#anyway I know that this is at least partly the writers throwing every song possible to Darren criss

[buildarocketboys]

One thing about Blaine Anderson is that he will sing an emotionally overwrought song that makes absolutely no sense for the situation/context

[soundsof71]

for the album thing: born in the usa :)

I could write a book about any of Bruce’s records from Born To Run to Born In The USA. I did in fact write my grad school thesis using Nebraska as the hook: ”Vehicles of Grace: Automobile Imagery and Salvation in the works of Bruce Springsteen and Flannery O’Connor” LOL which is one million percent true. 

In fact, I bought Nebraska on my first day of class in grad school (a whole story by itself), and BITUSA came out as I was finishing my coursework two years later. It’s hard to overstate how hard this one hit, but my reaction was kind of complicated, so I’ll tell ya all about it.

the first song from this album I heard: “Dancing In The Dark”, which came out as a single before the album. Followed immediately by “Pink Cadillac”, its b-side. We played the SHIT out of that song in particular, far more than the A side, and were dumbfounded that it wasn’t on the album. 

do I own the album?: Obvs, but there’s a story. Of course. My girlfriend and I bought it on vinyl the day it came out in June (we weren’t married yet, but we’d merged our record collections the previous year LOL), then for my birthday in August, she bought me a CD player for like $800 (they were expensive as FUCK when they first came out -- and $800 was even more of a fuckton of money back in those days, especially for a couple of grad students), with one CD, Born In The USA. That one CD was more than reason enough to spend the dough on a player.

I still have that CD, along with the ticket for show where we saw Bruce on our honeymoon in England, at St. James Park in Newcastle, in June 1985. He’d just gotten married too (the first time), which is a whole ‘nother story too. Oh, and I still have the sweatshirt from that show! I'll post a picture of all this some time.

my favorite song: Wellll....here’s where it gets kinda complicated. Bruce had a notoriously hard time picking songs for the record. He’d recorded something like 50 songs for the album, and once he cut the list to 30 or so, he kept asking people he trusted to pick THEIR favorite running order. (Dave Marsh talked about this in his book Glory Days: Bruce Springsteen in the 1980s, and I haven’t heard it much discussed since then.) It’s hard to argue with the finished results, but you know what? I kinda do, still, all these years later. LOL 

My favorite song OF the album, no question, is “Shut Out The Light”. (Check my tag for this song to hear some more about it.) It was first released as the b-side to the 7 inch single of “Born In The USA” (remarkably, the third single from the record), and wouldn’t show up on CD until 1998 on the Tracks anthology. Tracks was 4 CDs in all (should probably have been 6 discs, and COULD have been 10), but I bought the whole thing for THIS.

My favorite song ON the album: “Downbound Train.”

my least favorite song: “Darlington County”. 

a song I didn’t like at first, but now do: “Dancing In The Dark”. I’m not alone in this. Miami Steve famously HATED the song at first, and only came to appreciate it after years of playing it live. I still remember never more eagerly anticipating an album in my life, and never being more upset by the advance single. I was devastated.

Here’s why. Born to Run came out when I was 15. “Gotta get out while we’re young!” The romance of escape, with the last two songs, still grandly romantic, hinting at its costs. 

Darkness came out when I was 17. Narrator: “They did not escape.” LOL Ghosts, bitterness, compulsion, cursed by God. His estranged wife’s eyes “filed with hate for just being born”, while “Tonight I’ll be on that hill ‘cause I can’t stop.” 

The closest thing to hope: a whispered “Tonight my baby and me are gonna ride to the sea / and wash these sins from our hands.” I was a senior in high school and the dream was already dead. Awesome. LOL

The River came out when I was 20. The only hope is domesticity. Too bad that it’s suffocating and you’ll fuck it up. LOL Want to wash the sins from your hands? Sorry, the river is dry. “Is a dream a lie if it don’t come true / Or is it something worse./ that sends me down to the river?” Yikes!

The shows for this album were astounding. The album was soooo much darker than it first appeared, and the catharsis in the performance was rewarding, sure, but almost unbearable. You were left broken and crawling by the end of the night. In a good way. LOL 

Nebraska came out when I was 22. Murder, mental illness, ghosts, more murder, compulsion, and as a treat, a little more murder. LOL 

The one song I couldn’t stand was “Reason To Believe”, because I didn’t believe there was one, and I didn’t believe he did either. But boy did I love the album as a whole. Like I said, my grad school thesis started here, because I had too much to say about Nebraska and the sweep of Bruce’s literary roots and spiritual impulses NOT to write about it. 

(Not shockingly in retrospect, and a blessing for us all that he went through with it and is still at it, but Bruce’s therapy started here too.)

So from 1975 to 1984, things got darker and darker and darker. It was beautiful. LOL And hey, this was MY LIFE we’re talking about, too! From 15 to 24, I was listening to Born To Run, Darkness, The River, and Nebraska practically on a loop, and the more hopeful stuff was becoming less and less resonant. 

Sure, there was Rosalita and Thunder Road and Badlands, plenty of dancing and pumping fists, but I was dwelling in darkness, and living for it. On my best days, I was wounded, not even dead LOL but I barely listened to Born to Run by the end of this span. It was mostly Darkness and Nebraska. 

I couldn’t wait to hear what was coming after the highest body count in recorded history on that album. LOL I knew it wouldn’t be acoustic again, but man, he was cutting closer and closer to the bone each time out. How much farther could he possibly go?

And it was....Dancing In The Dark? What the actual FUCK? Practically fucking disco or something? WHA....? I loved dance music, especially in the 80s, but I didn’t need it from Bruce. I had that from other people. Oh well, at least the b-side was cool, so maybe the album won’t bite. LOL BUT THEN PINK CADILLAC WASN’T ON THE ALBUM. FUCK.

The album didn't bite, of course, but it took a looooong time to get over this huge dual disappointment of a chirpy disco single by an artist I barely recognized, and whom I now felt I could no longer trust to manage his own creative mission.  

My wife wrapped her head around it first (as is usually the case LOL). She dug it as the closest Bruce had yet come to putting his actual self in a song. The narrator is a writer, anyway, unlike every other song he’d ever written about jobs he never held for a single second (an observation that would form the bedrock of Springsteen on Broadway 40 years later).  

Now, I totally dig it. If you’re naughty enough, I might even post my ukulele cover of Dancing In The Dark. LOL

a song I used to like, but now don’t: None. The songs I loved, which is most of ‘em honestly, I still do. Everything about this album has gotten better with time for me, and nothing about it has gotten less so.

my favorite lyric: 

From “Shut Out The Light”: Oh mama mama mama come quick I've got the shakes and I'm gonna be sick Throw your arms around me in the cold dark night Hey now mama don't shut out the light 

From “Downbound Train” The room was dark. Our bed was empty Then I heard that long whistle whine And I dropped to my knees, hung my head, and cried

Bruce was gonna try to give me a happier record, but I was having none of it. LOL 

For the record, “Downbound Train” is my wife’s favorite track on the record by FAR, at least partly because it sounds like a band version of a song that could have followed Nebraska. I prefer Shut Out The Light because I heard the story of my own mental illness in it for the first time, but yeah, Downbound Train is amazing.

I only saw it live once at the time (in Newcastle, June 4, ‘85), but it really comes to live onstage -- true for all of Bruce of course, but this album more than any other imo.

overall rating out of 10: Then: 8. Now: 9.2.  The shows were unbelievably good (we saw three shows in three different countries on that tour) and it sold a buttload, but I still couldn’t shake the feeling that after the run of Darkness - The River - Nebraska, that this was a missed opportunity at best. 

Time and distance heals all LOL and I now love it. Not more than the four before it, but more than anything since. A masterpiece, by any standard.

[boxoftheskyking]

Pick Up Every Piece - Part One

Ok things to know: -this does not take place in China. It does not take place in the US. It is the year 2000 in a fictional country that I control (this project is a challenge called Let’s Do Exposition). Just go with it. -It’s all talking. That’s what I do, you know this. -Warnings for stuff, I dunno I haven’t written it all yet. When it’s shiny it’ll go on AO3 but for now here’s what I got so far.  -There is a lot of alcohol in this fic -Like all fic writers I live on positive reinforcement and this shit is a lot of work. -The title may change, yes it is from NMH

---

There are bodies in the creek bed. Enough bodies to stop the flow of the water. Thirty at least, a dam of them. An old woman and a child. Clothes and hair sodden, darkened and wet. Clouds of darkness hovering in the air around them, seeping into dead flesh. An old woman and a child and others. Others in that middle age, the age that passes comment. Is it wrong that these two bodies stand out to him? After all, if he were among the bodies, if he was lying in this creek bed, thirty, skinny, and unremarkable, he would hardly notice himself. He’d blend into the pile, only serving to make the word a plural. Body becomes Bodies. Alters the language. Murder becomes Massacre. There are thirty bodies and hundreds, thousands of flies. Crawling on the back of the little boy’s hand. A smell like—not burning, not quite. Death. Not rot, fresh death. The sand under his feet is nearly dry. The creek bed is dry.

Wei Ying blinks. The creek burbles on alongside him, one duck lazily riding the current under a fallen branch and along to somewhere more interesting. It’s October, and beautiful, and there’s the smallest twilight bite in the air pricking at his nostrils on every inhale. He blows out a long breath and finds himself scratching at his arms, the backs of his hands, where the old scars are. They’re ugly, blotchy and dark like land masses on a faded old map, and they still itch sometimes. He rubs at them hard with the heel of his palm—it’s a weird half-feeling, the layers of dead tissue. It’s not dead, Wen Qing would correct him. It’s not necrotic, it’s just scarring. 

He steps around the gnarled roots that reach up from the banks, trying to get to the road but not ever making it. There’s a few muddy stuffed bears tucked among them, plastic wrap snagged on the bark from cheap drugstore bunches of flowers that have rotted away. A couple of carefully hand-painted wooden signs nailed to the trunks, trying to convince the place that people still remember.

He shakes himself and turns away from the woods, hopping the fence onto the road that leads to the bar. He’s late, but Li Chen is always late in the mornings so he deserves to work an extra fifteen minutes. It’s not like there’s a manager to yell at him.

The bar is across the street from an old gas station, one that got firebombed during the war and then left. That’s the thing about Yiling. Everywhere else, even up in Gusu, the cities have gotten rid of as much evidence as possible. Well, they’ve gotten rid of most and turned the rest into memorials to the victorious dead, nice and shiny and flying the Sunshot flag. Nobody really cares about appearances around Yiling—maybe the city council does, but they don’t have anywhere near the budget to run cleanup. Too much actual infrastructure got hit during the worst of the fighting, and they’ll be years behind the rest of the country for the next decade or so. Memorials here are all handmade, and none of them last long.

There’s a flag, though, spray painted on what’s left of the concrete wall of the gas station. A golden hand covering most of a red sun, partly covered by black—one finger for each of the four leading clans and a thumb for everyone else. Typical. He’s not sure who’d have painted a Sunshot here. No one local, he’d put money on it. He supposes they know about spray paint in Lanling—governments must adapt.

It’s probably intentional, anyway, the lack of cleanup. The lack of progress. Nightless City can be repurposed by the Jin government, but the site of the Massacre should stay ugly and busted for a few more years. So no one forgets what it looks like to lose.

Wei Ying likes it in Yiling. “It’s my kind of town,” he always tells Jiang Cheng, who usually throws something at his head. “You want to be a bartender in a town like this. In a town like this, people need a bartender. It’s nice to be needed, you know.” 

It’s a shitty bar by any other place’s standards, but for Yiling it’s cozy. The owner, who everyone just calls Granny, still orders sawdust for the floors like it’s 1860 or something, to soak up spills and puke and, occasionally, blood.

Jiang Cheng always says it’s only a matter of time before they have murder in the bar. “Manslaughter, at least,” he’ll say. “It’s just got that look.” Wei Ying says everyone in Yiling’s too tired. Mostly he and Wen Ning just roll drunks out onto the sidewalk and into a cab if someone can afford it. 

Jiang Cheng himself comes in around eight. It’s as much of a rush as they ever get, so he has to wait for a few old men to get their cheap lager and gin before sliding up to the bar on his usual stool. Wen Ning gives him a cheerful salute as he comes in, and Jiang Cheng nods awkwardly back at him.

“You’re back early,” Wei Ying says, drawing him a pint of something bitter. Jiang Cheng still lives in Yunmeng, in the old family home, but he has a sublet in Yiling now that he’s working for the intelligence department. Jin Zixuan calls it “cutting his teeth” monitoring old Wen strongholds. Jiang Cheng calls it “shoveling shit.”

It turns out cleaning up a civil war is a pain in the ass, even five years later.

“We should do lunch with Wen Qing on Saturday. She’ll want to see you.”

Jiang Cheng pulls out his annoying little planner, full of his cramped handwriting and meetings with this informant and that police sergeant. “Have to be brunch, I’ve got a twelve-thirty on Saturday.”

Wei Ying snorts at him. “Brunch, in Yiling. Good luck.”

“Hangover breakfast, then.”

“That we can do.”

Jiang Cheng takes a long pull of his beer and Wei Ying can see the relief run down him from the crown of his head down over his shoulders like something hot and slippery. Oil maybe, or homemade noodles. He groans and drops his head down behind his glass.

“Hey, Wei Ying!” An arthritic hand waves at him from the other end of the bar.

“Gotcha, Riseung,” he calls and starts fishing for the kahlua and cream. It’s always at the back of the cooler; no one else ever orders it. “You’re gonna work yourself into an early grave,” he tosses back at Jiang Cheng. 

“Not if you keep giving me beer.”

“Hey, Wei Ying, I saw that story last week. Hell of a thing.” Li Riseung has a little cream mustache, but Wei Ying’s not going to mention it.

“The gas thing?” Wei Ying grins at him. “Yeah, I’m telling you, it’s all connected. You watch the prices when Lanling tries to pass another referendum. It’s all supposed to soften you up. You got something for me today?”

“Still writing your conspiracy theories?” Jiang Cheng calls to him. “Some guys just don’t know when to quit.”

(Someone else comes up, he pulls a pint of stout.)

Riseung bristles. “Wei Ying is the only real journalist left in this country. You’ll see.”

Wei Ying props his chin on his folded hands and waits. Riseung takes another long sip. “Yu Xiuying’s got her popcorn maker up and running. She’s starting to sell what she can, make enough to get the theater back in order.”

“Really? That would be something. I’m sick of taking the train every time I want to see a movie.”

“You should report on that, get her some customers.”

Wei Ying drums his fingers on his chin. “Maybe we can work out an ad situation. I need more ads, you know. Papers ain’t cheap.”

Riseung finishes his drink, sets the glass down on the bar. He half-reaches for his pocket. “So, do I owe you, or . . .”

Wei Ying stifles a sigh. Technically it’s nothing he can use. He’s not about to publish an expose on popcorn. Still, he waves a hand. “Your money’s no good here. Go on, keep up the good work.”

The man grins up at him, flashing a row of silver fillings, and heads over to bother someone else. 

(Another customer—rum and Coke.)

“You’re just letting people drink for free, huh?” Jiang Cheng says. Wei Ying wanders back over to him, taking a sip of his own drink (coffee, plus whiskey, just enough to get through the shift).

“Reporting is all about cultivating sources, Jiang Cheng, even you should know that. Li Riseung is a source.”

“A source,” Jiang Cheng mutters. “He’s a drunk.”

“So’s everyone. This whole country’s full of drunks. Drunks make the world go around.”

Jiang Cheng rolls his eyes. “This city is fucking depressing.”

“Oh, and all of Lanling’s sober, is it? Yunmeng? Everybody’s living like Lans? You’d be much more pleasant with a few more of these in you.” Wei Ying grabs his pint glass and dumps the end of it out, refilling in the same smooth movement. It’s just out of spite. He shouldn’t be wasting a good few ounces of genuinely nice beer. But he can’t help it; Jiang Cheng brings it out in him. He spins and shimmies a bit to the bad pop song coming from the busted speaker above him and grabs a bin of limes to chop.

“When are you going to come home?”

Wei Ying doesn’t slip and cut himself, but it’s close.

“I live in Yiling, Jiang Cheng.”

“Yeah, for now.”

Wei Ying sighs. “I like it here, okay? You think they’d let me back in Yunmeng, after everything?”

“I’ve got influence now. They wouldn’t say anything.”

(Two lagers, shot of tequila.)

He hasn’t lived in Yunmeng in years. Almost a decade now. He was in Yunmeng at the start of everything, when Wen Ruohan was forced out of office and half the military went with him. He visits now, but there’s still that sense of before when he’s there, like the majority of his life hasn’t happened yet. But Jiang Cheng is never going to get that, he’s a linear person.

“Not saying anything isn’t the same as allowing. I’m not going to make you fight all day just so I can work at some bougie wine bar somewhere.”

“You wouldn’t have to work at a bar. You could—”

“What? Write? You think anyone anywhere is going to hire me at a paper again? Despite all the rumors, you’re not that dumb.”

“Fuck off. You could work with me.”

“Intelligence. Really? How do you think that would work out? ‘Yes, Jin Zixuan, whatever you say, Jin Zixuan—’”

“Fuck off.” 

Wei Ying shakes his head and scrapes a pile of lime wedges back in the bin. “I like where I am. I’ve got the paper—”

“It’s not a paper.”

Wei Ying doesn’t slam the knife down, but it’s a close thing. “Jiang Cheng—”

“You’re such a fucking martyr. What, you lose your dream job so you go to the ass crack of the world and set yourself up as king of nowhere?”

“I’m not king of anything, I’m just writing.”

(Three glasses of white wine.)

“Yiling Laozu.” Jiang Cheng clicks his tongue. “I know you can’t use your real name, but that’s embarrassing. Laozu. You and your sources.”

Wei Ying takes a breath and unclenches his jaw. “If Wen Qing were here you wouldn’t be calling us embarrassing.” 

“You’re embarrassing. She’s not embarrassing.”

“It’s our paper.”

“Wen Qing has dignity. You have none.”

Wei Ying gathers up his knife and cutting board to run them back to the dish pit. “Ah, Jiang Cheng, you love me. I know you do.”

It’s always a good way to end a conversation, their own private code. If you keep pushing here you’re going to break something. A warning. You love me. I know you do. Jiang Cheng doesn't ever deny it, but he never agrees either. He doesn't need to. Wei Ying has proof. The scars on the back of his hands, curling around his wrists and up his arms—burn scars, chemical burns—are proof. Jiang Cheng doesn't like to look at his hands. That's proof too. 

 When he comes back out, Jiang Cheng isn’t alone. The general noise of the bar has fallen to a murmur, and the rowdy game of dominoes is paused in the corner.

 Xue Yang is sprawled over two stools, dressed in shiny black leather and grinning a few inches away from Jiang Cheng’s face.

“How’s it going, Captain Jiang?”

Jiang Cheng leans away. “I don’t see you. You are not here.”

“Course not. Good boy.”

Jiang Cheng’s hand tightens around his glass, and Wei Ying picks up the pace slightly. 

“Leave him alone, Xue Yang,” he says, carefully mild.

The grin turns on him, and Xue Yang waves, his weird little black prosthesis sticking out like a lighting-struck tree. “You telling me what to do, Wei Ying?” 

“I would never. Here, have a drink. If you want.” He pours him a double from his own secret bottle, the one Granny gave him on a good night in the summer. It’s painfully ironic—Xue Yang would be the only person in Yiling who could afford it if he ever actually paid for it.

Wei Ying nods to him and slides the glass across the bar, along with the usual brown envelope. Jiang Cheng sighs and spins around on his stool, looking away.

“Feels light,” Xue Yang says, like always.

“It’s not,” Wei Ying says, also like always. 

Xue Yang grins around the little white stick hanging out of his mouth, and Wei Ying grins back. “Eight percent extra on anything you’re short next time.”

“It’s not short. And it’s five percent, don’t try to fuck with me.” Wei Ying smiles wider and does not blink.

“Maybe it’s changed.”

“Granny would tell me, and she wouldn’t hear it from you.”

“Maybe it’s changing today.” Xue Yang leans across the bar, not quite getting in his face, but close enough. Wei Ying meets Wen Ning’s eye over his shoulder. Wen Ning takes a few steps away from the door, but Wei Ying shakes his head just a fraction and he goes still.

“You don’t have the authority.” Wei Ying lets his grin go a little unnatural at the corners, a little bit of a snarl. “And it’s not short, so it doesn’t matter.”

Xue Yang laughs and tucks the envelope into his jacket, then takes a long swig. Wei Ying breathes, finally, quiet and careful.

“Xue Yang,” he says as he starts to wipe down the bar again. “You know you wound me.”

Xue Yang wipes his mouth on his sleeve. “Oh do I?”

“You know it hurts me, deep down in the soul parts of my body, to see you drink top shelf scotch with a fucking sucker in your mouth.” 

Xue Yang sticks out his tongue so Wei Ying can see the little yellow nub of it. “It’s pineapple.” 

“Great. Thank you. I’m going to go drink bleach now.”

Jiang Cheng half turns to glare at him. “That’s not fucking funny.”

Xue Yang chugs the rest of the scotch and tosses the empty glass at Wei Ying. He hates that it makes him flinch before he catches it. “Tell Granny I say hi.”

“Fuck off.”

“Hey, where’s the little one? Haven’t seen her in a minute.”

Wei Ying stiffens. “You’ll stay away from her if you cherish the rest of those fingers.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Xue Yang gives him a mocking salute and saunters back out towards the door. He’s nearly out when he knocks into an empty chair, sending it to the floor with a crack like a gunshot. No one hits the deck completely, but the held-breath silence turns into a gasp as all eyes snap to the sound, shoulders up and hands braced on tabletops, thighs tensed and ready to run. 

Even Xue Yang is frozen at the door for a second. He laughs, though his jaw is tight. “Just a chair, ladies and gentlemen. Clean this shit up, Wen Ning.” And he’s gone.

Wei Ying deflates, adding some of the good scotch to his own cup. Jiang Cheng makes a face.

“How’s that coffee?”

“Shut up.”

“You should let me talk to Zixuan.”

“You talk to him every day.”

“You know what I mean. How long have you been paying—”

Wei Ying sighs and flicks his rag at his brother. “Thing one: I don’t pay, Granny pays. Thing two: Xue Yang is just a low level street thug with connections, he’s as in charge of the operation as I am in charge of Yiling. Thing three: it all kicks up to the Jins at the end of the day, so what are they gonna do about it?”

“Zixuan isn’t—”

“Yeah, I know your best pal is the paragon of morality.”

(Scotch and soda, root beer, gin and tonic, and three pints.)

“He’s our brother-in-law.”

“And your brother-in-arms, I know, I’d never dare disparage the mighty—”

“He’s a nicer brother than you are.”

Wei Ying mimes a faint. “I’m going to call Shijie, tell her you’re being mean to me.”

Jiang Cheng goes quiet, looks down at his beer. Wei Ying reaches out for it, an offering.

“Another?”

Jiang Cheng shakes his head. “I shouldn’t.” A chunk of his hair comes loose from its tie, feathers across his forehead.

“When are you gonna cut that hair, huh?” Wei Ying flicks it back over his ear. Jiang Cheng swipes at his hand lazily.

“I like it like this.”

“You and Zixuan are twins now, huh? You cultivators. Does Lan Zhan still keep his long, do you think?”

“Dunno. Haven’t seen him in a long time. Stop it, leave it, I have it how I want it.”

Wei Ying laughs at him. “Looks good. Dignified. Hey, did you ever ask for Zidian back?”

Jiang Cheng’s face does something complicated, a little bitter. “Not gonna happen. No spiritual weapons are gonna be authorized any time soon.”

“Yeah, but it’s yours.”

“It’s not mine. It’s the government’s.”

“But it responds to you. What good does it do locked away in—”

“Leave it, Wei Ying. I know you’ve got opinions about cultivation, but I’m fucking tired and it’s not going to change anything.”

“Well, when you’re in charge. Then you’ll show ‘em.”

That does make Jiang Cheng laugh, which is satisfying.

(Two gin and tonics.)

“Hey, you’re not allowed—” Wen Ning calls from the door, followed by the tap-tap of a metal cane. Wei Ying sighs and reaches for the grenadine.

“Wei Ying, you son of a bitch.” The voice is high, reedy, and cackling. “How the hell are ya?”

“A-Qing,” Wei Ying calls mildly. “You can’t be here.”

“Where is here?” she yells, as always. “How am I supposed to know that? Can’t you tell I’m blind?”

“Get out of my bar.”

“Discrimination!” She makes her way across the room, purposely bumping into every occupied table on her way over, just to slosh beer onto the floor.

“You’re fourteen.” He has her cherry soda on the bar by the time she hops up on the stool next to Jiang Cheng, ignoring him entirely.

“And how do you know that, creepy old man?”

“You made me get you a cake for your birthday, you goblin.”

“Who’s this guy?” She takes a long slurping suck from her straw.

“My didi.”

“You—!” Jiang Cheng hates it, which is the only reason Wei Ying says it.

“Ooh, the famous Jiang Cheng. I bet he looks real grumpy.”

“Yep.”

Jiang Cheng flips him off. He grins and goes back to wiping down the drain.

“He just flipped you off, didn’t he?”

“Yep.”

“Nice.” She finishes her drink and slams the glass down. “Double vodka please.”

“Nope.”

“I drink vodka all the time.”

“Don’t care. I’m not getting fired over your sorry ass. Go drink at home.”

“I’m not allowed vodka at the home.”

“And you’re not allowed here either.” He drops the rag back into the sanitizer and leans his elbows on the bar. “Now, are you here with something interesting or just to pester me?”

Jiang Cheng looks like he’s about to interject, but Wei Ying waves him off.

“I can multitask,” A-Qing says before pushing her glass back across the bar. “More sugar first.”

“Diabetes on the rocks, yes madam.”

She takes a long slurping pull, and he folds his arms, waiting. 

“Got a new TV at the home. Real big one.”

“A-Qing, I’m waiting.”

Jiang Cheng squints at her. “How do you know how big the TV is?”

“I just know, okay. Anyway. One of the older kids got it. Bought it himself.”

“Yeah, right,” Wei Ying says. He needs to challenge her if she’s going to give him the whole story. If he seems too interested she’ll draw it out just to fuck with him.

“He did. Wen Changming.”

“A Wen?” Jiang Cheng asks.

Wei Ying rolls his eyes. “Lots of Wens in the children’s home. I wonder why.”

Jiang Cheng makes a sour face at him.

“He’s got cash to burn, suddenly. Pockets full.”

“Gee, I wonder how you found that out.”

A-Qing grins at him. “He’s not gonna miss it. He’s in the club now.”

“The club?”

“You know, the club. What do you call it? Do crimes, get money.”

“Mob? Syndicate? Criminal organization?” Jiang Cheng offers.

“So they’re recruiting at the home, that’s what you’re telling me? Is it Xue Yang?”

A-Qing blows bubbles in her soda. “I don’t know, maybe.”

“Must be desperate.”

“You do the same thing.”

“I do not.”

She holds out a hand. He sighs and passes over a couple of bills. 

“You staying there tonight?” he asks, all casual.

“Maybe. The girls are annoying. Should be nice outside.”

“Starting to get cold.”

“Not really. Only if you’re a pussy.”

“You call me if you need to crash. Here.” He drops a couple of coins in front of her. “I’ll be home after midnight.”

“Sure thing, boss,” she says, pocketing the change. She gives a little salute and hops off her stool. “So long, Wen Ning!” she shouts, walking right at him and making him hop out of the way.

She’s not really blind, of course. Wei Ying’s never brought it up—he knows, but he’s not sure she knows that he knows. One of the nights she crashed at his apartment, months ago, he caught her reading through one of his binders of old clippings—‘91, back before the start of the war, when he was still in Gusu. It kind of kills him, because he wants to ask her what she thought of them. What she remembers from back then, if there’s anything. But they don’t talk about anything serious, not if they can help it.

“Please tell me you don’t have a teenage girl staying at your place,” Jiang Cheng says. Wei Ying gives him a great sigh and grabs his rag again.

“Only when she's got no other place to go. Oh, I have a futon now! You’d see it if you ever came over.”

“Wow, great, you're thirty years old and you have a secondhand futon. Mother would be so proud.”

“I didn't say it was secondhand.”

“Wei Ying, trust me, you do not need to.”

 (Four pints.)

Wei Ying makes a face at him. “So mean.”

“It’s weird that she stays with you.”

Wei Wuxian sighs again. “Jiang Cheng.”

“It is. It’s weird.”

“If it’s a bad night at the home then she sleeps outside. I don’t like her sleeping outside, so she stays with me. When she’s not being ornery.”

“She’s a teenage girl.”

“She’s a baby.”

“Not your baby. Why would she sleep outside anyway? Yiling sucks.”

“The home sucks. Look, it’s an orphan thing. You wouldn’t understand.”

Jiang Cheng pouts. “Hey, I’m an orphan.”

“No you’re not, you’re a grown up.”

(Whiskey, neat.)

“You’re a grownup. My parents are dead; I’m an orphan.”

“Then everyone’s a fucking orphan in this country. The word’s lost all meaning. From now on, if your parents were alive when you were ten, you’re not an orphan. Find a new word, leave ours alone.”

“You’re such a jackass.”

“Jackass! Yes, that’s a good word.”

Jiang Cheng sighs and gets off his stool. He tosses cash down on the bar, though Wei Ying tries to wave him off.

“Oh, you’re going to want to get a flag up in here,” he says, off-hand as he turns to go. 

Wei Ying freezes. “Excuse me?”

“Coming down from on high, it’s going to be a new ordinance. To keep the liquor license.”

“The fuck does a flag have to do with our liquor license?”

Jiang Cheng holds up his hands. “I’m just the messenger.”

“I’m not letting the Sunshot flag through these doors.”

Jiang Cheng turns back to him, serious. “Look, I know you have your own . . . feelings—”

“Feelings?” he almost spits, spreading his hands out on the bar.

Jiang Cheng winces and does not look at them. “You have your reasons, I’m not arguing that. But Yiling’s a part of the Republic and people need to get used to it. You don’t have to like it, but your district rep is going to announce the policy in the next week, and I don’t want to see you— Don’t go out of your way to make life difficult, all right? It’s hard enough already.”

Wei Ying says nothing, just leans back and watches the rag twist and untwist between his hands.

“See you Saturday,” Jiang Cheng offers, hesitates, then leaves.

Wei Ying will close up. They close early, still, kick everyone out before midnight. Old habits. He’ll go home and work on his column, the one corner of the paper Wen Qing leaves for whatever he wants. (Literally, the column is called “Whatever.”) Maybe A-Qing will find a pay phone and call him, if she hasn’t spent or hidden the change, or maybe she’ll just show up and lean on the buzzer until he lets her in. He’ll sleep better, if she’s there. He was never meant to live alone.

And he’ll wake up tomorrow, and try to do it all again.

Part Two

[gascon-en-exil]

I Liked Fates Before It Was Cool!: Birthright Part 1

Prologue

Opening Chapters

Chapters 6-11, in which Hoshido’s military is extremely disorganized and only regroups because the mere idea of Ryoma is just that awesome.

Chapter 6

Not much to say here. Corrin tells Xander they’re siding with Hoshido against Garon and implores him to do the same, Xander accuses them of being brainwashed and, after repeated refusals, tries to kill Corrin. Following this is a chapter that will probably be finished during the first enemy phase unless Ryoma gets really unlucky. I suppose it makes sense that this is the shortest of the three versions of Chapter 6 as Corrin went to the border already with the Hoshidans. While it’s kind of neat that all the Hoshidan royals are playable on this map as a bit of a preview, note that this is the fourth of just seven chapters in which Ryoma has appeared as a unit prior to his formal recruitment. We get it already, the guy’s an OP powerhouse and a clear favorite of the writers.

This is also where I should probably bring up My Castle, but I don’t have much to say here as it was never a feature I particularly enjoyed. Other FEs have addressed the concept of a base for your army integrated into gameplay far better than this. Genealogy and the Tellius games and others may not let you perv on your units taking a bath or disgust them with your horrendous cooking, but what does that really add to the experience? I know, I know, a bunch of small and scattered stat boosts....

Chapter 7

Oh, silly banter in the middle of an attack while surrounded by wounded and dying soldiers. Never change, FE. But seriously, even if he’s just Cordelia with a dick whose semen produces more Cordelias let’s take the time to appreciate that Subaki is the series’s first playable male pegasus knight. Fates’s take on classes is actually very egalitarian, a fact that often gets lost in its sea of fanservice and subtle story-enforced misogyny and everything about <insert character whose gender/sexuality-related presentation offends you most>. Moving on.

I’m still not entirely clear what happens to the Hoshidan army between this chapter and the preceding one. They really appear to just break ranks and scatter: Corrin and co. go fool around in the astral plane with Lilith, Ryoma and Takumi lead some of their forces toward Izumo (why?), no one cares about Hinoka, and Sakura retreats here to Fort Jinya to tend to the wounded at a makeshift military hospital. It makes sense that the Hoshidan army wouldn’t have the strictest organization thanks to their years of protection under Mikoto’s barrier, but the problem is the game never tells us that and we’re left to infer these things based on the events of the next few chapters.

The Nohrians meanwhile are still on the offensive, but they screwed up by sending Silas’s unit to attack the fort. Silas has an unhealthy attachment to Corrin that frankly rivals Camilla’s, and his abrupt defection here because he wants to hang out with his partially amnesiac BFF undoubtedly bodes ill for anyone associated with him when news of it reaches Nohr. I guess it’s cute in my case that Silas’s obsession with Corrin knows no gender, but the guy probably steals underwear to sniff. Saizo is entirely justified in being suspicious of him.

Paralogue 1

Oh yeah, I forgot all about this chapter. Mozu’s just not as memorably meme-worthy as Donnel, and recruiting her is less frustrating since you’re not forced to make her poke things in her joining chapter. It does make the Faceless seem like more of a threat to Hoshido, although as a consequence playing through this paralogue in Conquest always feels a little weird. This plus the first Castle Invasion were mostly for EXP and support farming. For anyone wondering, I’m going to be keeping most of my characters in their default class sets since I don’t feel like grinding skills or anything elaborate like that. Also, I’m playing on Normal, so I’ve got a lot of latitude in how I play which is how I prefer FE anyway.

Chapter 8

Hinoka sums up my feelings on her and her retainers. Azama’s got some amusing lines and if I knew more about Buddhism his...interesting take on philosophy would probably be even funnier, but that’s about it. And yeah, Hinoka really just does pop onto the scene with no explanation except that she’s also trailing her brothers and I guess everyone really did forget about her. Sucks to be a late development addition.

Iago tosses the conflict ball to ensure the party’s trip to the Wind Tribe village is a rough one, though since Fuga was set on testing Corrin’s worth by sending a bunch of his tribesmen to get slaughtered by their army anyway I wonder why he even bothered. This is a rare case of a desert map that isn’t a frustrating pain in the ass, because it’s small and there are Dragon Veins to reduce the amount of sand. I also like how even on the lowest difficulty of the easiest route the game is already throwing a boss at you with some annoying skills. Fuga’s motivations may be silly, but at least he leaves us with the memory of a good chapter, some cryptic foreshadowing for the Yato, and a shota wind mage who unfortunately continues in the tradition of Ricken stepping away from their archetypical dynamic after Tellius made it just a little too close to explicitly gay.

Chapter 9

Izana, huh...Izana is...

Let’s talk about Zola!

Zola is one of the rare Fates villains who isn’t (always) exactly what he looks like. On first glance he’s just a typical simpering syncophant with a fitting talent for illusions, but he actually comes with a bit of a character arc in Birthright which I have to say I wasn’t expecting. It was almost as unexpected as Leo’s unexplained appearance at the end of this chapter to kick off said arc by leaving Zola exiled. One big problem I have with Fates is how characters have a tendency to teleport around off-screen as the plot demands it, distance between locations or basic geography be damned, but it’s marginally more forgivable here since Leo is shown later in this route to know how to perform literal teleportation.

I believe this is also one of the only times in Birthright where Hinoka gets to do something that affects the plot, so good on her for acting suspicious of fake!Izana. She’ll go right back to being overshadowed by her brothers - including being overshadowed at being overshadowed - soon enough.

Izumo’s role as the designated neutral nation is delved into more thoroughly in Conquest, weirdly enough. Here Corrin and co. get left only with a vague directive to head toward the Bottomless Canyon and some of Azura’s song lyrics. That’s kind of a good thing, because I’ve got nothing on Izana now. I get that he’s an amusing surprise the first time around, but...who wrote him like that?

Chapter 10

Allow me to divert for a moment from the Takumi angst to pick some very large nits with the geography of this game. In the previous chapter Corrin learned that Ryoma and Takumi had been pushed to the Bottomless Canyon, which is nowhere near their location - but hold onto that thought. The canyon is clearly northwest of Izumo, yet the party goes south to Mokushu allegedly in an effort to reach them there. Fates has a bad time in general with giving a good impression of where its events are taking place, partly because the scale of the map is odd and not helped by it being a topographic rather than a political map like in every other FE, partly because there are times like this where the information presented appears to be simply wrong. What’s worse, the major plot development surrounding Takumi’s possession in Birthright does not, at least so far as I recall, necessitate that he have been possessed by Anankos or anyone else connected to the Bottomless Canyon. I’ll certainly be revisiting this when the time comes.

But...whatever. In spite of everyone getting lost except Ryoma (because of course) this is actually a good chapter, with a cramped map filled with environmental hazards to add challenge. The treachery of Mokushu spans all three routes and is one of those set pieces that benefits from development in each of them. Kotaro’s connection to the, er, Christmas ninjas (and elsewhere, Shura) isn’t developed here unless you choose to have them engage him in combat, but that just saves stuff for the other routes. 

Chapter 11

Pictured: easily one of the most forgettable playable characters in this game. It’s a shame too, because she’s the only default kinshi knight and her bits of dialogue and few supports offer hints of an interesting backstory that would speak to gender roles in Hoshido. Alas, she’s merely a Corrinsexual.

This chapter itself is filler, but mechanically it’s good filler. Your new OP archer royal gets plenty of targets for his bow, there are some promoted generics to spice things up, and the Dragon Veins can either help or hinder you depending on how you use them. I don’t care for the antagonist fake-out between the opening and closing cutscenes and the chapter proper - where did possessed!Sumeragi the mysterious swordsman go while you were fighting the fliers? - but that’s a minor quibble. Corrin already beat that guy.

A larger problem is with Takumi’s development, or rather lack thereof. As I said last time the events of the opening chapters explain his initial hostility to Corrin (and Azura) quite well, and Mikoto’s death only reinforces that feeling. Why then does that hostility vanish so quickly in Birthright? Just one chapter after recruitment and he’s already turned his characteristic prickliness onto Zola instead, and I don’t recall it appearing much again except in the context of possession. It’s only the route the ends with Takumi as the final boss that allows him space for his feelings to develop organically (albeit in a negative direction), possibly because Conquest is the only one in which he’s not beholden to love Corrin like all playable characters in Avatar-centered games.

Next time: Birthright Chapter 12 - 18

[v3-killing-harmony-imagines]

‘What if the guys were given a motive that they had to kill someone or else their S/O would be killed? (Bonus points if they're not allowed to tell anyone)’

What if the guys were given a motive that they had to kill someone or else their S/O would be killed? (Bonus points if they're not allowed to tell anyone)

I made these into short fics! It’s really long so here’s part 1! I hope you enjoy it!

Kiibo:

New message: from >$%#**^<

Subject:

Time: 12:00am

Opened: 8;00am

He awakens to a message notification, meaning someone sent him something to his servers. You see, Dr Idabashi created a ‘storing system’ much like an email program. That way the two could communicate from a distance, or in case of an emergency. Since he’s a robot, it doesn’t really make sense that he should have to carry around a phone, so he just made Kiibo part of the phone itself.

But it’s strange, in a situation like this no one should be messaging him….He doesn’t even get a signal to send or receive messages.

So how? How did someone send him something in this situation?

 For now he decides to read it, curiously opening up the file.

He doesn’t really ‘read’ the message- it’s more like the letters and words appear in his mind. You know how a song gets stuck in your head? Well it’s like that in this situation, except he doesn’t get it stuck as long as he closes the message.

 To: K!bo

From: $%#**^

Kill someone. If you don’t s/o will be killed. Destroy this message within 24 hours and do not tell anyone- I will know.

 His first thought is to panic, his second thought is to close the message as it’s repeating on non-stop in his mind.

He does both.

Kiibo takes a seat on the edge of his bead, trying to calm his nerves as his mainframe runs though numerous possibilities and solutions to the problem.

He could ,A: kill someone, become blackened and save you for now.

B: Not kill someone, and have to face the risk of your life being put in danger.

C: He could find the identity of the person the writer and get the help of someone to put an end to their plans, taking the risk and disobeying what the sender said not to do.

Every option seems like a bad decision.

‘Ok Kiibo breath, take a deep breath and follow protocol.’

Which option will save the most people?

Every option has the risk of 2 people (at least) getting killed, that doesn’t help.

Which option makes the most people happiest?

C, option c does; if it succeeds, that is.

He makes a faint whirring sound,tapping the edge of his bed with one finger as he prepares himself for what he has to do.His first thought is to get the help of Kaede, she’d at least know what to do in this situation.

But the sender could be any of the other students. It could be her, Saihara, Momota, Toujo. In this situation, who can he trust?

Who’s the person you can trust the most in the situation, the one you know that won’t betray you.

“s/o..”

You. That’s the person he can trust. There’s still a little bit of skepticism when he thinks about it, but he tries to push it away- it’ll be ok. He just has to tell you.

He doesn’t try and speak or pull you away to a private space, he’ll know that’ll look suspicious to anyone observing. He carries on as best he can, smiling warmly whenever you talk and agreeing when you ask to split off from everyone.

The two of you are searching the grounds again, for what seems like the fifth time today. He’s trying to steer the two of you as deep into the bushes as he can, to prevent from being overheard. Once he’s pretty sure that you won’t he tells you what happened.

“So, blackmail , right?” Despite (Possibly)having your life on the line, you really don’t seem to be as panicked as he thought you were.

“Y-yes.” He stammers out. He’s trying to fix that. “I did the calculations and its best if I told you, and maybe we could figure something out.” He says it more like a question rather than a statement.

You give him a soft sigh, sitting down against a tree, laying your head back and shutting your eyes.

“What a pain.”

It’s moments like these that he’s glad to be in a relationship with you. The soft sighs, the closed eyes and rising of your chest. He isn’t truly human, but that’s why he adores observing your natural state.

“I’ll just have to always have you by my side then,” You say after a minute. “Or at least never be alone at any point in time.”

“What about-”

“Himiko and I can use the bathroom together, if I can drag Tenko off her. But maybe it’s better that way, Tenko will throw any one who seems suspicious around her darling Yumeno-san.”

You give a breathy laugh, sliding down the tree and laying in his lap.

“And my precious Kiibo will be sure to watch over me as I sleep, right?”

He blushes, spluttering out a yes as his face heats up.

You giggle up at him, curling up and draping his arm over your shoulder as you try and sleep.

Korekiyo Shinguuji:

      “Kill someone or else s/o will be killed.”

He’s just woken up one morning, a note slid under his door. When he turns it over, he finds that there’s another few lines of dialogue:

“Choose to tell anyone and it’s game over for s/o.”

He glares at the note, as if it will somehow cower in fear by his gaze. It sadly doesn’t.

He sighs, now his whole morning is ruined by a stupid blackmail note. Perfect. He’s more cross with the situation rather than scared to be frank. It’s a killing game, of course there will be people like this.

Or perhaps- maybe this is the mastermind’s doing?

In any case, he won’t be able to tackle the day without some fuel. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. He doesn’t eat with everyone else, or eat at all at times. He would have to take off his mask.

So he slips by the table of people into the kitchen, grabbing a slice of bread before slipping out

His taste buds are thankfully not nitpicky; he can eat something such as cows tongue to a bowl of cheerios. He slips (Literally, he’s slim enough that he doesn’t need much space to get by at all) into the bathroom, trying to scarf down the rye slice while still pacing himself. It’s bad if you eat too fast.

With his makeshift breakfast being eaten and the crumbs being dusted off his uniform, he makes his way back to the dining hall for a second time.

Everyone seems to have gathered, all the seats except for one have been taken.  It also happens to be right in front of the fans (or was it more of a vent fan?). No one liked them, it would mess up your hair and give you the chills for the half hour you were stuck sitting there. For this reason everyone was gathered at the other side of the table, squishing more chairs than available space. If someone couldn’t get a space then they would just stand for the time and tough it out.

 The only person who was on the same side of the table was Gonta, either he didn’t care about his hair being messy, or he was combing it in place (one time he showed up with a legitimate birds nest in his hair. When someone told him, he gasped and said that Gonta didn’t realize- Gonta had thought that it was just a tangled piece of hair.)

Korekiyo would normally sit on the other side, or stand if it really came down to that. Today isn’t a day he can worry about elbow room or stand though; he’s got some things to say.

Kaede grins her goody-too-shoes grin, claps her hands and begins the morning meeting. It’s been the same thing for the past week.

Did anyone find anything new? No. Did anyone find anything that could help them get out? No. Anything about the outside world? No.

It’s such a common routine, that no one expects someone to say ‘yes’. When Korekiyo says he’s found something Akamatsu actually does a double take, everyone reacts fairly the same way. She splutters for a moment, before she urges him to tell everyone about what he’s found.

He stands up, partly because the fan makes his hair fan out around him like a deity, and partly because it’s a move to initiate power or dominance.

“I presume that none of you have received it… otherwise I think we could all tell something was up.” His voice rolls on the s, and he drags out some of the words. He’s got everyone hanging onto his every word, even Ouma standing by the wall seems to be listening. “But this morning I was given this,” He pulls out the note. “It is a blackmail note. It says if I do not kill someone, s/o shall be killed.”

There’s a bit of gasps, Akamastu immediately stands up, interrogating Korekiyo on questions he has no answers to.

“If I knew more I would tell you, but that’s all there is to it. For now.”  He taps a finger to his shoulder, flicking a stray lock of hair out of his face and back into its fanning pattern.

He scans the room, searching everyone’s faces for some kind of reaction, some type of clue. A glaring eyes, a salty look, anything that could tell him who may be the culprit.

He knows for a fact that it couldn’t be Monokuma. Or the Mastermind for that matter, it would go against one of the school rules: The headmaster is not allowed to hurt the students, unless they break a rule. He’s  double-checked the regulations, and no new ones have been added as of recently. Monokuma would have had a big announcement if it did anyways. (He knows this because Ouma kept jamming the boys toilets with onions, not only was it a pain to un-clog but the smell that was left over was putrid. Monokuma had told everyone that night that the clogging/ jamming of toilets was punishable by death.) (Ouma just smirked and pulled out an onion from his back pocket.)

To his dismay, everyone seems to have some look of daze on their face- even Maki has a harder look than usual, biting the bottom of her lip.

Kaede gathers everyone’s attention, telling them all that they should all help Shinguji to find the culprit.

He knows people want to object, to say ‘But that doesn’t concern me, why should I help?’ But by saying that they would be making themselves look suspicious.

Then again, people who would want to help can be suspicious as well. But no one objects to Kaede’s plan nonetheless.

Akamatsu insists that they all split up into groups of three, and one group of 2, searching each other’s rooms and other areas of the school.

Now some people object, saying it’s an invasion of privacy. Korekiyo tells them that if they search every other room, find nothing, and haven’t checked theirs- they’re going to be suspected imminently.

They all agree (with a bit of unwillingness) after that.

Korekiyo takes you, of course, as his one and only partner for the investigation. You two search around the school for a couple of hours, running into different groups along the way there, until it’s time for everyone to reconvene in the dining hall to tell everyone what they’ve found.

People slowly start to trickle in, Korekiyo and yourself making it there early to grab seats on the far side (AWAY from the fans).

The arrived students wait 10 minutes, then 20, then 30. By the time 40 minutes have gone by they realize that something is up; Tenko Gonta and Amami should have been back by now.

“Maybe they’re all having a threesome.”He hears Ouma short from his place at the wall.

Himiko glares at him, stopping mid pace (She had started walking back and forth across the floor by 25 minutes.) “Tenko wouldn’t do that you dumbass!”

Ouma gives a little shake of his head, “You’re right, she’s too Sapphic to do that…”

If there’s one thing Korekiyo has learned about Ouma, it’s that he’s a fast thinker. A witty fast thinker.

“I’ll go look for them.” Saihara offers.

“Don’t.” Maki pulls on his arm. “If there’s a fight you’d get beaten into a bloody pulp, and having to investigate the Super high school level detective’s body would be an irony that everyone’s going to laugh at.”

“I shall go.” Toujo steps up, making Saihara sit down with a hit of embarrassment on his checks. “I know forms of self-defense, and I believe I’m more than capable if push came to shove.”

“Let me go with you.” Korekiyo steps up (You’d think they were all playing a game of duck-duck-goose if someone took out their words) “It was me who brought this whole thing up in the first place.”

Toujo nods at him, “Thank you, let us go then?”

Momota jumps up, slamming a foot on the table and earning a foul look from Toujo. “Hey! If y’all are going I’m gonna come with you as well!”

“You might as well, seeing as you’ve already made a mess on the table.” Kaito looks down at his foot, gingerly pulling it off. Korekiyo chuckles.

“Hey, let me come.” He turns, you’re standing beside him.

He gives a shake of his head, resting his hands on your shoulders. “You’re much safer here.”

“There isn’t really a ‘safer’ to begin with.”

“No one can attack you here, there’s too many witnesses.”

    “I don’t care about me being attacked.”

“s/o.” His voice is firm. “Please. Stay.”

You obey his orders. And the three of them head off, Toujo telling everyone there’s some snacks in the kitchen if they get hungry.

They start searching the rooms from the dining hall; the storage room(it was really more like a cosco when you thought about it), the gym, the bathrooms, before checking the dormitories.

As soon as the door was opened, they were met with a hectic scene.

Tenko was running from staircase to the upper and lower rooms, throwing objects at the other two boys who were trying to get to her. She ducked into one room, grabbing a chair before hurling it towards the two men below her. Amami let out a yelp as it nicked the top of his head, Gonta catching it with one hand and throwing it against the wall- shattering the wood into pieces. Tenko was yelling something at the two; her teeth glimmered like fangs as she sent a book flying with her legs.

Toujo started for the girl up top, at a surprising speed for someone with heeled shoes and a long dress. Kaito on the other hand, didn’t manage a few steps before his slipper fell off.

It seemed as if they hadn’t noticed the three yet, Korekiyo called out for Gonta and Amami, the two of them whipping around in relief.

Korekiyo marched over to the pair, giving them time to catch their breath (mostly Amami) before he asks what happened.

Apparently, they had searched Tenko’s room, found evidence (which was poorly hidden) that suggested that she was the one who sent the letter, and that’s when she flipped out and lashed out at them.

 “So why did you do it ?” Toujo asks, she had pinned the girl beneath her knees and was sitting on top of her.

“Monokuma told me too.” She wheezes, out of breath and losing some from being pinned. “Tenko didn’t want to do it, Tenko is sorry.”

As if to prove her point, Monokuma pops out of thin air, appearing long enough to confirm that before he disappears with a crack.

“Then what was the point behind this whole charade?” Korekiyo’s mostly pissed, and a little bit annoyed.

“He told Tenko she had to do it….otherwise he would reveal a dark secret about Tenko….”

“It’s about Yumeno’s panties isn’t it.”

Tenko turns dark read, spluttering out ‘No’s’ to the best of her ability.

Korekiyo gives another sigh, “Ouma was right to say you really are Sapphic.”

Ouma Kokichi:

“To the king of all pranksters” was what written on the envelope. Ouma was pleased to be called a ‘king’ from the first sentence, and it only intensified as he continued reading.

“You have graciously been asked to murder someone. If you decide to decline this, I will have no choice but to kill your s/o. Best regards.”

At first he laughed, not just because it was his natural instinct but because he thought this was some kind of joke. It had to be.This whole situation- someone was threatening to kill the one he… ‘Liked’? Hah! What a joke.

He’s Ouma Kokichi after all! Like anyone would be able to blackmail him using someone considered his ‘significant other’

He’s cackling, flopping down onto his bed with a jump.  He’s not that stupid. He would never let that happen, never let anyone come close to him.

So he can rest easy, knowing fully that he can sit back and enjoy the show.

…

He gets a few seconds of laughter in before it finally sinks in to him.

Fuck.

“Fuck , shit, damn it to hell and back.” He’s cursing, which is a sign he knows he’s lost.

Of course this happened. This is why he should have never let you in to begin with. He really has only himself to blame though, but he doesn’t have time to mope right now. There are more pressing issues on the table.

He already hates himself, there’s more time to worry about that later.

 He grabs a notebook from one of the many boxes in his room, swiping a sharpie from the ledge on the white board as he rolls back in the revolving chair. He glides a few feet backwards before he wedges a foot against the desk, holding him in place. He tears open the cap with his molars and begins to makes notes. From all the research he’s done since being at this ‘school’ so far, it’s second nature to him by this point.

First of all, he’s looking for suspects; someone who would have a grudge against him.

“Let’s see: Momota’s threatened to beat me up, Harukawa has actually threatened to kill me, I tease kiiboy daily, Saihara ignores me, Himiko told me to burn in hell, Tenko almost threw me, Korekiyo doesn’t like me either, Angie says her god thinks badly of me, annnnnddd no one would care ( except for you, maybe, possibly.) if I actually died.”

He tries to think of ways to save you, or to save the both of you for that matter.

It’s either kill, be killed, get someone else killed.

Not only that, but no one trusts him with a fork during the meals, Toujo pre-cuts his food and he’s forced to eat with chopsticks, for Christ’s sake.

He can’t get his hand on a weapon, he can’t tell anyone about this, he can’t let you die, he can’t kill anyone, what can he do?

Research. He could search everyone’s room, having to sneak away from the other 16 eyes on him plus get the door open, plus find the right information, plus have to be counting on the fact that they didn’t burn evidence in the incinerator, plus have to eat meals with chopsticks (He’s very salty over that), plus have to deal with another day of people hating him (along with himself), and then- at the end he might end up killing.

 He runs a hand through his hair, releasing a groan of displeasure as he yells at the ceiling for the sender of the letter to shove a horse dick up their ass.

 He’s finally finished investigating, after what seems like days (probably because it has been). He’s been running solely on sugar and catnaps ever since and has not once taken a nap.

It’s bad for his health, but so is chugging grape soda (There was no Panta and Ouma was disappointed. A blackmail letter and no grape Panta? It’s the end of the world.) at 4 in the morning.

Yet with all his research he hadn’t made a huge discovery and the anger from having to put up with so much was being replaced with one of paranoia.

The lack of sleep might have to do something with it, but all the while, he fells paranoid.

Paranoid about the killing game, paranoid that someone is watching his moves, paranoid that you’re going to turn on him.

It’s not good for him, but he was never about being good in the first place.

He’s sat on his bed, a cup of coffee (It’s really just sugar water rather than coffee) by his side as he pools over different possibilities, plans and information. He can feel his heart pulse in his ears, and every so often his hands will shake.

He’s been working for a few hours straight when he hears a tapping of wood. His head jerks up at the noise; he almost thinks he’s imagining it until he hears it again. It seems to be coming from outside his room, he squints at the door as his eyes snap to attention and his hair stands on end.

The tapping sound grows, turning into a banging on his door. Ouma quickly flips the light off to his table, sliding the dresser out slightly before crawling behind it.  He’s thin and small enough that he can fit no problem. From experience, he knows that things can get bad quickly. So it’s best if he stays hidden until either the knocking goes away or…..

The door swings open abruptly, making his breath catch. He makes sure to steady it immediately; a single gasp for air could give him away.

The door wasn’t busted down, that would be an immediate violation of the rules. The locks are supposed to be made impossible to break into- but Ouma isn’t so sure. It was easy enough to break into multiple rooms for his investigation, it wouldn’t be a stretch to think that the dorms would be the same way.

The footsteps continue, walking past the dresser, further into his room. They stop for a few seconds before it continues. Tap tap tapping on the floor, the light gets flicked on again, followed by the sound of rustling paper. Ouma shifts to get a better view. The rustling stops, Ouma hopes that he didn’t make too much noise-

“Ouma?”

He pops up in an instant. “S/o- chan! How nice of you to join me!”

“Why were you behind the dresser?”

He giggles pleasantly, “I was going to surprise s/o-chan until you noticed me!”

You sigh, he keeps smiling, unfurling from his position and walking towards you.

“I had come to check in on you, you. You barely came out all day…”

And yet you came for him in the middle of the night (technically morning)? That’s a bit odd isn’t it? He rolls back in his chair, turning towards you whist trying to block his noted with his body.

“I’ve been working hard to plan a prank on Kiiboy! Dontcha think it’ll be funny?”

“It seems like you’re mostly planning a murder rather than a prank.”

His smile drops, you’ve obviously seen the papers already.

“S/o-chan.” His tone is firm, “Don’t question it, please, it’s better for the both of us that way.”

“You seem to be working like you’re running out of time, like something bad’s gonna happen if you don’t.”

Ouma starts to sweat, not because you’re onto him. But because you don’t even know how far ‘bad’ will go.

“s/o-chan it’s really alright. I’m just being cautious of everyone.”

“By figuring out a way to kill and not get executed? How exactly is that being cautious?”

Ouma can feel his throat rising, his feet curling as he digs his nails into the arm of the chair.

“Look I get it,” You sigh. “You want to get out of here, we all do. But by killing someone is not the way to go. Hell, if someone threatened for me to even kill just to save myself I wouldn’t do it-”

Ouma stands up with a snap, his hand catches your wrist roughly as he pulls it to eye level, dragging you closer.

“Don’t you dare throw away your life away like that. Not you.”

You scoff, retaliating by pulling at his scarf. “I can do what I want. I won’t take away the life of a person just to save myself.”

Ouma drops your wrist, he wants to tell you so badly. About how he has to save you, bout his fear and paranoia. Yet if he does that, he’d be nailing the lid of your coffin, and quite possibly his.

“I would.” He finally whispers.

“You would throw it away for yourself? Or for me?”

“I would.” He simply says.

The tears come out of nowhere. That’s the thing with him, he barely notices when he’s on the verge of actually crying because he’s so immune to the constant buildup at this point. They start off slowly, a line of clear liquid rolling down gently as his breath catches. Just like a river, it’s memorizing. And it snowballs, the streams building up power and force, overflowing and destroying the trees in it’s path.

Ouma sobs, choking and sinking to his knees. If this were any other person, he would rather hang himself. But it’s you, and he’s not fully ok with you…. But he loves you, and wants to trust you. That’s the important thing.

He can feel you wrap your arms around him, the bright sun desperately keeping the drowning plants from choking on their own food.

He sobs, not explaining why. He just wants out.

“I don’t want to do this anymore.” He cries, “Please, just let me go, please.”

He doesn’t think he’s ever going to stop, he’s so afraid, he’s so scared. He doesn’t wanna he doesn’t wanna he doesn’t wanna-

“Ouma, hey. Hey Ouma” Your voice slowly brings him away from crying, even for a minute. “Listen to me ok?”

He obeys, wiping his nose in his scarf. Not looking at you, he doesn’t want you seeing his face a disgusting mess.

“It was a lie.” It’s barely a whisper on your part. “It was a joke, a stupid lie.”

He finally makes eye contact, after a few seconds his eyes go wider, realizing the truth in your words.

“You sent that letter.” His voice is cracked, but he’s past caring.

You hug him tighter, “I’m so sorry Ouma. Oh my god I’m so so so so sorry, I’m such a terrible person. I’m so sorry.”

He only hugs you back, tighter. “You’re safe, I’m safe. But most importantly you’re safe.” He says it mostly to convince himself of the words. “Hah…hah….”

He cries again, but out of relief rather than distress. He thinks you’re crying as well but he doesn’t care at this point. Both of you are messes, weeping on one-another’s shoulders and letting it all out.

 He has time to be angry (very angry) in the morning (Er, probably afternoon…) and payback will be a bitch to you, but it’ll be more tame than something monokuma would ever do.

He’s just glad that you’re safe, overjoyed if anything.

_______

“I told the sender of the letter to suck a horse dick you know.”

“Wha-”

“ ‘Uma’ means horse you know. Sound familiar to you?”

“Are you saying that you’re a horse just so I’ll suck your dick?”

“What If I am?”

“I’d say let’s ride, partner.”

Saihara Shuichi:

“Listen up, the next motive is your significant other’s death!”

Saihara can’t help but tense at Monokuma’s words. He tries to mask his reaction, and fight back a blush for two reasons.

1: He doesn’t want anyone to be tipped off that he may be hiding a relationship with someone else.

2: Can he really consider you his ‘significant other’? I mean the two of you are dating sure….

But Saihara doesn’t think they’ll be wedding bells anytime soon in a place such as a prison school, much less in the middle of some hunger games fanfiction.

 Monokuma is still talking, “Those of you in a relationship! I know there’s some of you here- if you don’t kill, your other partner will be killed!” Everyone assumes monokuma means a ‘romantic relationship’; if it were just a relationship in general everyone would be at risk.

But as far as motives go, this one is really weak, Saihara would know.

Not everyone is going to be in a relationship, from what he can deduce, there seems to be only one couple in the room, which would be himself and you. In turn, this means the motive was played to target you two. But why? He keeps this in mind; Kaede is taking the lead and trying to calm everyone else down while encouraging them at the same time. She has a habit of multitasking, as Saihara’s noticed, must be why she’s such a good pianist.

He’s really only half listening to what she’s saying, trying to think of some way to get out of the situation. To save you while also saving the lives of others.

Kaede makes a speech about how they all need to trust one-another, how they cannot let Monokuma separate them because that’s what they want. Everyone nods spiritlessly, each person dismissing themselves. No one has anything to worry about, the motive not applying to them.

He catches Ouma’s eyes on the way out, the shorter boy gives him a devious look as he mouths one word that Saihara doesn’t catch before he breaks contact and heads off in another direction.

He feels like throwing up, having to dismiss himself from Akamatsu’s assignment to search the school yet again.

Saihara made a hasty beeline to the bathroom, locking himself in the stall before shutting the lid and plopping down. He could feel the cold wave of anxiety flowing in his stomach, seeping into his legs and arms. Saihara pressed a finger to his lip-tapping a foot on the ground while his mind raced.

He didn’t want to kill anyone; he didn’t want you to have to kill anyone. He didn’t want anyone to be killed period.

He begins to bite the inside of his cheek. (Saihara never bit his fingernails, God knows where the gunk under that’s been. At least with his cheek he won’t be risking his immune system from a bacteria invasion.)

At the same time, he would have to figure out why Monokuma was targeting him specifically for this…. It was too much for him to handle.

He’s beginning to chew a bit too hard, but he doesn’t notice it. (Another thing about Saihara-he notices everything around him, being a detective, but not so much the things about himself.)

The detective lets out a noise that sounds like a mouse in pain, tears threatening to fall down as his jaw clenches. His eyes pressed tight and teeth fixed to the slick wall of flesh.

‘Think of s/o. Think of how they would pet your hair and tell you that everything would be fine.’

You’ve been a big help for him in his life. He remembers you finding him working one day, tears trickling down his face as he worked on as usual. He insisted that he should work, despite the fact that he was obviously pained by something. You made him put the sheets of paper (some of them stained with tears) down and sat by his side until he had vented and cried himself out.

Right now he would really want that. To be able to relax and know that everything will be alright.

Except it won’t be. That is, if he doesn’t do anything.

He unlocks himself out of the stall, splashing some water on his face to snap him out of his trance as he gathers up his courage. He’s a detective. Hell, the Super high school level detective at that. If he can’t find a way out of this mess, who else could?

Saihara works tirelessly, sometimes pulling all-nighters (Ok so maybe he’s a bit tired.) to try and uncover more about the situation.

Finally, after weeks of calculations, surviving on anxiety and fear, he’s gotten somewhere. The identity of the mastermind.

It was a bit tricky, for a normal person it would be difficult. Then again, Saihara is not a normal person (In more ways than one…) It was little things, small things that normal people would find odd.

The occasional dot of pink on Monokuma. The undersides of the feet on the exisals, the cutlery in the kitchen having some kind of strange stickiness to it…The pink dot, was in fact a paint. The underside of the exisals were coated in a sharp smelling liquid- thinner. And the sticky solution- a glue of some form.

Clues like this, they all point to Angie.

Saihara considers Iruma for a bit, but there was one factor that made it clear that Angie was the guilty party. It was almost too easy, really. Angie had broken one of the ‘rules’ in the student E-books, she had destroyed school property to create one of her stone sculptures. Monokuma had done nothing about it.

Saihara knew things needed to be settled. He needed to protect you. He needed to free everyone.

      That’s how he found himself in Yonaga’s room late at night. A knife clutched to his chest as he waited under her bed.He felt the creaking of the mattress above him, the quiet humming of the girl keeping him alert.He waited until the lights went off, and her breathing had slowed down an hour ago to finally move.Once he had finally slid out from underneath, he realized how badly he was shaking. His knuckles were glowing white, even in the dark, and everything around him felt cold. He had to do it quickly, before it would be too late.

But as he tried to take a step, his breath caught and he nearly cried out in fear. He tightened the grip on his knife, he was afraid he might drop it from nerves.

‘Come on Saihara, focus.’

He takes a step forward, the floorboards creak slightly, he winces.

When Angie rouses, Saihara can feel everything in his mind go blank. The undetermined fear of being caught shook his foundation.

The girl gives a little hum in her sleep, shifting to the opposite side as she relaxes with another exhale.

Saihara releases a sigh of his own, relief flooding him. It’s short lived, however.

Angie’s rustle only reminded Saihara of one thing- he’s going to kill a living human. The curling figure is a person with memories, a consciousness, dreams and futures. He’s about to end it.

   He shivers, even though there’s a fan blowing idly in her room. He grasps the knife tighter. He counts in his mind, down from 10. Readying himself with each decreased digit. When he gets to 1, he chickens out and nearly loses his balance min-lunge. He has to swing his arms to keep from falling onto the bed.

He’s close to a panic attack at this point, hyperventilating and pressing the point of the knife into his palm.

Saihara thinks of you, the thoughts of warm lattes and cozy blankets relaxing him somewhat.

When he’s calmed down, the palms of his hands are bleeding and so is the inside of his cheek.

He tries again, counting down from 10 a bit slower. He can’t think about it, he can’t think about how he’s going to end a person’s life and memories and consciousness with one slice. Or stab.

‘4’ - he remembers Angie introducing herself.

‘3’ - he’s about to chicken out again.

‘2’ - he remembers all of those that have died in this game, the ones that died because of the mastermind. How they didn’t want to die either.

‘1’ - Monokuma’s motive replays in his head one more time; Ouma’s smirk, his reflection in the mirror.

Then he feels the splatter of blood on his uniform, and the scream from Angie. He holds it there for a few seconds, the blood seeps into his pores and clothing. It’s doesn’t smell like blood, but some of it gets into his mouth. He tastes the iron in it. He wakes up when Angie claws at his hands, he screams, in reality of what he’s done.

His instincts take over- and he twists the knife to finish it.

She goes limp, Saihara takes a step back.

He’s done it, he’s beaten the game.

He’s still for a couple of seconds, letting the image burn into his mind.

And then he starts screaming.