#I’m sorry my art commissions I do once every 2 months drain me enough

[imreaallyasorry]

Late night doodle….

[patchwork-panda]

If A Moment Is All We Are (ch 2)

For those who prefer AO3 format: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24121633/chapters/58417417#workskin

Part 2:

My breath was growing ragged as I sprinted back to my apartment complex; clearly, the lack of food and sleep was finally taking its toll. I managed to make it all the way up to my floor before I finally tripped in the middle of the hallway and fell to the ground, not two feet from my own door. As I stared down the hall, the doorway to Mrs. Yamazaki’s unit seemed to draw me in. I immediately closed my eyes to keep from looking at it but as soon as I did so, the haunting images of the vision I’d had earlier resurfaced and it was all I could do not to break down right there on the spot.

I’d seen that cat-shaped clock once before, when Mrs. Yamazaki had first pulled me into her apartment and sat me down in her living room. The TV had been exactly where I remembered it, set to the channel Mrs. Yamazaki had kept it at all evening; she’d even told me about the comedic variety show she sometimes stayed up to watch on weekends, the program that played every Saturday, including this one, when the man with the snake tattoo breaks in to her apartment and stabs her in the chest...

I felt something welling up in my throat and I quickly pushed myself back to my feet, covering my mouth with one hand as I dug around in my pockets with the other for the key to my unit. My vision swam as I struggled to put the key into the rusty lock and the more I tried to concentrate on getting back inside where it was safe, the more vivid Mrs. Yamazaki’s grateful, smiling face grew in my mind’s eye.

“I don’t know where I would be if you weren’t here, Kyou-chan...”

I shook my head to clear the images away—it didn’t work.

“From the bottom of my heart, thank you.”

The lock clicked open and I threw myself inside my apartment, kicking my grocery bag into my apartment so that it lay in a sagging heap in the entryway. I slammed the door shut behind me.

“Don’t thank me...”

My feeble voice echoed throughout the empty room. The dizziness returned and I covered my face in my hands and slumped against the nearest wall.

“I don’t deserve it.”

I sat there for some time, my head still filled with the angry buzzing that usually followed these horrific visions of death and I curled into myself, hugging my knees to my chest and forcing myself to breathe until my breaths evened out again. Out of nowhere, my stomach growled—very loudly—and I shakily reached into the bag for one of the bananas I’d gotten earlier.

When I was about halfway through my banana (with the headache disappearing, I could feel my blood sugar returning to a normal level), I heard a chime from my laptop. One glance at my desk showed me that, as usual, I’d forgotten to close my laptop before I’d gone out and as I got up and walked towards it, I saw that I had a new email notification.

“New Commission,” it read.

Gears turned in my head as I stared at my computer; I suddenly had a crazy idea.

Picking up the pace, I half-ran to my desk and immediately swept everything off of it except the laptop. Empty boxes and wrappers cascaded onto the floor but I ignored them and went straight for the pencil drawer. Drawing and sketching had always been just a hobby of mine but since leaving college, I’d managed to use my artistic ability to earn some money by doing commissions—drawings of anime and video game characters. It wasn’t a lot of money and I still needed to stretch whatever my parents had left in my bank account (I couldn’t handle telling them I’d dropped out) but I made it work.

The crazy idea solidified as I flipped my sketchbook to a fresh page and began sketching lines.

Maybe I could use my art skills to save Mrs. Yamazaki.

Drawing what I could see of the attacker was the easy part. Convincing the police that they needed to do something would be the challenge...

***

“Half-past eleven in a week’s time, you say,” the officer deadpanned, raising one eyebrow as he looked over my drawing at me.

“Yes, that’s right,” I said, nervously fiddling with the strap on my bag.

I’d done the impossible. I literally couldn’t remember the last time I’d left my apartment twice in a single day—I’d even showered twice today and eaten an actual piece of fruit. Not only that, I was wearing the cutest blouse I possessed, had thrown on a decently fashionable light jacket and picked out clean jeans and sneakers to wear, with not a speck of anime memorabilia in sight. For the first time in months, I could honestly say I looked like a normal person; I’d even taken off my face mask and stuck it in my bag before walking inside the police station.

As I watched the officer look over the sketch I’d made, the most accurate impression of the snake tattoo I could recreate, I felt a flicker of my old self returning to me. Despite having just seen another vision of a death this morning, I managed to force myself out of my apartment and now here I was, the furthest I’d ever been from my apartment in ages, talking to a complete stranger face-to-face. Perhaps this was all I needed in order to leave—someone to be concerned about besides myself. If I could end my self-imposed confinement for Mrs. Yamazaki’s sake, maybe with time I could do it for myself.

Maybe.

As long as I never ran out of face masks and nitrile gloves, it should be easy enough... I did have another mild panic attack after finding out I’d ripped my last pair of gloves when I’d saved Mrs. Yamazaki. At least wearing a face mask convinced enough people on public transit that I had a relatively bad cold and needed to be avoided...

I was in the middle of figuring out how to wean myself off of face masks and gloves when the police officer pushed my drawing back towards me and let out a heavy sigh.

“Look uh...” he squinted at me. “What was your name again...?”

“Kusunoki,” I said. “My name is Kusunoki Kyou.”

“Right. Kusunoki-san.”

He scratched his balding head.

“This is highly unusual. You say you overheard a man on the street talking about planning a break-in on his cell phone... and he gave an actual address—your neighbor’s address actually—and an exact time...?”

I nodded uneasily as he repeated my story, his suspicion starting to show in his tone.

“And instead of snapping a photo of this man and bringing us an image of his actual face, you went home and made a drawing of his tattoo.”

I felt the blood drain from my face.

“Yes...?” I squeaked.

He scowled.

“Listen, we’re a very busy precinct and we don’t have time for crazy stories. Go home and study for your exams or something.”

He got up from his seat and escorted me to the door. By the time I shook my elbow out of his grasp, I was already outside and the automatic glass doors had slid closed with a sharp slap. I stood there on the sidewalk, staring at my own shocked reflection, my useless (but meticulously colored) sketch wrinkling beneath my fingertips and my brain unable to process what had just happened.

Everything had been going so well...

However, the more I thought about it, the more I realized the officer was right. My story really didn’t make any sense. Any normal person would think it was a prank, especially coming from a weirdo like me; I was lucky I wasn’t fined for my antics.

I’d managed to clean myself up a little but my nervous mannerisms and inability to meet the police officer’s gaze must’ve overrode my general appearance, making me seem suspicious and unreliable anyway. I twisted a lock of long black hair between my fingers, staring past my reflection into the office, turning away only when the officer looked back up.

Distantly, I heard the crosswalk light change and a cool breeze began to blow.

In the end, I couldn’t change a thing...

The breeze tugged at my drawing; it started to slip out of my hands but I didn’t tighten my grip.

My efforts didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. I should just go home right now and go back to being a useless shut-in...

Suddenly, the wind picked up. It ripped the heavy sketch paper right out of my hands and I watched it numbly as it flew high into the air and sailed away into the crosswalk, where someone abruptly jumped up and caught my drawing in his hand.

“Whoops!” he exclaimed, snatching it out of the sky.

Drawing in hand, he jogged towards me, the crosswalk light changing from green to red behind him. As he approached, his face broke into a brilliant smile.

“Is this yours?” he asked warmly, holding the crinkled page out to me.

I nodded mutely and reached out for the sketch.

He was tall and relatively good-looking, with a mop of unkempt brown hair that curled loosely around his face and a pair of intelligent brown eyes that sparkled pleasantly in the light. Curiously, underneath his tan trench coat and professional attire, his palms, wrists and even neck were covered in a thin layer of fresh white bandages. It was almost as if he’d just walked out of the hospital... As I looked at up him, his eyebrows slowly rose until they disappeared into his bangs and the corners of his mouth began to twitch in obvious amusement—I realized with a start that I was staring at him instead of taking back my drawing.

“Oh...! I’m sorry!” I stammered. “I didn’t mean to—”

“There’s nothing to be sorry about,” he laughed, his eyes shining with mirth as I quickly stuffed my sketch back into my bag. “I’m flattered to have caught the eye of such a beautiful woman.”

I abruptly stopped trying to close my bag and looked up. This time, I really stared.

“Huh?”

In one smooth movement, he gathered both my hands in his and tenderly held them to his chest.

“And what radiance you possess,” he said, looking deep into my eyes. “With your lips as red as a Camellia blossom and your eyes as dark as the finest port wine—ah, if only I could drown in your eyes...! To cross paths with such beauty on so fine a day—has fate smiled upon me at last...?”

He gave my fingers a squeeze and I swear I felt time stop.

His grip was firm and his hands were so nice and warm that it took me a moment too long to realize that my skin was in physical contact with his and I needed to let go right away...!

But something was off.

Although he held my hands tightly in his, I wasn’t seeing anything from the distant future. No death, no scenes from another time, another place. No. Just this oddly flirtatious stranger in front of me, holding my hands in his and giving me compliments my shell-shocked brain couldn’t process.

“Beauty...? A-are you talking about me?”

He smiled, his lips curling around perfect, white teeth and what was left of my brain completely short-circuited.

“Of course I am.”

He leaned in close, his long bangs shifting softly with his movements and my cheeks burned when I noticed he was even more attractive up close. I could barely hear his next words over the sound of my own pulse pounding in my ears.

“Are you doing anything later this evening?” he asked, his voice dropping to a husky whisper, “If not, I was wondering... would you be interested in joining me in a double su—”

“THERE YOU ARE, DAZAI!!” someone bellowed.

I let out a yelp and instinctively pushed the man away, snatching back my hands in the process and backing several steps away. The sudden outburst had shocked me back to my senses and while I thought my heart was going to jump right out of my chest, the bandaged man in the trench coat didn’t look fazed in the least. With a small, disappointed sigh, he shot me an apologetic look, straightened up and turned to face the crosswalk where the noise had come from.

“Kunikida-kun! I was wondering when you’d catch up,” he called, his voice pitching up into an almost sing-song tenor, a big goofy grin plastered on his face as he waved jovially to someone standing across the street.

“Don’t give me that bullshit!” Kunikida roared back.

There, standing at the opposite crosswalk, looking angrier than anyone I’d ever seen, was a very tall man. His arms were crossed so tightly over his chest, it looked like he could snap himself in half if he squeezed any harder. Like Dazai, he was dressed like a professional, wearing a beige vest and pant set over a long-sleeved black shirt, a wine-colored ribbon tied neatly at his collar. He wore his hair long, in stylishly cut dark-blond ponytail and his rectangular glasses flashed menacingly as he glared sharply at Dazai. Unease building in my stomach, I watched his foot tap up and down with the uncanny precision of a metronome, like a countdown, and as soon as the crosswalk light turned green, he charged at us with all the force of a raging bull. I threw myself out of the way just as his arms shot out and his fingers closed around my companion’s bandaged neck. To my alarm, Dazai started laughing.

“Didn’t I tell you this morning that we had a very tight schedule today?” Kunikida barked, viciously shaking the brunette, who appeared completely indifferent to the assault, even entertained as his body rocked back and forth and his feet nearly lifted off the sidewalk.

“So what do you do? You wander off as soon as we leave the station and where do I find you? Flirting with a woman in broad daylight in the middle of the street! Smearing mud on the Agency’s good name while you are on the clock! You disgust me!”

At once, he dropped the guy and turned to me. Instinctively, I took a step back but to my surprise, he bent forward at the waist at a nearly perfect ninety-degree angle, sweat beading on his brow as he began apologizing to me.

“I am deeply sorry about my partner, Miss. This is completely inappropriate and the Agency will be taking full responsibility for his actions.”

“It’s okay!” I exclaimed, half afraid Kunikida would finish Dazai off if I said anything even remotely incriminating. “I’m fine. He didn’t do anything... bad...?”

Kunikida stared at me, the look in his gray-green eyes somewhere between confused, doubting and dumbfounded. Next to him, Dazai dusted himself off and I could feel his eyes on me as I chose my next words carefully.

“Really. It’s fine, you don’t need to do anything...” I glanced at Dazai’s skinny, bandaged neck, wondering when the bruises were going to show. “I’m alright.”

At once, Kunikida’s shoulders collapsed in obvious relief and as he straightened up, he fished around in his pocket to produce a small slip of paper.

“Here. My card.”

Bowing politely as I received it, I glanced over it. It was a rather plain-looking card, the sharp black text looking just as neat and tidy as the man in front of me. Intrigued, I read the card aloud.

“Kunikida Doppo-san. Armed Detective Agency?”

Something about that name sounded familiar...

“We’re detectives, Miss,” Kunikida said, as I turned the card over in my hands. “If you or anyone you know have any need of our services, please don’t hesitate to give us a call.”

“Detectives? As in private investigators?” I asked, suddenly feeling hopeful.

When Kunikida nodded, I quickly took the (very crumpled) drawing back out of my purse.

“Actually, I do have something I could use your help with. You see, I’m trying to stop a murder—”

“Murder?!”

Kunikida looked stunned but I kept talking as he and Dazai exchanged a glance.

“Yeah, I have this neighbor, Yamazaki-san. She lives across the hallway from me and if somebody doesn’t intervene in the next few days, she’s going to—”

“I’m really sorry,” Dazai interrupted me, looking apologetic, “But wouldn’t it be better to be asking the police for help on something like this?”

The hope died in my chest.

“I already tried asking the police,” I said stonily, staring at his feet. “They wouldn’t listen to me. They... they thought I was playing a joke on them.”

Kunikida stepped forward. He looked like he was about to speak when Dazai stopped him with a meaningful look. Dazai then turned to me, bowing his head a little as he spoke so that he was closer to my level.

“Hey...”

He put a bandaged hand on my shoulder.

“They’ll listen to you,” he said gently, his smile radiating compassion, “You just have to go in there and act like you’re someone worth listening to.”

He jabbed a thumb over his shoulder at his fellow detective.

“I mean, just look at Kunikida-kun. It works for him.”

“What the hell does that mean, Dazai?”

“What I’m trying to say,” Dazai continued, blatantly ignoring an increasingly incensed Kunikida as he spoke, “Is that you should try again. Look behind you, there’s been a shift change. Maybe you couldn’t convince the last person, but perhaps this officer will take you seriously.”

I turned and looked at where he was pointing, and sure enough, a different person had taken the place of the older, balding man from before. Dazai patted me on the shoulder.

“You can do it. I have faith in you. Oh, but just in case it doesn’t work out...”

He reached into his coat pocket and produced a card that looked very similar to Kunikida’s.

“You can contact me or Kunikida-kun and we will help you.”

He took my hand, placed the card face-down in the center of my palm and curled my fingers over it. Again, nothing happened when his skin met mine. I was dumbfounded. I looked up into his face and saw that he was smiling again, turning the charm back up to eleven as he stroked my hand with his half-bandaged fingers.

“In fact, you can call me if you need aaaanything at all,” he said, winking.

I flushed.

Unable to stomach any more, Kunikida abruptly seized him by the scruff of his neck, lifting him off of the ground (my hands fell out of Dazai’s at once) for a fraction of a second before slamming him down onto the sidewalk in a move straight out of a martial arts movie. Stunned into silence, I could only watch as Kunikida gave me a curt nod, asked me to call him directly if Dazai ever bothered me again and coolly adjusted his glasses, sliding them back up his nose.

“Please excuse us,” he said humbly.

He inclined his head in farewell and immediately dragged his limp companion down the street and out of my sight, Dazai’s tan trench-coat scraping unpleasantly against the sidewalk as he was taken away. My fellow pedestrians and I stared after them for a moment and only when people began walking around again did I remember to look at the card Dazai had placed in my hand.

“Dazai Osamu. Armed Detective Agency.”

[sparkles-and-trash]

Next Chapter ~

I’ve been talking quite a bit in riddles these last days, and I’m sorry about that! But I’m finally at a place where I can talk about it, which is very freeing and amazing! 

Part 1 ~ In Real Life 

I am in a pretty complicated situation, health wise. 

I have had three scoliosis surgeries since I was 13, which is a huge thing for a body to go through once, so three times while I kept up with school and competitive showjumping was not the best idea. 

After I finished VGS (High School) I tried to go straight for uni, luckily in my home town, and got very, very sick, was in and out of hospitals for months and they never could figure out what it was, and after another couple of months I was diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS).

I was advised by doctors to take a few years off school and work, which in Norway with welfare you can. I was really struggling with it tho, and kept doing online classes and tried uni again, got hospitalized again, got diagnosed with rheumatism, and then I actually took some time off. 

Last May my horse of 8 years passed away, and I lost a big part of my day-to-day life. So this fall I decided to give uni another go, going with the “I’ll start slow and then do more!” idea. 

And like... it was okay? But it was only one day a week, and I needed a lot of time to get better after each day, usually 2 days. 

I’ve been thinking a lot, but struggling with the idea of “giving up”, when me and my mom had a talk last week. 

We talked about how I have Fountain (horse) 2 days a week which I get paid for, and do my writing on commission for online articles and some magazines in Norwegian, and how that is making me happy, and I get to use my brain and body, without being too drained. 

The idea of not chasing a “normal” goal scares the living hell out of me. All through my illnesses my silver lining have been that one day I’ll go to uni and get a normal job. 

For the first time in 6 years I don’t live by that goal. 

I’m really trying to live my life day by day, and be happy that I’m healthy enough to have my small jobs. That I get health care and welfare, so I could save up and get my amazing apartment. 

I have friends who’s amazing and kind and who gives me time and attention even when. disappear for a while. My family, who helps me out when I need it so I still get to keep my dog and have her be exercised and happy no matter how sick I am. 

Right now, that is enough. Maybe it will be enough forever. Maybe not. 

But that’s not for me to worry about right now. 

Right now I’m gonna live. 

Part 2 ~ On the Line 

So, what does this mean for my online life? 

Not much, really! 

Except, I’m going to have more time to spend on here without feeling bad or guilty! 

I’m going to be better at scheduling my days, and I’m going to spend 3 days writing and 2 art-ing, then the other way around, every week. The writing days my goal is to write 500 words a day, no matter if it’s fit or work or just drabbles, I gotta start somewhere! 

As you may have noticed, I also changed the theme and colors and icon on this blog, and I’m currently very happy with it! 

The main projects here now will be the list of fics I have, finishing THaB, and write at least three one-shots I have planned, and finally start working on the new High School AU. 

I’ll also keep posting about outfits and fashion, take you on my journey to get better at digital art, and my interior and first apartment adventure, and I gotta say I’m super moved by how much people seem to care about that?? 

I’m very excited to see where it goes, and I hope you guys will enjoy it too! 

If you ever have something you’d like to talk about, something you’re not pleased with, need to rant, wanna share something good, head canons and idea, whatever, my inbox is like, always open!