami y Orlando para una competencia de una semana para convertirse en "Chico Mirta" (el hijo de Mirta). El ganador de la competencia aparecería en el programa de televisión y también tendría una aparición en uno de los comerciales de televisión de Mirta.

En 1962 el gobierno cubano tomó posesión de su salón de belleza y tomó prisionera a Mirta por negarse a salir de su salón en el edificio NAROCA en el Vedado, La Habana. Pasó 9 días en la fortaleza conocida como El Morro, una prisión para los antirrevolucionarios.

Mirta de Perales se convirtió en un símbolo para su comunidad y su experiencia la motivó a salir de Cuba. Se fue con sus 2 hijos y solo $5 en su bolsillo. Aproximadamente una semana después de llegar a Miami, FL, ya se estaba peluqueria nuevamente y estaba construyendo su clientela.

Después de un par de años, abrió su primer salón de belleza en los EE. UU. en Coral Gables, FL. Durante ese tiempo pudo reconstruir su negocio Mirta de Perales Inc. y comenzar a distribuir sus productos en Puerto Rico. Poco tiempo después, Mirta rápidamente comenzó a distribuir sus productos a nivel nacional, comenzando en Nueva York, donde pudo exhibir sus productos en Macy's ubicado en Harold Square.

El legado de Mirta de Perales fue reconocido por el presidente norteamericano Ronald Reagan en un acto en la Casa Blanca donde le dijo en su discurso: “tú eres el sueño americano”.

◈

EN | Five Minutes with Mirta De Perales

Mirta De Perales (Mirta Raya) was born September 2nd 1922 in Rancho Veloz, Las Villas, Cuba. Known as an icon in the Latin cosmetology, beauty, and hair care industry. Mirta grew up impoverished in Cuba, her parents could not even afford to buy her shoes.

During the mid 1930′s when she was 12 yrs old, her mother left to work in Havana as a maid, and Mirta in charge of her siblings. With a fascination and talent for woman’s beauty, she discovered she could make a few cents cutting and styling her neighbors hair to help her family. After a couple of days styling hair in the neighborhood she had earned a few dollars and sent a telegram to her mother to come home because they "we’re now rich".

At age 14, Mirta decided to place an advertisement in the newspaper in Havana which she offered her hairdressing and manicure services at home.

On January 6th, 1944 at the age of 22 Mirta married Benito Perales, a pharmacist 10 years her senior in the Nuestra Señora del Carmen church. He helped her create the beauty products that would make her famous. She eventually opened her own beauty parlor in Havana, Cuba which grew to be one of the biggest salons of Latin America. They had divorced in 1960’s.

Cinco Minutos con Mirta De Perales (5 Minutes with Mirta Perales) was a Sunday program on Cuban television. Mirta started the program as a marketing to establish a relationship with her clients, product tutorials, and discuss day-to-day issues. She also created a beauty contest giving children the opportunity to travel to Miami and Orlando for a week long competition to become a "Chico Mirta"(Mirta’s child). The winner of the competition would appear on the TV show and would also have an appearance on one of Mirta's TV commercials.

In 1962 the Cuban government took possession of her beauty parlor and took Mirta as prisoner after she refused to leave her parlor in the NAROCA building in Vedado, Havana. She spent 9 days in the fortress known as El Morro a prison for anti-revolutionaries.

Mirta de Perales became a symbol for her community and her experience motivated her to leave cuba. She left with her 2 children and only $5 in her pocket. About one week after arriving to Miami, FL she was already hairdressing again building her clientele.

After a couple of years she opened her first beauty salon in the US in Coral Gables, FL. During that time she was able to rebuild her business Mirta de Perales Inc. and begin distributing her products in Puerto Rico. Shortly thereafter Mirta quickly began distributing her products nationwide, beginning in New York, where she was able to showcase her products in Macy's located in Harold Square.

Mirta de Perales's legacy was recognized by North American President Ronald Reagan in a ceremony at the White House where he told her in his speech: "you are the American dream."

https://mirtadeperales.us/

Music: Danza Lucumi by: Stanley Black

Edited by: Frankie Jones | @FrankieXJones | https://FrankieXJones.com

#Havanarama #Habanarama #Cubanarama #Cuba #Havana #Habana #MirtaDePerales #MirtaRaya #Beauty #BeautyParlor #1950s

[maddasherxxbeautyroom]

Check out this listing I just added to my Poshmark closet: LIVE 6HR VARIETY SHOW | 5/20 🎉.

[shopofthemoment]

Check out this listing I just added to my Poshmark closet: new it cosmetics ㋛ Your Skin But Better Primer ㋛ Pore Refiner + Hydrator ㋛.

[anaalicialopez]

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