#English is not my first language please excuse my idiocy

[void-dude]

Oopsie baby!

Shake just woke up, beer in hand smh

[misssakuramochi]

hi, i hope youre day is well? please remember to drink water and get some rest <33 feel free to answer this when you can ^^ sorry ahead if my english is not good, not my first language lol

pronouns: she/her

sexuality: pansexual (male preference)

zodiac sign: taurus sun, gemini moon, taurus rising

mbti: INFP

appearance: i am hispanic (mexicana) 5'4/165 with tan skin and dark brown or black eyes. i have short-meduim (to my lower neck) dark brown hair with bangs and it is straight but messy.

personality: depending on the sitatuion, i am more quiet or talkative. around talkative people, i don't really talk, letting them lead the conversation and just listening. around less talkative, i will ask them questions about themselves or talk about things now and then. i have a bad habit of being blunt with people, speaking straightforward and honest. despite that, i try very hard to be polite and genuine, offering help when i can and having patience, i do not get mad easily more so irritated or annoyed which leaves me quickly but i am very stubborn. i am observant and people watch alot, i like to notice little things like habits. i cry very easily but not because of my feelings being hurt? it is an automatic physical reflex, example if i bump into something or trip, my eyes will water and my nose will turn red. with close friends, i am sarcastic and i like to think witty :> but i worry about and think of them often.

likes: helping (it is nice to see others feel more at ease), cracking my fingers, back, neck, etc, cats and dragonflies (any animals but they are my favorite) taking care of others (i carry band-aid, extra water bottle and cough drops with me) knives (i have a little switchblade collection :D) rain/thunderstorms (it is very calming to me), reading/writing and drawing (i like romance/action/horror fiction best)

dislikes: idiocy/ignorance (not dumb people but people who don't try to understand or put in effort to understand), the cold (i get cold very easily and like to sit with a blanket on me) too much loudness (i flinch alot when things get 'too loud', feeling overwhelmed)

hobbies: reading, drawing, people watching, doing yoga/stretching or giving other people massages/cracking their backs/fingers, cooking (i like cooking because then i get to eat :D and no matter how bad it is, if i made it, i will eat/finish it 😔), organizing/cleaning things like my room or workspace love language: quality time and acts of service fun fact: i can read palms and i like to do tarot readings :D

i hope this was enough, thank you

I match you with....

SANJI

○ You and Sanji both have a good balance on socializing. Neither overly loud nor particularly quiet, you can just speak freely with Sanji. Feel like telling him something? He's an excellent listener. You never feel overshadowed. Conversely, if you feel like being quiet he's more than happy to babble on about how amazing you are to fill an awkward silence.

○ Your curious nature with people and tendency to ask questions really helps with Sanji. He can be closed off at the best of times, but how can he say no when a lady is asking to get to know him?? You're one of the few people who's taken the time, so you're one of the few people who Sanji genuinely opens up to.

○ That being said, Sanji was brought up to believe he's a bother. It takes your stubborn nature to get through to him that you want him to open up. It takes a lot of patience and again, a lot of stubbornness to get through to Sanji but you're the perfect person for the job

○ Acts of service you say? Sanji is here to provide. With the amount of things he just does for you, from chores you've been dreading to carrying your bag, you always feel loved. The fact that you actually reciprocate sends Sanji over the moon.

HEADCANONS

○ Sanji let's you practice your palmistry on him all the time. He not so secretly started this as an excuse to hold your hand (lmao), but now he just loves seeing you practice a craft you love

○ Cooking lesson dates! Sanji loves cooking for you, of course, and while he can be hesitant to share his kitchen you're his exception. Never will you have to suffer through a bad meal again even if he can't be around to make you your meals - he'll make sure of it. He's a strict teacher but he's also adorable and will kiss smudged chocolate off your face and give you constant rewards.

○ Sanji starts carrying around tissues in your favourite colour for if your eyes get watery. He hates seeing you genuinely cry, but secretly loves feeling useful when he can comfort you through the physical reflex if something minor happens. If anyone dares make unkind comment they WILL catch these legs.

○ Sanji forgets to take care of himself all the time. You very often have to remind him to drink water or take a break, and while he doesn't always listen unless you force him, he loves that you care enough to remind him.

--

Thank you friend! I hope this was worth the wait! Make sure to take care of yourself today too.

Ps. Your English is excellent! Don't even worry!

-mochi

[consumedkings-archive]

ii. damage done & damage made ✤ roman sionis/varya astakhova

words: 2.2k

summary: thanks to @starcrier​ for entertaining my daydreams about my favorite murder duo, we now have a oneshot that literally no one asked for: roman and varya, and their babies, in a tea shop. living their perfect crime lives. that’s all.

rating: m for Adult Language and threats of face-tearing

warnings: the aforementioned face-tearing, roman’s mouth (per usual), domestic murder family. babies being cute.

Mark liked his job, a lot. Working a tea shop felt like a step up from the typical entry-level customer service job, and he got a huge discount on all of the products—not to mention, flexible hours while he was balancing school and needing to pay rent, and premium people-watching. Some days, like today, the card machine acted up and he had to ask customers to put their card numbers in manually, but most of them were understanding. All-in-all: he felt pretty lucky.

So when a young couple wandered into the shop one afternoon, it felt like any other kind of afternoon for him. They matched the usual demographic that liked to stop there; well-dressed, usually a little more upper class given the neighborhood. The woman—small and slender, balancing a stylishly dressed infant on her hip—smiled at him charmingly while the man redirected a two-seat stroller to an area less clustered by shelves, slowly rocking it back and forth.

“Good afternoon!” Mark greeted as the woman approached, keeping his voice softer in case the man was trying to rock another infant to sleep. “Can I help you find anything today?”

“Hello! Yes, well—admittedly, I am not as well-versed in teas as I would like to be,” the brunette said sweetly, a little sheepish. The infant babbled happily and clutched the pendant of her necklace in his fingers.

Mark offered her a smile. “No worries. What kinds of flavors do you like? I have quite a few—”

“Varya,” the man said from where he had been pushing the stroller back and forth, “do you have my phone? I need to make a call.”

“Oh, yes. One moment.” She fished a sleek, dark phone from her purse, passing it to the man before turning her eyes back to Mark. The man, presumably her husband, dialed a number and balanced the phone between his ear and shoulder before the call connected and he started talking—his voice low so that Mark could barely hear him over Varya’s attentions. He had gloves on; black, leather, embossed with something in gold; maybe his initials?

Varya said lightly, “Flavors?”

He flushed, quickly diverting his eyes. “Yes, right. Your favorite flavors?”

“Hm. I prefer spiced teas,” she began, eyes scanning the shelves. “My mother used to make a tea with cloves and cinnamon, do you have anything like that?”

“Certainly,” Mark replied brightly. He turned back to the shelves, humming for a moment. She had had a bit of an accent; it sounded Russian, but it was so slight he couldn’t quite be sure. There were plenty of tourists and sightseers coming in and out of the shop that he’d gotten used to skimming for quick details, like accents or nice clothes or expensive jewelry. And if the gigantic rock on the woman’s finger was any indication, they were hitting all of the boxes for the people that usually walked into a boutique tea shop.

Pulling one of the jars off of the shelf, Mark pulled the cap and offered it to her to smell. “This one’s got cinnamon and cloves, but ginger and cardamom, too. I really like to make it with—”

“No, no, no, no,” her husband bit out into the phone, the stroller rolling to a stop as he stilled his attempts at keeping the baby asleep, “you listen to me, you pint-sized fuckhead, when I tell—”

Varya, completely unbothered by her husband’s vicious tone, shifted the infant to her other hip, smelling the looseleaf mixture again. “It smells so good. I think it is the ginger that makes it good. What did you say you like to make it with?”

“Um,” Mark said, trying not to stare at the man in the velvet suit saying, and I’m going to cut your fucking face off, you piece of shit, did you know that? Do you know who I am? That’s right, and I can do whatever I fucking want, and that means cutting your dumb fucking face off and putting it on display in my loft for my dinner guests, “cream?”

“Oh, that’s interesting,” she murmured idly, reading through the list of ingredients again. “Do you have those little—” She gestured with her free hand. “—to steep the mixture with?”

“Y—” Mark swallowed. His gaze flickered back to the glossy brunette, her lips pouted and the baby nestled against her neck, seemingly putting himself to sleep despite the noise. “Yes, of course. Do you prefer the, um...”

“In English, you fucker,” Roman seethed into the phone, “your—yeah, well, your boss is American, I don’t care where you were born. So tell me in English how many fucking guns are being held up in bumfuck-nowhere-Russia, you—”

“This one is nice,” Varya interjected gently, picking up one of the steel ones. “I like the ones that have a finer mesh. Less chance of getting the debris in there, you know?”

He was trying to remember when the last time he’d taken a breath was. It very suddenly all made too much sense—well-dressed couple, twins, the embossed gloves and the accent and oh my God, oh fuck, oh fucking God oh shit oh fuck I have Roman Fucking Sionis and his Russian gun lord wife in the tea shop I’m going to fucking die—

“Mark?” she prompted. The dulcet tone of her voice broke him out of the panic running through his brain. Unfortunately, the sound of her saying his first name only firmly cemented in his brain the fact that he was now assisting the wife of Gotham’s biggest crime lord in picking out a looseleaf tea.

He swallowed thickly. “H—How, um, did you know my name?”

Varya tilted her head inquisitively. “Your nametag, my love.”

“Oh,” he replied, letting out a nervous laugh. “Of course. Um. Right, those do have a finer mesh. I like them better too. It’s similar t-to the um—the kind of mesh you would—you would have in the teapot. You know. If you were going to do it by the pot. And not the cup. Like for more than one cup of tea.”

A smile ticked the corner of her lips upward. If he didn’t know any better, he would have thought she was enjoying his apparent discomfort. “I do like to make more than one cup of tea, on occasion. Do you sell teapots? Can I see those?”

Mark opened his mouth to say that of course, she could see the teapots—did she want his? His personal teapot? He could run home and grab it if she wanted, please don’t shoot me in the face—when the stilling of the stroller’s movements seemed to have distressed the other twin. As soon as she started fussing, Roman threw his free hand up in exasperation.

“Do you hear that, Maxim?” he demanded. “That’s my daughter, crying, because I was so fucking fed up with your idiocy that I stopped rocking her to sleep. What? Do I want to—no, I don’t want your mother’s fucking aromatic recipe for putting infants to sleep, I’m already in a fucking tea shop!”

Varya let out a little sigh. “Excuse me one moment, Mark.”

“Sure,” Mark replied, scratching his forehead. “Sure, no worries, take—um, take your time.”

She swept away from him, returning the happy infant to the stroller and pulling from it the fussy one, bouncing the baby a few times before she said, “Romy, you know Yuli only likes when you bounce her. Trade me.”

Mark watched as Roman’s mouth downturned in a firm frown; he eventually acquiesced, taking the crying baby and offering the phone to Varya, who planted the phone against her ear and pushed the double stroller outside and into fresh air, taking with her the conversation which quickly shifted into a foreign language. For what it was worth, as soon as the little girl was in Roman’s arms, she almost immediately stopped fussing—though he did bounce her and make his way over to Mark, brows furrowed despite his daughter’s happy babbling.

“What one did she like?” he asked, less silken than his better half.

“What?”

“The tea,” Roman answered, squinting. “What tea did she like?”

“Uh,” Mark said, “the—uh, this one. Sir.” He held out the jar, but Roman waved his hand in dismissal.

“Pack some of that up. And the—whatever the fuck this is,” he added, gesturing at the steeper. “That too.”

Mark pulled one of the bags out from the drawer, working quickly despite the tremble in his hands. “Just the steeper? Sir?”

Roman had turned his attention back to the curly-haired baby, waving a gloved finger in her vision to keep her occupied, when Mark had posed his question. “What? Speak up, I’ve got a chatty infant here.”

“She—she wanted to look at the teapots, too.” Mark packed the looseleaf tea into the bag. The scale remained untouched. The idea of taking the time to weigh the tea and charge appropriately had completely fled his mind. “S—Sir.”

“Huh.” Roman squinted at the wall of teapots, seeming to deliberate for a moment. “We’ll take that one. The black and gold. And the steeper, and the tea.”

“Sure. For sure. Good choice. That’s my favorite one,” he added, realizing somewhere in his brain that he was babbling but that he couldn’t stop. “It’s hand-made, so it has—um, it has like...Little flaws, that make it worth a lot, because it was made by a famous—”

Varya returned to the shop, phone tucked away and only their doe-eyed son in her arms again. She gave Roman’s shoulder a squeeze with her free hand and then turned her attention to Mark, smiling prettily. “That’s the one he picked out?”

Mark nodded, hesitated midway through packing the pot. “Yes. Do you like it? Did you want a different one? I have some new ones in the back—”

“It’s perfect,” she assured him. She looked at Roman, glowing, and reached up to press a kiss to his cheek. “I love it.”

The blonde looked pleased. “Yes, well, who knows you better than me?” And then: “What did Kuznetsov tell you?”

Hurrying through the packing, Mark managed to get everything rang up amidst the couple’s idle chatter—which consisted of Varya explaining that ten thousand guns were held up in Kazakhstan, which was not Russia, but used to be part of Russia, at which point Roman waved his hand and went ‘whatever’—and ran the man’s heavy, black card through the card machine.

The machine beeped three times in alarm, and Mark felt his stomach plummet. The fucking machine’s broken, he remembered, with despair. Oh my God, oh my God, I’m going to fucking—

“What?” Roman barked out. “What is it?”

“The—the um, the machine is—I’m sorry,” he blurted out. “The machine is broken and I h-have to have you—put in the card number manually—”

The man made the most indignant sound, but before he could attempt to get fired up all over again, Varya said, “Romy, why don’t you load the twins up in the car? Armazd already put the stroller away. I’ll finish up here.”

Roman’s mouth pressed into a thin line, and then he said, “Alright, V,” and accepted the second infant into his other arm, toting them both outside. Varya looked at Mark and smiled sympathetically, holding out her hand for the machine; Mark handed it over, absently pulling at a loose thread on his apron as she started carefully inputting the card number.

“Do you have children, Mark?” she asked conversationally. “A partner?”

“Uh,” he replied very intelligently. “N-No. No ma’am. I mean, miss. No, I don’t have either of those, miss.”

“It is definitely a life change,” she said by way of agreement, pocketing the card and waiting for the machine to process. “Suddenly, your hands are full all the time.”

A nervous laugh bubbled up out of him, and he nodded his head; the seconds ticked by, agonizing as Varya hummed and gathered up the bag until it finally beeped its approval of the transaction.

“Thank you, my darling!” she called over her shoulder. “I am sure I will be back.”

“Welcome,” he replied weakly. He watched her make her way to the door, nearly out; it wasn’t until his shoulders slumped in a bit of relief that she stopped and turned to look at him, a sly little smile on her face.

“Before I forget,” Varya began, “perhaps, if you find yourself thinking about any of the conversation you heard today—you know, about business—it is best to keep it to yourself. It is not particularly confidential, you see, but...Well, I would just hate to feel like I could not bring my business back here because I cannot trust you.”

An unpleasant little chill sprinted down his spine. He shifted on his feet, wetting his lips for a moment as he tried to figure out what it was he wanted to say; how many times could he swear up and down that nothing he heard today about guns or Kazakhstan to assure her that she wouldn’t have to worry about it? That he would literally rather put pencil shavings in his eyes than put the Sionis target on his back?

“Mark,” she said, “all you have to say is that you understand.”

“I do,” he blurted out quickly, “I do understand.”

She smiled brightly. “I knew you were a good boy. Have a lovely afternoon!”

Just like that, she swept out of the shop; he was finally alone. Mark slumped into his chair, passing a hand over his face for a moment—long enough for him to sit up, press his face into the palms of his hands, and say:

“I have to quit my job.”

[ao3feed-klance]

One Day

read it on AO3 at https://ift.tt/2r17tmz

by Florar

**Rewrite of my other work from a year ago**

Soulmate Au You are born with only the first letter of your soulmates name, once you touch your soulmate their name will appear.

Lance struggles when he faces the reality of his soulmate.

Words: 2323, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English

Fandoms: Voltron: Legendary Defender

Rating: Not Rated

Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Categories: M/M

Characters: Keith (Voltron), Lance (Voltron), Hunk (Voltron), Pidge | Katie Holt

Relationships: Keith/Lance (Voltron)

Additional Tags: Langst, Self-Harm, Suicide Attempt, Unrequited Love, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, i dont know how to tag please excuse my idiocy, Lance (Voltron) is a Mess, Lance (Voltron)-centric, Keith/Lance (Voltron) Angst, wow this doc is triggering please be careful, vent - Freeform, Angst and Feels, One-Sided Attraction

read it on AO3 at https://ift.tt/2r17tmz

[ao3feed-safeklance]

One Day

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/2r17tmz

by Florar

**Rewrite of my other work from a year ago**

Soulmate Au You are born with only the first letter of your soulmates name, once you touch your soulmate their name will appear.

Lance struggles when he faces the reality of his soulmate.

Words: 2323, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English

Fandoms: Voltron: Legendary Defender

Rating: Not Rated

Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Categories: M/M

Characters: Keith (Voltron), Lance (Voltron), Hunk (Voltron), Pidge | Katie Holt

Relationships: Keith/Lance (Voltron)

Additional Tags: Langst, Self-Harm, Suicide Attempt, Unrequited Love, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, i dont know how to tag please excuse my idiocy, Lance (Voltron) is a Mess, Lance (Voltron)-centric, Keith/Lance (Voltron) Angst, wow this doc is triggering please be careful, vent - Freeform, Angst and Feels, One-Sided Attraction

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/2r17tmz

[thisurlplease]

GH Vol 2 Prologue

Suppose your house is haunted by a ghost.

It’d definitely bother you, right? It’s creepy, and all sorts of troublesome things happen when ghosts haunt a house.

Naturally, you’d think, I want to do something about this.

What would you do?

If you ask me, you should take the Yamanote Line. If you’re not someone from Tokyo, you’ll first have to go to either Tokyo or Ueno Station.

Once you take the Yamanote Line, get off at Shibuya. Actually, it doesn’t really matter whether you take the Hanzomon Line, the Ginza Line, the Toyoko Line, or the Inokashira Line. One way or another, you should come to Shibuya. Once you arrive, head to the front of the famous Hachiko statue. Then, find a kind-looking person nearby and ask, “Where is Dogenzaka?”

Once you know where Dogenzaka is, climb up the hill. After walking for a while, you should see a brick-red, antique building. It’s the building with a first floor that turns into a sort of plaza.

—Did you find it? Once you get to the building, go up to the second floor using the escalator near the fountain. Don’t pay any mind to the cafe, boutique, or any other shop located on the first floor. The shops are all very fashionable, so you’ll get the urge to go inside. Once you get to the second floor, look around. Can you see the blue-grey door? A pane of frosted glass with an elegant pattern is fitted into the door, and the logo, “SPR,” is contained there in a delicate, gold font. Under that, in the same gold color, should be, “Shibuya Psychic Research.” Aim straight for that door. “Huh, it’s not a coffee shop?” you ask. It’s absolutely not a coffee shop! A coffee shop won’t be of any use to you if you’re troubled by a ghost. Also, if you barge in and mistake it for a coffee shop, expect to be treated unkindly. In some cases, you might be rudely asked, “Can’t you read English?” “Shibuya Psychic Research.” —That is, “Shibuya Saikikku Risāchi.” Got it? “Saikikku Risāchi” is “Psychic Research.” So, “Shibuya Saikikku Risāchi,” means we’re a psychic research office located in Shibuya. Shibuya is also the boss’s family name, so it might mean that it’s the psychic research office of Shibuya-san’s family. Well, either way, the point is that’s what’s usually stuck on the telephone poles. ‘We accept all consultations for demons and ghosts.’ Things like driving away ghosts and getting rid of demons. Now, you just have to summon the courage to open the door. Inside is a spacious and elegant office. Normally, I will greet customers, but sometimes that’s not the case. I work part-time, so I’m not always there. When I’m not there, a tall, thin, sullen man will greet you. Once in a while, even he’s not there, in which case no one will greet you. On such occasions, there’ll most likely be a boy with a magnificently handsome face lounging in the front reception room. He’s sixteen or seventeen years old. You should never mistake him for a part-time worker just because he’s young. His pride is tremendously high, so he’ll never forgive the person who commits such a mistake. After all, he’s a holier-than-thou narcissist. Naru-chan for short. As long as Naru’s mood isn’t sour, you can consult him with an easy mind. He’ll surely solve your troubles. ...If he feels like it.

“This is Shibuya Sai something or other, isn’t it?” It was a wealthy, well-dressed matron who opened the door and came inside. This is a work day for me, and I’m also not on break. In other words, I’m in the office, so the woman was welcomed by me. “Yes. Are you here for a consultation?” I put on my business smile. Her eyes, however, passed right by me, who stood up, and landed on Naru, who just so happened to be reading a book on the sofa today. “Hey, boy.” ...Ignorance is a dangerous thing. Lady, you better stop calling him, “boy.” It’s dangerous. It’s like calling a tiger, “Fluffy.” “Excuse me, what sort of business do you have?” I asked with a polite tone and cheerful smile. However, the woman merely threw a glance my way before ignoring me. ..Wow. While still ignoring me, she determinedly approached Naru and asked, “Hey, boy, are you from this office?” Naru didn’t turn his head. You’ll never grab his attention by calling him, “boy.” Commendably, I called to the woman in a kind voice, “Excuse me.” The woman ignored me again. ...Cut it out! Despite your age, you don’t know a thing about courtesy! “Excuse me, if you have business here, I can help you.” I wanted to shout it, but controlled myself. Instead, I asked her politely. She looked toward me and stared at me unabashedly. Then she sneered at me with a, “Hmph.” ...you, you jerk! Then to Naru, she said, “Hey, boy, I’m a customer!” “Customer…?” Naru said in a somewhat off-handed and cold tone. He kept his eyes on his book. “Yes. You might at least answer me. What a disgusting attitude.” ...Who’s? Naru said curtly, “Leave.” “—What!? I said I’m customer, didn’t I?” “I’m not so pressed for work that I’d accept a request from a rude customer who doesn’t even know common courtesy.” ...Nice. Well said. The woman’s face turned bright red. “How rude…! Bring me the person in charge! I’d like a word with him!” ...Hmph. What idiocy. Naru smoothly stood and turned towards the woman. His face held a frosty expression. That alone was formidable enough to silence anyone. With his jet-black hair and jet-black eyes, and dressed in black from head to toe, he looked like a beautiful demon or vampire. In a quiet voice, he said, “I’m the manager, Shibuya.” The woman’s mouth opened and closed repeatedly in shock. The manager eyed her with contempt, a sarcastic smile on his pale lips. “Leave,” he said. At the same time, he called over to the adjoining data room. “Lin! See our guest out.”

***

The rude woman was forcibly sent out by the exceedingly asocial, beanpole of an assistant Lin-san. “Naru, is that okay?” I asked. “What?” He looked towards me and asked in his clear, quiet voice. “That woman just now, she seemed rich.” “Doesn’t matter.” Naru’s reply was extremely curt. “More importantly, Mai. Tea,” the manager said briefly, returning his eyes to his book. Make the tea your damn self! I thought, but that’s dangerous to say out loud. Naru’s in a bad mood today. We’ve had customers nonstop today, and they’ve all been terrible customers, too. Rude people like that woman and  people mistakenly asking us to, “investigate my unfaithful lover,” or “treat my lower back pain,” or “tell me the fortune of my future spouse.” There was even a guy from a counseling service who mistook us for a new religion. The only decent request was, “My daughter’s become a delinquent recently. I’m sure she’s possessed by something, so please exorcise it.” Each time, I have to explain the mix-up. This is a psychic research office. We’re an organization whose aim is the scientific investigation of strange incidents believed to be related to ghosts and such.   No, this isn’t a detective agency. Heavens no, we’re not faith healers. I’m sorry, we don’t do fortune-telling. No, no, this isn’t a religious organization. …Come on, get it right. I don’t have to be Naru to get angry. “Here you go.” I placed a cup of black tea on the table. By the way, when we say, “tea,” in this office, it means black tea. Green tea is rarely consumed. “Mm…” Naru didn’t even look up. Can’t you at least say, “thank you”? I carefully made this tea with all my heart, you know! Yeah (my tone suddenly became girly), I made this tea with all my heart. It seems, toward the manager, I… My job is chores. Things like making photocopies and tea. I don’t feel like I’m being very useful to him. So that’s why, when I make tea, I give it my all. When I look at the current situation and he’s in a bad mood like he is now, I take great pains to make Assam tea. But he doesn’t understand that at all.

***

I met Naru this spring. The setting was my school. —Although I say that, it’s not like he transferred there or anything. He— the manager of ‘Shibuya Psychic Research’, came to investigate the ill-rumored former school building. Through an unexpected turn of events, I served as Naru’s assistant during that case. So, that’s how I currently came to be working part-time at his office. I thought he was an unpleasant fellow at first. He’s good-looking, but even so, he has a bad personality. He’s sharp-tongued and prideful and headstrong, but well… Love doesn’t need a reason. It’s annoying. Of course, Naru doesn’t know anything about my feelings. I’m seen merely as a part-time worker (probably). Maybe Naru’s not interested in girls. That’s what it seems like. Because he’s different from ordinary boys. For starters, he’s the manager of a psychic research office at the age of sixteen. Ordinarily, he should be a second year high school student, one year above me, but no matter how you look at it, he doesn’t appear to go to school. Well, he already has a decent (?) job, so he probably doesn’t care about his education at this point. In fact, he seems to have a work oriented personality. He doesn’t watch TV, doesn’t watch movies, doesn’t read novels, and certainly doesn’t read manga. He doesn’t even listen to music at all no matter the genre. So then, what does he do when he’s not working? Well generally, he reads books or thick bundles of documents. Of course, it’s all psychic related technical books, and on top of that, written in a Western language. Speaking of hobbies, his seem to be travel and magic tricks. This is even more strange. He has a mountain of travel books, road maps, and things like that. But well, even if he travels all over for work, it’s an unusual number. Sometimes, he spreads out his maps and whatnot and gets lost deep in thought while tracing his fingertips over them. And sometimes, he’ll suddenly go on short trips, but he doesn’t appear to go sightseeing or anything. Because, while he went to Kyoto, he didn’t see Kiyomizu Temple, Kinkaku Temple, or Arashi Mountain. Even his magic tricks, if I asked him to show us, he absolutely wouldn’t. Sometimes I notice him fiddling with his playing cards and such, but I've never seen him perform for others. ...Hey, isn’t that strange? Naru-chan is a rather mysterious boy. But maybe that’s what’s great about him… ...Wow, I’m being such a girl ♡ Well, good for me.

Collaborators: @everbrilliantheartbreaker, @csakuras

Chapter 1.1

[tea-for-you]

On Thin Ice

Title: On Thin Ice

Fandom: Kyo Kara Maoh

Pairing: Yuri/Wolfram. Ish.

Rating: All

Mirrors: AO3

Summary: On manly friendship and unintended proposals (the figure skating AU nobody asked for)

This was the troubling truth of the current situation: Shibuya Yuri's life had changed utterly, entirely, the day Wolfram Bielefeld had shown up at his doorstep and told him in no uncertain terms that after desecrating his routine like that, he had better go on and win the gold at the next Grand Prix or so God help him, Yuri would never be forgiven.

You'd think that all things that could be said about Wolfram Bielefeld were already commonly known. His technical skills, his ingenius choreographies, his brash confidence, his family history of a mother and two older brothers all world-class athletes in ice-related sports, his international career in full bloom while Yuri was still struggling to place in domestic competitions -

Wolfram Bielefeld was so, so far away from an average, middle-class guy from Saitama who had gotten into figure skating because his mother liked putting him in cute costumes. And oh, the one time they had shared a rink had been resounding evidence of how Wolfram Bielefeld belonged in another world than the one Shibuya Yuri lived in. Was it a wonder, any wonder at all, that Shibuya Yuri's average, middle-class life had been turned upside down the day Wolfram Bielefeld dragged him off to the rink demanding to see which jumps he could land?

Wolfram left his own career hanging to pull Yuri along, spent every day barking orders at him, picking apart his moves to tell him what to do better, ate his mother's curry and somehow, he had lifted Yuri up to a place where he could suddenly see his most secret dreams. And how can you tell a person like Wolfram Bielefeld that he transformed your life, how can mere words make him understand how much that means to you?

The one thing no-one had ever mentioned about Wolfram Bielefeld was his lacking appreciation of delicacy.

"Well, the wedding is obviously off the table until he can show that he is capable of winning gold in the top international competitions."

"Wait - "

"That is certainly a harsh condition - "

"It's not like that," Yuri interrupted and knew that his smile likely wasn't coming across as calm and in control. "It's symbolic. Like, round and golden, it's a charm for a gold medal, see?"

Mackenzie Henrich from CBC looked between them with a mildly confused expression.

"Yes," Wolfram continued after a brief pause, "but I have full confidence that Yuri will be able to do it. I know that he can come across like a hopeless wimp at times, but the fact that he is at all qualified for Grand Prix should be evidence enough that he has what takes to win and make good on his proposal."

"Please don't make that sort of jokes -" he reached across Wolfram to pull down the gesticulating hand bearing a ring so new and well-polished that the shine caught in Yuri's eyes every time he looked at him. Only too late did he realise that the hand he'd used to stop Wolfram from waving it in front of the camera was the one that carried his own matching piece. He yanked them both down and it probably wasn't at all subtle.

Wolfram turned to glare at him. "I'm not! As I was saying..."

The rest of that sentence was lost to Yuri when he realised that he was still holding onto Wolfram's hand, as if he hadn't been giving people ideas enough with his ill-chosen attempt at showing Wolfram his gratitude and his ambition both in a single symbolic act.

In the beginning, he had thought the shudders he felt every time he the polished gold caught his eyes was in the comfort of knowing that the bond they shared had been finalised as something tangible, something meaningful, and that Wolfram had understood his feelings. Only after people started wishing him luck had he realised that those shudders must have been the warning bells going off about his terrible, terrible mistake.

Well, not all terrible things had come out of it. He'd gotten to talk to Conrad Weller, hadn't that been a dream from his days of middle school hockey. Conrad Weller had been just as charming and friendly on the phone as he'd seemed in all his interviews, and he had been so nice that Yuri had ended up spilling what seemed like half his life story to him, while Conrad Weller - Conrad Weller - said that he thought it was more admirable to stand up for justice than to play as a pro.

"Besides," he'd laughed, "if you hadn't gone back to figure skating, you'd never have become part of our family like this!"

"Yeah, part of your family," Yuri had parroted and felt his heart glow at the thought of being family with Conrad Weller, before it all caught up with him again, "I mean, no! I mean, please don't make jokes about that, Wolf's already scary enough with how he really treats it all seriously and I meant it as a good luck charm and- "

And that was the point Wolfram had come back into the room, demanded to know why he still was on the phone with Conrad, and jealously ended the call with a demand that he keep his sweaty, hockey-playing paws off his fiancé. And as Wolfram had followed it up with a furiously typed text, Yuri hadn't been able to take his eyes off the ring on Wolfram's hand.

"Okay," that was what Wolfram had said when Yuri tried to explain it. He'd lifted his hand after Yuri slipped on the ring, and his expression had been one Yuri had never seen on his face before, and hadn't known how to interpret; he'd had to rely on Wolfram's words, even as he was contiunally learning that Wolfram Bielefeld's words often contradicted the rest of him. Okay he'd said, and when Yuri pulled out the other ring to put it on, Wolfram had plucked it out of his fingers and done it for him.

How strange, that someone whose voice was so piercing whenever Yuri wasn't performing at peak could hold his hand so softly, too. Yuri had spent the first three days getting used to the feeling of unyielding metal, and then it had stopped being a reminder about what Wolfram meant to him, and instead become the most disastrous misunderstanding.

Things were rapidly spinning out of control, and any attempts at limiting the damage were proving to be disenhearteningly unhelpful.

"It's a token of our companionship," he told Svenja Althaus from ZDF, "as athlete and coach. That's a kind of relationship that's very intimate, and - "

As Yuri stopped talking to envision the consequences of his choice of adjective, Svenja Althaus saw her chance and took it. "And do you think that your intimate relationship is a problem for your professional one?"

"Ganz und gar nicht," said Wolfram, and even though Yuri didn't understand a single word of that sentence, he was absolutely certain that it wasn't something boding well for him.

"It's the same thing - what I meant is like emotionally intimate to work together that way."

There was that now familiar beat where Wolfram and the reporter both looked at him in vague confusion, and then it took the unexpected turn of Wolfram continuing the interview in German, and Yuri could only gape in helpless witness and flinch a little every time he heard his name mentioned with that lowered vowel that Wolfram used whenever he said it in German but not in English. He had tried to stop his imagination from elaborating translations; he hadn't had the guts to look up any online news later in fear of seeing something in English or Japanese reporting on whatever it had been Wolfram told ZDF.

Gwendal Voltaire had shown up in person, because of course he'd be competing at the Rostelecom Cup. Wolfram had been off trying to be polite to his partner, who apparently apparently was scary enough to make even he come back twitchy from the encounter even as he somehow wasn't at all intimidated by his oldest brother's raging heights and icy eyes.

Of course, if Yuri's own brother was any indication, it might just be that Gwendal Voltaire was trying to make up for the middle brother's concerningly open-minded reaction. He'd yanked Yuri into a somewhat secluded corner and towered over him with a mien that must've taken years of practice.

"What do you want from him?"

"Whuh?" said Yuri, feeling his command of the English language figuratively trickling down the inside of of his leg under the weight of Gwendal Voltaire's glare.

"Wolfram. What do you want from him."

"Coach," Yuri croaked.

Gwendal Voltaire's face somehow turned even icier. "If this is some attempt at getting out of properly compensating him for the athletic and professional losses he is suffering from sitting out a full season in order to mentor you -"

"But-"

"I don't know what you did to talk Wolfram into this; he insists he did so on his own volition, which is clearly nonsense. You've given the impression of being an honests man, but it seems you are set on exploiting some weakness of his that I never knew off, and this kind of manipulation of people too naive to consider ill intentions in others-"

"No, I-"

"I know you've spoken to Conrad and that he treated this with his usual laissez-faire, but I hope you realise that I will not sit by and let Wolfram's idiocy ruin his most important-"

"You shouldn't talk down on him like that."

"Excuse me?!"

Gwendal Voltaire seemed to be as surprised at the interruption as Yuri probably should've been, but common sense and professional respect and all fear for his life had abandoned him, replaced by cold anger at how Wolfram's brother was going on about this.

"Wolf's an adult. It was his decision to be my coach - I never asked him to do it. I'd never even spoken to him before he saw that video. I don't think I've ever met a person with so much integrity as him. He's fully aware of the consequences, and he doesn't think of them as losses. As his brother, you should respect that."

Gwendal Voltaire's eyes had widened in surprise, and the grip on Yuri's upper arm was no longer bruising. Yuri merely kept his stare fixed on his senior's face, until Wolfram's brother seemed to find his footing again. But his face was no longer set in that stony anger.

"And you? Do you think it's right for an athlete of Wolfram's calibre to put his career on hold like this?"

Yuri shook his head. "I'm being selfish. If a person like Wolf is offering to help me, then I'm not going to refuse it out of modesty."

"And this?"

Yuri found his right hand held up in front of his face, and the ring was solid on his hand and heavy like their vow, and the fact that Gwendal Voltaire probably could shatter his wrist one-handed didn't at all feel like a threat as Yuri looked up to meet his eyes again.

"That's the promise between us."

Wolfram's brother was quiet for a long while, and then he released Yuri's hand.

"I'll take your advice then, Yuri Shibuya. Mind that you make his decisions worth it."

And then he jumped at Anissina Karbelnikov slamming the door open to bellow his name, and Yuri wondered if Gwendal Voltaire really wasn't as scary as he looked, at all.

That was, of course, until Denis Vassiliev from Match TV wanted to know what Gwendal thought of his brother's relations with Yuri Shibuya, and Gwendal Voltaire frankly answered that he hoped Yuri Shibuya would continue his promising improvements in order to be on pair with the rest of the family while Shibuya Yuri buried his face in his hands and tried tried tried to convince himself that that didn't just happen.

"It's - it's like a badge, to show that we're teammates?" he tried, and Jan Koudelka from Eurosport was giving him that regretably familiar look.

"Are you saying that you and Bielefeld will be stepping away from the singles competitions and look towards pair skating?"

"No! No, I meant that, um..."

Once upon a time, back when reporters had asked him about stuff like his performances and his routines and his feelings about his inevitable failures, Yuri had been capable of giving completely coherent interviews without Wolfram Bielefeld around to give people the wrong idea.

"Wolfram and I, we're not like that," he intoned, and stared Sebastian Bresadole from Sky Italia straight into his eyes, "it's not just - I mean, when you say 'friends', that's..." he knew he was floundering, and pushed through on a desperate hope that his words would make sense this time around. "It's true, we're not just friends. We're... we're something transcendental."

There was another pregnant pause, and then Sebastian Bresadola from Sky Italia carefully re-phrased his question. "So what is the reason you chose to wear matching rings?"

Yuri carefully re-phrased his answer. "...it's like, to show that a coach and an athlete need to play on the same team?"

"Am I understanding you correctly that you mean that it is the, um, sexual preference that needs to..."

Only five years worth of experience kept Yuri from crumbling to the floor.

"It's a good luck charm," he said very thinly when Takanashi-san from NHK later asked him on behalf of the Japanese fans watching, "it's a token of appreciation of the work that we have done together. Please don't listen to my mother."