Kento needs something good in his life.
For most of his life he was fairly indifferent to a lot of things, his face often, if not always, chilled or some kind of annoyed. This seemed to be on the surface, perhaps, but Kento found pleasure within and among many things. Sakura trees, baked goods, the feeling of warm sand beneath his feet and cool ocean water washing it away.
They're the little things, even just thoughts of them, that keep Kento moving through this god awful world. As he gets older, goodness is found in even more trivial things, because with age also comes additional burden and various disappointment. Restock of a favorite product. Flowers in bloom. Small things that bring colour into a life that very frequently threatens to drain it all until he only knows to identify shades of grey and black.
The withering of leaves and flowers hanging onto dying branches amidst chilling winds, threatening to leave them completely bare, is when Kento is reminded more than ever that he needs you. He needs something good, something to work toward. Something to come home to. Something pleasant to fall asleep to. Something beyond material means to motivate him.
His work, in theory, serves him well enough. Pays him well enough if he sacrifices enough of his physical and mental strength to commit to working with difficult people and staring at a blue light that drains his energy almost as much as the routine of it all itself. In the end, he gets a paycheck, and that's what matters.
But truly, it makes Kento a little sick when he thinks that just can't be all life is. Meant to constantly choose which is the more daunting path. Meant to rot at some miserable desk around miserable people in a world that thrives off misery. When the leaves wither and gain spots, when the baked goods don't taste right, when even the thought of a satisfying future isn't enough to push out the nauseating images of curses, he needs something constant. He needs a good thing. He needs you.
You need something good in your life.
Beyond academics, beyond a 9/5, beyond completely busy and hectic days where, by the end, you struggle to remember half of it. Something besides validation from others, besides the constant need to catch up.
A rest would be good, perhaps. A rest from your responsibilities, a rest from the nonsense and vileness that spouts out of people's mouths on the daily, from the streets to your work to the bubbles on your phone. A rest to remind you that in this world, there was still something worth going on for. Something that made all the work worth it. That there was still time to do you, to be with someone who appreciated you. You need something good in your life.
And you've had something good, both of you: you've had each other. For quite some time.
Neither of you would've been able to predict that your futures would intertwine in such a personal and intimate way. Neither of you would've been able to predict from your high school years that you'd steadily fall in love with each other over trauma bonds and shop run-ins and whatever else there was. Neither of you would've fathomed sharing a home together, a small one, but yours, nonetheless.
Never would you both think that the good thing would consist of each other.
But it's been good. It's been grounding, it's helped you retain some semblance of identity and hope in a world that seems adamant on stripping it from you. Besides late-night conversations about bad memories and the heaviness of the world, there were joint cooking sessions. There were silly debates about nonsensical topics. There was reading together. There was indulging in each other's hobbies, when time made room for them. There were attempts at movie marathons: such as the one you were attempting tonight.
It usually never worked out because often you and Kento both came home exhausted from work, but sometimes a shower, a light dinner and a change of comfortable clothes was enough to wake you both just enough to want to spend the remainder of your energy together. So, you agree on trying a movie you've wanted to see for a while, making yourselves comfortable with blankets and pillows.
Your legs are sprawled over his lap, hugging a cushion pillow close to you as the arm of the couch supports your back. Nanami's slouched and still with his arms crossed over his chest. They'll occasionally come down to settle on your knees. It's a little after midnight, the only light resonating throughout your living room being the blue light from the television. The more time that passes, the more Kento becomes aware of the power it has over his senses, lulling him in and out of sleep. When he tilts his head against the cushion toward you, he can see from the crescents in your eyes that the effect was the same.
"Hey," he mutters quietly, gently nudging your side. "Don't doze off on me, now."
You object with a groan as you sit up against the cushion, lulling your head to look up at him. "M'not."
"Didn't look like it."
"Oh, don't start. I saw your eyes close."
"And you thought that'd save you?"
"Maybe."
Kento has never, but especially not since high school, believed that anything has any real permanence to it, besides maybe death. Everything is fleeting. Life is fleeting, he sees it in the shrivelled lines and drained colored from plants through the changing seasons as well as in the creases of skin and unusual paleness of corpses from the morgue. Routine is not always consistent, it's reminded when he's forced to work overtime, to take a detour to a location, when he falls behind some sort of schedule.
But when he looks over at you, takes in the small smile on your lips, the glow on your skin from the TV lights, he thinks of how badly he wants this good thing to last. Even though it's selfish, even though there was no guarantee that it would no matter the thought of a ring on your finger, there was something in him that wanted it anyway.
The only thing that holds him back from letting the question fall from his lips is the guilt he’d feel for not being more thoughtful in the gesture. No ring, no nice day spent together. Truly, he’d resent himself if he were to propose to you in such an undeserving, unaffectionate and unromantic way. But when he watches you with his head lolled to the side, your own eyes cheerfully boring into his as you sit in the dead of the night trying to enjoy some semblance of peace in your togetherness, he wants so badly to just say it:
Marry me. Let’s have something good.
You know, for good.
He holds his tongue though, and instead gives you a smile of his own, a small but meaningful curve of his lips. The TV light illuminates the sides of your faces, and soon enough the blue light and dialogue will lull you to sleep, and you’ll both abandon your movie session in favor of some much-needed rest. So he stands up from the couch before it could get to that point, letting your legs gently swing to the side to accommodates the sit up. He turns toward you, and offers both of his hands out. "Come on. Let's go to bed."
You whine in protest. "But the movie..."
"We'll finish it another time, promise. I have a day off, soon."
"Really?" A quiet gasp escapes you, and your smile gradually widens as you take hold of his hands as he aids in pulling you up and leading you down the hall.
"Next week, I'm pretty sure. We can do something."
"Not spending the whole day in bed."
"Awfully tempting."
He has a good thing, Kento thinks as you swat his chest, but he doesn't move his hand from your lower back to block at all. He has a goddamn good thing, he thinks when your chuckles break the silence within your home, and through the good, bad, and ugliness of it all, it'll be something that keeps some order and hope in his life.
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Hi!! For the Kacy Post Breakup AU stories. Do you still taking promt?? Please can you write "i found the ring when i was moving my stuff out of your apartment and now everything makes sense”?? But Kate found the ring, Kate broke up with Lucy the reason is up to you. Love the ones you already write, thankkk yoouu 🫶🏽
“Theoretically—and I do mean this theoretically, I can’t stress that enough—would you be able to one: procure a pair of bolt cutters, and two: meet me somewhere in twenty minutes? Just think about it. As a purely hypothetical situation.”
Lucy has to stifle a laugh into her fist as she patiently listens to Ernie’s dramatics. “As much as I want to come free you from wherever you’re chained up—”
“I said in theory—”
“—I have a thing,” Lucy says. “Um. With Kate?” To call it “a thing” might be a complete oversimplification, but Ernie gives an understanding hum on the other end of the phone.
“I can be there in five minutes. Okay, like twenty-five minutes. And I can be a buffer, or a distraction, or someone to stare her down all night. Whatever you need.”
Lucy turns the corner and sees Kate Whistler waiting on her doorstep, and the tell-tale pang in her chest briefly makes her falter. “No, it’s fine,” she remembers to answer. “I have to go, though.”
“If you’re sure,” Ernie says, sounding entirely unconvinced. “Good luck.”
“Thanks,” Lucy mumbles, and she shoves her phone into her back pocket as she carefully approaches her apartment. Kate is still standing there—stiffly out of place with suitcases at her side—but she somehow still straightens up even more when she notices Lucy. “Hey,” Lucy calls, a touch confused. “You didn’t let yourself in?”
“I wasn't sure if you wanted me to,” Kate says, awkwardly pulling at the strings of her hoodie the way she does when she is uncomfortable. She takes a step back when Lucy brings out her keys, obviously trying not to hover, and Lucy sighs.
“I don’t care, whatever,” she says, ushering Kate in with a halfhearted flourish when the door clicks open. “Just ignore the mess, I haven’t cleaned or anything.” Work has actually kept her from being home very often beyond to sleep, so she knows her apartment will be a little bit in disarray.
To Kate, it must be a war zone; she has always been a neat freak (in the most endearing way). Lucy has to step over a stack of Amazon packages to even get inside, and she knows that Kate will zero in on everything else Lucy hasn’t cleared out yet: the takeout containers on the coffee table, the jackets strewn over the chairs, the abandoned folders and posters all over the couch.
Lucy is used to it, though, and she walks right in whereas Kate seems to freeze. “Do you want a drink?”
Kate does a double-take, snapping out of her stupor. “Sorry?”
“A drink,” Lucy repeats. “Do you want one?”
“I…think it would be better to do this sober,” Kate says, brow crinkling, and Lucy has to pause to work out what the hell Kate is talking about.
“What? No, I meant like water. Or Gatorade,” Lucy amends. “Actually, I might only have Gatorade.” It’s a whole thing—some new sponsorship her agent had set up which led to a whole crate of the stuff being shipped—and now Lucy has way more than she can drink.
“I'm okay. But thank you,” Kate says, formal to a fault, and Lucy resists the urge to roll her eyes.
“Okay, well, you can…get started. I’m going to be doing some work in the kitchen if you need anything,” Lucy says.
Kate rapidly nods. “Right. Of course,” she says. “I’ll be as quick as I can. I’m sure you’re busy.”
“Yeah. No, totally.” Lucy has actually cleared her entire day just for this, but she doesn't say as much. It is much easier to hide away and pretend she's reading a script instead of, you know, waiting for her ex-girlfriend to pack up all remnants of their relationship.
Even without watching her do it, Lucy knows Kate is probably working efficiently and effectively to erase all traces of happiness from this apartment—their apartment. Kate had never officially moved in, but it was still theirs, and Lucy sees her in everything: in the framed print of The Great Wave off Kanagawa, in the uneven coffee table they picked out from a flea market because it was so beautifully hideous, in the old, torn couch where they had exchanged I love yous for the first time.
(That fact may have also influenced Lucy’s choice to spend as much time as possible at work. Maybe.)
Speaking of work…Lucy begrudgingly takes a seat at the kitchen table to pretend she is doing some. At the very least, she can do the boring task of clearing emails from her agent. Also, she should probably check and make sure Ernie is alive.
About an hour into rewatching Gilmore Girls, Kate shows up in the doorway, wringing her fingers together anxiously. “Sorry to bother you,” she says, as if she can’t hear Lorelai Gilmore’s voice from Lucy’s laptop, “but do you know where my backpack is? The one I use for hiking?”
Lucy blinks. “Uh, I’m not sure.” Kate is the person who normally knows where everything is. Even in Lucy’s apartment, she has an uncanny ability to find stuff Lucy never can.
“I had it the weekend before…” Kate doesn’t have to finish with before I broke up with you, but Lucy hears it anyway. “You know what? It doesn’t matter. If you find it later I can just come back for it.”
“No, I can help you look.” Lucy pauses her show to clarify, “Just so you don’t have to make two trips.”
Kate’s cautious expression slowly morphs into a slightly crestfallen one. “Right. No, of course,” she says.
“Where did you look?” Lucy follows Kate outside to retrace her steps, and all the while, she curiously takes note of the absence of things Kate has chosen to select as purely hers: the cozy throw blanket off the couch, the snow globe which Kate’s mom had sent over for Christmas, the paper flower which Lucy had folded for Kate and previously was displayed in their only vase.
“Both closets—I don’t remember putting it anywhere else. Did you let someone borrow it, maybe?” Kate heads into the bedroom, zeroing in on their closet, but Lucy is focused solely on Kate’s question.
“Why would I let someone borrow your backpack? It’s not mine,” Lucy says, with admittedly a bit of indignation in her tone, but. Who the hell is Kate to suggest that Lucy would be so petty as to lose Kate’s lame hiking backpack?
Kate glances at her sideways, brow crinkling ever-so-slightly. “I don’t know. I just thought—”
“That I’m going to be that ex who trashes your stuff?” Lucy knowingly fills in.
“No, that’s not at all what I’m saying.” Kate says, and she even looks quite alarmed at the suggestion. “I’m not trying to accuse you of anything.”
“Okay, then, don’t look at me like that!”
“Like what?”
“Like I’ve kicked your puppy or something!” Lucy presses her fingertips against her temples.
Kate opens her mouth, then dejectedly shuts it. After a beat she mumbles, “I wasn’t trying to.”
“Well you are.” Lucy has to turn away, and she busies herself with digging through the pile of clothes at the bottom of the closet to see if somehow Kate’s backpack is buried underneath. It isn’t, but Lucy does find the script she had been searching for since last month, so it’s still a win-win.
“I can get another one,” Kate says suddenly. “It’s not a big deal.”
“Sure, whatever you want,” Lucy says, kicking a parka out of the way as she wanders into the adjoining bathroom. “Is that the last thing you need to pack?” Already, all of Kate’s toiletries are missing. Lucy has to bite her lip to keep from doing something stupid like tearing up at the sight of her toothbrush all alone; the absolute last thing she needs to do is start breaking down when Kate is right outside.
“Almost,” Kate’s voice rings out hesitantly from beyond the door. “I have to finish sorting out my clothes.”
Lucy pokes her head out to briefly advise, “Check my drawers, I might have stolen a few of your shirts.” Selfishly, she wants to hang on to anything of Kate’s that she can, but she is making an effort to be practical. If she keeps on wasting her nights getting drunk and crying into that sweater of Kate’s that still smells like her, Lucy will never actually get over Kate. And she has at least promised Ernie that she will try.
Kate starts opening the drawers of the nightstands; Lucy can hear them open and shut. Lucy continues to peek about the bathroom until she has no reason to, and she begrudgingly makes her way back into the bedroom prepared to fake a call and escape back to the kitchen.
But when she walks in, Lucy is immediately immobilized at the sight of Kate standing stock-still in the center of the room—eyes wide, skin eerily pale—and in her hand is the ring box that Lucy forgot she hid in the top drawer of her nightstand.
“Oh fuck,” Lucy breathes out, her mouth forming words before her brain can interject. “That…is not what it looks like.”
Kate rapidly sets the box down on the bed, hand trembling all the while. “I’m sorry,” she says. “It just fell out. It—” She stops, sags backwards until she is leaning against the wall, her usual stoic façade completely melted away into pure disbelief. “You were going to propose?”
This time, there’s no stopping the tears when they spring to her eyes, but Lucy still wipes at them anyway. “I loved you, Kate,” she says thickly, her heart beating fast in an unbelievably painful manner. “What do you think?”
“I thought—” Kate audibly swallows. “You told me you never wanted to get married.”
Lucy shrugs limply. “Well, you do,” she says. “Obviously not with me, but..."
Kate goes silent for a moment. “Why didn’t you tell me?” she asks at last, and her voice quivers like she might cry, which makes absolutely no sense.
“How could I?” Lucy scoffs. “Did you want me to stop your little spiel about ‘not fitting in each other’s lives anymore’ to say ‘hey, Kate, I actually want to propose to you. Can you maybe reconsider breaking up with me?’”
“It would’ve explained a lot, Lucy,” Kate says, stricken. “This whole time—is this why you were acting so weird?”
“I wasn’t acting weird,” Lucy says defensively.
Kate doesn’t seem to be listening. “I thought it was about your job,” she goes on, almost as if to herself. “I thought you were regretting everything.” Her cheeks glisten with silent tears, and Lucy’s stomach flips in on itself.
She doesn’t know what she’s feeling at first. Initially, Lucy assumes it’s devastation, her chest so tight with it like she might finally burst into sobs. But then she realizes it’s anger, white-hot and all-consuming, and when it explodes it comes out as:
“You didn’t even try to talk to me? If I was acting weird, fine. I don’t agree, but let’s say I was.” Lucy begins to pace, because otherwise, she might actually start crying hysterically. “Why wouldn’t you ask me what was going on?”
“I did,” Kate says softly, too softly. “You said it was work.”
Lucy pauses. “Okay, maybe that one time,” she allows. “I don’t see how that leads to dumping me.”
Kate pushes off the wall, her gaze so sorrowful and pained that Lucy has to cross her arms and pointedly look away. “I was holding you back,” she says plainly. “Your career is taking off, Lucy. You’re so famous now you get recognized every time you leave the house. I’m still a dropout law student with no idea what I’m doing in life.”
“I never cared about that.”
“But I do,” Kate says desperately. “That’s why I…that’s the only reason why I wanted to break up. It was never because I didn’t love you.” Kate has moved closer, maybe inadvertently, but Lucy jerks backwards all the same.
“It’s too late,” Lucy says—realizes. “You can’t tell me that. You’re leaving. You chose this! Kate, you—you decided to break my heart instead of trying to make this work. How do you expect me to feel?”
Kate’s hands go immediately to her hoodie strings. “I know,” she says. Twists the ends between her thumb and forefinger. “If I could take it back—”
“You can’t,” Lucy cuts her off. “You ruined it.” Her frustration is the tipping point: the tears come and they’re not pretty, hot and stinging and absolutely ruining whatever makeup she has worn today. “I’m going to go, okay? I’m going to ask Ernie to pick me up and you can just—just let me know when you’re done.”
“No, I…” Kate shakes her head. “I’ll go. Um. Don’t worry about the rest of my stuff.” She zips up her half-empty suitcase and haphazardly yanks it along, lingering briefly only by the doorway like she wants to say something else before she leaves. Lucy can see her struggle; her jaw clenches and unclenches until finally she says, “I’m sorry.”
Lucy exhales, recognizing at once she only has one chance to ask what has been bugging her this entire time. “Kate,” she says, to stop her just for one second. “Would…would you have said yes?”
Kate gazes at her so sadly that when she smiles, barely there, it is as surprising as it is heartbreaking. “Of course I would have,” she says quietly.
And without even waiting for Lucy to say anything—perhaps realizing that she won’t—Kate is leaving, and Lucy is letting her. If this was a movie, Lucy would chase her out the door; maybe get down on one knee anyway, and wait for Kate to finally accept their happily-ever-after in whatever form it takes.
But this isn’t a movie, and there is no black and white ending which will ever really satisfy them both. So Lucy sinks down onto her bed, cradles the ring box in her palm, and begins to mourn a life that was never hers to begin with.
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Your Foxy and the twins is so underused, which is criminal cause their relationship is soooooo adorable! Imagine Foxy returns to the daycare and he's so excited to see his darlings again only to see them both run down and half dead
So true Bestie!! (Stop calling me out for never writing them together arrrgh)
To make up for it, a mini story! Enjoy ❤️
Foxy couldn't wait to see them again.
It'd been so long since he last heard their voices; Sun's overly optimistic disposition perfectly complimented by Moon's crippling pessimism. They were so alike yet so different, and Foxy loved them all the same.
He'd been gone far longer than he had wanted. After the Pizzaplex nearly burned to the ground, he had left to help pick up the pieces. Who would have thought those pieces would take months to lift?
"You're way too fast— can you wait for me?"
Foxy paused, forgetting in his haste that a child was following after him. Her name was Cassie, he had recalled her from a party booked with Roxanne a year prior. She had snuck into the ruins of the Pizzaplex on her own mission, and their team-up was far more beneficial than wandering on their own.
"Apologies, love. I'm just feeling a tad homesick, is all."
"Do you think they'll be mad at you?"
Foxy laughed at the thought, imagining the interaction. "Moon'll call me every name in the book and avoid me like the plague. Sun'll cling to my waist and cry his little eyes out. I've got a lot of makin' up to do, that's fer sure."
Cassie laughed along with him, approaching the door to the Daycare and with a helpful shove, pushed the giant doors open.
The first thing the two noticed was how dark it was. Next, the silence overtook them. The deafening kind of silence that made your heartbeat sound like a drum hooked up to a speaker.
"Uhm. . .Foxy?"
The synthetic looked up at the playscape that had fallen into disarray, his once cheerful expression falling away to horror.
"The lights. . ."
"The what?"
"The lights! They lose themselves when there are no lights!"
From the highest point of the Daycare, glowing red eyes pierced the darkness.
"Naughty fox. You've been away from home for so long~"
Foxy barely had the time to react as something slammed into his chest hard enough to send him sprawling onto his back. Cassie screamed, but he was relieved to see she wasn't being attacked. Himself, on the other hand, wasn't quite as lucky.
"Moon, darlin', it's me. Ya need to snap out of it, ya hear? Stop causin' a ruckus now—"
"Moon" leaned forward, his head tilting almost unnaturally to the side. In the dark, with Foxy’s enhanced eyes, he saw the extent of the neglect on the other synthetic.
Their body was a gruesome patchwork of spare parts and flayed "skin". Their costume was tattered and hastily sewn back together with mismatched patterns and clashing colors. They were dirty, smeared with the bluish black oil that constituted as the blood for the synthetics. The more Foxy looked, the more pained and horrified his expression became.
"Oh love, what happened to you?"
"You left us— left ME— all alone! What could we do? We fought over every. Little. Thing. The cleaning, the waiting, the lights. The lights went out and we— we took a nap.
"We're still trapped in the nightmare.
"When you left, we only had each other. We could only protect each other. So we became each other. It's easier to be together like this rather than apart. Do you like how we look?"
Cassie flicked on her flashlight, which caused the synthetic to recoil in pain. Bathed now in some form of light, it was apparent that the patchwork and modifications were of both Sun and Moon. It was as if someone ripped the twins apart and then put them back together like some twisted garage kit.
"T-the light! It hurts! It hurtsss!" Moon's voice hissed, before the tones began to fade to the lighter pitch that Foxy recognized as Sun. "Help us. . .Mind swirling. . .pain unbearable. . .Make us whole—"
Foxy bit back the awful lump forming in his throat, reaching out to pull the shaking figure into his arms.
"Lass, have you still got that doodad of yours?"
Cassie startled to attention, reaching into her pocket to pull out the Faz-wrench. Confusion dusted her face before the realization set in.
Foxy nodded, moving the twisted fusion's hair out of the way to expose ther tattered base of their skull and in turn, the tell-tale socket with two holes. Foxy never really knew what these sockets were for, but every synthetic had them in some regard. The sockets were never in the same place for any of them, but after seeing Cassie wield the Faz-wrench, he knew then what the socket was meant to hold.
The child approached cautiously, and upon realizing that she wasn't in danger thanks to Foxy holding them down, drew closer. She plunged the wrench's prongs into the synthetic's neck and turned, hearing as the click resounded and the struggling stopped. Worried she had done something wrong, she raised the Faz-wrench again to try a second time before Foxy lifted his hand to stop her.
The patchwork body of Sun and Moon convulsed as parts and pieces snapped and clicked into place. The crown that Sun usually sported atop his head sunk into their skull before reemerging along the bottom edge of their head. The flickering eyes made peace, each one settling to represent one twin. Though still dirty and mucked about with oil and debris, the synthetic no longer seemed to be in pain as their body seemed to reshape to accept all of their new parts.
They stood up straight, folding their hands over their chest with an expression full of relief, adoration, and warmth.
"You've awoken me from my long nap. I can't thank you enough. Either of you."
Foxy tentatively stood, holding his arms out to the other in case they rebounded or collapsed.
"Darlings, you know I'd fuckin' travel to hell and back fer ya. The important thing is, are ya alright? Sun, Moon, which one are you now?"
"I'm neither one or the other, but a little bit of both. Something a little inbetween. We used to be two, but now we're one. I think it was always meant to be this way." They smiled, floating upward to be eye level with the larger synthetic.
How in the world are they flying? Cassie thought to herself, watching with mild confusion and curiosity.
"Whatever will I do about our shows now? Our three-man act is now a two-man show." Foxy joked, pressing his hands against the other's cheeks, gently smoothing away smudges of dirt and oil.
"Silly fox, you're more than capable of rewriting a play or two." They purred, nuzzling against the large hands that cradled their face so gently.
Foxy felt the deja vu strike him, recalling times when Sun and Moon would fight or lose their sanity in the darkness and the only thing that would bring them together was his beloved cutlass. A pirate can never be without his trusty sword, Sun would cheerfully remark. It was true, to some extent. Though it was just a pacifier of sorts, that cutlass meant the world to him because it was something that brought the two people he loved most together no matter the trials and tribulations.
That cutlass, made of steel and etched with a symbol upon its blade so Foxy would never forget its name. The symbol of the Moon blotting out the Sun, the symbol of the—
"Eclipse. I'm home. Sorry to keep ya waitin'."
Eclipse paused, staring into his eyes for a beat before smiling that ever so soft grin again, melting Foxy's steel heart faster than any fire ever could.
"Welcome home, my captain."
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