Tumgik
#even though its not the language id like to be fluent in... i would like fluency in *something* other than english
merrilark · 2 years
Text
Love how I can read a decent amount of Spanish but the second I have to speak it, my brain fritzes out and I suddenly don't know anything LOL
5 notes · View notes
romanticfistfightz · 23 days
Note
hiiii helllo!!!! hope you had goodnight <33
anyway. polish spn yapping cause im super not normal.
honestly i had in my mind that deans impala is. maluch. like. get it? BABY. though i guess it doesnt make sense cause its a small car and he needs space to hide bodies and stuff. or maybe he has a trailer or something
i think. since poland is kinda small country. broń brothers would hunt on the whole continent. like they had to learn 100% english and phrases in other languages. just yknow. euro travelling <33
also. mwn of the letters. this is the thing im the most normal about. so they were there since. Centuries. like still when we had kings and shit. they were kinda like wiedźmini, later became more like librarians. lol. they survived rozbiory and were the whole polska podziemna stuff yknow. they died in ww2. lmao. (also. daniel deserved to kill htler btw <33). also. im NOT normal about this. okayy soo men of the letter were. always on november 1st. doing the whole dziady thing. adam mickiewicz was invited to one of them and he was like. wow. im gonna write a book about this! so he did. and then daniel i sebastian, as legacies, decide to also. do this shit. and because they are broń brothers. smething goes wrong <3
okay. thats all for now !!! save me polish spn sAVE MEEEEE
hii yes it was good other than misha collins being there and running a . kind of a thrift shop but for mexican made and mexican-like stuff?? but also it wasnt really mexican i guess there was some handmade porcelain too and when i went in to buy sth he blocked my way and told me im late to therapy . so . also i didnt have to go to the office today bc life loves me and the id cards system broke so it wouldnt even log in that iw as there ^_^
also yess ive been thinking abt polish spn too 2days ago i spent like 40mins doing research abt cars to decide which one to give them also i will talk more abt it when i finish the art cuz i dont wanna spoil it too much<3 but yeah to make it super polish i decided to make it . not daniel bron but daniel strzelecki bc strzelba still counts and strzelecki is much more of a polish last name 🥰 also imo itd be fun if they went on the whole continet but keep more to eastern europe cuz theyd have beef with like . french hunters that take care of the west more or sth. and daniel knows polish and english which is useful yeah but not when they go to some fuckass nowhere in latvia and seba is fluent in those and also like . russian and idk hungarian and can communicate a bit in other languages so its easier for them to do jobs
i dont remember the men of letters thing in 100% but maybe like . 75%. but yesss thats so fun also mickiewicz man of letters imagine him getting invited then writing a book and then men of letters being like hey. thats not cool dude ! stop writing abt real shit and he was like yeah okay but people think im just very smart and creative so fuck you . also mickiewicz man of letters kinda and slowacki was a hunter and that's why they didnt like each other much. or something .
5 notes · View notes
fuck-customers · 1 year
Note
Just bc you don't speak English doesn't mean you should just ignore me. Dont pretend you don't know what hello means. Even if you get it just from context.
Id even take an hola or bonjour back, at least id know you acknowledged me.
Maybe its just me but if I were to travel to a place where I dont know the language, id at least memorize hello, goodbye, please, and thank you. I make sure I learn that when I visit a friend who speaks another language at home. I know at least those 4 in ASL, Spanish, French, german, Italian, and Russian. Its just 4 phrases.
Shit, I'd even take "no hablo englais" (I may have messed up spelling but I can't read Spanish yet)
Im particularly angered at this one couple who will flat out ignore anyone who doesn't speak Spanish. Like at least a nod would be good? But to ignore us? Feels shitty.
I am trying to learn Spanish though. Its tough bc for some reason French is stuck in my head and I will answer in half French half Spanish. Languages are hard, especially English, which is why im not expecting everyone to be fluent in it. Its confusing.
I want to learn those 4 and "I love you" in as many languages as I can.
Don't fucking ignore people no matter what language you speak thanks
@staff the new post editor sucks!
49 notes · View notes
janokenmun · 3 months
Note
How hard would you say it is to reach a fluent level in Toki Pona? I tried picking it up a bit a while back bc I have a big interest in conlangs, but the innate lack of specificity in the vocabulary was kinda stressing out my autism lol
I still really wanna learn a conlang though, and Toki Pona does seem really neat conceptually
hmm
i havent reached a fluent level i dont think but u can reach an approximately conversational level in like a month or two, id estimate smth on the order of probably 30-60 hours of work for that
if u wanna learn it i recommend the "o pilin e toki pona" series by jan Telakoman especially, that (and the webcomic "kijetesantakalu o!", tho i wouldnt start with it) are the resources that made my toki pona go from like struggling to actually pretty alright
theres also lipu sona pona by /dev/urandom for a more like standard language learnin experience, and lipu sona by soweli Tesa for a similar thing but with sitelen pona (toki pona's script) as well. iirc i personally started with lipu sona pona, read some kijetesantakalu o, went through lipu sona, and then watched o pilin e toki pona, tho i doubt that's optimal
also the official kama sona discord (aka toki pona learners' discord) where they have a bunch of resource links and u can ask questions and they have translation challenges n stuff
tl;dr its probably easier than like any other language on the planet (except maybe some even simpler toki pona derivatives) but its still a wholeass language and is gonna take some time
3 notes · View notes
Note
hi! i was wondering if you happened to have any knowledge of just how much ASL is used in csi?
its been a while since my first full watch, and im maming my way through again now but i thought id ask: i know gil uses asl in 11.13, 3.4, and 1.20, and that sara uses it in 11.13 as well. i am SURE that at least one other chaeacter does too (greg or nick are sticking in my mind...) but its been so long i know theres a fair chance im misremembering. are there any other times gil/sara have used asl in the show? or have any of the other characters given it a shot?
hi, anon!
as far as i know, the only episodes to feature asl usage are episodes 01x20 "sounds of silence," 03x02 "the accused is entitled" (when grissom briefly passes on a message from his mother to phillip gerard), 03x04 "a little murder," and 11x13 "the two mrs. grissoms," and the only main characters to converse in asl* are grissom and sara.
* nick does make a gesture toward betty grissom in episode 11x13 "the two mrs. grissoms" when he and sara talk to her outside the school which may be a sign, but a) i'm not sure it's asl proper, and b) even if it is, it's a singular one-off word, and he clearly isn't fluent beyond it.
admittedly, my familiarity with the latter seasons of the show is low, so it's possible another character may use asl at some point later on. however, as it's something of a plot point in both episode 01x20 "sounds of silence" that grissom is the only csi to have any familiarity with deaf culture/sign language and then again in episode 11x13 "the two mrs. grissoms" that sara is the only csi who can communicate in sign and she can't do so very well, i'm inclined to believe if anyone else on the team could sign, it would have to be one of the post-s12 newbies, like russell, finn, or morgan (as opposed to nick or greg).
that's just my hunch, though, as, like i said, i don't have a very good memory of s10-s15 of the show, so if anyone else knows better than i do, maybe drop a line in the replies?
thanks for the question! please feel welcome to send another any time.
6 notes · View notes
nanjokei · 1 year
Note
i didn't see a post about mtl that you deleted, i was just talking about annoying stuff i saw in fandom and it sounded like you knew the feeling, i didn't mean to sound like i was vaguing something specific
that said i don't speak japanese at all so if you do have thoughts on japanese mtl specifically i'd love to hear them, i'm sure they're insightful!
i see!
im not fluent in japanese at all and if i were to list the languages i actually speak id never list it, i barely know enough to enjoy things amongst myself and even then its a lot of mining terms and looking stuff up EVERY TIME (for example if something has a reading time of 1 hour, it will probably take me 4~5 hrs to get through it best case scenario). so i am not the person to ask at all for this kind of thing. this is not me being humble. it is objective truth. i guess it would be "being familiar enough to enjoy my hobbies" rather than even "knowing" or "being learned". i never made any effort to study so in the end i really only know my native arabic and taught english. so to be honest, it isn't in my place to talk like i do know... (though sometimes... because i am human and a dumbass... i make this mistake)
i would not really share my explicit opinion or retelling on certain happenings and events of what i watched/read because id be afraid of making mistakes that influence the other person's opinion incorrectly. but hey, this is the exact kind of responsibility you're talking about, right?
my opinion squarely comes from being someone who DOES speak at least two languages fluently though, and has been in spaces where fan translation is prominent. so it is a mix of "yeah i completely understand the sentiment even if the target language is different". i don't wanna link a random ass throwaway blog, so i pasted the contents of the old post i made into a pastebin. i thought it was way too emotionally charged and aggressive, which is why i deleted it. im not too fond of coming off like that or "ranting" T_T but i guess it's fine to link now that i'm very removed from the feeling of annoyance i had when i typed it up.
3 notes · View notes
megismorallysunny · 1 year
Text
10/07/23
i truthfully dont know how to blog or do anything like that, ive always struggled even keeping a diary or just simply writing but idk that might just be a me thing, and by me thing i mean quite a lot of people aswell. Ive always seen people talk about how keeping a diary has been really good for them and im like woohoo great but kind of confused how.
i think i get the image i just dont know how to get to the end point.. and thats why im writing a blog, ive never read a blog like ever, i think its just people talking about their lives, id much rather talk a lil bout my life and more bout my interest. i dont have too many i just get back into them really quickly and then fall out of them really hard.
so.. i guess i should start talking about my day, well i woke up at 8am, ive recently gotten into the habit of feeling tired at like 10 or 11pm, i try to get to sleep then even though it makes me miss a lot of twitch streams. anyways i woke up ate a granola bar then did a little spanish learning, french duolingo then played on my switch. i really love learning languages but im terrible in my countrys native language, no one really knows it fully and its taught horribly (i got 23% in my last test).
i take french in my school and my teachers really strict and mean but a great teacher and pretty funny and nice when in a good mood. I also do woodwork and my teacher doesnt do anything, he doesnt talk to us ,he doesnt teach us, NOTHING. I would a hundred times over choose to do 2x french rather than woodwork. I started learning spanish because i seen a spanish stream by Roier and he seemed really funny and cool, i started learning spanish just then, i dont watch roier much now, mostly just foolish, i really like him ( i didnt think i ever would) and now i tune in for nearly every other stream.
ive recently reached 50 days on duolingo and im pretty happy about it, im not nearly fluent and im 100% ok with that. im not sure how to send this off, i know i talk a little formally but im a minor (14) and im hoping to meet friends if i can.
2 notes · View notes
zeawesomebirdie · 2 years
Note
There's also a fair amount of Snarry in russian from what I've seen 👀👀 (a lot of it is on other websites though?)
(but for real that's like one of the reasons I picked russian in uni, I figured, there's lots of stuff online that's in russian, it should help. It didn't because I still have to decipher every word like in japanese but like. In spirit. I would be able to read more Snarry. Maybe one day.)
Also conversational in french?? Damn what is it with everyone learning french, why would you pick this language??? This is like affectionate ribbing of french, it's just every time I think about a Bescherelle I want to scream, I couldn't imagine subjecting myself to learning it from scratch (says girl who took japanese I guess, biases and all)
Omg okay so when I started getting back into German last week the first thing i checked was for snarry fics and there were like 12 pages worth and omg, I've already got a few in my Marked for Later to come back to once I have enough vocabulary!
I do fully intend to learn Russian someday, Russian my beloved, when I was in highschool I used to be able to read a little bit even though i was never consistent, and I'd genuinely love so much to be able to get back into it and be able to go further <33 i just already have three languages active rn, and since my goals require I be fairly fluent in each, as well as having a fourth language in the wings for as soon as i can get the other three into a good maintenance point, i just cant do Russian rn and likely wont be able to get to it for a few years.
But the fact that theres lots of snarry in Russian too really helps 👀👀
So i picked French because my school didnt offer German. It was either French or Spanish, you had to pick one or the other, and then in highschool there was also the option to either add or switch to Latin. I picked French. I was pretty good at it, i dropped it in my junior year then picked it back up in my senior year and ended up being conversational enough to be able to use it at work (i worked a food stand at an amusement park that was only 2 hours from Montreal). Ive forgotten a lot of it, though i can still read some things. I kinda miss it tbh, it was really fun being able to actually communicate lol!
But yeah, im mostly focusing on ASL and German to prevent the usual ADHD gets too excited and cant fulfill anything thing! I need to learn ASL despite having really no interest in it because im losing my hearing and dont want to learn once im deaf. And im learning German because i grew up around native Germans enough so that i can read and listen decently enough for someone whos never formally learned it, but i want to be able to actually write and speak in it too! I wouldnt call German a heritage language for me bc it wasnt my parents who spoke it, its my grandparents, but its still kinda a heritage language for me, yknow?
But yeah! I have a list of like 10 or 11 languages that id like to learn, but thats like. Long game, 20-30 years from now goals 😅 for right now im just focusing on ASL and German, and once my textbook comes in ill be learning Tibetan too!
Wow this turned into a whole ass ramble, im sorry!! Love you!!
2 notes · View notes
like-wuatafauq · 4 months
Note
OH SORRY that's totally my bad, I read your reply last night when I was super sleepy so I must've jumbled up the details in my head >:(
But now that I think about it... 22 years wouldn't even make sense romantically speaking IDK what I was thinking 😭
Your dad is absolutely horrible for abandoning you like that though. I'm so sorry you had to go through something so painful. You don't deserve that kind of heartbreak and betrayal from a parent. That's just unforgivable :(((
But woah 8 years of pining romantically is still a really long time...
I feel you on being hopeful about finding real love someday. Don't put too much pressure on yourself about running out of time! 24 is still pretty young in the grand scheme of things. Plenty of time for your soulmate to come along ^^
And in the meantime if you're looking for volunteers... I mean I'd be happy to keep you company :D
Oops! Haha... just kidding... unless...🧍‍♀️
And I totally get not vibing with media that glamorizes something like love triangles or player behavior but Nana has a special place in my heart because it helped me get through some really tough times years ago. It also made me realize I had super heavy comphet back then LOL
Speaking of... you mentioned your English isn't very good. Does that mean you have a different native language? If so, what is it? :O
AND HAPPY PRIDE MONTH BTW!!!
From ♡
It's okay sometimes I answer asks really late too. And yeah I always hear that "you're still so young to find love" except in my mind if I want a family someday I have to build up trust with someone and its already hard for me to believe ppl.
As for ppl keeping me company, honestly I think I'm gonna wait it out, if my soulmate finds me I want her to know I waited for her. If she wants her spot warm then I'll be the only one sitting there.
And then she can sit on top of me when she gets here
Tumblr media
Lmaoooo I'm so sorry about that,
But as for the Nana I'm glad that helped you :) fr fr ,don't get me wrong I love the art and a lot of the cute pictures of them together but when I find out more about it I get dizzy. (I genuinely get physical sickness when things involve player stuff)
And I mean I'm fluent in English it's not some drastic thing cuz I type/speak often in English but it's just I look up a lot of words meaning almost every single day. And if someone speaks quickly I might not fully catch it. I often don't understand phrases or words someone tells me. ive tried googling the phrases but google doesnt understand what im asking 🥲 in my mind I have English words cluttered in groups so a lot of the times I misused them when I speak or write. I feel so so so so bad when I do that.
For example one time I wanted to tell someone "I don't want you to think I'm codependent" because i was trying to express how i would like to have them around all the time but if you want space id like them to enjoy it(jfc even now i cant word it properly), anyway the point is I forgot the word codependent so I typed "I don't want you or need you"......yeah it was bad bro.
When me and my bestie were roommates I would say stuff and he thought I was mad but it's just my tone I say it and the words I use. I fuck up sooooo bad I'm constantly apologizing to ppl. So im fluent its just wonky but My native language is Spanish tho :)
Happy pride month to you too!!!
Do you have any pride month plans??
0 notes
burnedbyshoto · 4 years
Text
disconnected
Tumblr media
— Kirishima answers a phone call that wasn’t intended for him, and of course he can’t help but be interested in the beautiful voice and soul that angrily began to rant about their day. —
⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆
pairing: kirishima eijirou x fem!reader
warnings: fluff, lil angst (lol sorry), cursing
word count: 7,786
a/n: this was a stupid thought that slammed into my mind, and here it is!!!! now I have a calc midterm tomorrow that I did not look at because why think about double derivatives and integrals when I can think about kirishima????
⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆
It was eleven at night when Kirishima strolled out of his bathroom, ready to go to bed. After a rather long day, he was looking forward to sleeping and not having to wake up at the crack of dawn. Tomorrow for the very first day in a very long time, he wouldn’t have to work at the local coffee shop he was hired at. It was a job he had acquired with his good friends on the promise of it being a manageable job on top of his college work, and of course, the pretty girls who would go in.
From what Kirishima had gathered from the four months working there was that there were a lot of pretty girls who entered the coffee shop — most of which were focused on the angry ash-blond friend of his — and that it was so unnecessarily stressful. 
Some days he was up at four in the morning to open at six for the morning regulars, then he’d go to his afternoon classes, only to return for a two-hour shift in the middle of rush hour, and would leave while trying to keep the peace between a certain ash-blond and two new hires. To say the least, it was hell on Earth at times. 
Regardless, he didn’t have to open tomorrow morning, so he was content! On top of not having classes tomorrow, Kirishima was excited to sleep in.
Falling on his bed with a massive sigh, Kirishima snuggled his face into his pillow, rejoicing in the way that the laundry detergent still clung to the fabric and relaxed.
Sleep sounded so—
RIIING.
RIIING.
Kirishima’s eyes slammed open, his head snapping to see his illuminating phone on his nightstand. He had no idea who the hell was calling this late. There was no way it was Bakugou; he was asleep already at this point. Sero had broken his phone two days ago during a failed stunt and wouldn’t be able to get a new phone until the weekend. Kaminari only called him when there was a bug in his apartment, but he was currently closing… maybe it was Mina? Kirishima shook his head, no, he hadn’t spoken to Mina in ages.
Grabbing the phone, he didn’t bother to look at the caller ID and answered.
“Hello—?”
“Oh my god, I am fucking raging! You can’t believe what kind of fuckery I just went through tonight!” a voice shouted into the receiver, and Kirishima flinched a bit at the loud and angry voice. “So you know how I wasn’t supposed to work today, right? Because my coworker had sex with her ex-boyfriend like an idiot, and I owed her for covering my shift three months ago, but anyways irrelevant. I’m taking the order of this one group of adults. That’s right, A-D-U-L-T-S, adults! They are completely staring at my tits the entire time, and not my face. At first, I thought maybe you know, I had spilled something on my tits earlier, no. No! NOTHING! So I call them out on it, and they say something along the lines of ‘you could be a camgirl with that body, but like not in a sex sort of way’ I’m sorry, WHAT?! Like yes, continue sexually harassing your server who is a college student and therefore has no will to live, so will gladly beat your Gucci belt wearing ass into a bloody pulp! What they gonna do? Sue me? I have one dollar to my name, fucking take it, I don’t care, I’ll find another dollar in the sewer after I beat their asses up!
“But you know, I’m saying all this in my head because I’m broke and can’t afford to be fired from this place because the tips are hella good here. But they continue saying dumb shit, and then the obvious ringleader — I know he was the ring leader because his beard looks like it was the first picture printed on a new ink cartridge and his manspread was ten times wider than all of theirs — have the fucking audacity to slip his number while only tipping TEN DOLLARS ON A TWO HUNDRED DOLLAR TAB!!!!” Kirishima doesn’t know what to say, his jaw on his mattress, breathing having stopped while your voice wheezes from your lack of air. He makes a croaking noise, wanting to speak up and apologize for what had happened and for not being the person you thought it was, but it seemed that you weren’t over. “AND DON’T GET ME STARTED ON THAT FUCKING KAREN!!! ‘I didn’t like the way you looked at me so I won’t be tipping you tonight!’ yeah, well maybe if you didn’t order enough FOOD TO FEED AN ARMY AND KEPT SENDING IT BACK I WOULDN’T BE LOOKING AT YOU LIKE THAT!!!”
There was a pause, and Kirishima, while feeling entirely sorry for you, finally spoke, “Fuck, that sounds... horrible.”
“Damn right, it was horri— wait, who the fuck is this?” your voice squeaked, and Kirishima almost started to laugh at the difference in the tone your voice took. Once so loud, angry, and entirely ‘fuck the world,’ had changed into a meek and embarrassed voice.
“Um, this is Kirishima. Kirishima Eijiriou?”
“This isn’t Hagakure?” you moaned into the phone. “03-9082-2395? That isn’t this number?”
“2-2-9-5,” Kirishima repeated his own number back, a small smile overcame his features knowing that you had accidentally misdialed a number.
“Fuck my fat fingers,” you cursed, and Kirishima chuckled lightly at the mutterings that were poorly picked up. “Well, um, I am so sorry for calling you and dumping that unnecessary bullshit on you—”
“No, no,” Kirishima interrupted, rolling onto his back, staring up at the dimly lit ceiling. “It’s totally okay! You seem less stressed out now too, and it really isn’t a big deal!”
“You are very kind, Kirishima Eijirou,” you laugh, and Kirishima can’t help but imagine a figure curled up on a couch.
“Thank you!” he beamed, a hand threading through his hair, “um, but what happened with the Karen? And why were you typing in your friend’s phone number?”
“Do you really want to know?” you ask after a fit of bubbling laughter; it seemed that you were not at all convinced.
“I work at a coffee shop for one, so I totally understand the Karen situations! Secondly, all my contacts are on my phone, I don’t have a single one of them memorized!”
“Okay, okay, okay, I do not have this number memorized! Hagakure is my roommate, and she has a new number that she left posted on our fridge and because Mr. Sprinkles left in the middle of my rant, I called her to finish it!” you explain in what Kirishima could only consider being childlike glee. “And a coffee shop? Oof, Kirishima, you might have it just as bad as I do then.”
“Ever had a boiling cup of coffee thrown back at your face?”
“Shut. Up.”
“I wish I was joking!”
“The nastiest thing I’ve ever been put through is a highschool couple breaking up in the middle of the restaurant, and a bowl of cold soup and milkshake were thrown at me! And I had to work for another five hours!”
“That… that beat mine by a long shot…”
“Okay, but like, it was cold. If you hadn’t dodged, you’d be dead!”
As time passed Kirishima soon found himself sitting up on his bed, his back pressed against the headboard, a lamp on so that he wasn’t in the dark while he talked to you. Somehow conversation flowed so perfectly between the two of you, so smoothly, so naturally. You had extremely compelling energy and a pretty bright one at that as well. Your stories were exceedingly extravagant, most derailing into hundreds of side stories before making its way back to the main point, but he didn’t mind. Though there was no proof, he imagined that your arms were swinging around while you talked, a bright smile on your face, and lights shining in your eyes.
“So anyway, I had to beg my professor to let me remake this exam because, for some reason, my brain would not switch back to Japanese. I almost cried because I was only speaking in English, and I think because I am an amazing person, my professor let me do that!” you laughed after explaining an issue with being fluent in a third language. 
“My English skills deteriorated after leaving high school, I’m rather jealous you can speak three languages,” Kirishima admitted, his head falling back onto the cold wall. “My Japanese professors probably think my Japanese sucks too.”
“Just because I am amazing and can speak three languages doesn’t mean I’m perfect at it,” you laugh, obviously trying to make him feel better about himself.
“Mm, I don’t know, you’re painting yourself as a pretty perfect person,” Kirishima sighed. “Or you have an enormous ego…”
A loud scoff came from your end of the phone, and Kirishima waited for your verbal retaliation but was met with a moment of silence.
“Oh! Welcome home!” you called out, and Kirishima quickly put together that your roommate Hagakure was home. “Yeah, no, I’m talking to someone right now! ...who? Oh, um, a friend! ...no, I tried to call you when I got home but misdialed your number and got him instead! NO! You’re not going to get a pic of him! Wait, it’s what time?!”
Kirishima’s eyes fell over to his alarm clock and saw in the dim red light that it was 04:57. 
His jaw dropped.
“Well, um, Kirishima, it seems that our call is going to end,” you whisper into the phone, and Kirishima lets out a breathless chuckle, sudden sleepiness creeping into him. “It was pretty fun chatting with you stranger, thanks for putting up with that ranting in the beginning! Most normal people wouldn’t have picked up or let me rant like that!”
“It’s no problem,” Kirishima smiled softly, his fingers stretching out to turn off the light. He licked his lips, five hours on a phone call with an absolute stranger, and he didn’t have your name, and better yet, a part of him wanted to ask if it was okay to be friends. You were magnetic to him, and he wanted to know more about you, even if this was this weird modern and accidental penpal thing. “I didn’t have anything to do today, and you were fun talking to!”
“Aww, thank you!”
Silence.
Ask, he thought, his teeth biting down onto his bottom lip. Ask!
“Um, I know this is weird and all, but do you think I can keep your number?” you ask, your voice almost timid and meek.
Kirishima’s heart rate spikes at those words, he very much wanted that, but his mouth had a mind of its own it seemed. “Why?”
“Wha— well, I just had a lot of fun talking with you! It was fun, and I don’t know, you seem like a pretty chill guy!”
His fingers gripped his phone, a warmth spreading through him when he relaxed under his sheets. “On one condition.”
“Oof, if you’re going to ask to decide between Crimson Riot or All Might you’re going to be—”
“No, no,” Kirishima lets out a snort, his shoulders rolling while he imagines the curious look coming over your face. “I would like to know your name?”
“My name? Why would you want— HOLY SHIT! I never gave you—” there was a loud noise on your end of the call, and Kirishima heard you apologize profusely before returning in a hushed whisper. “Sorry! Sorry! I didn’t give you my name?!”
“No,” he laughed loudly, one that was pushed from his belly, spreading warmth through his body. “You never did, but I did learn every name of every person you’ve ever talked with!”
“God,” you groan, a small whine emitted from you. “I’m an idiot, I’m so sorry! Y/l/n y/n at your service!”
Y/l/n y/n, that’s a pretty name, he thought while imagining just what you could look like. 
“Well, goodnight y/l/n, I’ll save your number, and we’ll see if you still would like to be friends when you wake up?”
There was a small noise of agreement, “I’m like a drug, Kirishima, you’ll be back for more.”
“Okay, okay, goodnight…”
“Goodnight, sweet dreams!”
“Sweet dreams.”
Kirishima listened to the line ending, and he pulled his phone away from his ear and no sooner did he do that, a text came in at what he believed to be your number:
don’t let the bed bugs bite! 🕷😱‼️
He snorted and replied back before eventually letting sleep consume him.
⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆
“You’ll never believe what just happened!” you squealed into the phone, and Kirishima laughed while wiping his sweaty face with a white towel. You had called thirty minutes earlier than usual and had caught him leaving the gym.
It had been a bit over two months since your misdial, and things with you had been going pretty well for strangers. The two of you didn’t talk every day, most weeks going by with just a single call, but they were always delightful talks. You worked most nights, and he most mornings, the two of you discovered. So most calls took place the night he didn’t have to work the following morning. 
“You got a customer who complained that there was too much salt in their meal that had no salt in it?” he asked, pulling a random story of something that had happened at his own coffee shop today. You let out an amused snort, a clear indicator that he was wrong, but found his guess to be amusing at the very least.
“No, but oddly enough, someone did ask for an insane amount of salt on their food and hated it!” you sang, clearly happy with how you found their distress to be funny.
“Close enough!” Kirishima laughed, but he was straight out of guesses, so he stopped. “So, what happened?”
“I tried coffee for the first time ever today!” you squealed loudly, and Kirishima cheered happily.
Through these two months, there were some hard facts that Kirishima had learned about you. One, you were living in the same city as him. Two, you worked at a semi-classy restaurant. Three, you had two roommates named Hagakure and Jirou. Four, you were twenty, just like him. And five, you were a child who only drank hot chocolate and tea because you were afraid of coffee.
~
“Caffeine is a drug you know,” you had snarkily teased him one night when he said he was going to make a cup of coffee. “Nice to know I’m friends with an addict!”
“If drugs were as amazing as coffee, I’d be an addict!”
“You know…” your voice whispered, your voice suddenly taking a guilty approach. “I’ve never actually tried coffee…”
“WHAT?!”
~
“Wow, look at you, becoming an old woman in front of my own eyes!” Kirishima chuckled, starting his walk back home. 
His fingers pushed the headphones to be more secure over his ears, hopeful that there it wouldn’t pick up too heavily on the wind of the outside world. 
“To be honest, it wasn’t that good, your taste buds are just tarnished from drinking that bitter crap all day!” you huff and he half imagined you turning your nose up.
“Okay, okay,” Kirishima laughed, a warmth flooding in his chest at the sounds of your muffled laughter. A visible indicator that you were also amused at this. “I hated coffee until I started working at a coffee shop, and that was because I needed to know my shit.”
“Wow, you only got that job while not being a coffee addict?” you tease. “Seems like a fake barista to me.”
“It’s pretty hard to believe, I know,” Kirishima stated his tone one of fake melancholy. “I’m so sorry for deceiving you, and honestly, I am a shit barista.”
“Aww, don’t say that!” you exclaim, and it seems like you’re ready to fight him. “I bet you put all those fancy TikTok baristas to shame!”
“TikTok?” he laughed, his pace speeding up just a bit so he would get home faster. “Wow, I am honored you think that!”
The light conversation continued, nothing too deep or too intense, just chatter about today's shifts and classes. Eventually, Kirishima made it back into his apartment complex, and stumbled into his room, collapsing onto his bed. 
“Can I ask something?” you ask suddenly, and Kirishima lets out a small hum.
“Yeah, of course, what’s up?”
“What do you look like?” you asked softly as if you were curled up in bed, seconds from letting sleep consume you. “I haven’t come up with a mental image that I like, and well, I want some hints.”
“I can just send you a picture of me,” Kirishima smiles, his eyes closing. “It would be much easier than me trying to explain to you what I look like.”
“No!” you disagree, and there's a long sigh from your end of the phone. “I’m not ready for that kind of information yet, Kiri. I just… I can’t accept a pic of you without sending one back, and I’m not mentally ready for that yet…”
“Don’t tell me the big fat Gucci bougie you is shy?!” Kirishima exclaimed, humor drowning his words as he referenced you to something you had called yourself one drunken night weeks ago.
“Not shy!” you bemoan, your voice muffling out at the end of it. “I’m more scared you’ll find me ugly and ghost me…”
“I don’t think that’s possible,” Kirishima interjected, his voice stable and confident.
“Which part?”
“Both parts.”
“How do you know that? You don’t know what I look like…”
“...call it… Kirishima’s intuition,” Kirishima slowly stated, his eyebrows furrowing. “I find your voice and your personality to be attractive on their own, so I would never ghost you. And of course, appearance isn’t anything; plus, there’s no way you’re not gorgeous.”
He says these words with honest truth, and a part of him fears he overstepped and made you wildly uncomfortable with the amount of silence that is heard from your end of the line. But finally, as Kirishima is ready to apologize to you, a soft exhale is heard.
“You’re a dork,” you whisper, and a soft grin spreads on his own face. “Anyways, I’ll ask questions, you answer them first, and then I’ll do the same.”
“Sounds good!”
“Hair color?”
“Black, but I dye it red.”
“Mm, edgy teenager, I like it, and also knew that because you complained about your stained sheets! Eye color?”
“Red.”
“Oh, am I sensing a theme? How tall are you?”
“I’m… a bit over six feet?”
The list went on, most questions becoming more of a joke than anything else, but he was glad that you were asking these things because now he had an insight on how you looked too. You had told him your eye color, your hair color, how tall you were, and a whole bunch of trivial things he would have never thought to ask about to begin with.
“Okay, last question!” you cheered, happy to have finally included Kirishima into your inside joke that revolved around your eyebrows. “Do you have any distinguishing features?”
“Well, I don’t actually...” Kirishima admitted, his fingers brushing against the scar on his eye, and then it hit him. That was one! “Oh, wait—” CRASH. A loud crashing noise emitted from your side of the call.
“Shit, hold on!” you curse and Kirishima can only remain silent while he hears you yelling in the background, it was too far away for him to quite understand, but it was enough to know that it didn’t sound okay. 
Kirishima sat on his side of the call, the phone pressed to his ear while he tried to strip his gross and sweaty shirt from his body. His teeth bit into his lip, his canine pressing into the permanent indent of his lip, an indicator of how anxious he used to be. 
“Fuck, Kiri?” your voice suddenly snapped back onto the call, your tone frantic and quick.
“Everything okay?”
“No, Hagakure showed up drunker than… a drunken drunk, I don’t know expressions, ANYWAYS I know tonight is our unofficial official call night, but anyway I can get a rain check?”
There was guilt that swallowed your voice, a pang of guilt that made Kirishima warm a bit because it showed that you valued these calls, just like him. 
“Of course, I don’t have class or work Friday morning this time around, so Thursday night?”
“That works perfectly,” you sigh, gratitude. “I owe you, text you later if you don’t fall asleep! Goodnight, sweet dreams, love ya!”
Kirishima couldn’t repeat the whole statement before you hastily hung up, but he couldn’t keep the smile off his face the entire time he showered. The shower didn’t take too long, and by the time he emerged from the shower, towel around his neck and his waist, he had a text message. 
sero - hey bro!!! i can’t pick up my morning shift tomorrow i know you have tonight to speak w y/n but todoroki and bakugou can’t cover it!
Kirishima sighed, he definitely didn’t have anything tomorrow anyways, he could manage with going in for an extra shift to help a friend.
kirishima - yeah sure what time?
sero - youre a life saver T-T im covering 8 am - 3 pm!!!
Kirishima sent a simple affirmative emoji before finishing up his nightly routine. 
⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆
Kirishima looked at his apron while he was assembling himself in the backroom. The aroma of roasted coffee beans and pastries was almost pungent in the back, and he was eager to get out of there. As per employee regulations, he was to wear a black apron, a name tag, and something to hold his hair because it was a bit too long, for that, he wore a white bandana around his forehead.
“Wait, where’s my name tag?” Kirishima called out, his eyebrows furrowing when he turned out to Kaminari, who was currently in the back with him.
The blond froze and scratched the back of his neck, laughing awkwardly, “About that…”
So Kirishima was in the front of the store with a shiny silver name tag that read Hanta Sero. Because Kaminari was the best barista they had on hand currently, he was busy teaching Midoriya — their newest hire — around the bar. For now, Todoroki was nowhere to be found, and Kirishima was handling the cash register. 
Today was a slow morning, most people had their day off today, so morning coffee rush wasn’t in existence. Sure, there were a few outliers, but it was never chaotic. 
The gentle bell of the front door rang, and Kirishima automatically called out.
“Welcome!”
You had walked into the store, your eyebrows furrowed while you prayed that this was the coffee shop your roommates had been raving about. You’d never been here before, but it was the closest coffee shop available that wasn’t something generic and basic like Starbucks. You looked up from your phone at the voice, a thank you automatically being repeated while you neared the register.
You froze when you saw the red hair and the red eyes of the handsome man at the register. A careless thought entered your mind, Kirishima said he had red hair and red eyes… but he said he didn’t work today… 
A kind smile sat on his face, his eyes taking you in, waiting for you to approach him. 
This couldn’t be him, right?
The last time you had assumed a redhead working in a coffee shop was Kirishima, it had ended embarrassingly. 
“Um, hi,” you drawled out, your eyes reading the board to figure out your own order. 
Kirishima couldn’t keep his eyes off of you, you were exactly what you had described to him, but he wouldn’t ask until he was sure. He would ask you for your name after collecting your order for either tea or hot chocolate, and if it was you, he’d reveal that he was Kirishima. But he didn’t want to be wrong; he didn’t want to pin any other person as you, after all.
“I’ve never been here before,” you confess, your hand rubbing the back of your head. You were transfixed on the caramel macchiato that was spelled in the prettiest font, though, plus Hagakure promised all their coffee was good. 
“Oh, well, welcome! If you need any recommendations or have anything else to order, I can put those through while you look?”
His smile was kind, and you felt blood rush to your face, something you desperately tried to fight off by thinking of anything you didn’t like. 
“Oh! I do have two orders, though! There’s going to be one chai tea latte with three pumps of vanilla, and a lavender tea with a splash of oat milk.”
Kirishima nodded his head, “Will this be for here, or to go?”
His voice sounds so similar to Kirishima, you hoped, studying his face. While you answered that it was to go, you saw a distinctive scar on his right eye. Kirishima had said he didn’t have any distinguishing features… 
“What are your favorites here?” you ask, your eyebrows scrunched in confusion, your thoughts very evident in your face.
Kirishima couldn’t help but find hope bubbling up in his chest, there was always the possibility that you two lived in the same city-based off the same area code, and with what seemed like an incomplete knowledge in coffee, maybe…
Kirishima rambled off about the different seasonal drinks right now, his recommendations leaning towards the teas and non-coffee things primarily after his general and basic list. You seemed to take every word out of his lip like gospel, agreeing and nodding when appropriate, and his lips stretched into a grin when you bluntly exclaimed your ill knowledge of this all.
“To be honest, I only step into coffee shops to take a cute pic and then leave,” you laugh, pressing your hands against your lips and screaming a bit in your throat. 
Kirishima laughed, more confidence blooming through his body over the hope that this was you. It had to be you.
Your eyes then found the nametag on his apron, and like a sinking ship, you read Sero.
Not Kirishima.
“And for you?”
“I’ll have the caramel macchiato,” you decide, a grateful smile on your face while he looks down and writes the orders.
“A name?”
“Penny,” came your automatic response.
You never used your real name in coffee shops.
Kirishima suppressed the way that his mouth wanted to drop into a sad smile, and like two rejected teenagers, the money was exchanged. Before Kirishima could attempt to calm his disappointed soul, you walked out of the shop with the coffees and tea in hand.
“What was that about?” Kaminari asked, his eyes wide. “There was so much flirting and then poof, gone from both sides. Come on, dude, it’s my job to fail at flirting, not yours!”
Kirishima laughed, ignoring the way that his three friends looked at him with concern and curiosity. “Nothing, I just… the customer looked like how y/n described herself to be…”
“Oh… sorry, bro.”
“Nah, it’s all good,” Kirishima waved it off, and without so much as another slap on the back, he went back to work.
⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆
“What the hell are you doing?”
Kirishima looked up from his phone, his fingers mid-type pausing only for a millisecond before continuing to text blindly. 
“Oh, hey, Bakubro, what’s up?” he cheerfully spoke, ignorant to the controller in the ash blond’s hand. 
“It’s your turn, shitty hair, pay fucking attention!” Bakugou barked, tossing the plastic controller into his chest. Kirishima grunted, the feeling of the plastic slamming against his chest was less than ideal, but the smile on his face didn’t waiver while he offered his best friend the controller back.
“It’s all good, you can have another turn, I can handle being out this round!”
“Kiri, that’s six rounds in a row,” Kaminari spoke up, his face in a teasing smirk.
It was then that Kirishima’s face turned approximately the same color as his hair. “I didn’t—”
“Awww, Eijirou has a little crush on y/n!!!” Kaminari sang, resulting in agreeing with noises from Sero and Midoriya. Only Bakugou and Todoroki remained silent. 
Kirishima only laughed, he knew he couldn’t deny that fact, but he wouldn’t say it aloud — especially because Bakugou seemed to hate you. It had been now four months since the two of you had ‘meet,’ and while he still had no face to imagine you with, things had taken a slightly flirty route between the two of you.
Calls were much more frequent, nearly all nights the two of you would speak, even if it was just a measly summary of the day and a ‘sweet dreams’ and a ‘goodnight’ and an ‘I love you.’ It always happened nowadays.
Tonight was an exception, of course, because he was out with his friends, and apparently, you were doing the same. 
“You can’t be fucking serious?” Bakugou spat, a laugh spluttering from his lips, but it was cold and held no humor. “You caught feelings for a person who’s too much of a fucking coward to reveal a picture of themselves?”
“That’s not fair; besides, it's not about physical appearance!” Kirishima waved him off, pressing send to his text message.
have fun tonight! text me when u get back home if ur able to!
“Just how naive can you be?” Bakugou sneered, his hand taking the phone from Kirishima's side. “Six months of talking every week, texting every day, and this y/n still hasn’t trusted you with a single picture of them? I know you said that she told you how she looked, and all that shit, but let's be real, it’s so easy to lie about how you look like when you don’t have to provide a picture. What y/n say? Big tits? Big ass? Small waist? What about her did she say that made you so fucking insane over her?”
“N-Nothing! We didn’t talk about our body types!” Kirishima’s eyes widened significantly, the once comfortable atmosphere of the room wholly gone while Bakugou’s vermillion eyes seethed silently. “None of that matters! I told you the truth! I like y/n because of her personality, she’s manly, and I like that a lot! It’s not about her appearance, how pessimistic can you get, bro! I promise you, she’s trustworthy!”
“Is she really?”
“What?”
“How can you be in love with someone who you trust entirely, but doesn’t trust you at all? You said that y/n won’t show you a picture of herself because she’s scared you won’t like her? How is that trusting you? How is that fucking fair? To me, that sounds like some fucked up catfishing thing.”
“We talk on the phone, dude,” Kirishima said softly, but those thoughts were invading his mind. Did you not trust him? He knew he wasn’t the best option in the world, and he had accepted that in time and by improving on what he thought he was best at. But did you, after all this time, really not believe him when he claimed nothing would change when he saw you? “Catfishes don’t even do that… besides, the first call was by accident, why would someone—”
“Dunce face, what’s that one fucking idiotic thing you do for fun?” Bakugou snapped at the blond, not even bothering to look at him.
“Well, there’s a lot of things I do that you—” Kaminari laughed awkwardly, his smile tight and awkward.
“Kaminari.”
“I call… random numbers… pretending to have a big issue to see how they react…” he admitted, and Kirishima’s stomach clenched.
“And?” Bakugou snarled.
“I pretend to be a girl…”
“Don’t be stupid, Bakugou, this is more than one time!” Kirishima groaned.
“It's a voice that you can’t attach a face to, who knows if this is a person you can trust! People with voice acting exist in this world, how the hell do you possibly know that they’re not one of them?! Be fucking real, if ‘y/n’ trusted you, if that’s even their name, they wouldn’t be hiding their face from you.”
Kirishima didn’t say anything else, the acid piling in his throat was too much for him to even look at his friend. The night didn’t really recover from that conversation, and Kirishima eventually found himself back home.
He sat at the edge of his bed, his phone in his hands, waiting for a message from you. He couldn’t sleep, and even though he had work tomorrow morning, he found himself wide awake, unable to let sleep consume.
It was three in the morning when you sent a text, his eyes still wide awake, and with shaky fingers, he read the message.
i just got home can you believe that i drank three cups of wine and didnt get tipsy??????? thats on being a raging alcoholic ;D
Kirishima wanted to laugh; on god, he would’ve found this beyond delightful to read because he knew you couldn’t handle your liquor, but that bitter stream of acid destroyed the humor in his thoughts.
Were you really telling the truth? Was this all a lie?
He didn’t text back; instead, his finger pressed the call button, and he held his breath.
“Helloooo?” a voice picked up on the second ring, but it wasn’t your voice. It was a voice he didn’t recognize at all.
‘Voice actors,’ Bakugou’s voice reentered his thoughts, and the phone in his hand nearly dropped.
“Sorry, hello?” the voice he knew as you finally came through, and Kirishima let out a shallow breath, one so small, so mediocrely weak it burned his lungs.
“Do you trust me?” he asked softly, maybe too softly because you asked with a strained laugh for him to repeat his words. “Do you trust me, y/n?”
There was a pause on your end, too long a beat for Kirishima to be comfortable with.
“Of course I trust you, Ei, are you okay?”
“Do you actually trust me, or are you lying?”
“Woah there,” you said a small laugh on your tongue, but there was only confusion in it, not your contagious sound. “Did you drink? It’s a work night, you never do that!”
“Answer the question,” Kirishima spoke with finality, his shoulders tense, tears pushing past his eyes while he struggled to maintain composure.
Prove Bakugou wrong, please, prove Bakugou wrong.
“Of course I do,” you spoke with genuine clarity, but still, Kirishima was rattled, his confidence blown. “What’s going on?”
Did he want to confess to his insecurities? Was it worth it? His breathing became frantic, almost as if he was going insane just thinking about where his thoughts were. But Kirishima was never good at hiding things, no he was as open as a book.
“Why won’t you let me see you… we’ve been friends for six months, and the only thing I know about you is your eye color and your hair color. It’s so insanely generic that I can’t… I can’t do this.”
“What are you trying to say?” you ask, your voice small, almost a whisper of all the energy one could have at this time of night.
“I can’t be friends with someone who doesn’t trust me, who’s using me,” he spoke with perfect clarity that hid away his insecurities about this all. “For all, I know nothing about you is real, that this is all just some ploy to hurt me in the end. Six months and you can’t trust me with a single meet up or even a picture? I just… has this been a game for you, y/n? Or is that even your name.”
The call ended and a single message held on his screen, this call has been dropped, but you didn’t seem to want to call him back.
Kirishima didn’t sleep a wink that night, his words coming back to bite him in the throat each and every time he thought he was close enough to sleep. Insecurities riled up in him, consuming him entirely.
⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆
He tried to call back.
For fourteen straight days, Kirishima attempted to call you back.
Every time he called you, he would always hang up before he could take back his words. But each call, after he had prematurely hung up, he would recant his mean words to the unresponsive phone. He did trust you, he was weak, he was unmanly to assume those things. You could take, however long it took to finally trust him again because he would wait for you no matter what. He apologized again and again until the very last one he broke down into silent tears, a single message of ‘I hope one day you’ll forgive me’ hung weakly on his voice and put his phone away. 
It was sixteen days since he had spoken those cruel words to you, and in that time, he didn’t regret finally talking about his ill feelings towards wanting to reveal yourself to him. But he did regret the way it came out; instead of it being a deep and personal conversation, it came out as bitter and one-sided. The two of you were disconnected, and he felt empty.
But he couldn’t focus on it, not today, after all, it was Bakugou’s birthday, and everyone was gathering at the local fancy restaurant to celebrate. 
Kirishima dressed up presentable, wearing a navy blue button-up, and dark slacks. He walked towards the entrance of the restaurant where Kaminari, Sero, and Midoriya were eagerly leading the group of them into the building. Typically Kirishima would’ve been with them in terms of spirit, but he felt energyless at the moment.
With the moon high in the sky, Kirishima stilled when Bakugou called out his name.
He stared at his best friend, the ash blond’s lip curled into a sneer while he huffed, “Listen, Kirishima, I’m sorry for what I said that night.”
“What? Oh, no, it’s okay, Bakugou!” Kirishima laughed, his hand slapping to the back of his neck. “You weren’t wrong.”
“I never said I was wrong,” Bakugou grunted, his eyes locked on Kirishima’s while he shoved his hands into his pockets. Kirishima stilled, unsure as to where this would be leading. “I just don’t want you to get hurt. I know that Mina hurt you badly, and you’re too big of an idiot to not see when things arise. Maybe y/n is genuine, but if you aren’t fucking honest with her about your own feelings about how she’s so secretive, it’s not going to work.”
Kirishima smiled softly, a weak shrug moving through him, “I know, thanks, man.”
Bakugou nodded, and without a word, he continued on ahead where Midoriya was yelling at them to hurry up and come so they could be seated. 
Kirishima sighed, rolling out his shoulders before following afterward.
Kirishima followed after the hostess, smiling at her gratefully when she sat the group into their own private room and left. 
“Bakugou’s paying, right?” Kaminari stage whispered to Midoriya while staring at the prices on the menu.
“Eat shit, dunce face, learn how to save up your fucking money the next time you offer to come to this fucking place!” Bakugou roared, hearing the whisper.
“I’ll be covering the bill,” Todoroki informed with a smirk on his face. Kirishima laughed, looking at the prices and indeed agreeing with Kaminari’s statement. Having a wealthy friend was very convenient at times like this.
“Hi, welcome to Eiko, I’ll be your waitress today!” a voice chirped from the entrance of the room, and Kirishima froze, he recognized that voice and face.
It was the person he had mistaken for you all those months ago.
By the smile on your face, it seemed that you recognized them all too.
“And what is your name,” Sero winked, his eyes captivated by you.
“Oh, haha, sorry, my name is y/n,” you smiled, moving the menus you held in your hand to show the silver nametag on your uniform.
“Oh, like Kirishima’s y/n,” Kaminari laughed, pointing a finger at Kirishima, not at all being as quiet as he probably thought himself to be. But it seemed that he wasn’t the only one who thought that because while Kirishima was staring at your face, embarrassingly taking you in, you followed Kaminari’s finger.
Your sight sat on the redhead in the middle whose name was Kirishima, and you straightened up in what felt like panic. 
“You’re Kirishima?” you asked quietly, your finger grasping the menus so tightly, your knuckles turned white. “Kirishima Eijirou.”
“The one and only,” Kaminari voiced for him, his arm thrown over Kirishima’s shoulder while he nodded like a scholar. “And why do you ask?”
“Shut the fuck up, dunce face.” Bakugou hissed.
Kirishima continued to stare at you, a million words running through his head, yet not a single one being translated on his tongue. You were beautiful.
What should he say?
What could he say?
Your lips pursed, and you shook your head, a smile of disbelief spreading across your face, “Unbelievable.”
“Y/n—”
“Be quiet,” you snap, your tone angry, but your eyes beyond hurt. “What can I get you guys to drink?”
Dinner wasn’t exactly a pleasant time, you came in and left faster than anyone could blink, and yet none of their drinks went empty, nor did they really have a problem. Much quicker than Kirishima would’ve liked, they were done and were soon piling out of the restaurant after Kirishima decided to leave a very, very generous tip.
“I’m going to stay until I can speak to y/n,” Kirishima said, waving off his friends who were expecting him to follow. But he couldn’t, not when he felt like the world's biggest ass for what he did to you.
“Good luck,” they all wished him well before eventually leaving, knowing better than to stick around.
So there at the outside bench, Kirishima waited.
Two hours he sat there until you emerged from the front door, your hair was no longer put back, you held your apron in your hand, and your purse on your shoulder.
“Y/n!” he called out, his feet no longer cemented into place; he strode after you.
You didn’t seem to pick up the pace, nor did you slow down. You were focused on your car that sat at the edge of the parking lot, and you ignored his calls.
It wasn’t until his hand touched your shoulder, and he appeared before you did Kirishima freeze again. Angry hot tears slid down your face, your face screwed up, your shoulders stiff.
“What do you want, Kirishima?” you spat, but there was only exhaustion in your voice, nothing bitter, nothing at all what Kirishima deserved from you.
“I want to apologize,” Kirishima whispered, his hands struggling to reach out and wipe your tears away. You were crying because of him, he did this to you. “I was a dick, I was… beyond unmanly to you, and I’m so sorry! I just let Bakugou get into my head, and I’ve never been a secure person because, well, I’m just… fuck, I don’t even know, but all I know is that you didn’t deserve this. And I like you so much, but I didn’t — I don’t know what to do?!”
Your eyes stared up at him, they were bright with tears, wounded beyond anything Kirishima could hope to fix.
“That night, you said if I didn’t trust you, but I did trust you! I’ve always trusted you—” your finger jabbed his chest— “but it was you who didn’t trust me! I get that it’s hard to not have a picture of someone you care about after a long length of time, but we were always fine for a while! It was going to happen, but while I trusted you, I didn’t trust myself, okay?! I couldn’t trust myself to see that if you were so much more handsome than me that I couldn’t be confident enough to let myself be friends with you! I constantly fuck up relationships when I have crushes on people because… I don’t know, I just do! But you were someone with no risk and the highest risk, and I wanted to be sure in my own feelings before giving you a picture of me! But… fuck, Kirishima, you didn’t trust me!”
Kirishima’s throat tightened, the tears on your face a guilty reminder that this was because of him. But how could he fix this?
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, his hands grabbing onto your arms just above the elbow, and his head hung by your forehead, not quite touching you, but just enough that his spiked hair teased the atoms between you. You were taller than he expected, but it wasn’t anything he couldn’t deal with, no, not at all. “You’re right, I didn’t trust you, and you didn’t deserve that. I don’t think there’s anything that I can say, or do for that matter, to change your mind, and I’m sorry. I just panicked because who gets into this type of situation, how do I tell my phone friend that I have feelings for her? I was weak, and I am so fucking pathetic, and I just want to make things better. If you’ll let me be your friend again…”
He slowly looked back up at you, and you were frozen in your place, tears falling down your face still.
“I don’t think we can be friends,” you confessed, and Kirishima’s heart broke in two, his hands dropping from your arms in his embarrassment and humiliation.
“Oh, well, I’m sorry still, um… maybe I’ll see you again?” Kirishima smiled despite it all, he kept smiling despite the crack in his chest and his soul.
“You will,” you murmured, and before Kirishima could blink, your fists wrapped in his collar, and you brought him down for an ardent kiss that he was not quick to respond to. It took three seconds for him to wrap his arms around your waist and pull you in, kissing you again and again and again.
It didn’t seem to matter to either one of you that you were both now kissing without a care in the world in the middle of a parking lot, because you both had your emotions exposed to the other, and you didn’t want to be friends. At least not when the man who held your heart confessed that you held his in yours. 
The two of you weren’t truly disconnected, it was just a little lost moment in your call.
2K notes · View notes
cherryonigiri · 4 years
Text
Kuroo w/a confident + active S/O
@onedayiwillcreatecoolernickname​ asked: im a confident person, whats visible both in my looks and personality. i love standing out of the crowd, so wearing extravagant clothes and crazy hair colors is something that im well known of. but i dont have a particular aesthetic, so my clothing style is various (grunge, pastel, boho, sexy, vintage, tomboy; basically everything). even though im 170 cm tall, i like wearing high heels a lot and tbh, it doesn't make me feel awkward or insecure when i'm being taller than some boys. i often end up as a leader of the group and i think im a good one, because i have almost all the required qualities (creative patient helpful observant talkative), and every project that i take a part in is successful, so. but talking sbout ppl; i love taking care of them so much, seriously. youre cold? here, take my jacket. its getting dark already? dont worry, ill take you home. youre feeling anxious? lets talk and ill try my best to make u feel at ease. you need a hug? come here bby. as much as i enjoy discussing with other ppl, learning about their beliefs and exchanging my opinions with them, i also appreciate it a lot when we can be silent with each other, doing totally different things. but still, im happy the most when i have someone with whom i can have a deep conversation, because im not really into small talk. i need stimulation, the feeling that im constantly learning something new about everything. im just so fascinated and in love with the world haha. and maybe some facts about me. im cuddly and affectionate af with people that i like (and bcs of that other ppl that i must be in relationship with my friends, but its all platonic gay i swear). im ticlish and in general, touch-sensetive af. i identify as pansexual. i have 0 male friends, mostly because of my past bad experience with boys (bullying etc), but also because in my environment theres a lot more girls, so yeah. at home i often wear shorts and tshirts, because im quite hot ; ) im really into personal development and psychology, because people and their minds fascinate me and id want to know them better. i love learning new languages (im fluent in polish & english, less advanced in spanish and russian, but im still learning), writing both my own stories and letters, i also draw a little and i think im quite good at it. volleyball is definitely my favourite sport, but i enjoy running, cycling and matrial arts too.
A/N: Last of my matchup requests! Hope you enjoy 💖
Your matchup is
Kuroo Tetsurou
Tumblr media
Loves that you are super confident + self-reassured. You know what you’re capable of and not afraid to assert that you’re good at what you do (he finds your confidence super attractive)
Another thing Kuroo loves about you is your undending curiousity - he loves that you always want to learn something new
Would totally flirt with you by texting/telling you fun facts about science or anything else - would pay attention to whatever you are interested at the moment and then go home and research fun facts to share with you
Enjoys studying together with you - he likes that you try to find meaning in what you’re learning + apply it outside of how to score well on exams
Studying together is something you look forward to because the two of you just being with each other - you don’t necessarily have to go out on a “formal” date to spend time with him.
You just enjoy having his presence around - since you appreciate + value silence I feel like a lot of times you would just lounge around in the house and not really do much 
That being said - you are both people who like to have things to do most of the time - so he makes the effort to take you out on regular dates 
You guys probably love going to museums + different exhibitions/galleries around the city since you both enjoy learning more about the world
Aquarium dates??? YES. 
I feel like Kuroo loves your sense of fashion/style and would love to try to coordinate outfits to match or pair well with each other. If you want he would be down to have you style him for the day
Would understand if you were uncomfortable around his friends/team at first - but hopes that you will eventually be able to get along with them 
If you are open to hanging out with/socializing with the boys’ volleyballl team he’ll be really aware of the situation/atmosphere and make sure that you aren’t uncomfortable 
If you get close with the team,yYou two probably co-parent his volleyball team - you’re probably the unofficial manager/mom of the team (sorry yaku)
Will often hold study/review sessions for his team and you always seem to have plenty of their favorite snacks/foods 
Vice versa I think Kuroo would put forth a genuine effort to get to know your friends - he is big on reciprocation and really appreciates how much time you spend getting to know his friends
Wouldn’t mind sitting with your group of friends during lunch and chatting with them - if your group of friends doesn’t mind + he isn’t intruding he’d be happy to hang out with you all on the weeekends
If you’re interested in learning Japanese he’d be more than happy to help whenever you need it. 
You’re good at getting a grasp on the basics but helps with the more complex stuff + stuff that is related to culture/history + idioms or sayings that don’t make sense when translated literally
Probably asks you to teach him English/Polish or you two decide to learn a new language together. 
Kuroo definitely is very physically affectionate (aka. Look at my cuddling hcs for him) but isn’t the biggest on PDA
He prefers just having some kind of physical contact with you - like holding your hand, arm around your waist/shoulder - occasional kisses on the cheek/pecks on the lips but nothing over the top
Would love it if you play volleyball casually with him - maybe a group of your friends + his friends together could spend a day on the beach playing volleyball together
I feel like the two of you would be a couple that likes to work out together/try new things together
Morning runs together are fun - it gives you the extra motivation + it’s a nice way to spend some time with Kuroo
48 notes · View notes
countessofbiscuit · 4 years
Note
For the ask thing: N, T, W for tcw :)
ヽ(゜∇゜)ノ
N: Name three things you wish you saw more or in your main fandom.
An appreciation for how massive the GAR really is — even if you subscribe to the ridiculously low-balled canonical size of the army, Fives has no reason to be chummy with everyone, ffs. If Anakin and Obi-Wan weren’t attached at the hip, Rex and Cody would hardly ever lay eyes on each other because there is such a disparity in rank (which should indicate a wildly different brief, but lol, this is TCW, where a marshal commander leads from the trenches and a mere captain has a seat at the strategy table). Obviously, this is just a personal gripe: I don’t actually care how people choose to approach the GAR in their stories, this is all about having fun … *I* just have more fun reading fics that are somewhat grounded in realities.
Mating cycles/heats — idk it just seems to me that this fandom with a plethora of alien species to play with doesn’t explore reproductive diversity and weirdness enough. 
Tolerance of clonecest (or whatever the hell you wanna call it, I use that term as shorthand; whether or not clone-on-clone maps onto IRL incest taboos is an essay for another day) — it’s just … it’s interesting to me that folks are more squicked by the possibility that two identical walking war crimes may frot because they have no one else and find some small measure of comfort in each other than, idk, the brutal realities of their lives where death, mutilation, and maiming are omnipresent — and this pervasive idea that clones are the Goodest Bois just out there wearing flower crowns and frying only droids all day makes me : \ This isn’t an exhortation for people to just ‘get over’ their squicks, but I do believe in examining them. 
T: Do you have any hard and fast headcanons that you will die defending? 
Headcanon: Cody is not a born-again Mando nor does he have any time for whatever watered-down Mandalorian bullshit filtered down from the Spec Ops wing. 
Question this headcanon first sought to answer: Why doesn’t Cody wear a kama? 
Id-scratching Justification: He loves this thighs.
Plausible Justification: He likes his legs to be unencumbered for roundhouse kicks. 
Solid Justification I’ve adopted from kaasknot: He earned his advanced-recon stripes in ARF not ARC school. 
My Meta Justification: The line clones do not adopt Mandalorian culture or language wholesale. 
I can’t even qualify this with “call me a RepComm snob, but …” because there’s even LESS foundation for the clones-are-vode idea in the new canon. From where would they have imbibed it? Outside the brief nod to Fenn Rau’s pilot instructor days on Kamino, new canon has not given us any reason to believe the line clones had Mandalorian trainers. And even if you discount new canon’s Jango-is-not-a-Mandalorian heresy, Kamino would not be at pains to emphasize their products’ connection to a culture so perennially at odds with their client (the Jedi/Republic). 
Upon deployment, really almost anything goes; but to say that clone culture wouldn’t hold up pretty firm in the face of other galactic cultures is a little demeaning, and however much people absorb in their search for identity, why would the clones have immediately glomped onto Mandalorian concepts? Why not Corellian? Or Kuatian? Or Chandrillan? Or hells, even Force traditions? Someone may have pointed out to the odd clone, “hey, y’all were made in the image of a notorious Mandalorian!” and set some wheels turning, and sure, Boil was resourceful enough to do his own homework and decide that he quite liked the precepts of a certain group of Mandalorian paramilitary extremists and wanted to slap their sigil on his helmet, but there’d be such a diversity of osmotic experiences in an army of millions/billions spread out across a galaxy that I simply cannot buy the idea that the clones all woke up one fine day thinking of themselves as Mando or Mando-adjacent. 
Setting aside new canon, which I find deathly dull, I prefer RepComm, with its assertion that many of the RCs are born-again Mandos after their sergeants (indeed, the Republic almost has a fifth-columnist problem in Spec Ops with the True Mando influence of the Nulls and certain Alpha ARCs), but the average line trooper view of that mentality is “y'all are a fucking cult.” 
The line troops would identify firstly as brothers and soldiers of the Republic, and they would’ve had close to 0 touchpoints with the Prime Clone. In fact, many might resent the connection, especially deeper into deployment (“What has Mandalore ever done for me? They're a bunch of loose cannons — if they aren't refusing to lend a hand, they're actively leading Sep militias for pay. Fuck the lot of them,” etc. etc.). It would have required a shitton of cultural and linguistic leakage from the Spec Ops wing for the bulk of the line troopers to know even more than a handful of words in Mando’a at the time of Geonosis. (I can believe swear words would’ve been adopted hella fast, if only to fill a vacuum.)
But again, the army is not a monolith, and I am fully on board with the idea that some Alpha ARCs made it their mission to teach Vode An to every unit they came across and the sheer epicness made it wildly popular, and that they spread certain words and concepts (vod, shebs, di’kut, Manda, oya, kara, kandosii, etc.) like a rash. Or a company or two got teamed with a Mando sergeant and two squads of RCs for a month and were belting out “Coruscant'a aden mhi” by the end of it. Or a division found itself with an Alpha-ARC XO when their Jedi General's CC got popped two weeks after Geonosis and Alpha-89 wouldn’t rest until every trooper knew Dha Werda Verda by heart and backwards. Just … show me the work — why should I accept that Bly speaks fluent Mando’a in the bedroom? WHY? Invest me in your clone-culture worldbuilding!
ANYWAY, to bring this back round to my die-on-this-hill headcanon about Cody … he doesn’t like kamas or feel compelled to wear one. Setting aside fun Cody-was-an-Alpha-trained-spec-ops-intern-for-a-month-and-hated-it backstories aside, I just don’t think the dude had the time of day for all that the Manda are watching us warrior brethren, hold your buy’ce high vode, one tribe one dream osik. His identity is wrapped up in overseeing the Third Army and serving as General Kenobi’s right-hand man; on balance (if we’re trying to be realistic, see: above), Cody interacts more with natborn officers and Jedi and fellow CCs than your average ground pounder trooper, and Obi-Wan and Republic officers certainly aren’t going to wax lyrical about Mandalore anytime soon. Obviously, Marshal Fucking Commander Cody is well within his rights to read whatever he wants and talk to whomever he wants and adopt whatever beliefs and language he wants. He has all the resources at this fingertips and clearance that would probably make a lot of natborn admins in REPINT weep. But I don’t personally see him going Mando, though it amuses him to watch Rex try :p The minute Cody earnestly starts using Mando’a in a fic, I’m usually out.
W - A trope which you are virtually certain to hate in any fandom.
Hmm. I spent a good hour’s walk thinking about this and came up blank. Hate is a strong word anyway, and if it’s well-written, I can be sold on anything. But, I can almost guarantee I will never click on ABO unless it’s been recc’d or written by a friend. Not because I have any moral objection, just that it doesn’t interest me and good characterization is often lost to the mandatory ABO dynamics.
… on the flip side, I will ALWAYS click on Fuck-or-Die :D
38 notes · View notes
xhaotixaesthetica · 5 years
Text
The Shooting Stars of N.City (Soulmate Au! Jaemin Fluff)
Starlink Intergalactic Navigator 
Tumblr media
Author’s Note: YAY, a request for one of my ult groups! And one of my biases! It’s a win for me, ladies and gays! I accidentally deleted the original request, so I can’t post an answer to it. (It’s really lucky I screenshotted it before that happened.) Also, keep in mind that I’ve never been to a concert before, so this might not be entirely accurate, but I tried to just use my common sense. This imagine honestly has just as much Jisung X Felix as Reader X Jaemin, I’m sorry I got carried away. Hope you enjoy!
Trigger warning: none 
Genre: fluff and slight angst 
Word-count: 4.2K+ 
You are in: The Luck of Fate Star System 
Tumblr media
“And what’s the name for that?” the barista asked, the bored lilt to his monotoned voice offset by the heady scent of vanilla and coffee in the air.
“Y/N.” you said softly.
The boy didn’t bother to respond, not even nodding as he tapped your name into the register and told you your total.
“Eight dollars and twenty-one cents.” he drawled.
If it wasn’t so early, you would have groaned about the absurd prices — were you ever going to buy that coffee maker? — but as it was still so early, and you were incredibly sluggish, you only nodded, pulling the money out and handing it toward him.
The boy’s brow furrowed at the ink on your arm, suddenly looking a bit more awake as he craned his neck to see it better, like all nosy people did.
You will meet at: N.City.
The boy startled when you yanked your sleeve down over the words, glaring fiercely as he took the money, stammering and dropping change all over the corner.
You had seen the words on your arm for the longest, and you were beyond sick of being ogled at like a zoo attraction for a soulmate link that you had come to hate anyway.
As if you hadn’t looked at every website, in every almanac and encyclopedia, on every map and globe, trying in vain to find N.City.
Only, no matter how hard you looked it up, you couldn’t find the place on your arm.
N.City was not a real place.
But that didn’t matter, you reminded yourself.
Because this, right now, was a real place. The current moment is what you should be focusing on. Not some distant person that might not even exist in the first place.
“Y/N!” another barista called.
This barista, a pretty girl whose nametag read Yeji, gave you an airy smile as you shuffled up to the counter and took your drink. It made you feel a bit better.
The hot drink in your hands warmed from the inside out, a comforting brace against the sharp November breeze.
Despite the resentment for the words on your arm, you couldn’t help the old childhood habit of brushing your thumb lovingly against the words as you walked into your lecture hall and took your seat.
While your soulmate link wasn’t particularly common, it wasn’t particularly rare either. It wasn’t hard to find other people who had it and they all said the same thing: while seemingly helpful, it acted more like a puzzle than a hint.
Many times, soulmates would have different pieces of the location on their arm, like one soulmate having a street name and the other having the city and state its in. Some soulmates had vague locations like ‘bus’ or ‘river.’
And some, most likely in your case, had emotional locations. This could mean somewhere that’s really important to one of the soulmates, but isn’t actually a place with a name, so the soulmate link had to make one.
This was most likely what you had.
At least, that was what you hoped.
This was much easier to accept than the thought that the soulmate system just screwed you over.
“‘Sup N.City,” Felix’s low baritone, still scratchy with sleep startled you out of your pre-lecture stupor.
You gave him a sour look, too tired and too fond of him to have any real malice behind it.
“Stop calling me that,” you said, like you did twenty times a day whenever he used that nickname. If it had been anyone else, you probably would have body-slammed them.
But Felix, with his deep voice and big pretty eyes and heart way too big for his body, was an extremely hard person to get mad at.
When the years went by and you started to resent the writing on your arm, he was the one who distracted you with Mario Kart and the detentions his stupid ideas brought.
When everyone kept asking what N.City was and what it meant and where it was and your stomach dropped when you saw their faces twist with pity when you said you didn’t know, he was the one who told them to back off and mind their business.
And when people started trying to use your confusion toward your soulmate link to their advantage, trying to trick you into believing they were your soulmate, he was the one who protected you. The one who stood by you when you started isolating everyone in the interest of your safety.
The lecture passed by as it always did, your professor’s incredibly boring voice sliding in one and ear and out the other, without a word of his speech actually sticking in your brain.
If it hadn’t been for the notes Felix took in this class, you probably would have failed weeks ago.
“You really need to start paying attention,” Felix admonished, sounding more amused than disapproving.
You pouted, crossing your arms over your chest as you two packed up. Well, Felix packed up, you didn’t have anything out to begin with except your iced coffee.
“Come on, Lix. Statistics make me sad, you know this.”
Felix rolled his eyes as you two left the lecture hall, on the way to get some actual food in when his phone buzzed in the middle of the walk.
You weren’t paying attention to him until you noticed he wasn’t beside you anymore.
You glanced around, confused, before seeing him a few paces back, an upset and pensive look on his face.
“Lix? What are you doing? What’s wrong?”
The moment he heard your voice, the look broke and he grinned.
“Felix, I don’t like that look. That’s the same look you got on your face in sophomore year when you—”
“Oh? Oh, we bring up stuff from the past, are we?” Felix’s brow rose and your eyes narrowed. “Because if that’s the case, then we can always talk about that time when—”
“Don’t you dare bring that up,” you hissed, cheeks already flaming as he smirked.
“That’s what I thought,” he said sliding his phone back into his pocket and catching up to you, throwing a jovial arm over your shoulder.
You really didn’t like that grin on his face.
“So you know what concert I was going to in June?”
“Yeah,” you said warily, swiping your student ID at the entrance to the dining hall.
“Well, the concert’s in Korea and I don’t like going by myself, so I was going to have Chris-hyung come with me.”
“I don’t like where this is going.”
“But he’s going on a family vacation with Lucas and their mom.”
“I really don’t like where this is going.”
“So I want you to come instead.”
“Oh, Felix,” you whined as you two moved down the line.
“No, listen! It won’t be like that time in LA! My Korean is pretty good now and I’ve been to Seoul loads of times before so I can get us around! And Chan already paid for you, so all you have to do is come!”
Your eyes widened, almost dropping your plate as you looked for an empty table to sit at.
“Chan paid for me?”
“Well, he already paid for his stay in the hotel and his concert ticket and his flight and everything so he’s just giving it to you.” Felix smiled brightly, as if he wasn’t asking me to go with him to a country where I couldn’t speak the language and had never been there before to see a band that I didn’t even know the name of.
Felix was an avid K-Pop fan, but I think it was only because of the name that appeared on his collarbone a day before he turned eighteen.
Han Jisung.
A Korean name if I’d ever seen one. Since then, Felix had been to Korea like six times and was very near fluent in the language. Despite always going there “strictly for concerts and conventions,” he always stayed for, like, a week to “take in the sights.”
Normally, any mention of soulmates irked you. You tried to forget about it as time went on, but it kept being thrown in your face. Couples everywhere, your parents and family constantly harassing you about N.City and your potentially nonexistent soulmate.
But you found his dedication to his soulmate so cute and genuine and innocent, that you just couldn’t fault him for it. This Han Jisung was a very lucky person. 
And, no matter how much you didn’t really want to give up a week of your hard-earned summer downtime to go frolicking in a foreign country, you had to admit that the idea of Felix being alone there didn’t sit well with you either.
“Ugh, fine. But you better not turn me into Nancy Drew looking for Han Jisung.”
Felix blushed, ducking his head down as he grumbled, “I have no clue what you’re talking about.”
~
The next two months passed by uneventfully. Exams, homework, and copious amounts of finals stress came and went. And though you and Felix were worn and tired, the thought of having another year under your belt and being one step closer to your degree lifted your spirits considerably.
Because you were petty, you didn’t admit to Felix how excited you actually were about the upcoming trip. But he’d known you for years and the grin wouldn’t leave his face as he watched you run around your room, stuffing clothes and toiletries in a suitcase as you babbled nearly incoherently to him, practicing the little phrases of Korean that you had had time to learn.
Something you knew from experience was that traveling with Felix was . . . stressful. At least, at the beginning.
You had both worked out a plan two days earlier to keep everything relaxed and smooth.
However, the day of the flight, that entire plan went out the window.
You both woke up an hour and a half after the alarm went off, had to go back to his house three times for things you forgot (one of which being his passport and ticket), the bus you were on broke down, Felix cause a hold up at TSA cause of all the snacks in his carry-on, you very nearly got questioned by the police when Felix yelled, “This concert is going to be the bomb!” at the top of his lungs, and then you nearly fought a man at the terminal who you were pretty sure was trying to kidnap you and Felix.
“This happens every time!” you complained to him as you both finally boarded the plane, putting your carryon in the overhead compartment.
Felix got the window seat — due to all his whining — but at this point, you didn’t even care, just settled down in your seat with your earbuds, head leaning back, and drifting off into a peaceful sleep.
At least that’s what was about to happen until Felix tapped your shoulder.
“I have to pee, you have to move.”
“Oh, for FUCK’S SAKE!”
~
You wondered if other people had this same experience, the feeling that everywhere they went, soulmates were all people seemed to want to talk about. But maybe it was just because you were trying to avoid the topic that it kept coming up.
Either way, you were pretty sure that hearing Felix talk about the etymology of the name Han Jisung for the past ninety minutes would have been too much for anyone.
“We’re here!” you said gratefully, nearly crying tears of relief as you practically threw yourself out of the Uber you were sharing with Felix.
The venue was large, and you were elated to see there weren’t too many people in line yet so Felix, hopefully, wouldn’t have time to start talking about Jisung again.
You really hoped they met soon, because, as much as you loved Felix, you didn’t know how much more of this you could take.
“What’s the name of the group again?” you asked as you and Felix walked in, stopping at a merch stand so Felix could buy a shirt and lightstick.
“NCT,” he replied, holding a shirt and lightstick out to you as well as if asking if you wanted one as well.
You shook your head. “Nah, those things are way too expensive to buy one for someone who isn’t even a fan.”
Felix only smirked, buying the extra shirt and lightstick anyway.
“You will be after this, trust me.”
You shrugged, putting the shirt on over your clothes and turning the lightstick around in your hands, examining it curiously. It wasn’t the prettiest thing, but it wasn’t that ugly.
Maybe you could use it to light the way when you go to the bathroom at night.
It was Felix’s money, he could spend it how he pleased. Well, more likely it was Chan and Woojin’s money, but that’s beside the point.
For the next hours, you and Felix spent a generous amount of time talking, beating each other up with lightsticks, and conversing with other fans until finally the lights die down and the music starts up . . .
~
The summer air was cool, gently ticking your face as you gazed up at the sky. The night was quiet, quiet as it could be in a big city like Seoul, and the only other thing that filled your ears was the sound of NCT’s songs on shuffle.
You’d been impressed by the concert, to say the least.
The way they all performed with such passion and precision made you feel electric and, even though you didn’t know the words to the songs, you almost forgot you weren’t a fan as you waved the lightstick and hummed along with Felix beside you.
When you got back to the hotel, you were still wired, unlike Felix, who fell asleep the instant his head hit the pillow.
You decided to go to the nearest park, only a couple minutes' walk away. Even though you didn’t wake Felix up and disturb him, you made sure to text him the location of the place you were going ahead of time just in case something bad happened.
So far, nothing had happened though. There were other people in the park, but none of them paid much attention to you. It seemed they were all just people who couldn’t sleep either.
At least, that was what you thought until some random guy appeared beside you, pointing at the spot on the bench next to you. “Can I sit here?” his voice was smooth and pleasant, and you nodded before you even realized what you’d agreed to.
The boy — who seemed to be about your age — had a black mask on, but you could see his eyes crinkle cutely so you were pretty sure he smiled as he sat beside you.
“Are you here for the shooting stars?” he asked.
Your face contorted in confusion.
“The what?”
“There’s supposed to be shooting stars tonight,” the boy said. “That’s what most of these people are doing here.”
“I didn’t know that. I just couldn’t sleep. I went to a concert, so I guess the adrenaline still hasn’t worn off.”
The boy rose an eyebrow. “The NCT 127 concert? You went?”
You nodded, a ghost of a smile curving your lips. “Yeah, I went with a friend. He’s an NCT friend. I guess I am too, after what I saw at their concert.”
“Do you recognize me?” the stranger suddenly asks.
You stared at him for a moment, bewildered. It was kind of hard to see past the black hoodie, mask, and sweatpants that covered nearly every inch of him, but even so, you pretty sure you’d never met this person before.
“Uh, should I?”
The boy’s eyes changed and you were pretty sure he was smirking.
“NCT has another sub-unit, NCT Dream. Are you and your friend going to see them perform tomorrow?”
You racked your brain for anything Felix might have said about it and slowly nodded. “Yeah, I think he did say we’re going to see them to— oh. Wow . . .”
At that moment, the shooting stars appeared, brilliants streaks of white painting the sky, enrapturing you so much that you failed to see the boy staring in awe at you, a realization seeming to dawn upon him as he watched your face light up at the sight of the shooting stars.
“Holy shit, it's you,” he breathed.
Your brow furrowed as you looked at him. Before you could ask any questions, he just held a hand out to you. You were even more confused at first, before you saw the words on his palm. They were in Korean at first, but they shifted before your eyes, reforming into an English sentence.
You will meet: under the shooting stars.
Your eyes widened, glancing back up at the shootings tars, now long-gone, leaving behind only the brilliants trails where they once were.
“I....but I don’t understand.”
You yanked your sleeve up showing the sentence inscribed onto your arm, but it only made the boy’s eyes crinkle more.
“NCT 127 is called that because they’re based in Seoul. That’s what 127 is, it’s the coordinates for the city. NCT? N.City? You came to Seoul for their concert and now we met under the stars. We’re—”
“Soulmates,” you whisper in disbelief, your eyes widened to the point of saucers.
The boy grinned, nodding as he finally pulled his mask under his chin, revealing the face of what was probably the most gorgeous boy you’d ever seen in your life, a few strands of soft-looking pink hair falling into his sparkly eyes, curved with happiness.
You let out a choked sob as you flung your arms around his neck, hugging him close without even really being conscious of what you were doing, but your soulmate didn’t seem to mind. He just laughed, arms circling around your waist just as tight, rocking you back and forth, hand rubbing your back comfortingly as he nuzzled his face into your hair.
“I thought you weren’t real, I thought the system screwed up,” you blubbered, hands clenching fistfuls of his hoodie. “I tried to look for N.City and I couldn’t find anything, so I thought . . .”
You trailed off, trying to pull yourself together as you buried your head in his chest, the scent of his sweet-smelling cologne filling your senses and calming you slightly.
Your soulmate nodded in understanding, hugging you a little bit closer.
“I’m real. I’m real and I’m here and I’m yours,” he whispered.
“I can’t believe all those years of being obsessed with astronomy actually paid off,” he said and you scoffed.
“I can’t believe letting Felix drag me to a foreign country actually paid off,” you chuckled.
Your soulmate stiffened, pulling back to look at you. “Felix? Lee Felix? His Korean name is Yongbok?”
Your jaw dropped, brows furrowing as you nodded slowly. “Yeah, how did—”
“I’m friends with Han Jisung.”
~
“FELIX!”
A loud bang echoed through the hotel room as Felix shot up in the bed, an anguished cry escaping him when his forehead collided with the headboard.
“What? Are we being robbed? Where’s the fire? Fuck, that hurt!”
Felix groaned, clutching his head, only to yelp when he strayed too close to the edge of the bed and tumbled to the floor in a heap of aching limbs.
You barely even noticed, throwing him clothes and speaking so fast that Felix wouldn’t even be able to understand what you said if you hadn’t just woken him up and given him two concussions and a bone fracture in the span of eight seconds.
“Y/N, slow down, what the hell are you talking about, I— DON’T TOUCH THAT, I CAN GET DRESSED BY MYSELF!”
“Hurry up then!” you groaned, shoving a jacket onto him as he put a pair of jeans and a sneaker on at the same time.
You finally made it out of the hotel room, arguing incoherently the entire time as you pulled Felix along to the destination that you and your soulmate had agreed upon before racing to go fetch your respective friends.
Your soulmate had obviously been more adept at explaining the situation as he stood beside an intensely good-looking boy with long-ish messy blonde hair that looked nervous beyond all belief, but otherwise pretty well pout-together for being woken up at three in the morning.
Meanwhile, you and Felix were still arguing loudly as you entered the already-loud restaurant, his shirt on backward, jeans inside out, mismatched socks on, one shoe missing, and hair sticking up at every angle as he shouted at you, the both of you somehow not bumping into anything as you approached the pair.
“— could have died for Christ’s sake Y/N, you don’t even know Hangul, not to mention I have a headache the size of Germany now and—”
“Germany is a small country and headaches don’t have sizes you moron—”
“YOU KNOW WHAT—”
“DO YOU WANT TO MEET JISUNG OR NOT?”
That made him shut up, eyes wide as he gaped at you, still not noticing the two boys now directly in front of you.
“I— wha— Jisung?” he finally stuttered out.
You wordlessly waved a hand toward the boy, who you could now clearly see had Felix Lee/Lee Yongbok written on the back of his hand.
“That’s him. He’s apparently one of my soulmate’s friends so I thought you’d like to finally meet him.”
Felix looked back and forth between you and Jisung, mouth flapping open and closed like a fish as he tried to find the words to say.
Jisung finally found his voice, squeaking out a, “You’re very pretty.” in a timid shaky voice.
That seemed to shake Felix back to his senses as he flung himself onto the boy. They were the same height but Felix still found a way to comfortably nestle his head in the crook of his neck.
Jisung looked surprised but absolutely elated and you could already tell that he was even more whipped for Felix than Felix was for him. You could see Felix’s ears flushing red as Jisung whispered things in his ear in Korean that you probably didn’t even want to know.
“They’re cute together,” you whispered as your soulmate came over to you, putting an arm around your shoulder and pulling you into his side.
“Not as cute as you,” he said, grinning as you groaned.
“Ugh, way too cheesy,” you said in mock disgust as you two sat in a booth, no longer focused on Jisung and Felix at all.
“Get used to it, prince(ss). You’re stuck with me for now. For a long time, hopefully.”
You smiled, anticipation thrumming in your veins as his face advanced closer to yours. You had always thought it was stupid that soulmates got so comfortable with each other, and especially with physical affection, so early on in the relationship, but now you understood perfectly.
You didn’t even care about the fact that you and your soulmate hadn’t even exchanged names or numbers yet as his lips met yours. All you cared about right now was him and the rest could come later.
And if the way he held you so delicately and adoringly was anything to go by, he felt the same.
~
“Wait, so you’re telling me that my soulmate is an idol?” you gaped, turning to look at Jaemin who smiled sheepishly.
Felix snorted, shoving twelve fries into his mouth at once, as he cuddled into Jisung’s side, much like you were doing with Jaemin in the booth seat across from theirs.
Jisung and Felix were an incredibly good-looking couple. You’d grown somewhat used to how pretty Felix was, but Jisung looked like a prince from another direction and it startled you every time you glanced in his direction.
Still, biased though you might be, you didn’t really think anyone was in the same league as Jaemin, whose name you just found out three minutes ago.
“You’d know what if you actually asked his name before you decided to shove your tongue down his throat.” Felix sassed.
You narrowed your eyes at him.
“You really want to go there, Felix? You really want to bring that up when I saw Jisung squeeze your ass right in front of my salad two seconds ago?”
Jaemin guffawed loudly as Felix choked on his water. Jisung just gave a tiny smile, not looking the least bit ashamed or sorry.
“Touche,” Felix squeaked.
“Isn’t a relationship going to be complicated for you?” you whispered worriedly to Jaemin as Felix and Jisung talked amongst themselves.
Jaemin’s smile dropped and he looked completely serious now, scaring you a bit as he took your hands in his.
“No matter how hard or complicated it gets, I won’t let that get in the way, Y/N. I’ve waited for you way too long to let my work get in the way. I want you to know I’m serious about this, Y/n, serious about you. I can’t guarantee that we’ll last forever, but I’ll do my part in trying.”
You stared, speechless, for a moment, trying very hard to keep your tears at bay.
The moment was ruined when Felix and Jisung groaned.
“You guys are disgusting.”
“WILL YOU SHUT THE FUCK UP?!”
The Luck of Fate Star System 
Starlink Intergalactic Navigator 
54 notes · View notes
ask-de-writer · 4 years
Text
LOST TIME (part 2 of 3) A fantasy of Flocking Bay.
Return to the Master Story Index
Return to Flocking Bay
LOST TIME
by
De Writer (Glen Ten-Eyck)
5556 words
© 2020 by Glen Ten-Eyck
written 2003 by Glen Ten-Eyck
All rights reserved.
Reproduction  in any form, physical, electronic or digital is prohibited without the  express written consent of the author or proper copyright holder.
//////////////
Copyright fair use rules for Tumblr users
Users  of Tumblr.com are specifically granted the following rights. They may  reblog the story. They may use the characters or original characters in  my settings for fan fiction, fan art works, cosplay, or fan musical  compositions. I will allow those who do commission art works to charge  for their images.
All sorts of Fan Activity, fiction, art, cosplay, music or anything else is ACTIVELY encouraged!
///////////////////////
Morton Hewitt did not last. He bought the house for back taxes in 1944. He lived there for a week. He painted the hardwood floors and then hanged himself in the garage the next day.
Byron Thomas bought the house from Hewitt’s estate. He was a grave digger for Trinity Graveyard. He updated the plumbing and lived there quietly for several years. Apparently he liked his work a little too well. He buried two people who were not yet dead. One of them lived. He was adjudged sane at his trial and hanged for his crime.
Mark Altman bought the house next. He was a reclusive sort and lived there for a quite a number of years before it was discovered that he’d had some visitors who had never left. He died in prison while awaiting trial. There was an interesting hand written note attached to the autopsy report which stated that the coroner had ruled out both suicide and homicide but refused to pronounce the death natural.
Dora Greene got the place next. She was Mark’s sister. Like Mark, she lived there quietly for years. One day she walked into town and set fire to the school, killing five and maiming six more. She spent her last years in a lunatic asylum, setting three more fires and killing two more people. She herself died in her last fire.
While she was in the asylum, one Tony Fisk, age twelve, urged on by several other urchins, had thrown some stones at the windows of the Vekin place. He had missed. Becoming angry, he took careful aim and they all watched the flight of the stone. In the young malefactor’s words, “It went away without falling.”
It would not have been worthy of a news story, except for the fact that each of the children who had watched the stone had gone severely and permanently cross-eyed. In a small town like Flocking Bay, that many kids going cross-eyed at once could not be hidden.
George Abbot bought the house and rented it at a very low price to a Michael Farley. The two had been feuding, down-state, and the house was supposed to have been a peace offering. Farley stayed only a few weeks. He went out and dynamited Abbot’s automobile. Farley was quite mad and lived out his life in an asylum for the criminally insane. The county coroner ruled Abbot’s death to be suicide. After all, he had known the history of the house and had knowingly rented that house to an enemy.
Cornelius Baker took the house next. He upgraded the kitchen and installed modern wiring. He lived there quietly and apparently got on well for about five years. He was a long-haul truck driver. Bodies followed him about the country. Finally, he was caught with one in his truck. He drove his truck into a bridge abutment at over ninety miles per hour rather than be taken alive.
Now, I had the place. I mentally withdrew my blessing. He had not been a good man at all.
Lois saw that I was finished with the file and making good inroads on my sandwich. She asked, “Did you sleep there, last night?”
“Yes, I did. Most restful sleep I have had in years.”
“What is your full name?”
“Vandervekken,” I replied, getting out my driver’s license. I was used to this. “No first name or middle initial. Just Vandervekken.”
“How old are you?”
“I don’t know, at least seventy.”
“You don’t know how old you are? Seventy? You look like you’re in your early twenties,” she said incredulously. “I told you that things connected with the Vekin place get interesting.”
“I got a head-wound during the war. Traumatic amnesia.”
“Viet Nam wasn’t that long ago. It would only make you in your fifties.”
“Not Viet Nam, Lois. WW II. Apparently, I was helping the French Underground.” I handed her the military fingerprint record. Her eyes widened as she realized that I was serious. “The amnesia’s been permanent, so far. I have language skills . . . too many. I’m a fluent, accentless polyglot. I even speak Basque. I know how to do an amazing number of things . . . no trace of name or personal past. No ID either.”
“Couldn’t they trace you by these fingerprints or something?”
“They tried. I was found among the bodies of a wiped-out unit of the French Underground during the German withdrawal from Paris in 1944. Someone from another unit was able to say that I was an American volunteer with a name that he could neither remember nor pronounce ... something sort of Dutch. That inspired my current name. I got back with a temporary ID and that military fingerprint record, which I still carry.”
“That’s sad, and eerie, too. What’s it feel like?”
“I’ve thought about that a lot. I think the best way to describe it is like a house that’s furnished but nobody is home. Empty. Alone.”
“So, how does that relate to your choice of name? You must know what having only one name does to our systems for indexing things and people.”
“True. I want to stand out, in case somebody recognizes who I am. As for Vandervekken, he was the Flying Dutchman, who swore that he would take his ship around the Cape of Good Hope, against a gale, if it took until Judgment Day. That was in the Seventeenth Century and he is still sailing. His ghost is seen as a Dutch East India Co. galleon with all sails set, sailing into the teeth of a gale. He can’t get home either.”
“I see,” Lois said, adding to her notes. “What brought you to Flocking Bay?”
“I was just passing through. I like small towns, so I avoid the main highways and big cities whenever I can. I liked the atmosphere of Flocking Bay enough to inquire about the possibility of settling here.”
“Look, we both know that small towns are dying. You could have had your pick from any of a dozen houses. Why the Vekin place?”
“I was shown fourteen places, actually. I know that it seems a bit forbidding at first, but it felt good. Like a warm glove on a cool morning. Have you ever actually been there?”
She shuddered, “No, and before you, I have never heard of anyone who said that the Vekin place felt good ... You say that you are a writer. What have you written?”
“Charles said it very well, ’Pseudonyms are great for privacy.’ My own writing aside, I do translations but you won’t find my name on most of them. Archaeologists like to take credit for their finds. I mentioned that I’m a polyglot? I sight read ancient languages as well as modern.”
I extended my hand to Lois and invited, “Would you like to come and see for yourself this house of dark history? I promise that you will find it worth your while. In all of those stories, not once was the interior of Vekin House described. Do come.”
“I have to return the file and get my camera,” she responded gamely.
“I shall await you in my auto, in front of the Voice,” I answered. As I walked her back across the street, I had the pleasure of seeing her stare at Lilitu.
“If that’s what I think its, I’ll ride with you anywhere!” she called over her shoulder as she entered the Voice’s office. True to her word, she emerged in a few minutes with a camera. Not one of those tiny little cameras that have become fashionable, but a business-like press camera. I opened the car door and gave her a hand up.
As I got into the driver’s seat, she asked, wonder in her voice, “Is this really a Packard V-12 Touring Car?”
We pulled away with the almost uncannily quiet, vibration-free ride that the car was famous for. I replied, “You bet she is. Lois, meet Lilitu. Lilitu, meet Lois. After the war, there were still quite a few of them to be had, and I liked both the ride and the durability, so I hunted one down and had it fixed up like new. I’ve kept her that way ever since. She’s only had two owners in over two-million miles. The first owner only put on about sixty-thousand of them.”
“You drive a lot,” she stated.
“I was looking for something ... I think that Flocking Bay has it. My turn for a few questions , if you don’t mind.”
“Fire away. If I don’t like the question, I won’t answer it.”
“What did you do before you took up the Voice?”
“The same thing that I still do. The stock and futures markets. I’m good at it. I got out of college with a degree in the sociology of medieval witchcraft. I got a job as a waitress on the strength of my looks. I put my first fifty dollars in tips into a risky stock that kited way up. On a hunch, I dumped it three days after I bought it. It nosedived shortly after I sold out. After commissions, I had three hundred and fifty dollars. I rolled it over the same way. The rest is history. So far, my hunches have always worked for me.”
“What brought you to Flocking Bay?”
“Like you, I was passing through. I was on my way to Lakeside Resort about three years ago. I got a hunch that I should stay, so I did. The Voice was failing. When a small town loses its paper, the end is in sight. I didn’t want the end to come, so I bought the paper. Here I am.”
“And here we are,” I said with a flourish as I pulled up in front of the house. We both stared. The yard was neatly trimmed, though the bushes and trees still retained a slightly forbidding aspect. Going up the path to the front door, I noticed that the flagstones had been leveled, the weeds removed and the joints and refilled with fresh sand. The iron fence and balustrades had been cleaned of rust.
“You’ve been busy,” was Lois’s comment.
“That’s just it,” I replied, puzzled. “I didn’t do it. I thought that stocking the fridge and setting out a snack last night was something that the real-estate agent arranged. Sort of a welcome wagon. This is beyond the call of duty.” Opening the front door, I felt that comfortable, welcoming feeling that had caused me to buy the house in the first place. Impulsively, I said, “Hello, house, you certainly look nice today.”
Lois looked at me quizzically and asked, “Do you talk to everything, or is this special?”
I thought for a moment before answering, “Actually I only talk to things that have personality enough to warrant a name, like Lilitu, my car, or Drachen, my typewriter.”
“Typewriter? You do like antiques, don't you? What are you going to call the house, then?”
“I’m not sure,” I answered. “Something good ... What does the place feel like to you?”
“The place actually looks and feels . . . well . . .” Lois groped for the right word, “I’d have to say . . . happy. Not what I expected, at all. It feels like what you see when a pup that loves its master is greeting him. No wonder you slept well, if it feels as good to you as it does to me . . .” She sort of trailed off. “I wouldn’t normally say this, but I’m getting a hunch about this place . . .” she trailed off again.
“I guess that the house was just waiting for the right kind of person,” I responded. “It was pretty rough on everyone else. I’m glad that you like it too.”
“Look at these floors,” she mused, “They were beautiful before Hewitt painted them over. You can still make out some traces of the parquetry patterns. If he hadn’t already hanged himself, I’d help you to do it.”
<==Previous    Next==>
Return to the Master Story Index
Return to Flocking Bay
6 notes · View notes
husbandoshell · 5 years
Text
Every Fandom is Toxic, Right?
Everyone is entitled to an opinion, but you are also entitled to be called out as ignorant. And by that I mean, its okay to be knowledgeable about a character and say, “I still don’t like or agree with them.” But it is incredibly troll-y to know only half the story and puke hate about a character.
What pisses me off a lot about the mlqc fandom is not the conflicting opinions, but this stupid superiority complex people are hungry for in knowing spoilers and feeling the need to spoil things for other people. AND PRETENDING TO KNOW WHAT’S GOING ON IN THE CN SERVER when you don’t even play it?
I DO NOT play the CN server, but I have a friend from mainland who does and she tells me things if I ask, but I generally don’t ask because I don’t want to be spoiled. My Chinese language ability ends at CSL 4, and even though I was born in China and lived there for the first 5 months of my life, I don’t have a national id, so I can’t play CN. I would never pretend to know more than I do, and I always let people know where I heard info from unless my source asks to be kept anonymous.
To everyone in any chatrooms about MLQC, please remember:
Ask people for their sources, some players seem to spread rumors about ‘plot’ when in reality, its just speculation they saw on weibo because THEY DON’T/CAN’T PLAY CN.
Just because someone is typing in Chinese, doesn’t mean they’re fluent this has been glaringly obvious in some of the *ahem* official chat rooms
A LOT OF INTERNATIONAL PLAYERS play this game, please be open minded, forgiving, and patient if someone misrepresents what they were trying to tell you because English is not their first language. Make your goal when having a conversation to communicate, not to correct people’s grammar and sentence syntax
don’t give in to rumors/gossip!!! Unfortunately, its not the mods’ job to prevent bullying; in fact, their stance is that its up to the community to enforce rules and social etiquette. Gossiping about another player when they aren’t even there to tell their side of the story is disgusting, and there’s not even any reason to discuss other players. KNOCK IT OFF.
Finally, some players apparently have NO real, social life and take this game and their own opinions on it WAY to seriously. We all like to joke that we’re kinda weeb trash, but some people actually are. Remember: we’re queens, act like it: its okay to have differing opinions, be the bigger person and don’t get baited into an argument if someone, immaturely, trash talks your man. All of the guys are KINGS and while you may prefer one over the other, there is really no reason to trash talk any of them.
PS: sourcing where you got screen shots and such from is IMPORTANT not because anyone has the right to say they own a screen shot, but because it is important to know who really had the access to that information. As in, I could go to weibo and copy and paste screen shots to this blog with out ‘credit’ and trick everyone into thinking I’m omnipotent when, in reality, I know nothing and all my theories that I’m sharing like they’re facts are really just speculation. This is how misinformation is spread, again, ask people their sources. Share a good theory with me, I don’t care; tell me how convincing a theory you hear was, great; DON’T go around spreading theories like they’re facts and you’re god for knowing them. I remember having a huge debate with another player about some chapter 10 stuff and I finally asked them where they were in the story because their argument made no sense. Their response was, “chapter 7.” All of their opinions were forged through asking others for spoilers and spoiling themselves on weibo PROBABLY using google translate, and they they parade around like they know shit. SEE IT WITH YOUR OWN EYES PEOPLE.
This was a long post, and maybe I’m screaming into the abyss, but I’m tired of seeing/hearing about easily avoidable drama in this fandom of should-be-kindred-souls. I follow XingXueYue because they obviously play CN and have some really informative posts, but I cringe every time I see one of their ‘drama call out’ rants. Grow up ladies [and gents], Grow. The fuck. Up.
74 notes · View notes
thelanguageoflovers · 5 years
Text
I Trust You, Theodore James Kippen
A one-shot for the amazing @tyrusflavoredtea in return for the masterlist she made me!
***
“Flight 283 out of Gate 32C has been delayed from its departure time of 4:50 to 6:00. I repeat, Flight 283 out of Gate 32C will now be departing at 6:00 pm.” The flight attendant’s voice was nearly inaudible over the quiet din of chatter throughout the gate. Cyrus rolled his eyes, sitting back in his chair and trying to get comfortable. He glanced up at the desk, watching yet another hopeful passenger be informed that there were no more flights out of DCA into ORD until 1:00 in the afternoon the next day.
“I apologize for the inconvenience, sir.”
“No, that’s alright. You don’t decide what flights go where and when,” the man assured her.
“Thank you for understanding, Mr. Tallman. The airline will provide you compensation for your time,” she promised.
“Oh? What kind of compensation?” he asked, leaning slightly over the desk with a nearly intimidatingly suggestive smile.
“Sir, I-”
“Please, call me John.”
“Mr. Tallman,” the attendant emphasized, stepping backward slightly. Cyrus sat up as he watched this happen, already standing up as John began to speak again.
“Oh come on, baby-” Cyrus was standing next to him in no time, beginning to open his mouth before he was beaten to the punch.
“Is there a problem here, sir?” A deep voice asked from the other side of Mr. Tallman.
“Yeah, there is, actually-”
“-Sir,” Cyrus cut in. “I recommend you stop right there. She’s clearly not interested, and I can’t blame her. Move on, and stop taking flights if you can’t keep it in your pants long enough to speak to a flight attendant.” Mr. Tallman opened his mouth to argue, but Deep Voice Guy was stepping in front of him, hand on his chest.
“Mr. Tallman. You either walk away or you face the No-Fly list,” he said, towering over the man. Who rolled his eyes and walked out of the gate, muttering something.
“I- would that even get him on the No-Fly list?” Cyrus muttered, mostly to himself.
“Well, no,” Deep Voice answered, turning to face him and holding out a hand to shake. “But he thinks it would. I’m TJ Kippen.”
“Cyrus Goodman.” They shook hands, smiling gently.
“Thank you guys, so much,” the flight attendant said.
“Oh, it was no problem,” Cyrus promised, hooking his thumb into the strap of his backpack.
“Not at all,” TJ agreed, smiling at her. “Do you need anything?”
“No, no, that was plenty.”
“Okay, then.” TJ turned to Cyrus. “Come sit with me?”
“I- um, I guess so.” Cyrus was weighing the possibilities of TJ’s status as a serial killer in his head, and not only could TJ tell, he also found it ridiculously endearing.
“Come on, I promise not to harm you.” TJ smiled wide, gesturing to an open row of chairs.
“I don’t think that was the right way to assure someone of your trustworthiness.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes,” Cyrus chuckled, sitting down next to him.
“What would you prefer, then?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well that’s not fair!”
“Life isn’t fair, Kippen.”
“Yeah, yeah. Who are you, my mother?”
“Who’s to say?”
“...You?” TJ asked.
“I respect that,” Cyrus conceded. “Anyway, is DC home, business, or pleasure?”
“School, actually. Georgetown. I stayed six extra weeks to take a history course.”
“Freshman?”
“Yeah, I am,” TJ laughed.
“Me too. Yale, though.”
“Then why the hell are you in DC? And going to Chicago?”
“Summer internship - Capitol Hill. And Chicago is home. Sort of. Chicago is home plus about four hours of driving.”
“Same. O’Hare is just the closest big airport to Shadyside.”
“Shadyside?” Cyrus asked, facing TJ.
“Yeah?”
“You’re lying, right?”
“No?” TJ promised, one eyebrow raised.
“You have to be lying. I’d know you if you lived in Shadyside.”
“Ah. You live there too?”
“No. I live there. You, on the other hand, are a liar.” TJ shook his head, reaching into his pocket for his wallet and pulling out his driver’s licence. He handed it to Cyrus with a smug grin.
“Shadyside, Midwest. Born and raised,” he said, only for Cyrus to chuckle at the card.
“Theodore James Kippen. Theodore. Theo Kippen,” Cyrus laughed. “Your name is Theodore.”
“Oh hush. You were named after a sculptor.”
“Not so. I was named after Cyrus the Great, Achaemenid-Persian King, and Cyrus McCormick, physicist. And who were you named after? Ted Bundy?” Cyrus deadpanned.
“Not funny! Theodore Roosevelt and James Joyce.”
“Oh. That’s… Not actually something I know how to make fun of.”
“Lucky me.”
“I like your shirt,” Cyrus said after a moment, smiling softly at the pride pattern.
“June’s almost over. I figured I should probably wear it a few more times before the hets get mad,” TJ joked, glancing down at Cyrus’s pride bracelet. “The same for you, I presume?”
“Nah. This bracelet never leaves my wrist; it’s been a part of me since my best friend made it for me.”
“And how long has that been?”
“Nearly six years. Since the day I came out to her.”
“You’ve got a good best friend, then,” TJ smiled.
“Two of them, actually.”
“Ah. Me too. Well, a best friend and a twin sister.”
“Good support system,” Cyrus approved. “Does your sister go too Georgetown, too?”
“No, UCLA. I haven’t seen her in far too long.”
“Reunion day tomorrow?”
“Yeah.” A smile came over his face as he spoke. “Marty, Amber and I haven’t seen one another since the holidays.”
“Marty?! That’s your best friend?”
“Uh, yeah?”
“He’s my best friend’s ex-boyfriend,” Cyrus gawked.
“So your best friend is… Buffy Driscoll! Then your bracelet maker is Andi Mack.”
“You are correct. And your twin sister is dating my best friend.”
“She is, yeah. And your other best friend dumped my best friend for… Someone else. Whoever she cheated on him with. I never got around to finding out who.”
“Buffy didn’t break up with Marty for someone else or cheat on him? She broke up with him because they were going off to schools on opposite sides of the country and she didn’t want them both to get hurt.”
“Marty said she…”
“She didn’t. Buffy’s not that kind of person.”
“How am I supposed to believe that?”
“I give you my word, Theo.”
“Is that gonna stick?”
“Are you gonna go after Buffy for cheating?”
“I asked the first question.”
“I asked the more important question,” Cyrus rebutted.
“Fine. I trust you.”
“Then I trust you, Theo.”
“Is that all it takes to buy your trust?” TJ crossed his arms.
“No, actually. My trust costs quite a lot more than that.”
“Like what?”
“Like… Your ID, the pride pattern on your shirt -  a gift from Marty when you two came out to one another. Your luggage tag, the watch you’re wearing - which just so happens to have been picked out by Andi while helping Amber shop for her brother. Your backpack, which you borrowed from Marty. Your shoes, decorated by Walker Brodsky, Andi’s ex boyfriend. Your varsity jacket - Grant High basketball. The music playing out of your earbuds - a playlist no doubt formed by Bowie Quinn, Andi’s dad.
“Your pants - bought at the mall five miles out of town. Your hair, which fits Amber’s description of her brother. The tattoo on your wrist of your little sister’s name; Molly passed away a few years ago, and you spoke at her funeral. I only met her once when Amber brought her along to hang out at the park, but she looks just like you. And the polaroid in your phone case. Amber put it there right before you went separate ways.”
“You collected all that information in one conversation?” TJ asked.
“My trust isn’t easily handed out.”
“Question - do you hyper analyze everyone you meet?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Tell me about that lady,” he said, looking pointedly in the direction of a woman sitting alone in a row of chairs.
“She just got back from visiting her kid at Howard.”
“How can you tell?”
“...It says so on her sweatshirt.” TJ glanced up to find that yes, she was wearing a Howard sweatshirt.
“Touché.”
“You just chose a bad person. That was too easy.”
“Fine. That flight attendant back there. She’s in uniform, so you can’t derive clues from that,” TJ said, a smug grin on his face.”
“Bad choice, Theo. She’s in uniform, but I know her profession and I’ve had an entire conversation with her. She’s engaged, and she hasn’t seen her fiancé in a few weeks. This is her last flight before she gets to see him in Chicago. And before you ask- she’s wearing an engagement ring.”
“That’s mildly terrifying. How do you pick up so much information so quickly?”
“All four of my parents are psychiatrists. You pick up the skill after a while.”
“Ah. That’s… fascinating,” TJ said.
“Well that was convincing,” Cyrus deadpanned.
“No, I mean it! That’s genuinely cool, Cyrus.”
“Yeah, yeah. It’s kind of my single defining character trait. Or rather, my single defining skill.”
“Oh, come on. You’re worth more than this one skill,” TJ insisted. \
“Like…?”
“Whatever’s in your bank account, I presume,” he teased.
“Theodore Kippen!”
“It was a joke, I promise,” TJ said, hands in the air as though pleading innocence.
“I know it was.” Cyrus smiled softly, a silent promise that he believed him.
“What are you majoring in?” TJ asked, opting to change the subject entirely.  Cyrus clearly noticed, raising an amused eyebrow.
“Doubling in Poli Sci and Philosophy. You?”
“Majoring History and a minor in German.”
“Are you fluent?”
“Uh, yeah. It’s actually my first language. We lived in Germany until Amber and I were 10.”
“Seriously?” Cyrus asked. “I wouldn’t have guessed.”
“My American accent is really good, I guess,” he responded, letting his natural German accent show.
“You should probably just be handed a German major,” Cyrus marveled.
“I don’t think that’s how that works.”
“You know, I think I actually prefer your natural accent to the American.”
“Is that a compliment?” TJ’s accent was thicker now - he was clearly starting to fall back into it after using a false one for so long.
“Of course it is!”
“Well then, I’m glad you heard it.”
“So am I. Goodness, do you think the plane should be at the gate by now? It’s… 4:45, and we’re supposed to depart at 6:00, so we should be boarding very soon.”
“Ja, das sollte es auch.”
“Pardon?”
“Hmm? Oh! Um, yes, it should be. Sorry, I wasn’t really thinking and-”
“Don’t apologize! It’s fine.”
“The plane should definitely be here,” TJ said, sidestepping the topic. He looked out the windows to where the plane should be.
“What do you bet it gets cancelled tonight?”
“Oh, definitely,” TJ agreed. “I’ve been waiting for the other shoe to drop since the first delay.”
“So have I. The attendants at the desk even look like they know it’s going to be cancelled.”
“I feel so bad for them.” TJ glanced to the desk, a sympathetic look on his face. “Wait, look-”
“Hmm?” Cyrus looked to the desk, where the flight attendants were reading something and one was reaching for the microphone as another typed frantically into a computer.
“Cancellation or delay?” TJ asked.
“I say cancelled.”
“I say another delay,” TJ countered.
“Passengers of Flight 283 out of Gate 32C, Flight 283 has been cancelled. All passengers have been placed on one of two flights tomorrow and will be emailed the details. Passengers have also been awarded miles to be used for United Airlines flights. Thank you for your patience and flexibility.”
The other passengers at the gate all grumbled slightly, sighing and exiting the gate. Many said something about getting dinner. TJ stood up, pulling out his phone to look for rooms at nearby hotels.
“I’m gonna run up to the desk really quick, hang on.” Cyrus was gone before TJ could ask. Naturally, he followed.
“What can I help you with?”
“I was wondering what times the flights are tomorrow?” Cyrus asked, approaching the desk with a smile.
“Well, we’ve put all the passengers in coach on either the flight at noon or 1:00 pm. However, we can also put you and your boyfriend in first class at 4:00 pm instead of giving you complimentary miles,” a flight attendant said.
“I’ll definitely take that offer,” TJ said from behind him, ignoring the flight attendant’s assumption. Cyrus couldn’t help but notice that his American accent was back in full swing.
“Me too, absolutely,” Cyrus agreed. “Do we owe anything extra?”
“No, no.” The attendant from earlier stepped forward, overhearing their conversation. “You helped me out earlier, so consider it a gift from the airline. I’ll cover any extra fees,” she promised.
“Oh- are you sure? I’d be happy to pay-” Cyrus started.
“No, no. There’s truly no need.”
“Thank you so much,” TJ said, smiling at her gratefully.
“Thank you!” Cyrus exclaimed, turning to exit the gate with TJ. “Did you get anywhere on hotel rooms?”
“There’s only one room open at any hotel nearby.”
“Ugh, I guess that means I’ll have to drive out urther and come back in the morning.”
“...I mean, you could,” TJ said. “But it’s got two queen beds, if you’d rather stay nearby and split the cost?”
“Really?”
“Yeah, of course. I don’t particularly want to pay for a room on my own. Especially not at Chicago prices.”
“I don’t either, as long as you’re sure.”
“Eh, my twin sister really likes you,” TJ reasoned. “I’m gonna take the room.”
“Good, how much do I owe you?”
“Um… 60 dollars.”
Cyrus nodded, handing it to him with a smile.
“Now, should we go get dinner?”
“Yes, definitely,” TJ said. “Just- not in the airport.”
“Right. No 16 dollar burgers, got it. You know, I think I have an idea. There’s a place I really like nearby. It’s not much, really, but… any dietary restrictions?”
“Do you count penicillin as a dietary restriction?”
“No, you idiot! I meant like lactose intolerance or veganism.”
“Ah. Well, none of those things.”
“Good. Do you have a car here?”
“No, I took a cab.”
“Okay, I’m driving then,” Cyrus said, pulling his keys out of his pocket and waving them at TJ. “Shall we?”
***
“Have you ever had kebab?” Cyrus asked, handing TJ his food.
“I lived in Berlin for ten years! Of course I’ve had kebab. Never in America, though.”
“Ah, well… I can’t promise it’ll live up to Berlin’s standards. However, I say we eat it while it’s warm.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay, then.” TJ feigned a toast with his kebab, biting into it in sync with Cyrus. “...Well. it’s no Berlin, but it’s good. And anyway, even if it was awful- I’d eat awful kebab a thousand times over if it means another date with you.”
“This is a date now. Theo?”
“Only if you want it to be,” TJ flirted.
“I don’t think I’d mind that.”
“Yeah?” TJ’s grin was enough to change his mind if he’d been at all on the fence.
“Oh, absolutely.”
They finished their food quickly, talking aimlessly about their friends in Shadyside. Before he knew it, Cyrus was walking up to the front desk of their hotel with TJ at his side.
“Hi, we have a room, under Kippen,” he said.
“Yes, of course, here it is. I’ll just need ID and a card for incidentals?” Cyrus handed his credit card over while TJ set his driver’s licence on the desk. “...And there we go. You’re all set in room 619. Elevators are around the corner to your left. Have a good evening!”
“You too, ma’am, thank you!” TJ said.
“Thank you!” Cyrus followed TJ to the elevators, racing him to push the button.
“You’re ridiculous,” TJ huffed, pouting as Cyrus beat him to it.
“I know,” Cyrus said. His face was still occupied by a smug grin as he stepped out of the elevator onto the 6th floor. He led TJ down the hall toward their room. Sliding the room key into the lock, TJ pushed the door open.
The room was full of white bedding and soft carpeting and the same air freshener employed in every hotel Cyrus had ever stayed in. He let TJ take his hand and pull him inside, let him simply stand and stare into Cyrus’s eyes, let him step forward and kiss him, let his back hit the door as he looped his arms around TJ’s neck.
“Thank you,” TJ breathed, still crowding Cyrus against the door.
“For what?”
“This. All of this. Letting me kiss you.” Cyrus simply shrugged, tugging TJ back toward him.
“I trust you, Theodore James Kippen.”
153 notes · View notes