now & forever
cw. olnf week 2024, pre!release, step 2, day 3, pre!relationship, slight angst with a healthy dose of comfort
pairing. qiu lin/hash browns (ft. sparkling leaves)
notes. day 3 of @olnfweek2024. me? writing for qiu lin? i know, check and see if it is hailing in summer i can't believe this is happening either. my good friend @hash-slinging-slasher-trash recently got done with their final exams for their summer semester so this is a treat for them. surprise! (even if i am sure this was obvious considering my questions from yesterday lmao)
“You can roll your neck and stomp your feet but this black girl you sure won’t beat!” Nyla and Serenity chant in audible unison from across campus, moving in accordance to the words. From where they sit, Hash can see Tamarack giggling at the antics. Black Kid Solidarity, Nyla calls it. She finds it where she can. While not a member of that particular duo, Hash’s lips curl into an instinctive smile. The energy is contagious.
Dark raspberry eyes catch blue eyes observing the scene.
“Hi,” Tamarack mouths, her smile small but courteous as she waves.
Hash waves back with a small smile of her own, balancing her tray carefully with one hand. “Hey,” they mouthed back.
Hash remembers Tamarack’s squeals as they climbed atop the tire swing her grandfather set up. The cool autumn wind scratching their cheeks and lifting their laughs and giggles to the heavens.
When was it those times playing in that tire became infrequent? Hash can’t recall; four years is four centuries in teenage years.
Tamarack shuffles to the side on the grass with a hopeful expression, thin eyebrows knit carefully. When did Tamarack start plucking them again? When did I start noticing in the first place? Hash wonders what it says about her that she can’t remember that either when a long time ago it felt like her and Tamarack’s friendship was tighter than gorilla glue. Slowly but surely, that bond had been weathered by the rain.
There were no storms that attacked their friendship. No trials.
Just the passage of time.
Hash sees the spread of trays on the grass, like it’s a picnic. “Sorry,” Hash mouths and Tamarack nods in unsurprised understanding.
Hash and Tamarack were friends; they’re still friends. Standing across a ways from one another during lunch hour, however, the physical distance feels representative of their state of affairs.
Hash, Nyla, Tamarackー The new kids.
Four years ago, it felt like the three of them against the world as fellow newcomers to Acorn Rd. Golden Grove, Oregon.
“You ever stop to think how we’re like a reverse oreo?” Nyla, age 11, noted from where she lazily laid back against the Browns porch step. Summer was the worst season in Golden Grove and not even the chilled watermelon pieces in the bowl split between them could completely fight the heat. “Y’all are the vanilla whites, I’m the chocolate filling.”
Hash choked on their piece, “Nyla, shut up!”
“Hey I’m the one who said it, y’all can laugh,” Nyla stuck out her tongue with a snicker. “Quit smiling if you don’t think it’s funny, Lord Hashington!”
Tamarack’s small hands covered her face, unable to contain her laughter. There hadn’t been an attempt to stop it in the first place. The two of them were always the blunt new kid trio members, saying most anything that came to their mind.
Four years later, the world has split a world with the three of them distinctly in different sects. Friends… but not best friends.
Four years in the past, the kids of the cul-de-sac were a quartet.
Four years in the present, there’s a line. A distinct one.
We’re all still friends, Hash tells themself. Most of us.
Qiu and Tamarack’s relationship had fallen off compared to the rest. The two of them aside, things aren’t the same anymore and Hash has come to accept that. Tamarack is going to leave one day, tugged down a path by her parents. Qiu sinks more and more into themselves, outsiders unable to penetrate their newfound icy fortress. Nyla’s problems are harder to look into when she keeps them hidden behind bad jokes and laidback nonchalance.
Of their original friend group, everyone has a favorite.
Nyla and Tamarack’s eyes have always been reserved for each other.
Qiu has Hash and Hash has Qiu.
Nyla’s lunch hour is reserved for Tamarack and Hash’s hour has always been reserved for Qiu. Speaking of Qiu, Hash knew they were waiting for them in Mr. Murray’s class. “See you,” they wave one last time before turning towards the building the professor’s class is located in.
Things might have changed with Nyla and Tamarack, simultaneously grand and minute the changes have been, but things have never and will never change with Mx. Qiu Lin.
Hash finds them as they always do, draped over a desk lazily with their brown hair spread across their shoulders haphazardly. “Qiulet,” Hash calls playfully and a brown eye opens unamused. “I’ve finally returned from the battlefield. Looks like you don’t need to come down from your balcony, after all.”
“It was never a balcony in the first place, you weirdo,” Qiu murmurs, leaning back to sit properly in their chair as Hash placed their tray between them.
“Not-so-secret hideout, Juliet’s balcony,” Hash rolls their eyes in mock irritation. “What’s the difference?”
Qiu smirks, resting their chin on their palm, “sounds like plenty to me.”
Hash sits down with their nose in the air pointedly smug, “well it’s a good thing you’re not the one in charge of my allusions.” Qiu’s response is to take one of Hash’s fries. For someone who said they weren’t hungry, that never stops Qiu from suddenly desiring food when someone else provides it. Regardless, there’s little that isn’t shared between them now. Hash feels no reason to make a fuss. “You gonna go to ballet practice for once?”
“That depends, who’s asking?” Qiu raises a brow lazily.
Your mother, technically. Mrs. Lin knew it’d be a pointless endeavor in bringing it up herself, however, so she relied on you, the Qiu Whisperer. “Me,” Hash replies smoothly. “I wanna have a post-lunch show after school. I haven’t seen you practice in a while, so I guess I felt like going. Only if you want though.”
Qiu shrugs, taking another fry thoughtfully before eventually relenting, “I guess.”
That’s as much of a ‘yes’ as one will get in the language of apathetic Qiu Lin.
“Good because I have your leotard in my backpack,” Hash grins giggling when Qiu flicks her forehead lightly. “What? I had to be prepared just in case you said ‘yeah’, otherwise we’d be late!”
“Yeah, yeah, if you say so,” Qiu rolls their eyes but Hash can see amusement swimming in them. Sees their lips quirk into a playful smirk and how light and airy their movements are. It’s a shame people like Vianca and Serenity don’t get to see this side of them but you can’t help relishing in how you’re one of the coveted few that do. “You’re not slick.”
Hash bats their eyelashes adoringly, “I know not to what you are referring.”
“Mhmm,” Qiu hums in disbelief but unbothered as they are, they let it go. If they truly hated it, after all, Qiu would have let you know expeditiously. Pretty as a rose Qiu may be, they have their thorns. They never seem to brandish them against Hash, however. Any pushback they have are small pricks, soft. This isn’t anything that has them pressed. “But the next time you decide to beat me into going to ballet practice, I demand compensation.”
“Is my charming personality not enough?” Hash gasps, clutching their chest in imagined pain.
“It is most of the time, but I like to shake things up from time to time,” Qiu chuckles.
Hash isn’t sure if it’s the joy they got them to smile that has them flushed or the comment. Probably both. It’s just them joking around, Hash reminds themself. Just a joke. Nothing serious. “Well what will satisfy you, Mx. Qiu Lin? Your humble servant will provide the goods tomorrow.”
“Mom’s making dumplings tomorrow and is forcing me and Dad to help,” Qiu sighs painfully. Hash’s mouth waters at just the thought of it. Dumplings are a long but rewarding affair in the Lin household. “You’re suffering with me.”
“That isn’t even a punishment,” Hash smirks, moving a stray lock of dirty blonde hair from their vision.
Qiu smirks in return, closing their eyes in satisfaction, “glad to know you’ll be there then.”
i was really trying to keep in mind the hash lore they developed from their playthrough of the ol2 demo and our discord chats fjnfkjsdnf. things get a bit angsty TmT. still homies with tamarack but because tam might be leaving, there's a bit of distance between them and they've gotten real close to qiu because of the insurance their not going anywhere. i wanted to play with that concept with a mixture of the day 3 prompts with crossing our verses together and hash looking back on the memories
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