#anyway yeah . lost track of the original post oops sorry

[daz4i]

they put smth in dazai's character song. like some drug that makes you sad. i know it.

[danganronpa-21]

Naegiri Week Day 1: Ill

Here we are, Naegiri Week Day 1: Ill. I hope everyone’s ready for a little Post-Hope’s Peak escape fic, in which Makoto is fighting off a case of scurvy, and so Kyoko decides to make the journey to a Future Foundation Safe Haven in hopes of finding food to save him. For this one, I’d definitely issue a warning of some heavier topics of violence and in-depth descriptions of gross stuff, as there’s dealing with illness and dead bodies and all that. 

It’s also way longer than I originally intended to make it. Oops. My other prompts will... probably be shorter, I think. This one was just an idea I got really enthused about! So, I hope you enjoy it!

Also, little tip to the rest of my fellow writers/digital artists participating in Naegiri Week: remember to rest your eyes! I gave myself a migraine yesterday from too many days of bright screens in a row. Be gentle with yourselves! You’ve all done wonderful things so far, and best of luck with the rest of your prompts!

____________

Four days ago, Makoto collapsed. 

Kyoko hadn’t seen it happen at first. Her lavender eyes were far too focused on the path that lay ahead of them. She hadn’t even thought to look back when she heard his body hitting the pavement. Every moment she knew she had to be alert for danger; she had no time to waste on listening for tiny sounds like that. She’d expected it to be nothing. She had to focus on leading the charge. Though throes of illness and hunger threatened to overtake her, she knew she had to press on. She encouraged the same in the others, too, but completely fell apart when Makoto’s quiet gasps brought her attention to him.

Hearing Byakuya shout, she spun around without thinking. Her eyes fell immediately upon the pitiful boy. He was the strongest boy she’d ever known, yet when she laid eyes on him, he was sobbing on the road like a pathetic child. His teeth grinding together in pain. His eyes squeezed shut. Desperately trying to keep himself together.

“What happened?!” Byakuya stepped closer to Makoto, eyes narrowed. He crouched down to his level. “Get up off the ground. Now’s not the time to get all weepy-eyed!” 

Makoto didn’t answer. He didn’t dare lift his face from the asphalt; his brows furrowed in emotion. Sadness, Kyoko wondered? Or maybe he was in pain. Some invisible pain, that the rest of them couldn’t see. She supposed he’d been complaining of sore legs as of late, but that was normal. Everyone had sore legs. Running and hiding during the apocalypse did that to you. They’d been walking in search of help for days; of course their legs felt like they were going to fall off. Even Aoi, who’s leg wound had adopted an infection, refused to complain. For the most part, Makoto had kept quiet, too. 

Yet there he lay, his face so close to the dirty street, crying like a little boy. Something more had to be wrong. He never was much of a crier; she doubted the soreness of his own legs would be enough to send him crashing to the ground.

“We don’t have time for this!” Byakuya huffed, prying at the smaller boy’s body. He grabbed hold of his arm and tugged. Within an instant Makoto screeched out pain, desperately trying to yank his arm out of Byakuya’s grasp.

He continued to sob. “Don’t touch me! Don’t touch me!”

Byakuya failed to respond to his pleas. He kept tugging like a toddler; one who didn’t know that it hurt the puppy when he pulled its tail. Makoto continued to howl and sob. “Would you be quiet?! You’ll attract cannibals or something! Now isn’t the time for this!”

Kyoko barked out an order without thinking. “Togami, leave him alone.” She walked towards the two of them, each step careful until she crouched down next to Byakuya. “Something is clearly wrong beyond whatever you think it is.”

“He’s fine,” Byakuya protested, “He’s not in any sort of real pain.”

Wrong, Kyoko thought. One look into Makoto’s watery green eyes, and one could see that it wasn’t anything normal. Sure, he’d had the same complaints as the others — fatigue, nausea, diarrhea, and loss of appetite… but no one else had been experiencing pain quite like this. If something had become enough to make him cry, she knew they should take it seriously.

“Naegi-kun, what’s the matter?”

His face had painted itself with shame, likely at his tears. He spoke with shaky breaths, almost daring to avoid meeting her eyes.  “Everything… my shoulders, and my forearms… my knees… god, everything hurts so bad… It’s like all my joints are killing me.”

She placed a gentle hand on his head, hoping to be supportive. She had never been all that good at the whole comforting thing, but she still intended to try. 

“I tried to hold up, for awhile, I really did…” He sniffled, wiping his nose on the back of his hand. “But I… I’m sorry, I… I tried so hard to… to… hold up, but I just… This really… really… fucking hurts...” 

The curse caught them by surprise. If Byakuya had needed any more proof that he was in legitimate pain, that word was it. His scowl, however still strong, seemed to soften a bit after he heard the word. His grip on Makoto’s arm lost its firmness as well.

“Shhhhhh…” She patted his head softly, “You’re okay. I know it hurts.” 

He sniffled again, seeming grateful for her comfort. In a way, it brought her solace, knowing that she gave him some peace of mind. Her presence seemed to stabilize his breaths a little. “I’ll… I’ll get up in a few minutes, I s-swear I’ll keep going I just… this really hurts…” 

Wrong again, she thought. Everyone seemed to have a knack for being wrong here. There was no way in hell Makoto would be  walking on his own again. He collapsed; it was a telltale sign that his joints had all given up for the day. He should have known that.

“Nonsense, Naegi-kun.” She shook her head, “Hagakure-kun will carry you.”

His brow creased in worry, and he shot a nervous glance towards Yasuhiro. Ah, she thought, he’s worried about what will be done with Aoi.

“B-But what about Asahina-san? Her leg’s so much worse than mine. She needs someone to lean on.” He stuck his arms out to try and push himself to his feet, only to go tumbling back down against the road. Kyoko prayed he hadn’t scraped his chin. “I-I can get up, if you’ll just give me a…” 

He once again went crashing to the ground, letting out a rather pathetic sob. 

“I c-c-can do it, I-I swear…”

Kyoko shook her head. “Asahina-san can lean on me instead. I just want you to get of here in one piece.”

____________

Patient Name: Naegi Makoto, Ex-member of Class 78-A of Hope’s Peak Academy

Reported Symptoms: Fatigue, nausea, diarrhea, loss of appetite, fever, and painful joints and muscles.

Diagnosis: Early stage scurvy. Keep an eye out for pinpoint bleeding around hair follicles and skin as time goes on. Immediate consumption of fruit and vegetables will be necessary. 

Kyoko could do little more than sigh as she slammed her notebook shut, her pen unceremoniously tossed to the side. Thinking about all of this stressed her out too much, yet there was little else that dwelled in her mind. Most days she would be thinking about the next opportunity to move, to get food or water, but now… now all of her thoughts were of Makoto, and what she could do to ease his pain. 

If she chose to be honest with herself, there wasn’t much she could do to soothe him. She wasn’t a nurse, nor a nurturing person. She knew little of caring for people with bubbling stomachs and crushing fevers, and she certainly did not know a thing about helping someone with aching joints. Her care methods were standard: feed them, wash them, give them something to drink, make sure they were comfortable. That was all she could do to make his suffering easier. Nothing short of searching for an antidote could ease his sorrows, and she knew there was almost no way she would be able to get by doing that. Not with the others around, at least. They’d throw a fit once they discovered her absence. Not to mention that they might try to track her down; an act that could only further the sense of disaster. If she wanted to do this, she’d have to do it on her own. She’d just… have to find some way to slip out during the night. Maybe leave a note warning them not to come after her, or they will face her wrath when she returns. Yeah, that was a good statement… she knew at least Aoi and Yasuhiro would buy into that one. 

Setting her notebook aside, she sighed. Inky blackness would soon consume the ruby red sky, and she’d get a chance to relax. Well, as much as one could amongst a pile of ailing teenagers. Nights were revered among their group for their solace from pain, but getting to sleep was always the real struggle. Between Yasuhiro’s pneumonia-induced hacking, Toko’s hourly bathroom trips, Aoi’s whimpering, Makoto’s sweat-soaked fever dreams, and the whale calls made by Byakuya’s empty stomach… Sleeping was a challenge. Even if she could manage to block out the sounds of her sick and hungry friends, their environment was hardly comfortable enough to sleep in anyways. Most nights they bounced from place to place, and most of those places were not built for comfort. Some nights they were lucky and got to share a motel room or two; most of the time though, they found themselves curled up on the floors of former retail stores and restaurants. This time around, they found themselves in an abandoned library… another place that, surprisingly, had few places to sleep. 

Of course, that didn’t stop some of her friends. When she looked up from her notebook, almost all of her friends had drifted off already. Toko had nuzzled her face into Byakuya’s shoulder and fallen asleep there, and he’d let her. She assumed he must have been too exhausted himself to push her off. Aoi curled herself up in a corner, trying desperately to maintain warmth against the cold breeze. As for Yasuhiro, well, he’d been dead asleep for hours. Once he could stop coughing, his favourite hobby became sleeping. He was always the most well-rested of the group, unlike Kyoko. And much unlike Makoto lately. 

No surprise there that Makoto was still wide awake.

“How are you feeling?” The words were reflex. She’d asked him the very same question so many times; really any time she’d realized that he was staring off into space again. 

He gave the same answer each and every time, wincing as he shifted. “I’m fine.”

She never believed it. Habitually, he held his tongue for the sake of the others. That was why he’d gone on for so long before collapsing. He sucked it up until he couldn’t anymore. 

“I know that’s not true.”

He let out a small grunt, pulling one of his legs closer to his chest. He exhaled sharply through his nose, slowly turning to look at her. “Of course it’s not true.”

She tried to look sympathetic, but she didn’t know what that looked like facially. Lowered brows in concern, maybe? Jeez, she would have to reprimand her grandfather for making her struggle to express herself. That is, assuming she might ever see him again. “What’s bothering you today?”

His eyes squeezed shut tightly. There was a jarring lack of hesitation in his words, as he turned to her and said, “Kirigiri-san. I’m going to die, aren’t I?”

The question struck fear into her heart like lightning. His words vibrated through her eardrums for only a few seconds, but already she felt ready to shout at him. He was supposed to be the optimist, damn it! How could he scare her with this talk of dying? No way. No, no, no. No way.

“No, you are not.” 

Her voice came out firmer than she intended, like a parent telling their child that their word was final. She imagined her face must have followed suit, an uncontrollable scowl carving its way into her lips. If her predictions were correct, this was also probably one of those times that her eyes had become scarily intense. 

“Really? You think there’s something we can do?”

The lack of hope in his tone almost made Kyoko want to slap some sense into him. But hitting your friends is a mean thing to do, and hitting the boy you kind of sort of think you might have a crush on is… well, it’s a lot worse. 

Nodding was a better choice in this scenario. “Yes, I do.”

To her surprise, Makoto let out a soft chuckle. As his eyes fluttered open, she could start to see the inklings of sadness that hid behind them. Like he had already begun to accept that he faced the beginning of the end. 

“It’s okay,” He said softly, “You don’t have to lie to me to make me feel better.”

“I’m not lying.” Her hands curled into fists. Where had all of his positivity gone? Had this condition replaced it with nothing more than swallowing melancholy? Once upon a time it would have been unthinkable for Makoto to even speak like this, but suddenly now she was taunted by the idea that it could become the norm.  “I fully intend to make sure you do not die.”

“Kirigiri-” He started, but she didn’t let him finish. She cut him off not even a word’s worth in to the sentence; furious at the way he spoke. 

“It’s not up for discussion, Makoto! Whether you think you will or not, I intend to make it so that you survive.”

She gulped. Neither of them had expected her to snap like that. Usually she could be calm and reserved, even in the face of adversity. But something about the suggestion of Makoto’s death hit her differently. Like a knife being jabbed into a wound she didn’t know she had. Without her consent, her eyes had become glassy, and she realized that she felt the push of tears in her throat. Stupid, she thought. It had been so long since she’d last felt the need to cry. It was so easy to choke it down. 

The words hung a long pause in the air between the two of them; both of them afraid to break it for what felt like hours. Kyoko could do nothing but swallow repeatedly and blink rapidly, hoping desperately that he didn’t notice that she wanted to cry. Thankfully, he didn’t, opting instead to pick at the dirt under his fingernails. He lacked the proper works to say… just as she did. 

The act that ended up the vow of silence between them was a soft sigh from Makoto’s end of things. He bit into his lip, shutting his eyes tightly. The face he made when he was reluctantly about to go along with one of her wild schemes to save the day. 

“What do you propose we do?”

_______________________

If a spring breeze even existed anymore, it carried only a bizarre chill and the stench of death.

In the air it carried came the taste of distant smoke; the charred bodies of the dead and the burning brought through the air to these wandering children. Amongst the smell of death and the taste of airy smoke, lived nothing more than darkness and dim patches of light. The only sound being the distant screams of the tortured as they begged for mercy, and the gentle footsteps of the allied moving in synch. Pray for them, these wandering children. They are lost in a world determined to eliminate them. 

A horror novel could not have painted a superior picture to the one that unfolded before Kyoko. All around her threatened destruction and desolation, should she take one wrong step. Just as if she were a character in a book, Kyoko would have to think through every detail of her present situation carefully. There could be no room for error, especially not when she had brought along such fragile cargo.

The decision to bring Makoto with her was a bad one. Sure, she knew there was little she could have done to stop him from joining her, but that didn’t keep her from regretting it. The poor thing stumbled about with all of the grace of a baby deer still learning how to use its legs, and had the endurance of one, too. He could only move in quick spurts, only fast enough to make a little bit of headway before needing to rest. They were nowhere near being close enough to their destination as they should have been thanks to that. 

She didn’t have it in her heart to blame the poor boy, though. He did his best to not be a liability. He was skilled at ignoring his upset stomach and its repeated false alarms for vomiting, and was sweating out his fever like a pro. There were few people she had ever seen manage illness this well, and it impressed her, knowing that he could. She might have even felt proud of him, if she didn’t feel so overwhelmingly awful about having to drag him out into the dirty, disgusting world. 

“H-How much longer until… until we’re… t-there…?” He panted so quietly that it might as well have been a whisper. She could see beads of sweat dripping down his forehead, desperately trying to cool him off. They weren’t managing so well, she noted, for his face flushed rouge. Maybe he would be due for another break soon, she decided. He didn’t look so good. 

She tried not to look too pitying as she glanced back at him. She’d quickly learned that pity only made him feel worse. “Just a little while longer,” She purred in the sweetest voice she could muster, hoping to sound comforting, “We can take a break soon, if you like.”

He shook his head vigorously until pain overtook it. Another product of his fever. “I think I can manage for a little longer.” He promised; she knew it had to be empty. Too much sweat had stained the collar of his t-shirt for him to be okay to keep moving. He would need a break. And water. 

“I disagree.” She took his hand in her own. “Here, let’s duck behind this building. We can stop here for a bit.”

The boy opened his mouth to protest, but Kyoko’s movements were enough to shut him up. At that point, his focus drew towards his aching joints, and how to keep himself from crying out at the movement. Luckily, resting at the library for a few days had given them a new lease on life, and he could move just a tad easier than he could have before. He wasn’t collapsing, nor wailing from indescribable pain. At the very least, that made both of them feel a little bit better about the whole thing. 

Still, even his increased comfort didn’t mean that he didn’t have to focus on keeping his complaints at bay. Every bend of his knee or curve of his forearm warranted a low grunt of pain; one that he silenced in order to keep himself and Kyoko safe. Night was the most dangerous time for them to be travelling, and they both knew how every little sound drew the attention of the nightcrawlers. 

So he kept himself silenced, right up until they reached the building Kyoko proposed they hide behind. Then, with all of the grace of someone who had been nearly drowned, he let his desperate gasps spill out of him. Kyoko stood guard next to him; she seemed adamant that she be able to monitor his breathing. There hadn’t been a break that had gone by that she hadn’t listened to his shallow breaths, waiting for them to progressively become deeper. 

“Do you want some water?” 

Her voice came as a gentle coo, like the way a mother would speak to her ailing child. She didn’t bother to listen to his response; she reached into her bag to grab hold of the bottle anyway. They both knew he’d be taking a drink no matter what he said. 

She handed the bottle to him carefully, taking note of the water level. Enough for him to have a mouthful, but not for her. That was fine. If where they were going was as perfect as it was rumoured to be, she would have no problem getting more. Perhaps she could even snag some bottles to take back with her, to hydrate the others. God knows how long it had been since they had some real, fresh water. 

Makoto accepted the bottle gratefully. His hands shook as he unscrewed the lid, but Kyoko tried not to notice. It was probably just hunger tremors, she thought to herself. She knew she had them too. She couldn’t help but fantasize about putting an end to those soon, too, just as she did with the water. All she could think about, apart from getting there alive, was providing what she knew everyone needed. 

What Makoto needed most of all. Of course she thought of the others, but Makoto’s need was potentially the most pressing. Realistically, Toko would survive as long as she stayed hydrated, and the same went for Aoi so long as she washed the wound. Given that he was neither a small child or elderly, she fully expected Yasuhiro to make a full recovery. And once again, assuming that Byakuya would eat and drink, he’d be fine too. Makoto was really the only one of her friends who could die on the spot from something dramatic like a heart attack. So getting the right kind of food into him sat at the top of her priority list. 

“Do you want some, Kirigiri-san?”

Leave it to Makoto to snap her back into her thoughts by offering her water. There had barely been enough in there for him to have a mouthful, yet he’d still halved it to make sure she could drink. Stupidly selfless Makoto; she wanted to scold him for that. She knew that he knew that he needed the water more, and the idiot had still halved it. She shook her head frustratedly. 

“Are you sure?” He prodded, raising an eyebrow at her. He waved the water bottle at her temptingly, but she raised a hand in refusal. He knew better than to keep bothering after that, so he let it go and took one last swig for himself.

“Just drink it,” She sighed, “If I’m to believe the rumours about where we’re going, then I should be able to get more.”

The luckster blinked it surprise, and pulled the water bottle back close to his body. The expression of excitement on his face over having more water was cute enough to make her laugh, albeit rather lightly. The fact that he now seemed almost territorial over his water only made it harder to avoid giggling more loudly. 

“You think this place will have water and fresh produce?” His eyes were wide, glimmering with the hope she worried he had lost to his illness. She could have cried at the sight of faith finally returning to his gaze. It had only been four days since he fell apart, but already she was grateful to have it back. It had been too long. Just seeing that brought a smile to her face.

“It’s supposed to. Apparently, there is an anti-apocalypse group spreading resources to survivors. I believe they call themselves Future Foundation, or something cheesy like that.”

It became his turn to smile. “It’s nice to know that there’s still some people out there trying to do good.” 

She nodded in agreement, unable to fight herself on looking pleased. Really, she was with him on that. Knowing that someone else was out there, fighting for the future… it brought her great happiness. She could only hope that she would live long enough to put it to good use. 

Makoto screwed the lid back onto the water bottle and handed it back to her. She took it gratefully, proceeding to offer him her hand. He became a little more stable when he had the help. A sigh of relief expelled itself from her mouth when he accepted her hand, and pulled him up from the spot where he sunk originally. Now that he was so close to her face again, the drops of sweat and the flushing of his face became even more apparent. She chose not to weigh her options about what to do; she simply pried her glove off her hand and placed it on his forehead to feel his temperature. Warmer, she noted, but not as bad as it could get. If guessing was involved, he probably hadn’t hit one-hundred degrees yet. In the seventies or eighties, should she be tasked with giving an exact number. 

Still, this wasn’t something Makoto could possibly know. Concern for his own well-being gleamed in his tired eyes, and only showed further in the way his brows lowered over them. Perhaps it was over what she could report, or maybe the fact that she stood so close, but his lip took some abuse as well. It had become like the victims of the Tragedy: cannibalized. He was biting the skin off it again and again in agonizing anticipation. Like he thought Kyoko could just decree that he had two minutes left to live. 

She sighed. “Well, you certainly have not got any better,” She withdrew her hand from his forehead and slipped it back into its glove, “But you also haven’t gotten any worse. Which, I would say, is a rather good thing.”

Like a wave crashing to the shore, all of the concern in Makoto’s expression washed away. As a small smile snuck across his face, she heard him laugh. “Yeah,” He paused, turning his head to look at the path that lay ahead, “Should we be going again, then?”

“If you’re ready.”

From that point forward, they would take a few more breaks. Understandable, considering that Makoto hadn’t done such a good job holding out for long periods of time. So far they had managed to narrowly dodge the nightcrawlers, ducking through alleyways and silencing themselves every time they heard the familiar footsteps of the hungry. When they came near, neither of them dared to make a sound. They only waited; they barely found the strength to breathe. Only once the loud, stomping feet trailed off, did the two teenagers continue on, feeling a little more like they were going to throw up the dinner that wasn’t in their stomachs. But it was fine, for they were almost there. 

That’s what Kyoko told herself, anyway. It distracted her from the fact that they seemed to be stopping more and more often because of them. It seemed as if her finger would fly to her lips every two minutes. She’d be desperately silencing the whispers, footsteps, and breaths she dared to take — otherwise, she couldn’t guarantee their survival. Then, once the shouting of the cannibals had passed, they’d keep stumbling along. In the back of her mind, though, the thoughts of them would linger. How hungry did they have to be to eat other human beings? And how certain could she be of this Future Foundation safe haven if the nightcrawlers still rallied for flesh? 

She gulped at the thought. For a second, she considered asking Makoto, but dismissed the idea just as fast. The poor thing already fought off nausea as he walked; striking up a conversation about some good ol’ cannibalism wouldn’t help that case. She had a memory of him vomiting the first time he’d seen one of the bodies they’d eaten. How could human beings ever stoop so low? Could they really stoop so low?

Kyoko shuddered at the life she’d lead if she were more desperate. Though hunger ached in her belly and sent dizziness spiraling through her head, she couldn’t fathom killing and eating another person. And she knew Makoto and the others couldn’t either. And while this did put them on the moral high ground, it also put them into the position of victim. If they weren’t careful, they could be next. 

It was better not to think about it. The consumption of others, the chance that the promise of food and water was empty, and her stomach’s endless growling. It was better to focus on her partner. What he felt, what he thought, what he needed in the moment. It was strange; in spite of not being a nurturing person, she sort of took to caring for him. It took her mind off of the other things she decided to avoid thinking about. Interesting. She couldn’t keep herself from wondering if maybe, just maybe, he worried about her in the same way. 

“How much further now?” He whispered over her shoulder; his voice wrought with exhaustion. Though she told him to stop many times, he had taken to refusing the closer they got. She could hear his breathlessness as they stumbled through the night, but it was never enough to slow him. 

Their eyes didn’t meet as she guided him forward; she simply mumbled her response to him. “Soon,” She told him, “We’ll be there.” 

He let out a low hum, pulling himself back from her side ever so slightly. There was weight on his feet when he walked; she could hear it, but he said nothing. He simply kept pushing along, one foot in front of the other, beads of sweat still dripping down his forehead mercilessly. 

At least with them having not heard the footsteps of the nightcrawlers recently, Kyoko could take the opportunity to chat. “How’s your stomach?”

As if to answer her, a loud grumble sounded from presumably, within his stomach. She hid her smile behind her hand, and he blushed.

“A little rumbly, but… okay, I guess.” 

She nodded thoughtfully. “I am sorry to hear that… but we will fix it soon. I promise you that.”

He laughed softly. “I’m not worried,” He placed a hand on her shoulder, “I know I’ll be fine, so long as you’re with me.” 

One might have thought Kyoko would answer, but the words caught in her throat. Her mind raced so quickly that she could barely think of a thing to say. Stupid Makoto, she thought to herself, stupid Makoto and his cute face and his sweet sentences. This boy will make a joke out of me one day, I swear. Only the flustering of her face could show how that made her feel, her gaze darting away from him. He probably wouldn’t look at her deeply, yet she didn’t want him to see how much those words meant. It would only make the blow worse if the rumours turned out to be wrong. 

Her lips sealed themselves after that. The two of them still kept a close eye on each other, but there was almost nothing else that needed to be said. The closest they got was Makoto slipping his hand into hers; it felt as if it was his way of begging to be close. Taking one look at the war-torn, exhausted boy who trudged beside her, she couldn’t help but accept it. An old friend’s words echoed in her mind.

Have you ever held hands with a boy? 

It was hard to know whether she wanted to scowl or laugh. She had held his hands before; it wasn’t the first time. But at the very least, this time felt a little different. Perhaps it was because as they took each careful step towards the unknown, it felt like it was the two of them against the world. 

They made good progress after their last conversation, for there were no more interruptions. Creepy, Kyoko thought, that enemies could just seem to disappear as they drew closer. A little too suspicious, if you asked her. Not that she should really be asked; she was a detective after all. As far as she was concerned, anything could be suspicious. Still, she attempted to shrug it off… for Makoto’s sake. The last thing he needed while in his condition was the paranoid ramblings of a girl without evidence.

Besides, his presence became a good distraction from her paranoia. All she had to worry about was pushing him forward, towards the proclaimed Future Foundation safe haven building. The structure had finally spread itself out in front of them; the whole thing appearing suspiciously normal amongst the chaos. If the expectation for Kyoko was honesty, she would have confessed that she presumed that everything would look… rougher. Maybe some scorch marks along the bricks from fires long since put out, or perhaps some blood stains turned brown from age. Certainly, if these Future Foundation people were bright at all, they should consider that their weirdly clean-looking building stood out like a sore thumb. Just an old warehouse building, complete with dusted red brick and white moldings around the doors and windows. Not even the window glass shattered or shared any cracks with the outside world. The window was simply tinted with natural colour, and dust that had been kicked up from storms. In the old world, this could have been any old abandoned warehouse. Only now, it was the hiding spot of secret resources.

The appearance of it was so obvious that Makoto’s face lit up upon sight. Just seeing his expression was like watching a human Christmas tree. His exhausted eyes lit up with glee, and he clung tightly to her arm. Delight dripped through his voice as he spoke to her, and he gestured towards the building with a bouncy, shaking hand. “Is that it, Kyoko?” He asked, “Is that the building?”

She nodded, fighting off the grin that threatened to make its appearance. “Yes,” Closing one of her eyes, she pointed forward, “That’s the one.”

Those olive green eyes of his sparkled back at her, and he pressed his face into her arm. A sigh sounded as he nuzzled her, and for a minute, she might’ve imagined them some place else. But the old warehouse was no sunset-lit beach, nor star-clad night. It was just an old warehouse, full of little more than promise. Promise was promise, though. If it meant his survival, Kyoko might consider it the most beautiful thing of all. 

With that idea resting in her mind, she pressed him to move forward. One step after the other, the same rhythm as always. Every once in awhile she stopped to flick her head around corners; a necessary evil to ensure that no nightcrawlers could spring a trap on them. Makoto followed along behind her carefully; a willful puppy trailing after his caretaker. As they drew closer and closer to the clearing that housed the warehouse, Kyoko knew making a break for it was necessary. When she glanced at her walking partner, it took her all of three seconds to know he saw it too. 

She took a deep breath, and squeezed his hand tightly. Counting back from ten in her head, she braced herself. One, two, three. Even with her gloves on, she could feel the sweat on Makoto’s pams. Four, five, six. The warehouse beckoned them in an inaudible voice. Seven, eight, nine. Stacks of fresh produce and water. They had to be in there. 

Ten. 

Kyoko stole a breath and ran. 

The world went by her in a rush; the sounds of their thundering footsteps as they ran consuming everything else around her. Amongst the chaos of their feet, the only other thing she could hear was the shallow panting of Makoto, who was clearly overexerting himself to arrive safely. She’d be sure to praise him for his perseverance later; most likely after she rewarded him with some well-deserved water and food. For now, though, she zeroed in on the front door. It stood there waiting; a wooden beacon in the distance. It drew closer and closer as their feet hit the pavement, the smell of death and the taste of the smoky air drowned out by what lay behind it.

Almost there. The thought echoed in her mind as she grabbed hold of the door’s handle. Behind her, Makoto attempted to skid to a stop, clearly just as lost as she was in the motions of the run. In the distance she heard the voices of the hungry, and she prayed that the famine of her and her friends hadn’t put them in the nightcrawlers’ sights. She yanked the door back with fervour, shoving Makoto inside before promptly slamming the door behind her. 

She slumped against the door the moment she arrived, and her lungs screamed for air. The world seemed to sway under her feet as she stared down at them, trying desperately to steady herself. She had exerted the energy she lacked when she ran, and she knew her partner must have too. The mere idea of moving only made her head spiral further, but she knew she had to check on him. She ignored her brain’s desperation for the world to slow. Instead, she turned her head towards Makoto.

Just one look at him, and her heart dropped into her stomach. 

He was… horrified. His hands had flown to his mouth to cover it, for otherwise it’d be hanging agape. His sleepy eyes were now wide with shock, and his brows so harshly furrowed together that she’d have thought he witnessed the product of a nightmare come to life. She could even see tremors start to consume his body once again.

“Naegi-kun?” She squeaked, her voice small and insignificant against the echoing terror of the warehouse. “What’s wrong?”

The boy refused her gaze. He only extended a hand, and trembling, he pointed forward. 

His horror struck her just the same when her eyes fell upon it. 

Bodies littered the building. Bodies of Future Foundation members, bodies of the despairs, the nightcrawlers, and the desperate. Everywhere was the sight of bodies, bloody and beaten beyond recognition. Shelves knocked over; the contents spilling over into pools of blood, excrement, and urine. Those that didn’t fall from the shelves onto the fluid-soaked floor had been otherwise tampered with. Some had been ripped open and left to spoil, so that no one might have what lay inside them. Others were completely destroyed, or used for horrible things Kyoko couldn’t bring herself to process. Her head spun even faster, and she was half-sure she’d have toppled over, if it weren’t for Makoto who grabbed her arm. 

Thank god for his willingness to support her weight.

“I…” She sputtered, shutting her eyes. A harsh, sudden headache pounded at her temples, and when she tried to breathe,  the air scorched her throat. “I don’t understand.” 

Her feet swayed beneath her even further, threatening to bring her down. It was only Makoto who kept her steady; his voice hushed as he whispered in her ear. 

“Stay with me, Kirigiri-san.” He begged. Through the booming of her heart in her ears, the shaking of his voice made itself audible. “Everything is fine.”

She tried to swallow, but it felt like a rock lodged itself in her throat. Her senses threatened her with tears, but she willed herself not to cry. Crying doesn’t solve anything. Her grandfather’s words. Words she wished to resist. “No,” She murmured, “Everything is not fine.” 

“I know,” he whispered back, “It’s horrible, I know.”

She nodded. “This place was supposed to… help people. I… I cannot understand why anyone would… would…” 

The detective’s voice trailed off. Her whimpers were the only thing ringing through the silence of the old warehouse. This only seemed to torture her further; Makoto couldn’t help but remark on how she trembled in his arms. The act was so uncharacteristic of her. It sent a jolt of worry to his core. 

“Naegi-kun, what are we going to do?” She turned her head to look at him; the first time Makoto had actually seen the fear in her violet eyes. “The water… Aoi, and Byakuya, and the others… and you! You needed this place! You needed it so badly, and I was certain… I was certain that I…”

He pulled her face towards his chest, shushing as gently as he could. He found himself stroking her hair without thinking to do so; he supposed he thought the action would be soothing. Fortunately for him, she failed to oppose it. Rather, she actually buried her face deeper into his chest to hide. 

“It’s okay, Kirigiri-san.” 

“B-But, I…” 

The girl’s hands curled into fists, and he could feel the clench of her jaw. Was she about to cry, or was she about to punch him? The lack of answer made him uneasy. Kyoko looked like the kind of girl who could punch hard, should she want to punch you.

“... I was supposed to help you. We were supposed to get out of this together. I… I don’t understand why I cannot help you. I don’t understand what I’ve done poorly.”

“You didn’t do anything wrong. There’s nothing you could have done, and no way you could have known. We just… need to go somewhere else now.” 

She pressed her face further into his chest, and suddenly, he could feel it. The tiny, wet spots of her tears on his shirt. She wouldn’t show it, but he could feel it. For her sake, he decided not to mention it. Chances are she was already embarrassed enough to be crying, given her stoicism. He decided perhaps it was best if he just let the waterworks slide this time around. 

“No.” She answered with a shaking breath. Though he could hear her sniffling, she dismissed any semblance of a sob. “No, I’m not leaving here until we find something to help you.” 

“Kirigiri-san-”

“No!” She growled with all of the stubbornness of a toddler. It might have even been punctuated with a stomp of her foot. “No, I am not leaving her until we fix things!” 

“Kyoko, we can’t…”

Suddenly, she shoved him away, staring at him with a frown. The tears were still glistening on her face, yet she scorned them. It dawned on him now that he probably led her to want to punch him, shortly after she started to cry. Two for two, he supposed. 

“It’s final, Makoto.” A firm, resolute voice took place of the shaky girl’s. She swiped at her eyes, and strengthened the painted-on scowl she wore. “I intend to help you. Whether you try to help yourself or not.” 

The words struck him dumb. He tried to reach his hand out to her, to say something that would be of value, but the detective was having none of it. Within seconds, she had whipped away from him, strutting down the rows of shelves like it was nothing. A chill shot down his spine at the sight of it. How could she be so firm in her resolve, he wondered. Even he, who had been widely praised by others for being so hopeful, was breaking down at each and every site where things fell apart. He had long since given up on himself, yet Kyoko dismissed all ideas of ever letting go. Somewhere within himself, Makoto knew he had to find that same resolve to keep going. To search for anything with her, so that they may both survive. 

Because she said she wanted them to leave this situation together.

“Kyoko, wait.” He called out to her, stumbling forward as she walked. “I’ll help you.”

Within an instant, the discontentment melted off the girl’s face, and she turned to glance back at him. She sniffled once more, folding her arms across his chest. There were no words shared between them, but Kyoko flicked her head forward. With her, that was as good a signal as any to follow. So he did, stepping over any ominous looking puddles he found along the way. If there was any hope to be found for him, it would be with her. 

“I’m thinking we should head towards the back of the building,” He suggested, taking hold of her hand again, “Some of the stuff back there might be spared. They could even have a produce fridge. You know, like where they mist the vegetables at the grocery store.”

Kyoko did little more than nod, walking towards the back of the store like she didn’t have a care in the world. With the way her chest was so proudly puffed up, you wouldn’t have expected her to have been crying a minute before. He figured it was safe to assume that was why she was doing it — she always held distaste for crying in front of others. It was sort of understandable, he reasoned. But he didn’t mind comforting her, if she needed to cry. Heaven knew that by then, she’d comforted him enough times. 

The two made their way to the back of the building in relative silence, save for the sound of their footsteps on the tiled floor of the warehouse. As they walked, both of them thought it best to avoid making contact with the corpses as they walked. Seeing the beaten faces, some of them frozen in screams of agony or despair, it made the hairs on the backs of their necks stand on end. Could they meet the same fate, if they weren’t careful? Could it just as easily have been them? Would whoever did this come back? 

They both shook those nightmarish fantasies from their heads; both too afraid to know the answers to those questions. Instead, they put their focus onto the produce shelf, and what they might find on it. 

“For you, there are a few things that we could use.” Kyoko told him, her voice hushed. Whether she spoke so quietly because she feared the return of the killers or showing how emotional she’d been, he didn’t know. “Acerola cherries, for example, make an excellent source. Kiwis, bell peppers, strawberries, broccoli, kale, and oranges are also acceptable sources.”

Makoto tried to keep those in mind as they travelled through the warehouse. The further back they went, the more he scanned for them. On occasion they would think they’d hit the jackpot, finding a lone strawberry or rogue kiwi on the floor. However, once they picked it up, they would discover the flaws. The most common was mold, but other regrettable occurrences did include a kiwi that had several bites taken out of it already; and a bell pepper coated in blood on one side. At that point, there was no other choice but to toss it aside and keep looking. Thinking optimistically, at least that provided them with just a smidge of hope. It did help significantly, seeing how the ideal fruits and vegetables did manage to trail to the back. Kyoko took that as a good sign. 

Well, as good as a sign it could be, in an abandoned warehouse full of death. Sure, the stench of it all failed to recede as they ventured further, and the air still burned her throat, and Makoto was still sweating like a pig because of his fever… But in some weird way, she still held out hope that everything would be okay. Some way, somehow, it would be okay. It had to be. 

And it seemed like it might, as they came up on the end of the island they had been walking through. 

“Oh my god,” Makoto exclaimed, pointing forward. “Kirigiri-san, look!”

Her focus darted around, trying to figure out what he was referring to. Had a nightcrawler made its way in? Was there a resource they could benefit from? She scoured the shelves and the floors, taking in as much information as she could, until finally… she saw it. A round ball of fiery orange, sitting plainly on the ground. Away from any corpses, with skin untorn and full of natural colour. 

A healthy, safe orange. 

She’s certain that the two of them must have lunged for it; they attacked the fruit like children eager to open a Christmas present. Within mere seconds, Kyoko had ripped the glove off her hand and created an incision in the skin with her nails, tearing it off the fruit with a strange sort of glee. 

Makoto sat across from her on his knees; eyeing the fruit like it were a piece of gold. She supposed she couldn’t blame him, for she basically held the remedy to all of his struggle. If she were in his shoes, she felt certain she would have acted the same way too. In her hands, she held the key to fixing everything — no more fever, no more upset stomach, no more fatigue, no more aching joints. She wouldn’t have to hear him cry so horribly ever again, ever see him such deep pain. She supposed she yearned just as hard for the relief of it as he. So when she finally managed to tear the skin off, she shoved the fruit into his hands. 

“Go on, Naegi-kun.” She urged, “Eat it.”

For a second, he did nothing but stare at it. Surely he wasn’t having second thoughts about wanting to live or something, was he? Kyoko might have smacked him right then and there if he was, no matter how mean she knew it was to do… but, fortunately, that didn’t appear to be the case. Instead, when he came to his senses a little more, he tore the fruit in half and placed the other piece in Kyoko’s hands. 

Her stomach growled in delight at the sight. “What are you doing?” 

No, no, no, no. This was not her fruit. She couldn’t eat this. Not when he needed the nutrients more. Nearly as soon as it was in her hands, she rushed to return it to him — but Makoto dismissed it. Before she could even get within a few inches of him, he pushed her hand back to her. 

“Please.” A slight smile crossed his face as he pushed her hand back. “I know you’re hungry, too.”

She bore down on her lip absent-mindedly. How did he expect her to accept this? “Naegi-kun, I can’t…”

“Yes, you can.” His grin brightened, and his hand secured itself around her own. “You’ve tried so hard to keep up my hope. Let’s try to keep up yours, too.”

Don’t accept it, she shouted at herself. He needs this more than you do. You know that. 

She did know that. She did know that, yet when she looked at him, there was little she could do to resist his begging. That soft smile, those affectionate green eyes, damn you, Makoto Naegi. She fixed her eyes on him carefully, and raised the orange to her mouth.

“That’s it,” He said, raising his piece to his own, “On the count of three, alright?”

She nodded, eyeing the fruit in front of her. God, she hadn’t realized how much she missed oranges until this very moment. The scent of the citrusy fruit almost made her feel like she might start to drool.

“One… two… three.”

Bite.

A rush of flavour flooded her mouth, staining her tongue with its sweetness. She groaned in delight, having long since forgotten how wonderful oranges were. Across from her, she could gather Makoto was having the same experience… although the juices from the fruit were dripping down his lips and chin. She chuckled slightly, liking the mildly embarrassed expression on his face.

“This is… really good.” He remarked, wiping his chin with the back of his wrist. 

She giggled at the act. “It truly is…”

“Mmm… Kirigiri-san?”

Taking another quick bite of her orange, she glanced back over at him expectantly.

“Yes?”

He licked his orange-juice coated lips, and flashed her another smile. A real one, with teeth and that signature cheerfulness she had grown to miss amongst his illness. Her chest warmed at the sight, and increased its warmth when he finally spoke. 

“Thank you.”

[spamela-hamderson]

This is random but I’d love to know!What are some of your favourite smaller/underrated robron scenes?? 💕

thanks for the qn, sorry I took 47 years to post this!! they’re not all are strictly robron, i got carried away oops

when aaron lost spamela and robert was like “let’s just buy another pig and hope for the best.”

that deleted car scene before they go to sandra’s and how robert didn’t give aaron a chance to get stuck in his own head too much but also wasn’t pushy about it.

aaron drinking orange juice and watching robert’s life with chrissie fall apart in front of him like the petty mf he is. an icon.

this isn’t underrated, i know, but the moment they kissed as legal husbands during wedding 2.0 and everyone clapped and cheered is very special cos that’s what it’s like in my brain every time they smooch and tbh, personally, I would like ed to slap that cheer track onto every kiss. That’s the kind of respect their love deserves.

whEN ROBERT GAVE AARON HIS LAST BREATH. POETIC CINEMA. Except ok it only seems underrated cos it’s so dark and is probably a nightmare to gif.

when angel called robert pathetic and he was like “!! omg!!!

that 1st time robert had seb at the scrapyard and was Struggling and he’d completely cluttered aaron’s desk with baby stuff while leaving his own spotless and aaron didn’t even bat an eyelash

when they were moving robert back into the mill and aaron did his ‘yeah, we should ;) start upstairs ;) why don’t you come ;) up. i’ll help ;) ;)’ face. what a slut.

“precious, is it?”

that whole scene is art ok. rob’s not even helping aaron carry shit, he’s probably spent the whole day flouncing about with his design catalogues, complaining about aaron’s inferior taste, and watching him lift heavy things from behind. what a life.

“I’m just super sensitive about these things ever since I found out my brother had slept with my wife the night before our wedding day.” I mean, wow.

that time during the break up when robert came over to get his phone that he secretly stashed accidentally fell between the cushions and lingered for so long and kept looking back at Aaron all hopeful.

the doughnuts stacked under their wedding cake

that time robert called alex a coward for not fighting for aaron and alex was like “he’s not over you :(” and robert looked like he was barely holding back a sob, fuck, he had to stop and breath for a sec so he wouldn’t immediately break

actually, since we’re already at the xmas episode, when aaron leaves the room after they toast to being bffs and you can hear robert start to cry

oh and aaron fully crying literally 40 seconds after he walks into the room. THEY HADN’T EVEN SAID ANYTHING SAD YET. DID HE JUST START CRYING COS LOOKING AT ROBERT HURT HIS HEART OR SMTH?? WTF IS HAPPENING HERE

the sugdens bringing christmas to robert’s sad little hospital room and making him smile holds a special place in my cold heart

that one time aaron checked his messages at work, and was like “bitch u thought lol” and muted them.

when aaron laughed at robert searching for porn on cain’s phone cos he thinks his bff, robert sugden, is the funniest boy in class

the fact robert didn’t know adam wasn’t actually a murderer but helped him go on the run anyway cos that’s what you do for your best friend’s other best friend I guess.

robert’s super stressed out dancing at the chrobert wedding

that time joe brought his car to the garage while aaron was there and insulted him and then aaron was like ‘well, your hair doesn’t complement your face, so 😎’ ??? ?

EVERY TIME THEY DO THEIR HUSBANDLY NOD OF SILENT COMMUNICATION but special shoutout to the one pre-proposal 2.0 cos I still don’t know how robert knew what he was agreeing to. Is the volume on aaron’s phone just that high?

OH when aaron showed robert liv’s original graduation present and rob laughed cos his husband is hopeless but he finds it endearing anyway cos actually they’re both hopeless, fuck them tbh (also the way the scene cuts to the bear was funny as hell)

and how cute is it that they arranged a quick little meeting outside wishing well just so aaron could show him the gift in the first place? I mean he could’ve just sent a pic but noooo, any excuse to meet up f2f in the middle of the day even though they share a home and a tiny office space and are practically on each other all day every day. I love them.

every time they individually, and as a pair, try to hide

every time aaron tells robert to shut up in his ‘teenager with a crush’ voice

aaron stroking robert’s arm every chance he got, through the entire ‘rebecca goes missing’ storyline

plus robert dramatically marching off with the pram after yelling at everyone in the street

aaron’s bashful shrug at the cemetery when robert tells him he couldn’t have done this without him

when aaron joked about seb emailing robert and then immediately shook his head at himself like ‘ok the accent thing was hilarious, i’m a comedian, but babies sending emails? that’s just silly, what was i thinking.’

The pre-shooting scrapyard scene. I know who I am. (trash.)

ROBERT WANTING TO BUY HALF THE PUB SO HE COULD BE NEAR AARON AND FLIRT WITH HIM ALL THE TIME Urghh

that time they planned to go to a music festival together as exes? cos that’s normal.

robert straight running from aaron post liv’s alcohol poisoning when he realises liv’s told him what happened at HF

post ONS prison scene when aaron walks in with his depression scruff and immediately keeps trying to lock eyes with robert cos he’s so sorry and he needs robert to know and robert can’t look at him cos he feels guilty as fuck AND EVERYTHING IS AWFUL

reunion no. 1 cos I’m a heathen and only recently realised how good it was

them blatantly flirting in front of lawrence and chrissie at HF cos they don’t share a shred of shame between them

aaron not even caring that he got caught staring at robert at the bar, he just carries on staring like an insane person

actually also aaron looking around vanessa’s head so he doesn’t, for one second, lose sight of robert

robert’s sad-dancing once he notices aaron

robert making it a point to place aaron’s pillow back on the sofa after the surrogacy fight and that just annoying aaron even more

aaron’s face after he gets robert to agree to go to the surrogacy meeting with him cos he knew the soft “do it for me uwu” thing would work

“What have you done, Aaron.”

that time robert, fully serious, told a widow that she had it easier cos at least her husband was dead

also that time robert dramatically pushed finn down and yelled at him after seeing aarex at the pub (and then did a bunch of other insane things)

every time they’re not on for a week or more and then one or both of them enter through a door, i dunno, it’s a thing, i have a problem

aaron making sure robert knows that his mouse trap making skills have improved since he was a kid cos he’s a dork and wants to look cool? in front of his husband i guess?? anyway, he’s cute.

aaron thinking robert listening to ‘cheesy teen pop’ is sweet

the fact we narrowly escaped them being orange people in the ONS reveal scenes

that time robert ran belle over with his car and then the dingles thanked him for it

aaron and robert planning to propose on the same day? in the same fucking way?? ? they live in their own romcom world, istg

the porsche taking it upon itself to run out of gas since neither one of these idiots can be trusted to propose otherwise

actually just the v impt v crucial v real role cars play in this relationship. i will shut up about the ot3 when i die.

robert finally taking his ring off juST TO PUT IT IN HIS WALLET, WHERE AARON’S RING HAS BEEN, ALL THIS TIME, CLOSE TO HIM, COS HE’S TRYING BUT IT’S HARD, OK? LEAVE HIM ALONE.

the first time they saw each other after xmas 17, and kept smiling at each other in a very best friendly, non in love manner

aaron being SO ANGRY about having to choose alex over robert

rip alex tbh

aaron going to his mum’s to steal her beer instead of just buying some even though david’s shop is nearer

robert being so proud of aaron for how he handled the boxing thing with jason, like he was fully in awe of him i CAN’T

that time robert was just innocently talking to aaron after he so kindly agreed to watch seb and alex came in like aHA! YOU SNAKE, I KNEW YOU WERE UP TO NO GOOD. and robert was like “:O but no but i’m a real boy now, i would never!!1” Meanwhile aaron’s playing dumb and not saying shit cos he knows he bailed on his boyfriend so fast to hang out with his ex and his baby

the lodge scene, it is pure, unfiltered comedy and deserves to be celebrated more (also paddy is the only one who has actually witnessed their insanity multiple times and survived. he’s powerful.)

[writtenbykaichu-a]

Ky + Disney World: a magical journey or whatever?

someone requested fewer posts so y’all get one giant summary of my trip. mmmyup. gonna be image heavy as FUCK. sorry ‘bout that. we’ll go park-by-park, i’ll try to be as brief as possible! click the cut for the deets and junk!

Day 1: Hollywood Studios

This is where I dressed up as Mickey Mouse. It was the day we focused the most on my brother cause most of the Star Wars stuff is here. I kinda mentioned the storm trooper story, but in detail:

We had spent all day tracking down storm troopers cause they were basically the only face characters my brother wanted to see. But they were closed to taking pictures. Plus they kept slipping away from us anyway.

So eventually we were hanging around the Star Wars area and we happened to run into them. And mom asked “can you please take a picture with my son now?” So one of the Storm Troopers grabs my brother by the shoulder and walks off with him and mom’s like freeeaking out and like they take him to this wall and are like interrogating him like “you’re not with the resistance are you?” I’m recording and all that jazz and eventually they turn to me and are like “you with the camera, get over here” (so MY VIDEO actually goes to black lmao but u can still hear them talking to us). It was a blast; later on we were in line to meet Chewey and they saw us and were like “I’m WATCHING you.”

Meeting Mickey and Minnie was a blast. Minnie was absolutely adorable I LOVED her dress and she was bashful and friendly and gave lots of hugs. Mickey on the other hand was bold but still friendly, and the best part was even though he wasn’t matching my outfit, on my way out? He stopped me, gestured out my outfit, and gave me the okay hand. It. Was. The GREATEST.

Cute little side note... they’re dressed from movies they apparently directed and produced for each other. CHECK IT OUT!

ALSOS. We ate at the 50′s place here. IT. WAS. AMAZING. Everyone was RIDICULOUSLY in character; if you were on your phone they told you to “get off the walkie talkie, this is family time!” and if you had your elbows off the table they would get on you for that too, but like... it was still fun? Three strikes and you have to get up and sing a song. None of us got three strikes but the guy at the table next to us did. He had to sing and dance “I’m a little teapot” and it was honestly the highlight of my day. xD Oh and no desert if you don’t finish your plate. The catch? THEY SERVE HUGE-ASS PORTIONS. Seriously I ordered the fried chicken and asked for all dark meat? TWO LEGS AND TWO THIGHS, A SERVING OF POTATOES AND A SERVING OF CORN OK?????? I cleaned my plate tho 83. Mama was proud of me.

Day 2: Animal Kingdom

Yo Animal Kingdom was lit as FUCK. Literally the Tree of Life was THE COOLEST SHIT. And there were PEOPLE DANCING in each area, that was pretty tight too!

We went to the Tusker House which was awesome cause Mickey, Donald, Daisy, and Goofy were all there and they went to EVERY table for pictures and autographs. (Awesome cause I didn’t have to hunt down Goofy!) There was this ADORABLE moment where Daisy walked by Donald and blew him a kiss. Seriously the cutest thing I saw the whole trip.

(I seriously can’t find my Donald picture. Uhhhh good thing I don’t like him that much??? Oops????)

Also, we saw the River of Light but... I was passed out for most of it uh... yeah OTL.

Day 3: Epcot

Let me just say that I ADORED Epcot. And it was where I met my favorite princess so I can’t really complain there. I really loved going through all the countries and seeing all the authentic merch, although it was kind of a :’c that there wasn’t more merch of each princess ya? That aside, let’s talk about Jasmine!

Definitely my favorite encounter, and not just because she’s my favorite princess, but because she was SO interactive. She IMMEDIATELY recognized that I was dressed at her; “You look like me!” But then right after, she noticed my Rajah Tsum Tsum, and she FREAKED OUT. She was like, “YOU HAVE A LITTLE RAJAH!” and she asked me if it was actually Rajah or just a tiger, and I assured her it was a Disney Authentic Rajah. She asked where I got it, I told her it was the last Rajah on Amazon, and you can see her squeezing it and her little “aw” face, like she freaked out over Rajah for quite a bit. At a point, she touched my headband and said “I can see you have more jewels on your head than me; you must’ve gone to the Cave of Wonders!” I thought that was the cutest. The BEST part though, was when mom came up. She was wearing a red top, so Jasmine noted that mom “look[ed] like me when I dressed up for Jafar!” and so I said, “we don’t talk about when you dressed up for Jafar.” So she leaned in and whispered, “Well. Aladdin likes to talk about it sometimes.” And I just gaped at her. At which point she added, presumably hoping to make it better, “Only on special occasions, though!” And I just... lost it. And that was the note we ended on lmaO.

Day 4: Magic Kingdom

Now okay. Magic Kingdom is DEFINITELY where we did and saw the most. I mean we ACTUALLY stayed all day and I mean it’s Magic freaking Kingdom. There was so much to do and see I don’t even know where to start.

(Okay well. Dad made this decision for me since he has some of the pictures and he just HECKING GOT ON THE ROAD TO ARKANSAS WITHOUT TELLING ME. So yeah... some of the things we won’t have pictures of for now. That’s okay there’s a LOT of MK content.)

First thing: THE MOTHER HECKING PARADES. They did these multiple times per day--I actually got to see the Vamos! one twice. (That song has been stuck in my head, actually... watch with caution.) Seriously, they’re SO fun to watch--it’s the only time I remember hearing Mickey and the Gang talk, actually...

TIANAAAA, she was great, I almost cried tbh, seeing her there. If only they had merch to match amirite. She was so sweet, she pointed out that I was wearing green like her and flowers like her and when I told her I dressed up like her on purpose she gave me a HIGH FIVE!

I also got to meet Rapunzel, since she was in the same room as Tiana. She was a sweetie pie, she saw my first visit button and was like “that reminds me of my first visit to MY kingdom” and invited me to go see the floating lanterns, which I equated to the fireworks show at the end of the night. (Which was GLORIOUS by the way.)

Other relevant things: we got to eat at Tony’s. The food was hecking delicious and there were pictures of Lady and Tramp EVERYWHERE. Tony was around too but I forgot to take a picture. -sob- They were playing the movie in the waiting area tho that was cute.

Bonus Round: Disney Springs

Basically my brother didn’t get this jacket he wanted so we hunted it down at the shopping center. But we took some cool pictures, look!

Ok but: WHAT DID YOU BUY???

Yeah you’re probably wondering that, especially if you donated to me, right? DW DW I didn’t forget that part! So shout-out to my mom (and my dad) cause I severely underestimated how much they’d be willing to help me out. That said I STILL went flat broke, coming home with 19 bucks to my name lmaO.

. . .

WORTH IT.

Let’s get to the goods, shall we?

Pictured above:

A Tiana Birthstone Pin (yes, it’s my birthstone)

Minnie and Minnie Mouse plushies

A Disney Parks exclusive Monopoly

A Belle’s/Beast’s Mirror necklace

A Lilo Plushie

A Stitch Plushie

A Journal made to look like the original Lion King VHS packaging

A Tinkerbell that lights up green

A Jasmine ornament

A Princess Pen

A Mickey Measuring Spoon set

A Mickey Pen

A Matching Han Solo and Princess Leia T-Shirt set (for me and the bae)

A WDW Hoodie

A Mickie/WDW pair of “sweatpants” (they’re p thin tbh)

tl;dr: a damn good haul. although tbh i feel like mom’s gonna ask me to pay her back even tho she didn’t mention it earlier cause she has a habit of doing that...

THE END!

And that’s a wrap! Unless you guys wanna see the pics dad has on his phone when he’s back from his trip??? (lemmie know in the replies!) Thanks everyone for your support and interest in my first ever trip to Disney World! It really has been a lifelong dream and I actually???? Stayed healthy despite all the rain and ups and down in the weather--I’m VERY proud of myself and happy that I got to ENJOY the trip rather than trudging along and stuff. Seriously I can’t begin to express how blessed I feel. I love you guys and I’ll try to keep the dash as clean as possible so if you have more questions please send them privately!

Have a magical day!

❤ Ky

[jinsoulsscalp]

selfpara;

short story adapted from fable ‘little red cap’ written for storytelling class. will be further adapted into a graphic novel. i think it’s semi-good so i figured i’d post it. keep in mind that (ir you read it) it’s a first draft, and also that it gets really gory (i didn’t mean for it to, but it did oops). 

the concept i had to start with was one of a role reversal, so i tried to stay somewhat true to the original plot while also adding a role reversal element. a lot of what is written will have to be cut and/or reformatted to fit a graphic novel format.

‘When you grow up wearing rose coloured glasses, all the red flags just look like flags’. It was a sentiment that Red wished she didn’t relate to as much as she did, but alas, it wasn’t like she could go back in time and change anything. It wasn’t as if any wallowing and brooding would bring back her innocence-- or her grandmother, for that matter. Those who knew her told her time and time again that there was nothing she could have done; that she didn’t know any better, and that she wasn’t at fault. The Wolves disguised themselves as men-- they could shift-- and they tricked her. But at the end of the day, Red had told them where to go. She had taken them for their word. She had shown kindness and vulnerability and it came to bite her in the ass.

And it wouldn’t ever again.

With a final grimace at the horizon, the woman sighed, heaving herself to her feet and slinging her bag over her back before making her way out of the forest and into the small, decrepit shack by the river; the one no one dared go inside. It looked condemned, like it would crumble on your head the moment you stepped foot through the door, but Red knew firsthand that looks could be deceiving. And, besides-- the outside looked a lot worse than the inside. She’d spent years reinforcing the walls and the roof to make sure it was safe enough. The best way to keep trespassers away was to make sure it kept looking disgusting.

The door creaked as she inched it open, stepping inside to find a large, hulking silhouette across the room. The Huntsman. “You’re late,” he growled, deep and guttural.

“Yeah, well. It’s not like you had anything better to do than to wait for me,” Red retorted, sarcasm dripping off her tone. “I’m here now. Let’s go hunting.”

--- SIX YEARS PRIOR ---

“You’re late!” a voice cried, worried and frantic, amidst the sounds of pots and pans hitting each other. Red’s eyes flew open as she scrambled out of bed, haphazardly making sure she looked presentable in the grimy little mirror she kept by her window before flying down the stairs. Red was typically quite punctual, but she’d been tossing and turning all night, unable to fall asleep due to pure excitement. Maybe they wouldn’t be seeing each other under the best of circumstances, but Red loved any opportunity she had to see her grandmother.

“Sorry, sorry! I’ll be sure to walk quickly to make up for it!” the girl replied, kissing her mother on her cheek as she began to lace up her shoes.

The haggard middle-aged woman’s brow furrowed sternly. “Now, don’t say that! If you jostle the basket too much, the bottle of wine will shatter!” she exclaimed. “You need to be careful, love; I know you mean well, but this is important.”

Red straightened her posture dutifully, composing herself with a nod. That was right-- her grandmother wasn’t young and spry anymore. She was getting old and had fallen ill. Red wasn’t going to visit just for a social call, either, but instead bringing wine and fresh baking and other supplies-- her grandmother didn’t have the energy to do as much cooking in the daytime, so this would have to tide her over until Red finished school for the year and could go and stay with her to take care of her. “I promise, you don’t have to worry,” she soothed her mother, standing up to take the basket. “I’ll get this to grandmother, and I’ll be back before sundown. You can count on me.”

--- PRESENT DAY ---

“You’re throwing off the whole schedule,” the Huntsman complained as the pair prepared their weapons. His face was contorted into a permanent scowl, years of hardships and discomfort making grumpy his default. “We can only hunt the Wolves at night, Red. Someone catches us killing a seemingly defenseless man in broad daylight, and we’ll hang for it. You know damn well that they have most of the town’s elite under their thumb.”

“The sun set less than an hour ago. And I’m efficient.” A bland reply, with no emotion behind it, no punch to her words. The silver blades in her palms felt like extensions of her own limbs at this point. She’d taken down plenty of the Wolves in the years since she’d lost her family to them, and she had no doubt she’d take down more tonight. She had a score to settle, and she wasn’t going to rest until all of them were dead.

When the pair was primed and ready, with their vital organs protected and extra weapons strapped to their limbs, Red and the Huntsman disappeared into the woods, exchanging whispered ‘good luck’s before they split up for the night. If they needed help from their companion, they could call and the other would come running, but they typically did their best work alone. Trauma was something one had to work through on their own, and both Red and her mentor had a great deal of weight on their shoulders. They had both lost so much to the Wolves, and dealing with their pain was a solitary activity.

Sometimes Red wondered what would happen when it was all over and done with. When the Wolves were dead, would they keep in touch? Or was their connection purely for convenience-- did they just share the same goals and that was all that kept them together? Red couldn’t say she had anyone else in her corner besides the man who had found her on the brink of death when she was fourteen, bloodied and haunted by the sights she had just seen. After watching the Wolves tear apart not only her grandmother, but her mother too, they had come for her. She wouldn’t even be alive if the Huntsman hadn’t heard her cries and come to her rescue. He had taken care of her until she was well enough to take care of herself; an orphaned teenager, living alone in the home she once shared with her mom, going through the motions to make it through another day. When she was older, and stronger, he’d offered her vengeance. He’d offered her training and guidance. And when she was old enough, he’d offered her a place at his side, hunting the Wolves that hid in the shadows, tearing into any sad sack who was stupid enough to travel alone.

Really, he had no use for her beyond helping him kill the Wolves. And she did best on her own anyway. If you didn’t care for anyone, you didn’t have anyone to lose, right?

Red let a little sigh go, taking her usual perch in a tree by the path. The Wolves frequented these parts-- visitors from other towns who didn’t know any better would pass through in the night, and they’d be ambushed by the men would could shift into beasts. Red just had to wait until someone came along.

--- SIX YEARS PRIOR ---

She was late. Red had always been absent-minded and easily distracted, and after a conversation with a neighbor that had gone on a little too long, she was running behind. If she was going to be home by that evening, she was going to have to take a short cut.

So that was what she had done, cutting through the forest instead of taking the well-travelled road that curved around it. There had always been rumors about people disappearing on this trail, but Red didn’t buy it. They were just tales told to children to keep them from running off into the woods. And if she went this way, she’d get to see her grandmother quicker.

She’d walked for hours without seeing another soul, protected from the sun by the large trees spreading their limbs across the path. She wished she’d brought some way of keeping track of the time with her-- by her approximation, based on the sun, it was nearly noon, but she had no way of telling for sure. Red was getting tired and hungry, though, so she sat on a log, opening her basket to indulge in the snacks her mom packed for her.

It was then that she saw him. Scrambling out of the trees and breathing heavy, face covered in gashes and sweat. He looked like he’d just seen a ghost, and his clothes were caked in mud. Red gasped as her eyes locked with his, hand coming to her mouth.

“Are…...Are you okay? What happened?” she asked, putting her basket aside so she could jump up and go to him.

“What is a nice girl like you doing out here all alone?” he wheezed out with a sly smile, scrawny, slimy hands coming to grip her forearm (for support, she assumed).

Red’s stomach sank. Her instincts were telling her to run. Telling her something was very wrong. But she associated that with the state of the man in front of her; surely she was just scared of what had done this to him. No matter how he looked, he was clearly in need, and what right did she have to ignore him just because he looked a little ragged? “I’m going to see my grandmother-- bring her some baking from my mother…..but, I-- you didn’t answer my question! What happened? Do you need help?”

She felt the man’s eyes study her face, dark pupils baring into her soul. “I need medical attention, my dear. I don’t imagine you have bandages in that little basket of yours.”

“No….No, I don’t but…..my grandmother surely has bandages in her home,” Red told him soothingly. He was shaking. Gently pulling her arms away from him, she went to get the rest of her sandwich, offering it to him. “Here-- please take this. I can’t go with you-- I have to be careful carrying the wine in my basket, but her cabin isn’t too far from here. The first house you come across. It’s blue, with a flower garden and a scarecrow out front. Hurry there, and just knock on her door and tell her that Red sent you. She’ll get you all the help you need.”

--- PRESENT DAY ---

It didn’t take much waiting for the first Wolf to show up. A homeless beggar came wandering across the path within minutes of Red taking her watch, and before she knew it, a scrawny, sick looking man began stalking behind him. He was without a doubt one of the Wolves-- torn clothes, covered in dirt, sickly skin. And they eyes. The beady, predatory eyes. No matter how they disguised themselves, you could tell by their eyes that they weren’t human.

Red jumped down from her perch, landing nimbly behind the beggar and the disguised wolf, dagger in her hand shimmering in the moonlight. “Run,” she advised the poor homeless man before lunging at his would-be attacker and pinning him to the ground. Before she could get him into a proper hold, he shifted, turning into a huge drooling carnivore, hungry for her blood, throwing her off of him.

Red rolled back onto her feet, eyes narrowing. With a skilled hand, she swiped at it, just nicking the creature, but that was enough. It’s reaction to the silver made it howl in pain, and she took that opportunity to jump forward, plunging her knife into the beast’s chest.

It was dead. She’d saved one more person from falling prey, but did it even matter anymore? It felt like she was fighting a hydra-- she took one wolf down, and two more sprung up in its place. She could kill all the wolves she wanted, but it wouldn’t bring her family back. It wouldn’t make her feel any more whole.

But at least this gave her purpose. Instead of drifting along, lost and alone, she was channelling her hurt and anger into something. And for now, that had to be enough.

--- SIX YEARS PRIOR ---

She’d been walking right into a trap. She was the world’s stupidest mouse, sauntering right in without a care in the world, and now she was going to pay.

When she’d finally gotten to her grandmother’s house, it had felt off. The front door was ajar. The curtains were drawn. And she could see blood on the doorstep.

She’d rationalized it all, though. Clearly the man she’d met on the path had arrived. He’d probably left the door open in his haste to get treatment, and the blood was likely his! And her grandmother was ill; perhaps the curtains had been drawn because the sunlight was bothersome. Red could explain everything away in her head. Nothing was wrong. Nothing was ever wrong, so why would that change now?

The sight she found once she was inside, however, wasn’t something she even knew how to process. The blood she’d seen on the doorstep had just been the beginning-- the whole cabin was covered in blood, cabinets and walls splattered in dark crimson like it was some sort of twisted Jackson Pollock painting for some sick fuck who thought himself edgy. The bed in the corner of the one-room home was empty, and there was a body on the ground. Face-down and unrecognizable; clearly it was the source of the blood. With a sinking feeling, Red had recognized the nightgown the corpse was wearing-- long, blue, and floral. It was her grandmother.

And sitting at the kitchen table, lounging with his feet up, was the man she’d met on the path.

She didn’t have time to scream or cry before he jumped at her, clapping a hand over her mouth, his other arm wrapping around her torso and keeping her from flailing her arms. A moment later, she’d been thrown across the room, blacking out when her head hit a wall.

When Red woke up, she was bound and gagged, sitting at her grandmother’s table. The man was still there, still watching her. He told her he was a wolf, and that the only reason she was still alive was because she was bait. “A sweet young girl like you?” he’d crooned. “Someone will come looking for you before long. I’ll have myself a feast when they come.”

He’d sat with her and waited as tears ran down her cheeks, sobs muffled by the gag. Evening turned into night, and while Red grew more and more tired, she couldn’t sleep. How could anyone sleep in a situation like the one she was in? She felt like if she fell asleep, she would never wake up again-- and considering her circumstances, that wasn’t necessarily an irrational feeling.

In the early hours of the morning, she heard the calls. Her mother’s worried voice, getting closer and closer. The man-- the Wolf-- grinned at Red, an evil grin, putting his finger against his lips mockingly. She couldn’t make any noise if she wanted to, and he knew that. This was just a game to him. The apex predator toying with his food. Having a little fun before his hunger was sated.

Red couldn’t look away. She couldn’t close her eyes. She was transfixed as the man shifted into his beastly form, digging his large, jagged teeth into her mother’s body as soon as she came into the cabin. Red thrashed around frantically. Desperately. She tried to scream or get free, ropes chafing against her wrists. She finally managed to get the gag loose, yelling and crying for help-- there were no houses nearby, but surely if she was loud enough someone would hear? The wolf turned his sights on her, the same beady eyes the man used to look her over on the path before, now being used by a wolf, appreciating its dessert.

The pain was unbearable. She’d gotten scrapes while playing outside before, and she’d broken an arm as a child when she’d fallen out of a tree, but this was so much different. Her entire body felt like it was on fire, and she could feel every spot where incisors punctured her skin.

And then, as quick as it had begun, it was over. The wolf slumped forward on top of her, making it all but impossible for her to breathe, but it had stopped. Opening her teary eyes, Red saw a man pulling the beast off of her. A real man this time-- eyes kind instead of dark and predatory. Before she blacked out again, she heard him whispering to her. Assuring her that she would be okay now. That he was there, and that the wolf was dead. That he would find her help. That was all she could remember before slipping unconscious once more.

--- PRESENT DAY ---

It was a successful night. By the time the sun began to rise, Red had killed four wolves, leaving their carcasses to rot by the side of the path. Anyone who knew what the Wolves were capable of would be grateful, even if the sight of the corpse was likely unbearable. Taking her time in the crisp early-morning air, Red walked back to the riverside shack. At first she assumed she was the first to get back (usually the Huntsman was in the common area waiting for her), but as she began to unstrap weapons from her thighs, she heard him. She heard low, muted sobs from the other room. No one else knew about this place. It could only be him.

Cautiously walking over to the back room, Red peeked her head in to see him, sitting on the ground, picture in his hand. It looked like a painting-- one of the ones families got commissioned, so that they’d have a portrait of their family. As Red came closer, she saw the people in the portrait; the man was obviously him (she could tell by the stature), but there was also a beautiful woman. And a little girl, no more than twelve.

Red had lost everything to the Wolves. And now she’d made the connection-- she wasn’t the only one.

Gently taking the portrait from the Huntsman’s hands, Red swallowed hard, giving her mentor a hug and rubbing his back comfortingly. For the first time in years, she let herself cry, and she whispered soothingly to him. “I’ve got you,” she murmured. “I’m here. It will all be okay.”

Maybe she didn’t believe everything she was saying. But, though she refused to admit it, this was her father figure. This was the man that had given her a future. And someday, she’d help him take his back.

[peachcitt]

an emotionally charged chap 35!!! @gigiree @luvclick @megatraven

first off, im very sorry about skipping last week i just REALLLYYYY wasn’t feeling writing i don’t even know why and i felt bad about it but here i am now wooooo!! in other news my oc story now has 20 pages and idk how to feel about that. it’s wild. 

also i say this chapter is emotionally charged because DANG. i didn’t mean for all the stuff to happen but it did and honestly when do i ever plan for these things to happen. but it gets a little intense. a lot intense. oops. forgive me

Read from the beginning/where it’s originally posted here.

Story description: They say that curiosity killed the cat. But it can do a whole lot more than that.

Chapter description: The lab holds a lot of memories and a lot of secrets. Marinette wants to know it all, but Chat is keeping it all in the bag for now.

Rated: T (because some things may not be suited for some audiences... teensy bit of injury and a whole lot of emotion for this chapter)

There was an awkward silence that stretched between the three of them. Marinette’s eye twitched. Chat’s ring beeped, and he looked down at it idly. Sabrina cleared her throat.

“You have a Miraculous, too, right Marinette?” she asked, and Chat shot her a glare. Marinette didn’t get why he seemed so bothered.

“I do,” she said, pulling out the yo-yo. She could see Sabrina’s eyes track the movement, and for a moment she wondered if she should’ve lied.

“I saw on my feed that yours is a bit primitive.” Marinette raised her eyebrows. Sabrina flinched. “Not that it’s a bad thing of course, but I could install some new features to help you out on the remainder of your journey. Like texting, social media, emergency jetpack, face time, and other stuff like that.”

One of those was not like the others, but Marinette decided not to comment on it. She looked over to Chat, who was staring at Sabrina, suspicion obvious in his every feature. “Would that be okay?” she whispered to him. She liked the idea of having some more back up on the yo-yo, but she wasn’t sure if she trusted the Royal Scientist to do that.

Chat raised his chin, looking down his nose at Sabrina. She shrunk back. He seemed to go through a moment of careful contemplation, and it looked like he figured out what would be best. “Only if I get to help.”

Meaning he’d watch and make sure Sabrina didn’t do anything weird.

Sabrina didn’t seem keen to the idea, but when Marinette nodded in agreement, she sighed. “Of course.” She reached for Marinette’s Miraculous, and Marinette looked over at Chat before setting it in Sabrina’s hands. “It’ll only take a moment. Follow me,” she said, beckoning to Chat.

They disappeared from Marinette’s view, and she heard a lot of loud banging and tinkering and a lot more bickering.

She could hear Chat’s low rumble of a voice, but it was the voice he used when he didn’t want to be heard, and it worked. Marinette couldn’t discern what he was saying. She could hear Sabrina’s voice loud and clear, though.

“What do you mean you haven’t told her?” she heard Sabrina demand. Her eye twitched, and she cursed the shocks that Chloe had administered to her system. “That’s important information, Noir.” There was a pause as Chat muttered his counter argument, punctuated by a rather loud bang. “Of course you don’t have to tell the specifics – you never tell anyone the specifics – but it wouldn’t hurt to talk about it for once!”

“Don’t lecture me like you know things,” Marinette heard Chat say. They were on their way back. “I’ll tell or not tell whatever I want to whomever I please.” He sounded more annoyed than pissed, and Marinette blew out a small sigh of relief.

When the two were once again in front of Marinette again, Sabrina handed the yo-yo to Marinette. It didn’t look different, but when Marinette had it in her hands, it seemed to weigh slightly heavier. Magic, probably.

“I added my phone number in there,” Sabrina said, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear, “just in case you need any help with any new functions or anything like that.”

“Gesture’s appreciated,” Chat said, narrowing his eyes at Sabrina. “But I’m right by her side, and I’m just as much of a scientist as you are.” Sabrina rolled her eyes but didn’t bother replying.

“Thank you, Sabrina,” Marinette said, placing the yo-yo back in her pocket. She ignored Chat’s look. “For everything.”

Sabrina blushed deeply, portions of her body turning invisible. She pushed her hair back behind her ear. “I’m- I’m, uh, going to the, um, bathroom.” She hurried away.

“You’re too nice to her,” Chat said immediately after Sabrina was out of sight.

Marinette slapped his arm. “She helped me through Chloe’s game show of death. We’re both alive because of her.”

Chat pouted for a moment, but he seemed to be grateful enough for Sabrina’s help, and he knew better than to argue with Marinette about that kind of stuff.

“So,” Marinette said, wandering over to Sabrina’s cluttered desk and moving a paper idly, “what’s that important information Sabrina thinks you should tell me?” Marinette was not an idiot. Her eye twitched again.

She was still pretending to be innocent, and when she looked over at Chat, he had his face turned up to the ceiling, a deep sigh in the process of going through his lungs. “It’s really nothing you should worry about.”

“I’ll worry about it anyway,” she said with a shrug.

“Really, Marinette,” he said, and she realized he was serious, “it’s better for everyone the less people know about it.”

Taking her hand off the desk, Marinette turned to face him. “Once this all blows over, and we’re all safe, will you tell me?”

He gave her a pained look then, and she realized there had been no question in her statement other than the one intended. There was going to be an afterwards for them, and she believed it. “I don’t know, bug. I don’t know.”

She frowned. “If this is about whether or not we’ll both live through this-”

“That’s not what it’s about,” Chat interrupted. “It’s just…” He trailed off, blowing out a breath and ruffling a hand through his hair. “Can we look around? I want to see the rest of the lab.”

It wasn’t the smoothest segue that Chat had ever come up with, and Marinette got the point. Whatever it was, Chat planned on keeping it under wraps for an indefinable amount of time.

“Yeah,” she said, smiling at him. Her eye twitched, and she ignored it. “Let’s look around.”

 ---

 The bottom floor was relatively bare save for the viewing screen by Sabrina’s desk, the hole that Chloe had made in the wall, and the bathroom that Sabrina had slipped into, but the top floor that they got to via the escalator seemed to be a bit more filled. It had several bookshelves of human history in different languages, and it also had bookshelves filled with fiction and comics. Those bookshelves had no label, and Marinette hoped those also weren’t considered human history.

Chat wandered through the room like a ghost, trailing his fingers over the bookshelves and the walls with a sad look on his face. To Marinette, the expression was bit… nostalgic.

She stood by what looked like Sabrina’s bed, her hand resting on the wall that opened up to the escalator going down. It had notches from a couple feet off the ground to just above Marinette’s height. She traced the notches, looking over to Chat, who was staring at a wall with that same nostalgic look.

“How long did you work here?” she asked, and Chat seemed to notice her presence for the first time since they’d arrived to the top floor.

He saw where she was standing and he drifted over to her, his fingers touching the notches in the walls. “Since I was a kid,” he said, and his fingers traced over some less deep scratches in the wall by a notch. The scratches formed a capital letter ‘A.’

“A kid?” Marinette asked, and her heart pulled at the nod that Chat gave her. He was lost somewhere in his memories, and now Marinette was understanding there were a lot of them here. She looked down at the notches near the floor.

They were height notches. To measure a kid’s growth.

“Chat…” She tried to catch his eye, her fingers brushing over the letter A beside the notch she’d been touching.

He had turned away from her, back to the wall he’d been staring at before. “This whole wall used to be a chalkboard, you know,” he said quietly. “My… my colleagues” – the word seemed to pain him – “used it for extra space, and they gave me extra chalk so that I could keep myself busy. They held a contest each week for best drawing, and I always won.” His bright green eyes seemed wet.

She moved to stand next to him, staring at the wall with him. She tried to imagine a little Chat drawing on the wall, winning drawing contests and making scientists smile. The thought made her lips turn up a little. “You liked it here?” she asked.

“I grew up surrounded by science and progress. By people that cared about the future, and… and cared about me.” He paused. Marinette didn’t trust herself to look over at him. She was afraid of what kind of face he was making. “I more than liked it. I loved it. The years I spent here were the best in my life.”

It took a moment for the words to sink in. Marinette frowned. “You sound like you’d never want to leave. So why did you?” She finally worked up the courage to look at him. His bottom lip was trembling.

Before Marinette could act on her sudden urge to hold him, he took a deep breath and closed his eyes. “A lot of things went wrong. Some experiments failed, and my-my colleagues went rogue. They made a lot of mistakes, and it didn’t feel right for me to come back. It wasn’t safe.”

There was a lot of information that he was holding back; that much was clear. But Marinette got the feeling she shouldn’t press on specifics, no matter how much she wanted to know. “But you didn’t, um, go rogue, right?” The phrase felt strange on her tongue. She wondered what Chat meant by that. “Why was it dangerous to come back?”

Chat reached out, pressing his palm flat on the pale yellow wallpaper, as if by trying hard enough he would still be able to feel the chalkboard underneath. “When everything went to hell, my allies shifted, and so did my way of thinking. This lab worked towards hero work, and I used to believe in that, but it never seemed practical to me afterwards. I couldn’t call attention to myself by being a hero if I didn’t want to be killed. I didn’t go rogue the way my colleagues did, but I did turn my back on Plagg.”

When everything went to hell. Throughout all of Chat’s brief explanation, that was the one phrase that had stuck in Marinette’s head. She wondered if she’d ever know the full details of what had happened.

Closing her eyes, she pressed her hand on the wall beside Chat’s. It was a prayer, and it was a promise.

“I’ll be the hero,” she said, opening her eyes to look at Chat. “I’ll be the hero,” she repeated.

Chat laughed, shaking his head. “You already are.”

He took his hand off the wall.

---

 When they reached the bottom floor again, Chat started walking to go forwards, but Marinette turned back the way that they had come in. “Wasn’t there another path?” she asked, tugging on his arm. She really just wanted to go back to the save point that she remembered was there, both to get rid of the twitch she’d had ever since Chloe had electrocuted her and to save.

He frowned. “It should still be blocked off, and I don’t think even I’m charismatic enough to get them to leave.”

“Don’t sell yourself short,” Marinette said, already pulling him along with her. “And besides, the plan was for me to charm them away. Because we both know I’m better.”

“Can’t argue with that,” Chat said with a shrug.

It was a bad attempt at humor to lighten both of them up, and Marinette knew it. But Chat was obviously troubled by the sight of the lab and the memories it brought back, and Marinette didn’t like seeing that faraway look in his eyes. If he wasn’t going to tell her what was bothering him, she might as well try to make him feel better.

Before they stepped in front of the guards blocking the path, Marinette nudged the toe of her boot to the save point. Her twitch immediately went away and it felt like life had been breathed back into her shocked muscular system.

She hadn’t realized how much the electro-shock had affected her until it wasn’t affecting her anymore. She looked over at Chat, completely frozen next to her, that same troubled look on his face from before.

Pressing the ‘yes’ button, the world came back to life, and Marinette touched Chat’s arm. He looked over at her, raising his eyebrows and erasing that look from his face. “I have some food in the yo-yo if you need it. Since you got shocked.”

“I’m perfectly fine,” Chat said, giving her a toothy grin. It didn’t reach his eyes.

“Don’t lie to me.”

His smile softened into something that wasn’t fake. “I’m being serious,” he said, taking her hand. “I heal fast.”

She gave him a once over, examining for twitches or signs of fatigue. All she got was the tired look in his eyes and the gentle downward slop of his shoulders that she recognized from the times when he was thinking too much. “Are you sure?”

“Positive.”

She eyed him a little more. Finally, she sighed. “Okay, I believe you.” She believed that he was physically fine, maybe in need of a quick catnap, but not mentally. But he didn’t want to talk about it – she could tell by the way he was avoiding her eyes.

Giving his hand a squeeze – one she hoped helped him know that she was there if he needed her – she stepped in front of the guards. “I’d like to go on this path.”

The two guards, faces covered and very different in terms of height, looked at each other. The taller one looked back at her and straightened. “We’re not supposed to let anyone through. Orders and junk.”

“Alya says there’s a human on the loose,” the smaller one piped in. He made a full-body gesture that seemed to go along with an eye roll that Marinette couldn’t see. “Which is ridiculous. It’s been years since a human’s been down here, and there’s no real way they would be able to survive this long, let alone get inside the Underground.”

Marinette felt a little proud. She looked back to Chat to share a nice look, but he was staring at the guards with his mouth open.

“Max?” he asked, walking up to stand beside Marinette and pointing at the smaller guard, who shifted uncomfortably. “Why are you part of the Royal Guard?”

“None of your business,” the taller guard said, shifting forward as if to shield Max from Chat.

“Didn’t ask you, Kim,” Chat said, barely offering the taller guard a glance. “Why are you a guard?” Chat asked again to Max.

“Because I want to be,” Max said, moving his head as if he was lifting his chin.

“Yeah, that’s a load of sh-”

“Chat,” Marinette interrupted, resting a hand on his arm. He pulled back, but he didn’t seem happy about it. “How about you explain to me what’s happening.” She was getting very tired of never knowing what was going on when Chat got upset.

“This guy,” Chat said, angrily gesturing to Max, “is a scientist.”

Marinette frowned. “But didn’t Sabrina say that she was the only one right now?”

“That’s because she is,” Max said, stabbing his spear into the ground and folding his arms. “I’m not a scientist, Chat.”

“You are! You love science. You told me that you wanted to be the Royal Scientist.”

There was no telling what kind of expression Max had on, but Marinette thought it might’ve been a mix between pity and embarrassment. “That was when we were kids. And besides, a lot has changed. You also said you wanted to be the Royal Scientist, and now here we are.”

Kim, the taller guard, looked down at Max with what seemed to be disbelief. “You wanted to be the Royal Scientist?” They all ignored him.

“You know why I couldn’t go back,” Chat said, shaking his head. “But it’s different for you.”

Max shook his head. “Listen, Chat, I was just as involved with the lab as you were” – Chat was already shaking his head again – “and I also believed in the old policies. I liked what we were doing before… Before we messed up.” A slight waver of confusion appeared in his voice. “I couldn’t do the experiments that King Plagg wanted, so I just left the lab.”

“You could’ve changed things!” Chat said. He was getting more upset. Marinette wondered if she should intervene.

“And what are you doing?” Max demanded, seemingly undeterred by Chat’s anger. “Being a bum in the Royal Guard, lazing around the entire Underground? It’s like you don’t even care that your p-”

“I knew my place,” Chat interrupted, his words a growl that Marinette imagined had scraped his throat coming out. “And you should’ve known yours. You could’ve stopped Plagg. You. Could’ve. Fought. Back.”

At the last word, green light burst from Chat’s body, surrounding him in a sickly green aura dotted with black that radiated a deadly heat. Marinette backed away from him, almost not recognizing him with the rage that had distorted his features.

Both Max and Kim had stumbled backwards, and Kim raised his spear towards Chat. “That’s enough,” Kim said, pointing the spear at Chat’s chest. Chat grabbed the shaft of the spear, but he didn’t do anything to actually start a fight. Where his hand was touching the spear, the metal started to look as if it were rusting and flaking away.

Kim turned his head to Marinette. “I’m sorry, little lady, but you’re going to have to leave.” He really did sound sorry, but when he turned back to Chat, she saw his amicable nature disappear. “And take Chat Noir with you.”

“I will. I’m very sorry,” Marinette said, easing back towards Chat, wary of his green and black aura. Glancing at the slowly decaying spear, she reached out to try and touch him, try and ease him away but the light burned her fingers. She yelped, pulling back.

Her yelp seemed to bring Chat back to himself because he let go of Kim’s spear and looked away from Max, finally looking over at Marinette. His aura disappeared immediately, and he reached towards Marinette.

She pulled away on instinct, her fingertips throbbing and burning. When she saw the intense wounded look of regret pull across his features, she reached forward again, but with her other hand. “Hey, hey,” she said, gently touching his arm, “let’s go, okay?”

“I’m so sorry,” Chat said as they started to walk away, back towards the lab. He sounded like he was about to cry. “I’m so, so sorry.”

Marinette looked down at her injured fingertips. It looked like the top few layers of skin had simply disintegrated, leaving behind a horrible mess of blood and what looked like bone. She shut her eyes tight and clenched her fist, ignoring the pain. “It’s alright. I’m okay.”

“No, you’re not,” Chat said as they walked back into the lab, hanging his head. “I… I lost control. And I hurt you.”

The lab was still deserted, and Marinette looked around. There was a package of instant noodles on Sabrina’s desk next to a bunch of others, so Marinette took one and opened it up as quickly and quietly as she could. She broke off a little portion of the uncooked noodles from the square and stuffed it in her mouth, chewing on the dry noodles and watching as a new layer of pink, raw skin grew over the disintegrated bits of her fingertips.

She went back to Chat and hid the package of noodles behind her back, showing her newly healed fingers to Chat. “You did,” she admitted, making him look at her fingers. “But look. It’s not that bad.”

He looked up at her, his expression lost, and Marinette thought of the utter mess her fingers had been only a moment before. “It could’ve been, Marinette. It could’ve been really bad.”

“But it wasn’t,” Marinette said, lying a little bit. The sensation that had overcome her fingertips as soon as she had touched that green dotted black aura was unlike any other she had every felt. She was glad she had pulled away instantly, or else she felt like that disintegration would’ve spread throughout her whole body.

Shaking his head after staring at her for a moment longer, he ruffled a hand through his hair and walked ahead of her to exit the lab. She took that opportunity to stuff the noodles into the storage compartment of her yo-yo.

Jogging a little to catch up, Marinette caught Chat’s hand in hers, wincing a little as her new skin brushed against the leather of his glove. He seemed to almost pull his hand away, but she held firm, walking beside him.

“Can…” Marinette was almost afraid to continue, but she took a deep breath, gathering up her courage. “Can I ask what that aura was?” she asked. Chat’s steps slowed to a stop, bringing her to a stop as well, just outside of the lab.

He lifted their conjoined hands, keeping his eyes on that instead of her face. “Everyone down here holds a certain sort of magic.”

“Right,” Marinette said, nodding her head. “Akumas are basically made of magic.”

A small smile pulled at his lips, and his eyes flicked up to meet her gaze before going back to their hands. “Correct. Obviously I’m no exception. I’ve got some magic in me.”

“And that – that green and black light? That was your magic?”

Chat moved their hands so that he could see the ring on his ring finger. Marinette could feel it pressing into her skin. “It was some of it. A magician always has other tricks up their sleeves, right?”

“Right,” Marinette said. They didn’t start walking again. “Chat?”

“Hm?”

“What is your magic?”

He sighed, and his head dropped even lower than it already was. “It’s called Cataclysm.” There was a pause, and he released a small and bitter laugh. “Ha, get it? Cataclysm?”

Marinette didn’t think it was that funny, and neither did Chat.

“What does it do?”

Chat lifted his free hand, making sure it was away from both of them, and that same green and black aura burst to life around his hand, but it wasn’t like before. It only circled his hand, and he seemed to have total control of it. “This power can destroy anything I touch.” He looked up, finally holding her gaze. “It wasn’t just named for the pun. It can cause cataclysms.”

The aura around his left hand disappeared, and he dropped his arm. Marinette squeezed the hand she had a hold of, and then she brought his hand up to her lips, giving each knuckle on his hand a kiss. He shivered, dropping his head to touch their foreheads together.

“It seems like you can only cause cataclysms if you want to,” she murmured against his hand. “But you don’t want to.”

“Magic is an emotional force,” Chat whispered, and it seemed like that was the only volume of voice he could manage at the moment. “It can be affected by the user’s intense emotions, and it’s easy to lose control. I lost control earlier.”

Marinette gave his hand another kiss. “But you didn’t cause a cataclysm. You still had control, even if you thought you didn’t. You didn’t hurt anybody on purpose, and you didn’t destroy anything.”

That seemed to be exactly what Chat needed to hear. His breathing stuttered, and he brought their hands down. There was nothing between them except for their shared breathing space. Marinette could feel Chat’s breath brushing on her lips. She closed her eyes.

A loud ding sounded from Marinette’s pocket, and it startled the two of them apart.

Pulling out the yo-yo and sliding it open to the phone function, Marinette saw it was only a notification from a social media site that Sabrina had signed her up to. It looked like Sabrina had posted something about forgetting to watch Marinette and Alya’s fight.

Marinette blew out a breath, not sure of what to make of the situation. She combed her fingers through her bangs, trying to push down the blood that had rushed to her cheeks. “Sorry,” she said, not sure if she should apologize, but doing it anyway.

Chat cleared his throat, also running a hand through his hair. His ears twitched. His face looked a bit red. “It’s cool.”

How the hell was she supposed to clear the awkward air that now surrounded them? She was very sure that going back to whatever they had been about to do was out of the question, but she wasn’t sure where else to go.

She decided to go back to what they had been talking about before. “Don’t, uh, don’t akumas’ type of magic have something to do with how they turned? So, like, how-” She stopped, suddenly realizing in horror how intrusive that question was and mentally kicking herself for it.

“It’s a boring story, bug,” Chat said, placing an easy grin on his face and linking their arms. “You’d hate it.”

Marinette didn’t think that, but she was glad he seemed to not be offended by her stupid question. “Oh, really?” she asked, forcing herself to relax and not let her skin buzz where the sleeve of her sweater was making contact with the leather of his suit.

“Yes, really.” He started to walk forward, pulling her along until she matched her pace. “Now I believe we have a mission to complete.”

The thought of continuing to walk in this horrible heat made Marinette want to curl up on the spot. “Can’t we take a break?”

“You had your break. Ate some noodles and everything.” She gaped at him, and his grin softened a little as he winked at her. “And sweetheart, I do think we should save the world sooner rather than later.”

A grin of her own pulled at her lips, and she walked a little closer to him. “Darling, I couldn’t agree more.”