#hiyori fought so hard to help them and be with them

[avidvampirehunter]

So he really never learned to stop pushing people away, huh. Never a happy middle of not being too clingy, and not pushing them away "for their own good." Nope. Never learned it. 'Kay.

[norakbubbles]

Luffy x Nami: Unexpected Proposal

Drabble prompt: "But we're not married" "Then marry me"

Warnings: Extreme fluff; Spoilers (I think); Takes place in the future; a couple of theories I'm throwing in

Their hard work had paid off

All the blood, tears, shared laughter, unexpected obstacles, and adventure had come to an end.

Luffy had found the One Piece and became King of the Pirates and the news spread like wildfire. The slaves of Mariejois were free and the Celestial Dragons had been taken care of.

Zoro became the world's greatest swordsman

Sanji found the All Blue

Usopp became a brave warrior of the sea and is known worldwide for his heroics

Chopper finally found the cure to every disease known to mankind, even ones that had been left unsolved for generations

Robin found every Poneglyph

Franky now made ships for people far and wide and is sought out by anyone and everyone

Brook reunited with Laboon

And Jinbei was finally able to convince the fishmen and merfolk to trust humans and how the two races lived in harmony both on land and in the sea

Nami smiled as she watched the celebration going on in Laugh Tale right now. Her own dream was achieved as well. The map of the world was proudly displayed in a glass case made from a strong material that would prevent anything bad from happening. She sighed in content and leaned back against a stone, watching everyone. People they had met along the way were there, even those they fought in the past. The Cross Guild, Perona, Nojiko, Genzo, Foxy, Hancock, Iceburg, Paulie, Zeff, Reiju, Bon Clay, Conis, Shirahoshi and her brothers, King Neptune, Hachi, Camie, Pappag, Duval, Bartolomeo, Viola, Rebecca, Coby, Helmeppo, the entire Revolutionary army, the Heart Pirates, Bonney, Kidd, Kiku, Hiyori, Momo, Yamato, Smoker, Tashigi, Hina, and of course Vivi and Cobra. Hell, even Katakuri and Pudding showed up. Nami laughed as she watched Luffy bicker with Garp before the two fell asleep briefly. She pushed herself off the wall and walked to the extremely large buffet table. Sanji was still cooking up a storm with Zeff and Hachi's help. Good thing, too, since Luffy was eating like he hadn't eaten in days. She refilled her mug with some high-quality wine Mihawk had brought and picked up a small quiche.

"Big party, huh?" Vivi asked, walking next to her friend. She was holding a plate of fruit with a whale skewer in one of the pieces.

"Tell me about it. I'm surprised this island hasn't sunk with how many people are here," Nami replied causing the two to start giggling silently. They stood, saying nothing as they observed everyone around them. The people who they had so many memories with were all celebrating one person and for good reason. Nami's eyes wandered until they landed on Luffy. He was stuffing his face but that's not what caused her gaze to linger. Former warlord Boa Hancock was seated next to him, slightly turned away, a blush on her cheeks and her finger tips pressed against each other as she spoke. Nami couldn't make out what she was saying but was sure it was something about how she loved him. Luffy, of course, didn't register.

"You should tell him." Nami jumped.

"What?"

"You should tell him how you feel," Vivi said, gesturing to the redhead's hand. Nami realized she had gripped the quiche so hard it was now ruined. She sighed and wiped it off.

"You know I can't do that."

"Why not?"

"Because we're Nakama, Vivi! And besides do you think that Luffy even returns my feelings? Much less when he has the undivided attention and affection from the most beautiful woman in the world?!" she shouted. Luckily the party was loud enough that not many people heard her. A couple heads turned but they brushed it off. Vivi set her plate down and took Nami's hands in her own.

"Nami...when I admitted my love for Koza, he didn't believe me at first. He thought that I was joking because I was royalty and he wasn't. It took some time for him to find out I was telling the truth but when he did, he couldn't believe it. He had loved me since we were children and that deep rooted voice in his head told me I would never reciprocate his feelings so he neglected to tell me out of fear... if you do the same, you'll lose Luffy for good. You will still be friends but you will never forget that you had a chance to make your true feelings known and you didn't because you were scared. You and Luffy have faced so much together. He saved you from Arlong, you're the only one he trusts with his hat, and you've fought alongside each other against the deadliest of opponents. You believed that he would be king of the pirates and he believed you would draw a map of the world and now here you both are. Surrounded by people who love and admire you. I have a feeling that Luffy loves you more than you may think. All you have to do is talk to him." By the end, Nami was crying and she threw her arms around Vivi, hugging the princess tightly.

"Thank you..." she mumbled.

"I'll always have your back. Now go," she said, nudging her in Luffy's direction. Nami started to walk in his direction and stood in front of him.

"Eh, Luffy?" He looked up and gave her a big smile.

"Hey, Nami! Have you tried the food? It's so good!" She giggled and nodded.

"Yes I did..." Nami looked at Hancock briefly, whose piercing gaze was boring into her head. "I, uh, was wondering if we could talk alone, Luffy?"

"Hm? Sure! You can have Hammock's seat!" Nami avoided a grin and a laugh at that statement but decided to sit on the other side of Luffy instead. Hancock rolled her eyes and glared at Nami before getting up and walking away, shoving Buggy to the ground in the process.

"So what'd you wanna talk about?" Luffy asked, shoving a piece of cake into his mouth. Nami couldn't help but stare. He was so immature, loud, and messy... but he was also kind, made her laugh, and was fiercely protective of not only her but everyone else who asked for his help. Luffy tilted his head when she didn't say anything.

"Nami, you ok? Are you hungry?" Nami sighed and shook her head with a small smile.

"No, Luffy, I'm not hungry, I,...I need to discuss something very important with you."

"Ok! What is it?" he asked, shoving a whole cantaloupe in his mouth.

"Luffy... ever since I met you, I had this feeling that you were different from any other man I met. The way you went about life so carefree and fearless was intriguing and it made me somewhat scared for your life. However...as I stayed with you and kept getting to know every part of you, my feelings grew into something much more serious. When you put your hat on my head back in Cocoyashi and promised to help me with Arlong, I felt something grow within me. Something that I hadn't felt in so long. And every time you smiled at me, saved me, or even promised to help someone else like Vivi, that something kept growing bigger and bigger. It took some time to come to terms with but Luffy...I fell in love with you. And I fell in love hard. I know you might not reciprocate or even understand the meaning and I understand if that's the case but I just wanted to tell you that-."

"I love you, too." Nami's head snapped up in shock.

"W-What?"

"I love you, too." I talked to Robin about it one time after we got her back from CP9, and I told her that it felt like things were dancing in my stomach whenever I saw you or was close to you. She explained to me that I was in love. I still don't fully get it, but what I do get is that I am in love with you, too." Nami felt like she was going to cry. All of the fear she had initially felt was gone.

"But, what about Boa Hancock?" Luffy shrugged.

"Eh, she's not my type. Also, she's like 12 years older than me, which is kinda weird." Nami couldn't help but laugh a little at that.

"Nami..."

"Yeah?"

"You know I'm King of the Pirates now."

"Of course. Why else would we be having this party?" she said half sarcastically.

"Well...a king needs his queen." Nami gasped softly at that. She turned to look at Luffy searching his eyes for any signs of deception but saw none, only truth.

"Luffy, you know that kings and queens are typically husband and wife, right?"

"I know that. And?"

"But we're not married." Luffy reached over and grabbed her hand.

"Then marry me." The redhead's eyes widened.

"Luffy..."

"Marry me, Nami. I know it's fast but I love you. Be my queen... please." The dam had broke, and Nami had tears streaming down her cheeks. Sanji noticed, and his gaze turned fiery.

"LUFFY!! WHY IS NAMI-SAN CRYING?? WHAT DID YOU DO TO HER??" His yelling caught the attention of pretty much everyone else there, and they all stared at the two. Sanji set his leg on fire and leaped into the air, about to land a flying kick to his captain's face. Nami exhaled a shaky breath.

"Oh, Luffy, of course I'll marry you." Sanji stopped in mid-air and fell on his face.

"WHHAATTT???" everyone shouted at the same time, save for Robin and Vivi, who were both giggling off to the side. Luffy grinned wide and laughed.

"Shishishi! We're gonna be the greatest king and queen ever!" he said, wrapping his stretchy arms around Nami in a tight hug. Nami laughed too and hugged him back just as tightly. Everyone started cheering and clapping. Sanji was face down crying into the dirt. Hancock was off to the side chewing on her sleeve.

"Congrats guys!" Usopp shouted, clapping both of them on the backs. Robin and Chopper hugged Nami while Franky and Jinbei ruffled Luffy's hair.

"Never knew you had it in you, Captain," Zoro said with a smirk, taking a sip of his beer.

"Oi! Strawhat!" Luffy looked up to see Genzo giving him a stern look.

"You remember your promise!" he said, raising his mug. Luffy nodded and bowed.

"And I'll keep that promise!" Everyone's drinks were refilled and Sabo, with his arm around Koala, raised his glass high into the air.

"A toast! To the new king and queen of the pirates!"

"To the king and queen!!" everyone shouted happily. Luffy pulled Nami close to him by her waist and pressed his nose to hers.

"To us," he said. Nami smiled and placed her hand on his cheek.

"To us." They kissed softly as the cheering got louder and Usopp, Franky, and Bartolomeo let a barrage of fireworks off. Luffy and Nami watched the fireworks and Nami stole a glance at her now fiancé's huge grin. She was going to marry her best friend and she was going to be a queen.

And she was going to be the best damn queen the world has ever known.

END

[lilac-melody]

A Complete Comparison Between the Honeyworks MVs/Novels vs the Anime Adaptation

Okay. Rant here.

I am tagging this explicitly as Heroine Tarumono/Heroines Run the Show hate. Because I do hate it. I will admit they got a few things right, but the ratio from things wrong to right is more like...20:1.

Here we go.

So, Yamako is the creator and designer for LIPxLIP, their costumes, their kiss marks and their placements, and etc. Shito and Gom are the main musicians who created the LIPxLIP discography.

Kousaka Mari is the writer for the LIPxLIP and the Hiyori novels, she’s the one who expands on the MVs that Yamako, Shito and Gom (YSG trio) created.

Okay? Okay. Now that we got that settled...

LIPxLIP’s story- they met at an audition. They did not get along well at all, and even fought during said audition. When they’re told that they’re going to team up, they protest this and begrudgingly agree because the agreement after that decision was made was “become a unit, or don’t debut at all”, and both of their dream is to become idols. Or, more specifically, Aizou’s was to sing (in order to make people smile, like how he used to make his family smile), and Yujiro’s was to stand on the stage (because he abandoned his childhood to stand on the kabuki stage with his stepfather, but was disinherited. It’s even revealed in the LOVE&KISS novel that he was never meant to stand on stage anyway)

After working together for so long, of course, Aizou and Yujiro grow to genuinely care about each other, and they often try to help each other while the other is down- hence the dedication to each other in Yume Fanfare.

Enter Hiyori. She’s from Izumo City, and got a part-time job so that she can live as her family temporarily struggled with money. She finds an ad to become a manager and finds out that she is now the manager for her (rude) classmates and the idol duo of LIPxLIP.

Of course, both LIPxLIP didn’t want Hiyori to be their manager. Both ganged up on her until she got so fed up with being put down by them that she was determined to do her job solely so she can prove to them that they’re wrong about her.

This is where the amazing dynamic starts.

She does do good with her job- even though she is not without her flaws. In the Nonfantasy novel, she retrieves the rosettes that were left behind by the staff and runs back to where Aizou and Yujiro were and makes it just in time. After that, she decides to take a rest since she was so exhausted, but ended up sleeping throughout the entire event. No ankle injury. Aizou and Yujiro wake her up and begrudgingly admit that she did a good job.

She is also bullied by Yumeru, and yes, Yumeru makes her fall into a lake to retrieve her gloves. However! Hiyori tripped on her own accord. This puts the blame not solely on Yumeru, but onto Hiyori as well.

This is extremely important, as this truly puts LIPxLIP’s faith in Hiyori as their manager and growing-friend to the test. Of course, guilty, Hiyori hides. After the filming is over, LIPxLIP goes and find her, and while she’s moping, they tell her, essentially, “okay, yeah? You fucked up lol. But everyone makes mistakes, you can’t drag yourself down over that. Just work harder and be more careful next time.”

That’s it. No yelling, no “oh we knew that you wouldn’t be a good manager”. Because at this point, they can see how hard she’s working. This is a real bond of friendship of mutual trust and respect that is growing.

By the end of the novel, her contract time is up, and LIPxLIP ask Manager Uchida if Hiyori can continue, because they’ve grown to care for her as their friend, and they genuinely respect the work she’s put in, not knowing that Uchida already was ready to extend her contract. And not to mention, Hiyori didn’t want to quit from the get-go. She was sad about leaving, but figured that she wouldn’t be allowed to stay. Upon hearing LIPxLIP want her to stay, she’s happy and agrees to stay.

The Nonfantasy novel pretty much covers the first five episodes of the anime.

BUT.

What did the anime do???

It took the entire novel, ripped it up, and wrote a shitty retelling of it.

In the anime, Hiyori needing a job remains the same. LIPxLIP hate her and disagree about her becoming the manager. That stays the same. In fact, the first two episodes are actually pretty good.

However, issues arise in episode 3. Hiyori finds out that she’s going to fail her exams, and works to study. LIPxLIP find her, and they ask her why she runs. She explains her dream to run and...suddenly their entire opinion on her shifts..? Um. Okay. Sure. Whatever.

Then they help her with her studies which is a genuinely cute scene, I will admit.

Then the filming of Nonfantasy comes. They keep Yumeru as a jealous bitch but tones down her bullying....UNTIL...

She sees LIPxLIP sharing their sweets with Hiyori (??? why??? At this point they still don’t recognize Hiyori’s efforts. They haven’t even really discussed her as their manager at this point!) and act all friendly with her. Then Yumeru trips Hiyori, and Hiyori hides.

LIPxLIP find her later and say “you messing up is nothing new” then Yumeru comes along, and....they threaten her? “I saw you trip her. Let’s check the cameras” and then Yumeru runs away in tears and Hiyori is like “omg...princes...”

What? What????? Literally what?????????????

This was a complete turnaround?!?! And it’s only episode 3?!?!?! WHERE did the trust and friendliness come from??? Don’t tell me that they’re buddy-buddies with Hiyori because she told them their dream???? UM??? lmao sorry that’s not how that works???

Where is the relationship development??? Oh right. Flushed down the goddamn toilet to make viewers believe that they’re falling in love, even though this is not a relationship development. I don’t know what the hell that is.

In the next episode, it gives the viewers the very tip of the iceberg of Aizou and Yujiro’s past, but they make it so...minuscule that it’s pathetic. Like, okay, I get that it’s Hiyori’s anime, but if you’re not going to elaborate on their trauma, then don’t fucking include it at all, unless you want to give the viewers the wrong impression.

In the novels, Hiyori knows absolutely nothing about their past. Why would she? As abuse victims, they’re not going to just tell her that their lives sucked before they became idols. And she made absolutely NO assumptions about them, and when one was upset, she stayed out of it because she knew it was not in her element.

In the anime, she still barely knows anything, but she opens her big mouth??? Says Yujiro’s family does love him because his mom made him bentos and compares her dislike of squid (the squiiiishy texture) to Aizou’s trauma with women. If her goal was to make him laugh, then that would be passable, but she flat out said she understood what he meant!

NO. That is NOT . how. that. works!

If you don’t know anything about someone but maybe very brim surface levels, you shut up and either wait for that person to tell you more, or just stay out of it!

And finally, episode 5...um. What happened here? Hiyori, who sprained her ankle in the anime, fails to get into nationals. This was never in the novels. In fact, her being in track was brought up a few times by Aizou and Yujiro, wondering if she would participate in those things or focus on her job.

So, in the anime, they sing their song, the song that YAMAKO HERSELF SAID IT FOR THEM, to Hiyori. And this is the ONLY TIME in the anime that we hear them and see their performance. This leads anime-onlys to believe that the song is for Hiyori. But it isn’t.

If you watch the MV (linked above), she does not show up at all in the MV. In fact, if you watch Hiyori’s 2nd MV, Heroine Tarumono, you will see that Hiyori is behind the stage during Yume Fanfare, and Chizuru is crying in the audience. The Chizuru crying frame is from the Yume Fanfare MV, showing that Hiyori was there, watching them and Chizuru, while they dedicated the song to each other.

Hanipre even takes it a step further. Chizuru’s card is the same frame from Yume Fanfare, and it roughly translates as: “Their bond is...so precious..!”

Also, in the anime, it’s HIYORI who asks if she can continue her job as their manager because she liked the concert, and LIPxLIP were like “Ok sure ig” um...where’s the buildup of friendship? Oh yeah- there is none!!!!

The whole reason why YSG Trio’s story with LIPxLIP and Hiyori works in Nonfan (ala eps 1 - 5) is because there is real, genuine buildup in their friendship. Hiyori had to work hard to earn their respect, whereas it is simply given to her because she told them her dream in the anime.

Aizou and Yujiro find girls to be annoying, so they’re not going to just trust and like Hiyori because she has a dream. She, like they had to with each other, had to earn their friendship.

This brings me to the next arc.

The Asuka-Nagisa arc.

In the novel, they’re still moody with Hiyori (and each other but what else is new?) but they do show bouts of friendship. When filming for an MV, there’s a bee in the room, and Hiyori chases it to get rid of it, and Yujiro brings her bug spray, despite being afraid of insects.

It’s small, but that does show that he does care for her.

After watching an Ft4 concert, Hiyori gets knocked over and falls in love with Asuka, who helped her. She later runs into him at a bookstore, and constantly visits said bookstore in order to talk to him.

Eventually, LIPxLIP catch on to what’s going on and drag her out and forces her to admit what’s going on.

They pretty much ignore it after that. Hiyori’s love life is none of their business after all.

Until they catch her writing a cheesy love letter, and Aizou makes her rewrite it because of all of her grammar/spelling errors. Hiyori finally finishes after she gets their approval, and upon seeing Asuka not at the bookstore, she gives it to the manager to deliver it to Asuka...and on the way home, Hiyori realizes that she forgot to write her name on it.

This causes LIPxLIP to laugh at her failure. Upset by this, she screams at them that she’s doing her best and bursts into tears. Realizing they took their teasing way too far, they calm her down and promise to help her. (Though they are pretty mean about her appearance and fashion...which I don’t approve of)

They help her as much as they can, dolling her up, and etc.

But then when Hiyori goes to confess, they see it’s their idol rival, and immediately put a stop to the confession, because ASCANA was trouble to them.

She hears a police car and grabs Yujiro and runs away, and then later goes back. Asuka kindly rejects her, and she stays calm but when she leaves, she cries. Yujiro comforts her, and walks her home.

After that, she’s still upset for a while, and sees a thief at the event running straight for Yujiro. Hiyori is worried for him and tackles the thief.

Hey, remember Herotaru? Hiyori sprained her ankle delivering the rosettes? Yeah THIS is where she ACTUALLY sprains her ankle. She sprained it tackling a thief who was going to hurt Yujiro. This makes Yujiro angry at her, and she gets angry at him in response, and the two have a fight. Aizou tells Hiyori that Yujiro wasn’t mad, and she apologizes. They make up.

Now, back to Herotaru...

Hiyori finds out Nagisa is coming to Tokyo and is :( because he once said as little kids that she doesn’t look good in dresses. She weeps about it to Aizou and Yujiro and they go “>:0 omg we’ll totally prove (her) wrong!” (As they did not know that Nagisa was a guy until Hiyori introduced him)

They see that Nagisa likes Hiyori and tests their theory. Upon being proven correct when Nagisa stands up for her, they approve of him as boyfriend material.

So...since when in the anime did Hiyori say she wanted a relationship? Never. And while I do approve of how she rejects him, saying she has too much on her plate and not enough time for a relationship, Aizou and Yujiro go back to complaining about her appearance and tease her saying she won’t be a heroine because she doesn’t have her conventionally attractive look and no boyfriend.

Um. What.

The lack of buildup here is giving me a whiplash. In fact, the whole arc takes 2 episodes, when the novel was a couple hundred pages long.

After this is the Sports Day episode, taken inspiration from Chapter 1 of the Heroine Development Plan novel.

It’s pretty faithful, the anime even gives us some kotahina and shibarisa and jurikou fanservice, which was fantastic!! The only difference is...

Well...before the race in the novel, some seniors were laughing about Yujiro not being able to run properly, which makes both Aizou and Yujiro pissed off (while Hiyori desperately tried to hide their bad expressions). They win. (And it’s a few chapters later, Yujiro runs into those seniors again who corner him and Hiyori realizes that he was about to be beaten up. She tries calling Aizou so he can help, but steps in herself before Yujiro can get punched. They grab her, and Yujiro almost kicks them for shoving her. She grabs Yujiro, and runs away.)

In the anime, however, they push those seniors to a lesser degree, making them corner him saying he’s a B-rated idol. Hiyori calls out that the race is starting, and the seniors leave. Aizou is left totally in the dark about this, and no one tells him anything. And during the race, Hiyori trips giving the baton to Aizou.

(Also, nitpick? They made Hiyori trip delivering the rosettes in the anime and then here, so why not make her trip in the Yumeru scene? It would have kept up her clumsy character fine, but ig the anime writers don’t know what clever writing is lol.)

This scene in the anime takes away Yujiro’s character. It takes away the fact that he’s grown to be protective of Hiyori as his friend. It takes away little moments that show us what kind of a person he is.

But then again, Yujiro was only meant to be Aizou’s arm candy in the anime, huh?

It also takes away from Hiyori’s character. It takes away that she’s headstrong, reckless, and will put herself in danger in order to keep her friends safe.

Now, onto eps 9 - 12...

Um. Okay.

So in the MVs, we know in Heroine Tarumono that Chizuru took the photos and posted them and Hiyori got bullied. That much was accurate in the anime.

However, in Fansa and Minikui Ikimono, we see silhouettes of what looks to be Hiyori and...someone else? We never did get confirmation as to who that is. But for years, ever since Fansa’s release, we’ve been dying to know who it is with her. We know that it’s a scandal. That’s all.

The anime combines the bullying with that scene. And I don’t think the two were supposed to be conjoined. Otherwise, why would the scandal photo be so different from the photos that Chizuru took?

And...

Remember the novels? Hiyori never quit her job. In the anime, she left like, every other episode, pretty much. Every time an inconvenience happened.

So...what...was the point of this? To show that anime-Hiyori is a quitter??? Okay..? Thanks for bastardizing one of the best girls, I guess???

And then Yappa Saikyou (song linked above). In the MV, we see that it’s a big concert with LIPxLIP, Ft4, Mona, and ASCANA, and we see a young Fuuma in the audience too. (He’s from Dolce, a group that debuts a little in the future)

In the anime, it’s a concert with only LIPxLIP and Ft4. Now, I can understand not including Ascana, because their voice actors graduated and they no longer do work as those characters. They hosted their final stream quite some time ago. But the anime includes Mona in a few episodes.

So why is she not at the Yappa Saikyou concert? Why does Fuuma not even get a minor cameo???

And yet EVERYONE ELSE IS AT THE CONCERT??? Ken, Arisa, Kotaro, Hina, Gen 1 (except Haruki...and I think Miou too..? I don’t remember tbh but I’m not going back to look), the Someya Family, Yuko (WHO IS SUPPOSED TO BE IN FRANCE BTW!!!)...um. What? Lmfao? Is this some sort of “Alls well that ends well!” bullshit???

Um. Okay.

If the anime can include everyone, why not include at least one of the performers who was supposed to be there?!?!?!?!?!

Summarizing it all up:

The anime had potential to be good if it actually followed its source material. Yes, they’re continuing Nagisa and Hiyori’s story through Yamako, Gom and Shito now, and hopefully, they’ll make their relationship more beautiful.

But with the novels, the MVs...the anime just had way too much content to squeeze into 12 episodes, and it created this OOC, rushed piece of garbage.

What Yamako, Shito, Gom, and Mari all created is something beautiful. Something that takes time. You won’t just trust people immediately, you have to earn people’s trust and respect.

Even in LOVE&KISS, Aizou and Yujiro still fight, but they find that they can still rely on each other. They saw each other’s traumas, and worked to help each other overcome it, and stood by each other when things got tough, and the world was turning against them.

But in the anime, it seemed that they were only ever drawn together to come as a package deal, not because they have a genuine bond.

I personally love Aizou and Yujiro’s relationship, the homoerotic subtext, and the theme of “we have our backs, no matter what.” (See: Seika, Yellow, and Samishigariya)

And I genuinely love how the novels showed us how a friendship can go from something ugly, to something true and genuine. Hell, in Heroine Dev, Hiyori makes a New Years wish to be able to support Aizou and Yujiro’s dreams. That’s a HUGE leap from the beginning of Nonfantasy’s novel.

But the anime just trashes their stories and makes it into this...weird circle of “yeah we friends because...well, we just are!”

If the anime was not an adaptation and was a standalone, then it would probably work, because there’s nothing to base the anime off of. But since it is an adaptation, it deserves to be criticized as an adaptation. 

I mean, tell me, do you not look at say, Percy Jackson? You read the books and love them. Do you love the movie too and praise it for being perfect? No.

It’s the same with Honeyworks.

The anime took everything that made Aizou, Yujiro, Hiyori, and their friendship so special...and just shat all over it.

And with so many people only getting into the anime, it makes me refuse to ever forgive them for bastardizing three amazing, deep, and relatable characters and making them out to be pathetic, basic, shoujo and idol characters with no real depth to them.

[chenziee]

Six: The Celebration

Day 6: BBQ/Movie night for @opnamizine​‘s Tangerine Summer :D Barely grazed the prompts this time but in my defence, making up a video dial and coming up with some way for them to find one that made sense would be too complicated so you get an alternative xD

Heads up for minor LawLu again because I have no self-control.

[Read on AO3 | Read from day 1]

----------

“Here you go, Nami-san.”

The navigator smiled as she accepted the plate that was handed to her. “Thank you, Sanji,” she said, admiring the smell of perfectly cooked meat.

Honestly, Sanji had them all so spoiled, like dining at a 5 star restaurant three times a day plus snacks. And yet, he always outdid himself. Apparently, even something as simple as a barbecue could be made into a work of art, even when making it for all the people who had survived their raid of Onigashima—and not just their crew, Torao’s crew, the samurai, and the minks. No, it was for everyone they had picked up along the way as well. Including the Kid pirates, the rebels, the prisoners and the yakuza, and even some of the Beast pirates that were now somehow Tama’s pets, it was hundreds, thousands of people.

Even with help of many other cooks, Sanji still had more than enough work on his hands but… he looked like he was enjoying himself immensely and Nami was glad. When she remembered how sad, cold and unhappy he was when they had finally found him on Whole Cake Island, it was like he was a different person. Like he was alive.  

“You don’t forget to eat, too,” Nami teased, chuckling when Sanji froze and blinked at her owlishly, eyes wide with shock.

“I— Thank you, Nami-san,” he said after a moment, looking away, and Nami was pretty sure that was a blush on his face.

It was cute how he always got caught off guard when someone looked out for him for a change. If this was a few weeks ago, Nami could just hear the ‘Aww, Nami-swan, you’re so beautiful when you’re kind!’ and see his dramatic, love-struck flailing. He always did that when trying to deflect and brush off things that might affect him but at last, it looked like he was putting in an effort to get used to it; slowly learning to accept the care and love his friends were giving him.

Nami smiled, a genuine, happy smile, as she nodded and turned away. They would teach Sanji to be kind to himself yet. After all, the Straw Hats were nothing if not stubborn.

That was a problem for later, however.

Tonight, they were celebrating.

The trip back towards the stage was short but given how the Komurasaki was one of the performing geishas and dancers, it was no surprise that the area beneath was packed. And with a plate overflowing with food, it was almost a miracle that she managed to make her way through the crowd and back to her friends without any incident.

When she finally sat down on the ground in between Robin and Luffy, she let out a relieved sigh. “Here, Sanji’s special barbecue,” she announced.

Immediately, everyone cheered quietly as to not interrupt the music and dancing too much before grabbing for the plate, in a hurry to steal some for themselves before Luffy could get to it.

But then… Luffy didn’t.

Exchanging a worried glance with the rest of the crew, Nami went to ask what was wrong but before she could so much as open her mouth, Tama spoke up instead. “Mm this is so tasty!” she said, the happiness in her voice almost tangible.

“I know, right?” Luffy grinned proudly. “Sanji’s cooking is amazing.”

“Aren’t you going to eat, big bro?” she asked then, her cheeks puffed up with all the food in her mouth.

Luffy shook his head, petting Tama’s head where she sat in between his legs and looked back at him questioningly. With a soft smile, Luffy finally replied, “Nope, I’m stuffed. You can have my portion if you want.”

Tama’s face split up in a blinding smile, nodding enthusiastically before she turned her focus back on the pile of meat in front of her. Luffy simply watched her, that soft expression still on her face and Nami… felt like the whole world turned upside down. Luffy letting someone else have all his food. Luffy. Unbelievable.

Blinking a few times, Nami noticed everyone else was staring at the scene with an open mouth, obviously just as shocked as she felt. It was only a long while later that slowly, she turned to her other side to exchange a look with Robin. The other woman was covering her mouth to hide a smile—or likely muffle her laughter, judging by the way her eyes danced with joy—and, guessing easily that they were thinking the same thing, Nami, too, had to laugh.

Shaking her head, she followed Robin’s example to look at Torao, who was sitting on Luffy’s other side. “I think your boyfriend just adopted your first child. Congratulations,” she told him sincerely, biting at her bottom lip to try and keep her expression at least remotely straight at the face Law made.

"I did not consent to this," Torao replied, frowning deeply as he glared at Luffy, then Tama, then Luffy again.

"I honestly don't think anyone ever consented to anything with Luffy," Usopp noted helpfully.

A large pout appeared on Luffy's face as he crossed his arms over his chest. "But you're fine with it!"

"Again, Straw Hat-ya. That's not the point." Law let go of a long-suffering sigh, looking so incredibly tired. Nami wondered how many years of his life this poor man had lost over the last two, maybe three months since they had run into him.

But well, that was just a part of the course with Luffy—or their crew as a whole, really. And even if everyone complained about it, no one could deny the post-victory celebrations were well worth all the stress and… adjusted plans.

Nami, for one, certainly couldn't.

Ignoring the bickering couple and laughing friends, Nami turned her attention to the entertainment. She had to admit, it was pretty obvious why Hiyori became the oiran; she was beautiful up there, even without full make up or her hair styled the elaborate way she used to wear before. It was as if she was born for the stage. And the happiness radiating off of her, the relief from Wano's hard-fought, finally achieved freedom, was only making her more mesmerizing. Just looking at her move gracefully as she played on her shamisen, full of energy and not fighting her wide smile, it made Nami so incredibly happy as well.

Ever since she had set sail with Luffy, Nami had witnessed several times the pure joy of a country being rid of their tyrants, thanks to Luffy. She had been one of the people he had saved this way. But seeing it, hearing it, being at the centre of it… it never got old.

And if the celebration came with amazing food and plenty of booze, friends and laughter, and gifts of golden dragon statues from the shogun's castle, who was she to turn away?

[fumikomiyasaki]

Fuan Hiyori Profile

Rarity || ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐

Weapon || Bow

Element || Geo

First Name || Fuan

Family Name || Hiyori

Gender || Male

Birthday || Unknown

Constellation || Deltrus Wingus

Affiliation || Sneznaya

Special Dish || Rocky Meaty Stew

Title(s) || Subject S56, Pacified Angel,

Fuan grew Up in Inazuma but after His Dad got hunted down for His Vision and died, He and His mother moved to Sneznaya. His mother became part of the Fatui to cope with the loss of her husband and she did anything just to feel anything at all again. Which led into her suggesting Her Son as a Research subject to rise the ranks in the Fatui. This led to a new Project of the Fatui in which they tried to make a Human with the Power of a Ruinguard… they implanted him with certain types of Rocks to slowly watch what happened. Fuan gained a Vision and the ability to create Rocks Like Cor Lapis at will, despite that He slowly was tortured by Hallucinations of a Parasite Creature that introduced himself as Hissassno. With time He tried to escape the laboratory and ran away. His Main Goal is to find a cure to become a normal human again before the Rocks in His Body Overtake him and Take hold of His Body, turning him Into a Statue. So He travels through the world, looking for any treatments.

Appearance

Character Details

-Fuan Hiyori, living on a Inazuma Farm with His mother who made clothing and Jewel and His father who worked as a mercenary lost his father early as His father gained Vision and the Vision hunt Decree hunted him down.

His mother moved with him to Sneznaya after which Fuan became a Research subject, creating a being that is half rock half human. He has escaped and is now on the Run, trying to find a cure for His Condition.

Story 1

-The first Country He visited after fleeing from Sneznaya was Fontaine, Where He rested and took a breath. He wanted to find any treatments that could make him normal again so He hid His face with a Long coat and asked around gathering information.

There He met another Person He remembered from Inazuma. It was an old friend of His father, Plutus, who seemed Like a very rich merchant who was bent on helping him, however it was mostly to get more information about His mother. In Fuans Journey Plutus helps him on occasion with His own wealth.

Story 2

-After His time in Fontaine He Went off to Sumeru. He usually hid in the Shadows and looked for different Cure even trying Out cactus Juice.

It was mostly this point where Fuan learned to treat himself and learn to make own health drinks and Cook for himself. It was hard for him given he was used to the cold of Sneznaya but Inazuma also taught him some warm weather so He fought his way through the hot Weather..

Story 3

-He arrived at Liyue, collapsing at the front do the city. As he woke up and looked into the mirror, He realized His eye Turned orange and His skin showed some Rocks lurking Out.

Fuan felt worried. What If His Body would one day fully Turn Into stone. In Sneznaya they had a certain Tonic to keep this at bay. He was torn If he should return and stay captured as experiment or to continue his journey. As He Went to the Mountain full of Cor Lapis… He noticed Where the Stones He possessed in His Body came from.

Story 4

-He arrived later in Mondstadt, having made Up His mind and the Determination again to stay free, despite still being Chained down. But as He walked on He realized Wings Out of Stone spurted from His Back.

Fuan also slowly heard a voice in His Head that was not His. Introducing himself as a Parasite living inside him. However Fuan did Not bare to listen to the unknow voice, given He felt like He couldn't trust them.

Story 5

-At last he made it back to Inazuma… however the place He called Home changed drastically. Given the Vision hunt and the tension, as He arrived at His old House, He felt more like He wasn't Welcome anymore….

He decided to stay in Liyue for the time being, given the theory that the cor Lapis could have anything to do with finding his cute.

Vision

-Fuan got his Vision around the time He and His mother arrived in Sneznaya. He was still sad about His fathers death so Fuan shut himself way from others, trained in Secret in the Mountains.

Practising archery He still cried many tears and tried this way to cope with it. However a certain wild Animal wanted to avenge His fallen comrades that Fuan hunted and tried to Attack him.

This was the first time His vision activated.

He himself feels His Vision is more of a curse given it led him to be the Geo Experiment. He would have prefered any other element. Especially Anemo given it would Help him with freedom.

Hello

-"Um…. You can call me Fuan...Fuan Hiyori. I would say I am a mercenary. Currently I search for something and which is why I travel around…Hope you don't mind me tagging along."

Chat:

-"My arm feels heavy… must be the Stones…. I get used to it hopefully…"

Chat:

-"Father… what would you do in this Situation?"

Chat:

-"If Mother ever will be the same… maybe once I have the cure I should talk to her."

When It Rains

-"No matter what happens at least the Rain stays the same…."

After the Rain

-"Given how long I was locked away as Experiment… light is something I can appreciate."

When It Snows

-"Reminds me of the cold times in Sneznaya…. I really hope one day I will actually find a place to call Home."

When It’s Windy

-"If only the Winds of Freedom would lead me the way."

When the Sun Is Out

-"It feels good to have real light Touch your skin...it makes me feel more alive…"

Good Morning

-"The morning Sun calms me sometimes. I wanna enjoy the time I have left…"

Good Afternoon

-"I tried to drink a herbal tea at the local tea shop… sadly didn't help much with the pain I have… but it was good."

Good Night

-"Someone offered me a odd meat soup and I feel kinda tired now… so If you excuse me, good night."

About :

-"I hunted my life with the bow so If you need any ingredients, I can Help. May be a bit rusted given… how I have been in Isolation for a while. But I will try. "

About :

-"There is not much to say about me. I try to find different health cures which is why I learned to make some myself. So If you need to be patched Up, I try my best."

About :

-"My Father was quite the Warrior...He taught me everything He knew as I was little so He might be my biggest Idol from the beginning…"

About Us: -

-"Don't worry about my body… it is difficult, but I try to find a cure against it, so I wouldn't feel good sitting around. These Crystals are my own curse to bear."

About Us: -

-"Even though one day we might Not find a cure and I Turn Into stone… I want you to remember our Journey and who I was. And maybe, please make my mother come to senses… then I will be fully satisfied…"

About the Vision

-"I feel like my Vision was a curse from the Gods rather than a Blessing… I Wonder If I might have gotten another vision If my Fate would have been the same… I should stop thinking about it."

Interesting Things

-"I am glad I have Support of Plutus, a old friend of my Dad, however He can be very overbearing and braggy. I wonder rwhat Father saw in him."

About Albedo

-"I did ask Albedo If He could research my Condition… sadly he wasn't able to determine a cure for it either...I wanna rely on him and His Experiments to come Up with someting…I really hooe she suceeds."

About Ayaka

-"Miss Kamisato did help me to get to my old Home and also was so helpfull to escort me back to the boats. She is very pretty and I think If I do find a cure against my Condition… I want to give Her a Gift as thank you in person, If Not I will send it before I know its my time."

About Barbara

-"I enjoy her singing… but I feel like her voice sometimes hints a bit of grief. I know how hard it can be to talk about something like that so lets hope I can assist her in a way. I don't understand the men that are that odd to follow her and surround her because I know it makes her feel uncomfortable… maybe I can keep them distracted."

About Baizhu

-"I tried the weirdest of His medications but nothing worked… and here I hoped it would help any… But at least I am usefull as Guinea pig for new medication…"

About Bennett

-"People say He Brings misfortune and His food knocks you Out. I tried it but felt nothing… guess this stone body is stronger than I thought… seems Like each time we end up in a bad situation my Body Takes the Hit and feels fine. He often asked me If I am okay, but its hard to explain really."

About Chongyun

-"Given I heard this weird voice inside my head I did think about asking Chongyun as an exorcist but after I realized how Ghost react around him, I realized there isnt a Evil Spirit inside me… what I gained however was a friend who was fine being near me despite knowing how I Turn Out one day maybe."

About Diona

-"People said her drinks would cause Wonders, however sadly they didn't Work either. She also asked If I could create Crystals for her Drinks, but even that was a failure. She seems as Desperate but I appreciate her Help."

About Fischl

-"I don't understand what she is saying most of the time… I Wish she would be clearer with her words…"

About Hu Tao

-"As I told her about my Situation, she was already planning my Funeral… Sounds not very Nice although at least I can be assured that people might remember me might my curse take me. So it doesn't sound that bad to let her take me away."

About Mona

-"I thought maybe she could Tell me my fate and how to avoid it but deep inside I know it isn't that easy. I admire her Magic though and she does seem gratefull as I shared some of the food I hunted with her."

About Qiqi

-"Immortality seems like a curse and a Blessing at the same time. I wish to Live but… I don't know If it would be for forever. It assures me though how she still can be a child and Walk this world. So I will do my best to Support her."

About Scaramouche

-"I feel although Signora scares me more, him I don't wanna Cross even more..Overall I am on the run from them, but especially given He is Part of my Home… I probably fear him the most of the group."

About Tartaglia

-"I knew who He was from seeing the Sneznaya Vision and went Into hiding. He may try to charm others and play the nice Guy but I know how the Fatui operate… I rather stay away."

About Thoma

-"He is the one walking with Miss Kamisato? Seems like a nice Guy, He was very welcoming when I visited my Home… I feel like I can entrust him with my worries… "

About Xingqiu

-"Part of me thought to ask him If He can get me a book about curses and health and we spend a whole afternoon searching through them. It was Kind He tried to Help me and it was actually fun talking with him."

About Yoimiya

-"She did talk a Lot and asked me a lot of questions. I think she noticed how down I was feeling and that I have something to shoulder…. Which is why she made this huge Firework before I left… I will never forget it and I am glad to make that memory."

More About I

-"How my parents met?

They actually at first were on opposing Sites. But my mother fell in Love with my father and then tried all to make him Fall for her. They abandoned the Fight and became protectors of the Village. My Father Had a Anemo Vision while my Mother has a Hydro Vision. Then the Vision hunt Decree started and… my father died… After that my mother wasn't the Same. She still holds on to His Vision… and joined the Fatui after."

More About II

-"Plutus is a odd ball. He visited my father and me in Inazuma and He and my father seemed like very old Friends. However Mom seemed to be always annoyed by Plutus. I think I didn't realize before but He seems to have a thing for mother and she wasn't happy about that. Still I am glad He aids me during my Journey… at least someone to trust that I know for a Long Time."

More About III

-"Actually I met two other Experiments in Sneznaya… they said their names are Lumiere and Aeron. Around the same age as me but guards Made Sure to keep us seperate the most times. In the end they ended up as Stone statues with Wings… couldn't control the Power… this is why I know what will Happen to me when I don't fix this…"

More About IV

-"The voice inside my head has actually a appearance. Its like a Dream where we talked. Said his name Is Hissassno and introduced him as a parasite who wants to take me over… I feel worried. If its Not only the sickness but also someone inside me Fighting for Control… will I be able to become myself again…"

More About V

-"If I ever break this curse...I want to open a health drink Shop. Maybe Overall make it a good stand given how much I hunt. And If that is Not enough I will stay a Mercenary and travel the world. Thank all those people that we're there for me. "

-Fuan’s Hobbies

-"Hunting, mixing and I also enjoy some climbing usually…. It takes my head usually of Bad thoughts…"

-Fuan’s Troubles

-"I feel each day that my body gets heavier. Sure the Rock Crystals make my Body sturdy however it feels like it gets more and more Harder to do anything…Each time I adapt it gets worse..."

Favorite Food

-"Roasted Meat… overall I am very Fond of Meat dishes, mostly because of survival it was my usual approach to choose it. "

Least Favorite Food

-"I can't stand Eggplants, although thanks to me slowly loosing taste throughout my Condition, I could eat it now with Feeling nothing."

Birthday

-"Good Birthday to you. If you want I can make you something. You are asking me when mine is… I actually can't remember…I never really paid attention to it. "

Feelings About Ascension: Intro

-"Lets move, there is more to search for."

Feelings About Ascension: Building Up

-"I feel a bit of weight dropping of me."

Feelings About Ascension: Climax

-"I hope you are proud of Me now Father. I became a strong Fighter, as you were."

Feelings About Ascension: Conclusion

-"I finally feel a bit of Hope for the Future again. Thanks for showing me the way."

Added to Party

-"I'll be your shield."

"Ready for anything."

"May the freedom Guide us."

Elemental Burst

-"Mountain Rain! Rock Solid!"

Knocked Out

-"Father… is that you…"

"And so… its over…"

"Thanks for …. Everything…"

[sillyguyhotline]

i hate when people compare shin tsukimi to kokichi ouma/nagito komaeda and here’s why

hi first off spoilers for yttd up to chapter 2-2 and for chapter 5 of sdr2 and ndrv3

hi, this is a little disorganized because it was one of my first analysis posts on here lmao. it’s in lapslock and kinda rushed because i wrote this rant to my friends and then decided to post it here!!

ok so!! first of all, sou has very distinct and established reasons for why he acts the way he does: the survival rates. the game shows us that, prior to the death game, sou (shin tsukimi) was very pleasant, even compassionate, and was generally a good dude.

 but the identity he adopted for himself, sou hiyori, the one who trusts nobody and lies to everyone and is a pretty huge dick, is a direct consequence of miley telling him he had no chance at survival. the antagonist characters in danganronpa are just...like that. yeah, they probably have their reasons (we know that nagito lost his parents and has a very weird relationship with luck, and we can infer that kokichi doesnt have parents and probably hasnt for a decent amount of time) but they were turned into their more manipulative selves over time, and that's who they are, whereas "sou hiyori" is more of a mask or an alternate identity than anything

secondly, i know a lot of people lump him in with the dr antags bc they consider him an "antagonist" character, but honestly?? he's really not. (either way, the term antag doesnt really fit kokichi or nagito cuz junko is the antag, they're still technically on our side and id consider them antiheroes). but,,,sou honestly doesnt do the things kokichi and nagito do. those two fuck with you in the trials and then they both have chapter 5, where they stage a murder that is directly intended to confuse either you or the mastermind. 

but sou doesn't do any of that shit! yeah, he declares himself as the keymaster and lies about that kind of stuff, but it's not intended to directly oppose you, he's just trying to survive. it just so happens that sara is the keymaster in the first main game, so sara is the one who has to expose his lies. he's a liar, but especially in the first main game (not as much in the second but i'll get to that later) he's more concerned with his survival than anything. both kokichi and nagito, however, have other goals (expose the traitor from the future foundation and get them out alive/end the killing game) and even when they arent executing those goals they go out of their way to oppose the protag.

thirdly, sou embodies his own, very distinct themes. he's still a foil to sara, as the antags are with the dr protags, but in quite a different way. (oh also ive seen some people point out that sou is also a foil to keiji). kokichi, most distinctly, embodies the theme of truth vs. lies; he's a liar and his entire personality is developed out of him constantly lying to everyone including himself, while shuichi, the protag, struggles throughout the game with the burden of exposing the truth of the murders. 

a lot of people look at sou and immediately think that the main point of his character is his lies (which is fair, as he lies to both sara and himself, similar to kokichi) but it's not- it's his inability to trust anyone. you'd think that him hiding his true personality and fabricating the "sou hiyori" personality would demonstrate that he is, at his core, a liar, but "sou hiyori," especially in comparison to the "shin tsukimi" he once was, is characterized by how little he trusts everyone. this is how he is different from sara, and why he envies her: sara has managed to gain the trust of the entire group, despite being nothing but a high school girl, and is able to utilize this to her advantage (hence why he breaks down in the first main game; he has already separated himself from the group for his own survival, but panics upon seeing everyone choosing to believe sara instead of him). his separation from the rest of the group and the way he loathes sara for the trust she's gained is what's at the core of his character, not his lies. his lies only aid his lack of trust for everyone else. 

also, another thing that separates sou from the other antags is something i outlined earlier: when they die, it is to serve a purpose greater than them. when sou dies, it is to save kanna. he's always been identifiable due to his desire to survive. this is why he becomes sou hiyori, this is why he is unable to trust anyone, this is why we view him as an "antagonist," because we as the player, usually, automatically want as many people as possible to make it out alive. but he forms such a bond with kanna, despite pushing aside everyone else, that he is willing to lose his life, which he's fought so hard to protect, in order to save her. this is also representative of how much more yttd focuses on its characters; nagito and kokichi refuse to die unless it ends the killing game because that is danganronpa's endgame and it's the only reliable point of dr's admittedly shoddy plot. yttd, however, focuses on how the characters grow as people and how relationships between individuals develop, which is why sou's character is so heavily dependent on kanna. he either dies for her or identifies himself as a true threat in order to avenge her, which makes him much more compelling.

sou may be a liar, but he's much more of a human than the danganronpa antags, he presents much less of a threat to the character, and he's able to actually develop bonds with kanna. 

i also find it pretty interesting how both nagito and kokichi's relationships with the protag reflect the main themes of their respective games (hope vs despair, truth vs lies) whereas sou's relationship with sara revolves around trust as opposed to the game's overarching theme of logic vs emotion (which he also helps to embody, but through his actions, not his relationship with sara).

this was very long and probably didnt convey my thoughts as well as it could have but in essence sou and the dr antags are very very different from each other, in both character and their role in the game, and when people compare them it feels like they're looking at a sou that they want to see rather than the sou who actually exists.

as an afterthought i find it sort of ironic that most of the humanization and development of the danganronpa characters occurs in fan circles, whereas sou is already developed and humanized by yttd to the extent that fans instead have to boil him down to danganronpa stereotypes.

if you made it this far, tysm!! this was kinda rushed so if there are any flaws in what i said please lmk and i’d like to hear if anyone else has any other thoughts on this topic!!

[metamousefiction]

Teacher and pupil

Summary: After Yato’s disapearience Yukine run off. Kazuma feels that his pupil is his responsibility so he starts searching for him. Looks that the younger shinki isn’t the only one who will need to face his demons tonight.

Characters: Kazuma, Yukine

Wordcount: 2154

Warnings: character death, manga spoilers, blood, mentions of suicide

A/N: I thought that I should redeem Kazuma and make him reconcile with Yukine. This is the first fic I ever published online so please go easy on me :) It turned out longer than it was supposed to be. Sorry for my english – I’m not a native speaker, I’m still learning. I hope you’ll enjoy the fic.

***********

Sweating and out of his breath, Kazuma run through the dark streets in search for young shinki who he used to call his pupil. He shouldn’t have leave the boy out of his sight even for just one moment.  Yukine was still a mess and completly shaken after what happened. He might do something he will regret... Or rather... Kazuma will regret. He knew that if something happens to his pupil he will never forgive himself till the end of his life. Well... it’s not like he could forgive himself already. He did to much wrong in his life, especially in the last few months. He still couldn’t get Yukine’s face expresion from that night out of his mind. The younger hafuri’s screams and pleading still echoed inside his head. He stopped running sudenly out of his breath while he felt something wet running down his cheeks. He put his hand up to his mouth in order to stop the crying sound. His strenght sudenly left him and he fall down to his knees while whimping. ‘I’m sorry Yukine. I’m s-so sorry... Yato!’

***

“Yato! Watch out!”

The monk staff passed just few milimeters from them.

“Whaaa... That was close! Thanks Kazuma!” said Yato while whiping the blood from his face. Last hit must have left severe head injury but the stray god kept fighting.

“Please get more cautious! That guy is really good!” shinki reprimended the god. At least they managed to keep Yukine out of the way with Hiyori’s help but Nora wasn’t any better. She fought by Father’s side for so many years already... They needed to create an opening or else they won’t stand a chance. Kazuma tried to think of some plan but nothing came to his head. That’s when suden movement of their enemy put him out of his foughts. The sorcerer came from offensive to defensive. He striked them down one time after another and finally landed his last blow. Kazuma didn’t have time to do anything beside shielding Yato and that was the last thing he remembered before his mind blackout.

“...an! ... ma-san! ... Kazuma-san!” Kazuma heard a voice as slowly regain his contious back. He could have swear that he hard someone else crying near.

“I-Iki ... Hiyori ... san?” He asked when he was fully awake.

“T-thank god” she said with her eyes full of tears “You’re ok!”

Kazuma sat trying to focus. His head was pounding.

“What happened? Where is sorcerer?” he asked. Hiyori eyes became even sadder as she respond with words: “He’s dead”

The girl stood up and went in the direction of the crying silquette. Kazuma looked there and his heart nearly stoped at the sight. There was a small figure of the boy on his knees clenching something to his chest and crying with Nora by his side. ‘Yukine...’

Why was he crying? Did he cared about sorcerer that much? Yes, he got a name from him but-

That’s when he saw it. The thing that the Yukine hold. The trucksuit...

He stood up so fast that he got dizzy. No way... no way! Of course he knew. Yukine told him before that if sorcerer dies Yato will disapear, but even though there was always a small hope in his heart that maybe it was a lie made up by sorcerer himself. That maybe Yato will survive killing his father and everything will end happily. Now the hope was gone. Yato was gone. After hearing so many painful words from Kazuma... He can never apolgise to Yato, to his friend and saviour. Never again.

The tears fall down his face “Y-Yukine...” he said “I’m-”

“Sorry?” he hard the other say. His voice raw and without any emotion. The boy stood up and turned to face Kazuma. His eyes were swollen but so cold that Kazuma could have swore that temperature inside warehouse droped a few degrees.

“What are you sorry for? You wanted this!” now Yukine was shaking with fury “You never cared for anyone besides yourself and Bishamon-sama!”

“T-that’s not true!” It wasn’t, right?

“SHUT UP YOU TRAITOR!”

“Yukine-kun!” Hiyori got to him and cathed his left arm while Nora catched the other one.

“YATO TRUSTED YOU! HE CALLED YOU HIS BEST FRIEND! AND YOU BETRAYED HIM! YOU LET HIM DIE! NO! YOU KILLED HIM BY ASKING HIM TO KILL HIS FATHER!” Yukine stopped trying to get free from their hold. He let his head down and began to shake again “And then you lost contious and left him all alone in his last moments! Yato died here completly alone! It’s you fault! Why? Why? GIVE HIM BACK!”

Yukine fall down to his knees sobbing hard. He haven’t said anything more. Just crying for minutes, hours, days, weeks...

***

Kazuma wiped out the tears from his face. He can’t cry. He needs to find Yukine before something happens to him. He used to be his teacher. He is responsible for him.

Yukine stayed in his room at Kofuku’s place for 2 months not talking to anyone, even Hiyori Iki. He wasn’t eating nor sleeping at all for this whole time. However tonight he disapeared.

‘Think...’ he told himself ‘Think Kazuma! There must be a place where he could have gone to... ’

He stood up so quiqly, that even he wasn’t sure if he was ever on his knees before, as the realisation hit him.

Yukine blames him for his master death. If he wants revange...

“Veena!” he shouted as began running nearly in the direction of Bishamons shrine. His master was still uncontious after being nearly killed by Heathens. She couldn’t protect herself in this state.

Once he got there, the worst possible scene came to his eyes. Yukine was completly posesed by demons. So much that Kazuma nearly didn’t recognise him. He saw this form already just before the boy was named by the sorcerer  with the help of Koto-no-ha. Yukine was holding Bishamon in his grip. The enormous claws were tightened on the goddess neck. She was still uncontoiuos but the frown on her face told Kazuma that she was in pain. She was gasping for air while the blight was already spreading from the place where Yukine beats claws into her skin. Kazuma had a flashback from the same situation when Tsuguha attacked her master.

“Y-Yukine!” Kazuma tried to reach possesed boy “Yukine, please put her down!”

The young shinki didn’t even flinch. Just turned his head to look at Kazuma and Kazuma wished he didn’t. His eyes, that looked more like ayakashi’s eyes now, where dark and liveless. It was just like looking into an abyss.

“And if I don’t?” asked the boy, his voice calm – to calm.

“Yukine, please listen. It’s not you!”

“Not me?” the boy’s grip on Bishamon’s neck tightened resulting in her screams. Kazuma panicked “Oh, that’s definitely me”

His heart was beating fast. He needed to act fast if he wanted to save his master but what should he do?

“Kazuma-san” the shinki continued “a few days ago you wanted me to share my pain and grieve with you. Maybe if I kill your master you’ll be able to understand me?” the spite in Yukine’s voice made Kazuma sick.

“Yukine, I am b-begging you, let’s go back. Hiyori will help you. I’m sure that Yato wouldn’t-”

Another scream from his master made Kazuma go silent.

“Shut up” Yukine said through his gritted teeth. “Don’t you dare saying his name!”

Yukine’s voice wasn’t calm anymore. Kazuma even without seeing his pupil’s face could tell that the other was crying.

“Yukine...”

“Don’t you dare saying you knew him! If you did, you would never let him do this! He never wanted to die!”

“Yukine, please let go of Veena! Let’s talk!”

“Talk?” the boy laughed “TALK?!”

His grip thighten so much that Kazuma was scared it might have broken Bishamon’s neck but her screams proved she was still alive.

“Yukine, STOP!”

“Or what? You’ll kill me? You have a lot of experience in this, don’t you?”

Kazuma’s stomach turned over when he heard those words. It’s true. Till now Kazuma never second guesssed his choices. He was ready to do anything for Veena. Even betray or KILL his friends so many times. In order to save Bishamon he didn’t hesitated to kill his entire clan, Tsuguha or even Yato. As long she was safe it didn’t matter who died from his hands. Now was time for Yukine too? Should he do the same now? Should he kill this poor little boy he used to call his pupil?

He shut his eyes tight and put his two fingers together ready to drawn a borderline. A borderline which will determine who will live and who will die. In his head he could see face of every person he killed. A vision of Tsuguha’s head lying in the pool of blood came back to hunt him. Will it switch to Yukine’s head from now on? His hand began to shake as tears streamed out of his eyes. No! He doesn’t want to kill him. He had enough of this. But what should he do? How can he help his pupil? Isn’t it too late already?

“What’s wrong?” asked the kid “It’s easy, isn’t it? You did that so many times to save her already. It’s just a little more blood on your hands...”

Kazuma opened his eyes to see Yukine’s face. It was calm... too calm! His eyes where looking at Kazuma with sadness and there was a lonely smile on his face. Just now it became clear to Kazuma what the boy wanted to achieve. He never wanted to kill Bishamon. He just wanted Kazuma to kill him instead!

Kazuma put down his hand.

“I’m sorry Yukine” he said “but I’m not gonna kill you”

The boy frowned.

“So you’re leaving your master to die? That’s so unlike you. I thought that anyone who wants to hurt your master is the enemy. That’s what you teached me.”

“It’s this thinking that got me in this situation in the first place. I’m fed up with betraying the people I care for. I don’t want to end up loosing anyone anymore. I don’t want to loose my pupil too” Kazuma smiled but it only angered Yukine more.

“Fine! If you not gonna kill me before I kill her you certainly will do it after I do!”

Yukine let go of the goddess letting her hit the ground and thrown himself at her with the intend to kill, ready to do the finishing  blow. Kazuma didn’t have enough time to think over how to react so he did the only thing he could think of. He thrown himself between his master and his pupil receiving the hit intended for Bishamon. Yukine looked at his teacher in horror.

“W-why?” he asked “You could have just kill me! Why did you do that?!”

“B-because” Kazuma said coughing blood “you’re my p-precious f-friend” he put up his hand to wipe out the tears on boy’s cheeks “so was Y-Yato... I c-can’t loose you too”

Kazuma began coughing more blood and his legs gave out under him. He could see Yukine’s panicked face. The ayakashi’s features where gone leaving broken and scared child.

“It’s alright” Kazuma tried to reasure the boy “I’m gonna be... just f-fine. The injury isn’t that deep. You had gone easy on me” He pated the kid’s head and smiled. It was clear that Yukine never intended to kill Bishamon even with the last blow. Kazuma pulled over to his chest the boy who was already a crying mess.

“Hushhh... It’s ok. It’s ok”

He took out a phone from his pocket and called Kuraha and after that Kofuku-san. Yukine needed Hiyori’s help, that’s for sure. After that he layed down and stroked Yukine’s head. The boy was still crying on his chest.

“Thank you Yukine” he whispered “Thanks to you I understood that I’ve been lying to myself all this time. I always thought that there is no other way. That betraying my friends was right as long as it is for Veena. But it wasn’t. I was wrong and I never did it for her. I did it for myself. I felt I couldn’t lose her so I never realy cared about her wishes-”

“That i-isn’t t-true” Yukine tried to object but because of the tears what came out reminded a chocked sound “Y-you did it b-because you l-love her. I understand that m-much”

It caught Kazuma off-guard.

“I forgive you” the kid continued “and I’m sure the rest would too”

Kazuma’s eyes began to sting. Tsuguha’s and other’s faces stood before his eyes but this time it was different – he saw them smilling...

The tears began to fall down from his eyes. Maybe he really could be forgiven. And maybe – just maybe – one day he will be able to forgive himself.

******************

A/N: So yeah... Kazuma’s character development because he needs to get rid of this not healthy obsession over his master he showed lately. Also for those who don’t like sad endings: Yato didn’t die (if you’re Tsukuyomi theory fan), just got the memories of the previous incarnation and needs time to accept it or was taken into custody by Heathens. Also I believe in Nora’s change of heart but still made her fight Yato and Kazuma – the reason is simple: no matter if she knows what Father’s doing is wrong or how much she wants to help Yato and the rest, she still cares for Father and for Yato and doesn’t want to loose them.

[kikithedeceiver]

WIP Challenge

Tagged by @fortune-maiden

Challenge: post the names of all the files in your WIP folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous.

How...do we do this? That is not a very clear instruction? ...I’ll try to post the title with my comments and one paragraph or plan I guess?

This might be a long post!

And tagging @jujywrites (or @jujyfru1t), @mricg! and @summertime-children (or @detalesz)

Too Damn Hot 

Comments: Oh okay a planned KanoKido smut fic based on Seek at Mekakucity on the first go! Whooooa!

They were locked in here for hours. The clues on how to escape this room was too complicated for them to the point they were just too frustrated and gave up. Now accepting the fact they were trapped, with no windows available even, they were starting to feel on the edge. The tight formal clothes they were wearing were just too stiff and stuffy – screw getting use to the heat, they were sweating too much.

Forget me. Forgive me. 

Comments: An idea I had of Kido erasing Kano’s memories of her once everything is over before she left. Looks like I planned to collab this with nekuasakuraba101 where they write Kido erasing her memories of Kano.

If Kano could describe the emotion he was feeling, it was emptiness. No matter how hard he tried to recall what he forgot, he couldn’t get remember it. He knew something was supposed to be here and he should never lose it, yet he did.

Kagepro x Persona

Comments: Well this is definately back from when my friend made me play her Persona 4 Golden on her Vita!

Mekakushi-Dan – Fool > Judgement

Kisaragi Shintaro – Hermit > Justice

Enomoto Takane – Tower

Kokonose Haruka – Emperor > Devil

Kido Tsubomi – Priestess

Kano Shuuya – Moon, Hanged Man

Seto Kousuke – Strength

Kozakura Mary – Empress

Kisaragi Momo – Sun

Amamiya Hibiya – Fortune

Tateyama Ayano – Star

Asahina Hiyori – Lovers

Tateyama Kenjirou – Hierophant

Tateyama Ayaka – Chariot

Kisaragi Mama – Temperance

Tono - Magician

Azami – Death

Shion – Empress

RomaHeta (ideas)

Comments: Ever since my hard drive broke, I lost a lot of WIP for my Hetalia fangame novellas, RomaHeta and HetaOni. The only thing I could salvage was ideas on the names for the countries and what Class they’re in. Also a list of skills and combo skills suggested when asked...one of them...

Power Ranger Allied Forces by wyhe

Allies combo skill Has to be in the Power Ranger Outfits Alfred – Red; Arthur – Yellow; Francis – Blue; Yao – Pink; Ivan – Black Alfred has to be in the combo 2x – weakest (Allied Punch Kick) 3x – second weakest (Allied Magic) 4x – second strongest (Allied Beam) 5x – strongest (Allied Phoenix)

Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch Echo

Comments: Back when I was super into the Mermaid Melody and their songs and this idea had been sitting in my folder since i was 17 because I was scared of how Mary Sue my OC was!

Too much grammar error. Won’t share.

Family

Comments: A Nirvana oneshot I wanted to write to explore the dynamics of Yachiyo and her group. How her life is more lively now that she is with a group of people that can be like her family.

Not much written. Won’t share.

Hesitation

Comments: More Nirvana! This time on the Rats Annie and Tony after they fought with Yachiyo against Kagome! This was during the hiatus when we didn’t know about Kagome’s backstory.

Baltelsoh was still just as worn down after her and the Wappen’s twins battle with Kagome. Everyone prepared countermeasures for Blaus entering their country, but no one ever prepared one for a Vicar. They still couldn’t believe they were all deceived by the one who created the security to protect Baltelsoh for 15 years, the same person who created Blaus from corpses deep below their great country. To be honest, Kagome really was like a rat, a lying rat hiding behind a fake smile and persona. And they were going to make him the Rat of the Twelve.

Faraway Story (Novella)

Comments: Never gonna happen! I am not writing another novella! No KiKi! NO! ...So yeah, self indulgence?

There’s no one to seek help from here.

A small, miniature girl ran down the dark, stone corridor that was only lit up by small specs of floating light. There were unique, beautiful crystals scatters around the place, but she paid them no mind,

Because there’s no here at all…except for one person.

She clutched the book she found tightly to her chest. Her unnaturally stiff, tiny body was screaming for her to stop running already, yet she pressed on, as she needed to get out of this place. She tried to resist, but as her feet dashed passed a large puddle of water, sending sparkling droplets into the air before they fell back into the shallow pool, she slipped and fell on to the cold, hard ground. Panting, she tried to get up, but she couldn’t find the strength to do it.

Slight Technical Difficulties

Comments: Eva and Neil swap bodies due to an error in the machine. Planned for years. Here’s the first paragraph.

“And this goes here and…Booyah!” Neil did a backflip in the empty-space of the Overworld, ignoring Eva rolling her eyes at his stupid antics. With the last mementos linked, the path connecting all the different stages of Marie Forest’s life lit up, with the system now ready to restart and rewrite her life to how she wanted. Landing on their own platform, Neil and Eva changed back into their normal form. “This case is the easiest by far!”

Where Are You?

Comments: Still writing! Here’s a peek?

"You hate me. You just want to me to suffer. You never cared about me. I don't want your fake pity."

...bleep

[julijasm]

“What’s a young guy doing spouting shit that makes him sound like an old man? You’re too young to get hit with metabolic syndrome just yet!” “Oi, what’re you–!” Kirishima slipped his arms around Yokozawa from behind and tucked his fingers under the hem of his shirt to lift it up. “Juuuust checking to see if you’ve got a little paunch or anything yet.” “Well, you’ve checked.” Kirishima looked down from where he had his chin resting on Yokozawa’s shoulder as Yokozawa batted away the hand Kirishima had creeping down under his hem and readjusted his shirt, stuffing the hem firmly into the waist of his pants so Kirishima couldn’t get a grip again. “And stop hanging all over me when it’s sweltering.” “C’mon, don’t blush~” “I’m not. I told you: it’s hot.” “Mmm, that reminds me, it’s been quite a while, huh… How about I make you even hotter?” “What the hell are you thinking of doing? You just suggested we ‘make an early night of it’!” He still wasn’t used to being touched by Kirishima; it wasn’t that he disliked it, but any pleasure was overshadowed by the shame and awkwardness it brought with it. Plus–Hiyo lived here; he could hardly be expected to get it up under such conditions. Kirishima gave little thought to Yokozawa’s hesitation, though, and began to loosen Yokozawa’s belt, slipping a hand below the waist. “It’s fine…just a little?” “Hng!” He couldn’t help the stupid sound that leapt from his lips when Kirishima suddenly wrapped his fingers firmly around his cock. If he didn’t keep his voice down at this hour, Hiyori was sure to wake up. “You–idiot, cut it out!” he hissed in warning to Kirishima, who seemed to be quite enjoying himself, but the guy seemed to have no ear for listening. With his hips locked in a tight hold, Yokozawa had no way to escape easily. “I’ll take care of you quickly, don’t worry; besides, you’re about to get in the bath, right? So who cares how sweaty you get…” “That’s–not the point–!” He grabbed Kirishima’s arms and tried to pry them loose, then froze up at the casually offered threat: “Keep squawking and you’ll wake up Hiyo.” “That’s…low…” “Sticks and stones.” The amused tone to his voice was clearly because he knew Yokozawa couldn’t fight him, breath ghosting over Yokozawa’s neck with each and every word he spoke. “…Hng…!” The fingers wrapped around him began to move lewdly, and Yokozawa grit his teeth, fighting back the breaths and sighs that tried to spill from his lips. The body heat resonating through him from behind and the scent of the shampoo wafting into his nose only served to further arouse Yokozawa’s elevating temperature. Kirishima drew out long, gentle strokes, fingers kneading the crown in circles. The slick slide of fingers over flesh revealed how wet he was now, and while he hated to own up to it, he had to admit: Kirishima’s fingers were amazing. “See? You’re getting hard…” Kirishima whispered, pressing a kiss just behind his ear. “Don’t…need your…fucking commentary…” But the truth of the situation being so clearly presented set his mind to boiling over. Any time he found himself in Kirishima’s embrace, he felt like he’d suddenly reverted to being a pubescent teenager. Everything he’d experienced in all his years seemed meaningless, leaving him with little else to do but give himself over to being trifled with. He couldn’t help but think of the moments when he fought back with his naturally unbending nature as being simply another way that Kirishima played him.

[TRANSLATION] SEKAI-ICHI HATSUKOI ~ YOKOZAWA TAKAFUMI NO BAAI 2, CH. 3 PART 2 Art:  ぶち子  | とばり

[libraryscarf]

Payback

“Hello, Yato. I would like to hire you.” Yato held her gaze for a moment, and then a lopsided grin crept across his mouth. “So,” he said. “You’ve come to the delivery god.” She nodded stiffly, unable to smile back as her gut gave a sudden, wrenching twist. “It’s…” She swallowed, loudly. “It’s kind of a weird job.”

Chapter 2: The Language of the Elite ( ao3 | ffn )

Hiyori’s shoulders slumped as soon as she walked in. Ami, after shutting the door behind her, raced to the window to follow Yato’s retreating figure down the street with her eyes.

“Okay,” she said after a brief pause. “You did not tell us about that.”

Hiyori didn’t answer. Her blood coagulated with dread as she continued staring at the elegant script that curled its way across the back of the envelope in her hand.

“No,” she murmured. “Please, no.”

Ami tore herself away from the window. “What happened? Did you get served?”

Hiyori looked up, her expression desolate. “Worse. It’s from my mom.”

: : :

“Personally,” said Yama, “I do not see what is so awful about having a fancy dinner with your family. Especially when they’re taking you out to Moon God of all places.”

Yama breathed the name of the restaurant like it was a prayer. “That’s like…sushi heaven,” she said reverently.

Hiyori was holding her head in both hands, her elbows on the dining room table.

“Why couldn’t she just email or text me like a regular person,” she moaned.

The invitation to dinner had arrived on stiff, expensive stationary where the inevitable curly words had instructed Hiyori to attend. Not requested: instructed.

“Because your mother speaks the language of the elite,” Ami said comfortingly. “It can only be communicated underneath a wax seal with the appropriate coat of arms.”

Hiyori lowered her head all the way down to the table, swinging her arms down on both sides of the chair.

“It’s worse than that, even,” she mumbled into the table. Her friends leaned in to hear better, as Hiyori, still plastered forehead-first to the table, informed them of what the conversation had been the last time she was among her extended family.

: : :

It had been several months ago, when her maternal grandparents came to stay at her parents’ house over Christmas. Once her older brother, Masaomi, had showed up with his very nice, be-cardiganed boyfriend in tow, the conversation had taken an uncomfortable turn.

“So, Hiyori,” her grandmother said. “It looks like you’re the last!”

The older woman’s tone was jovial, but Hiyori felt the skin on her arms start crawling up toward her neck like she was covered in centipedes.

“I suppose medical school does get in the way of dating,” she said.

“You haven’t met any…nice young doctors-to-be?” her grandmother asked, exchanging a meaningful look with Hiyori’s mother.

Hiyori fought the urge to sink under her chair, hoping that if she tried hard enough she could simply pop out of existence. Instead, she sipped her champagne delicately and pondered just exactly how disowned she would be if the rest of it just happened to be splashed on her grandmother’s expensive lace collar.

“You remember the Fujisaki family, don’t you?” Hiyori’s mother asked innocently.

Hiyori gritted her teeth until they creaked. “Yes,” she said, through tight lips. “I remember them.”

This champagne would definitely end up all over someone else before the night was over.

“Their son is just a few years older than you,” Mrs. Iki cooed, playing a paragon of innocence. “And he’s doing quite well in his profession, from what I hear. He’s a doctor.”

“How nice,” Hiyori ground out. Her lips were stretched across her face in a taut line, but neither her grandmother nor her mother seemed to notice. She cast Masaomi a pleading glance where he sat next to his boyfriend across the room, but he just gave her a helpless shrug. She glared at him until he turned pale and looked away. Bastard. This was all his fault.

“We should invite them over sometime,” Mrs. Iki continued. “I think you would get along wonderfully with—”

Hiyori set her champagne flute on the coffee table with a brittle clink. Mrs. Iki fell suddenly silent.

“Mom,” she said, striving for a gentle tone. “I do not want to see Kouto Fujisaki again.”

The stem of the glass complained under her grip. “I do not want to see him, ever.”

Her mother and grandmother blinked at her in infuriating confusion.

“Whatever has he done, dear?” her grandmother asked.

This was the worst question of all, because Hiyori did not have a good response to it.

Kouto Fujisaki was charming, witty, and handsome. He was beloved of every mother, respected by every father. He saved kittens from trees for fun. And being around him gave Hiyori the distinct feeling that someone had just poured a bucket of eels down the back of her shirt.

She herself understood what discomforted her so much about him, but it wasn’t exactly a defensible argument in this setting. For a particularly morbid school project, she had had to look up the mugshots of famous serial killers. When the look in several of their flat, dead-fish eyes had struck her as familiar, she realized she had seen that look peering out at her from Kouto Fujisaki’s face. It was a stark, loathsome emptiness that made her sick to look at.

But now, she heard herself say, in defeat:

“Nothing.”

Her mother and grandmother exchanged a look of triumph, and abruptly, Hiyori couldn’t stand it for another second. It was no one’s right to force her on Fujisaki, and she’d hate herself if she lost this most pitiful of contests.

So she sucked in a huge breath and proclaimed, in a voice ringing with victory:

“Actually, I don’t want to see him, because I happen to have a boyfriend.”

: : :

Ami and Yama stared blankly at Hiyori after she recounted the dismal tale.

“You don’t have a boyfriend…right?” Yama asked incredulously, while Ami raised her eyebrows so sharply they could have sliced bread.

“No!” Hiyori ripped her face off the table and stared at them with a forsaken expression. “I don’t! But now my entire family wants to meet the one I already told them I have!”

“Well, why don’t you just tell them you broke up with him?” Ami asked, always pragmatic.

“Because they’ll foist Fujisaki on me again,” Hiyori said miserably.

“You could tell them you don’t want to date,” Yama said, drumming her fingers thoughtfully on the edge of the table.

Hiyori bestowed a bitter glare upon her. “Have you met my mother? That’s tantamount to saying I don’t want to eat. It’s the sort of thing that in her world leads to therapy.”

Yama threw her hands up in defeat. “Okay, okay.”

After a few more seconds of silent deliberation, Ami pushed her chair back from the table.

“Or you could just…get a boyfriend,” she said offhandedly, and disappeared into her own room. Yama followed suit, giving Hiyori a couple pats on the shoulder.

“You’ll figure something out, Hiyo,” she said comfortingly. Then she shrugged. “Hey, maybe Fujisaki has improved since you last saw him!”

After they had both left her alone, Hiyori sat motionless at the table for a long while, eyes frozen on her interlocked thumbs. Ami’s words reverberated in her mind.

And there was a flyer on the telephone pole across the road from the kitchen window, fluttering just within her range of vision. A bold declaration was emblazoned on it, along with a phone number.

“NO PRICE TOO LOW! NO TASK TOO STEEP!”

: : :

Hiyori didn’t give herself time to second-guess her decision, or reconsider the impropriety of asking a boy she barely knew to take money in exchange for pretending to date her. All she knew was that she had tipped the scale into decidedly desperate territory.

But they could help each other. She repeated this to herself, a mantra every few seconds, to keep her nerve up as she walked over to the neighboring house.

“I have a proposal,” she practiced saying out loud, “that I believe can benefit both of us.”

She cringed. Too formal, and a bit of a Godfather vibe. She would just have to wing it. Raising her hand, she approached the door and gave three brisk raps against it before she chickened out. A few moments later, it swung open.

Hiyori expected Yato, but the boy on the other side of the door was a head shorter, blonde, and had such an obviously impeccable sense of fashion that Hiyori instantly doubted he, Yato, and that bewildering tracksuit could share a living space.

“Hi,” she said hesitantly. “I-I think I have the wrong house.”

The boy’s mouth fell open, and his eyes widened dramatically. They were a striking color: a luminous, golden-green that, apropos of nothing, reminded Hiyori of sweet, summer-baked gardens.

As soon as the boy realized he was staring, he shut his mouth with a snap and looked at the ground. “Hi,” he said, anticlimactically. Then he extended a small hand toward her. “I’m Yukine. You’re at the right house.”

“Oh,” Hiyori said. “Good.” She shook his hand, then let go and cleared her throat.

“Um. Is Yato here?”

Yukine glanced up at her, and a mysterious expression flashed over his face before he resumed a normal smile. “Yes, he just got back from work.”

He waved her inside, and Hiyori used every ounce of resolve to avoid gawking openly at the interior of the house. She peered to her right into the small kitchen, where chip bags and an alarming number of pizza boxes littered every flat service. Yukine tapped her elbow lightly, and she jumped.

“You can come in here,” he said, jerking a thumb across the hallway to the small, shabby living room. Hiyori followed him in, then, at his silent invitation, seated herself on the very farthest corner of the narrow couch.

Yukine did not sit down. Instead he turned around, cupped his hands over his mouth, and hollered into the recesses of the house: “YATO, IT’S FOR YOU.” Then he turned back to give her an angelic smile. She returned it, trying not to look terrified.

There was the sound of a door slamming open, of footsteps in the hallway. Hiyori clenched her fingers together. Her knuckles went white as paper, bones pressing sharply against the flesh. Now that she was inside Yato’s house, sitting on his couch, her little scheme suddenly seemed childish, ludicrous, and offensive. This was rude and presumptuous. This was a mistake.

But before she could flee, Yato burst into the living room with his tracksuit half-unzipped. He tipped his head back, shoved a handful of pretzels into his mouth, and said around them:

“Whatiffit, Yukine?!”

Yukine jerked his head toward where Hiyori was self-consciously trying to sit a bit straighter on the couch. Yato’s eyes fell on her, and they widened.

Hiyori would forever have a difficult time explaining why meeting Yato’s gaze made her ribs feel suddenly tight—like her lungs had, for whatever reason, decided they were too big for the rest of her body. They were eyes that didn’t make sense in the rest of his face, the features of which didn’t necessarily abide by the rules of classic handsomeness. Even in his curiosity and confusion, Yato’s eyes burned through the defensive mechanisms she had constructed around this ridiculous request. So she decided she would simply be honest.

It was a relief, Hiyori thought, to feel that she could at least do that around one person.

As she wrestled internally with this, Yato allowed half the pretzels to fall out of his mouth and onto the thinly carpeted floor.

“Hiyori?” he said incredulously. He stared at her, unaware that his shirt was covered in salty crumbs.

She stood up at once, brushing her skirt off, and squared her shoulders. She summoned every ounce of professionalism in her soul as she declared:

“Hello, Yato. I would like to hire you.”

Yato held her gaze for a moment, and then a lopsided grin crept across his mouth. “So,” he said. “You’ve come to the delivery god.”

She nodded stiffly, unable to smile back as her gut gave a sudden, wrenching twist. “It’s…”

She swallowed, loudly.

“It’s kind of a weird job.”

Yato and Yukine exchanged a quick look of apprehension. Hiyori gasped.

“I don’t—I don’t mean anything illegal!—it’s not a hit, or anything—”

Yukine snickered loudly, and Yato scowled at him.

“Out,” he ordered.

“Aww,” Yukine groaned. “The first job you get that’s actually interesting and I can’t even listen?”

“Out.” Yato turned Yukine by his shoulders and marched him into the back. Hiyori heard a door slam, and Yato returned a moment later, brushing his hands off.

“I’m not sure where that kid came from,” he said, shaking his head. “Now all he does is eat pizza and give me sass.”

Hiyori laughed tightly. Her hands gripped each other until her blood-starved fingertips tingled. Yato’s gaze dropped to her shaking hands, then returned to her eyes.

“Is everything okay, Hiyori?” he asked. The concern in his voice was what did it.

“I need you to be my boyfriend,” she burst out.

The words dropped, flat and heavy, in the immediate silence. And then Yato choked on a pretzel.

“You what?” he wheezed. He thumped a fist repeatedly to his chest, his face quickly darkening to a rich, turnip purple that Hiyori chose to assign to asphyxiation, rather than embarrassment.

“I’d like to hire you,” she clarified. “To…to do that. To be my boyfriend. Temporarily.” She drew a deep, shaky breath. “I may have…told my family a few things about my personal life that are not entirely accurate. It’s—um.”

How much, exactly, was she obligated to confide in him about her family issues? Hiyori licked her lips, miserably aware of the silence.

“That point is—I need help,” she said. “And I need it soon. I understand if this is uncomfortable for you, and if you have to say no, that’s fine.”

The acute, awful silence dragged on for nearly a minute. Suddenly, Hiyori’s stomach folded over on itself and she lurched to her feet, sick with humiliation.

“Actually, you know what?” she said. “Never mind!” She laughed crazily, wobbling on weak knees. “It’s fine. I’m—I’m so sorry, this was a mistake—”

Wringing her hands, Hiyori pushed past Yato and into the narrow hallway. She was hurrying out the door when he called after her:

“I’ll do it.”

She stopped, one foot already on the welcome mat. Then, slowly, she turned back. Yato stood still at the entrance to the living room. There were two spots of pink high on his cheekbones, but other than that, his expression betrayed nothing.

“Sure, I’ll pretend to be your boyfriend,” he said. “If you need help with this, then I’m definitely not gonna leave you in the lurch. Besides,”—he flashed her a quick, subtle smile—“I’m pretty good at acting.”

The confidence in his voice helped to untwist Hiyori’s stomach from the writhing mess of knots it had morphed into. She stood on the welcome mat, staring speechlessly at him for several seconds.

“O-of course,” she finally said. “And—I mean—I’d pay you, obviously. Um. Whatever you…you think is…”

Yato waved both his hands frantically, and she trailed off.

“We can cover that later!” he assured her. “Uh…did you want to, maybe, talk more about it, sometime? If I’m going to be your”—he coughed loudly into his fist—“your, uh, paramour, we should come up with some…some facts, right? Backstory?”

“Oh. Yes.” Hiyori stepped back into the house, letting the door fall shut behind her. “We should. And…we should probably do it soon.”

chapter 3 will be posted on may 28! if you're sticking with me through this laborious posting schedule, i love u <3

[polandspringz]

The Problem with Kagerou Project

The title of this post may make people sort of wary, considering I’m posting this on what is supposed to be a celebratory day, but let me be clear: The problem I have with this series is possibly one of the biggest things that makes me love it and hold it so dear.

It’s confusing, I know. But at the same time, I feel it’s very simple and obvious. Something other, early Kagerou Project fans will understand as well.

Ever since I discovered Mother’s Basement’s “Adapt or Die” series on Youtube, my subconscious have been slowly piecing together some of my nostalgia with the various failures of mine to get my friends into a Vocaloid song series, that also has a series of novels, and a manga, and a very disheartening anime adaption- but oh, no, you have to listen to the songs first, or else you won’t- and at this point in my passionate, albeit complicated, explanation to my friends about how great Kagerou Project is, I realized the fault in this series. It is quite possibly the fault- to some extent, in some other series as well.

Part of the fun and love I feel for Kagerou Project was the experience.

This is where I have to be a little specific to differentiate what I mean when I say that other series might have it to some extent. A lot of a show’s appeal is not only its general construction in technical things like sound, music, animation, story, and characters but also the journey it takes you on. While things like enjoyment scores have been faded out of many Youtube Anime reviewers score systems, it is still a topic that is prominently brought up in other debates. Videos by Glass Reflection and Mother’s Basement on the Anime Strike and Netflix debacle in licensing shows have presented the reasoning at Netflix that they want seasonal anime weekly instead of in a binge set up is because the consumers want to be able to make theories and discuss things right after they happen. This happens all the time with manga, of course, as those who read chapter by chapter instead of by tankobon join in on forums and post on Reddit or talk on podcasts all about what each individual frame or image could foreshadow or how emotions were portrayed and etcetera. It is even possible for shows that aired a long time ago to be appreciated by newcomers who could talk to their friends about what happened and avoid spoilers to have their own private analytical sessions so that the longevity of a show’s enjoyment factor can keep going even once a series has laid out all its cards and concluded.

The problem with Kagerou Project is that it is quite different.

As I mentioned above, we do have a light novel, manga, and anime series, all of which can fit into the appeal I described. However, there is another sector of this series, the earliest, and something of which only a select few of series at the time had: The songs. Nowadays we’ve got series like Honeyworks, Mikagura, and even one that went before Kagepro (and did not achieve the same fame), Shunennpro. Kagerou Project began with the song “Jinzou Enemy”, which was not only Jin’s first work, but also the first in the line of many different works to come. It was released on NND on February 17, 2011, and what were we given: A Vocaloid song by Miku with a girl that looked very much like Miku for the art. Not a lot to speak of. However, flash forward two years to March 29, 2013, and we’ve got the release of “Lost Time Memory”, the tenth song to be released, and what do we have now? Well, not only do we have ten songs in a series, but we’ve got a fully animated PV by the artist and animator Sidu and a fairly well established timeline that puts Jinzou Enemy in the middle of the Lost Time Memory PV in all the scenes where the character Shintarou is wearing a black sweatshirt, dubbed as Route XX. We also have two light novels now, but they are very early on in the series’ plot, and take place in the future, after the events of both songs, but in the second timeline occurring in the Lost Time Memory PV, probably.

With that alone, I hope I can help to start draw one’s eyes to the main difference Kagerou Project has over other series. Instead of getting a simple story that developed naturally, we were given one scrambled. For the earliest fans, you got essentially a plot diagram, a rather barebones one, to create a plot from. We had songs that told us sometimes about a certain character’s life or a main event in the series, and in a story about many timelines, many of us theorists had to struggle to figure out which song existed in each route or each branch of the timeline, only for Jin to throw us another bone and curveball with an animated video for one of the songs. “Kagerou Days” is probably the most notable example of this, and not just because it gave the series its name. The shocking imagery presented in the lyrics described to the listeners a major event, one that occurred for every character in some shape of form, on this exact day, August 15th. The strange thing about this song is that it took something that was not cannon, and it became cannon, as Wannyanpu’s PV for the song was originally a fan work, so despite it being rather fascinating, originally we had to only pull from the lyrics, and not the amazing animation we wanted to couple it with. And then, Wannyanpu was brought on the team, and suddenly we were allowed to use this animation as cannon- even if Hiyori’s and the “Heat Hazes’” appearances were not.

I entered the Kagerou Project rather gradually. I was a big Vocaloid fan at the time, and I remember listening to these songs and their videos but not connecting the dots quite yet. A lot of those Tumblr 30 Day Challenges often ask me what was the first song I heard, but I’m not even sure, because it could have been “Kagerou Days”, “Kisaragi Attention”, “Imagination Forest”, “Children Record”, or “Headphone Actor” which if we go by the creation of my Tumblr, places me at some point in 2012 when I first really discovered the fandom lying beneath this whole series of songs I was enjoying independently. At this point, I had missed out on about eight songs, each with their own long stretches of time in between them that forced fans all over to struggle to grasp some sort of story from these songs. It was after “Kisaragi Attention” that the first light novel was released, and I missed that and the second one too, and I’m sure at the time, old fans of the series might have been experiencing the same thing many of us now are dealing with now that the series is largely concluded. When new people come in, there is so much catching up to do, and while you are explaining what the person missed, explaining things that are now chronological and linear that you had so much fun piecing together for months, over a course of a year, you start to realize that, although this series is amazing to you, and might soon become amazing to that new person, there is a chunk of it they are missing. A chunk of it that you can only explain, a chunk they cannot experience, not ever in the same way the community did, when it fought to translate lyrics liberally or directly to get the most out of song’s meaning, its story. All the fun you had with that, all the work you did, you just helped make the story easier to understand, and while that person may be able to read that part of the story in the light novel or watch the songs and produce theories of their own before they hear yours, it’s pointless really. We know what the songs mean, we know where they fit. We know your theories are wrong. What the new people don’t know is that you had the same theory a year ago, back when we only had one or two or three songs and no light novel. What they cannot experience is those intense periods of joy when a new song comes out that gives you more to work with. Well, they could, I could, because at that time, we were only eight songs in.

I was in the side of the fandom that only really paid attention to the songs. I never could get into the light novel at the time, because it hadn’t been licensed in the US yet, and wouldn’t be for another three years. It was hard to find good translations online at the time, and it was hard to enjoy something that I had been introduced to as an audio and visual work in a literature format, despite myself having no problems with books. Light novels themselves bothered me, and I did not quite yet grasp the difference between them and normal “western” novels. So, whatever theories were brewing during each new release, I for the most part ignored, and learned along the way when I made an error in a theory I published because I was missing a crucial detail revealed in a novel. I learned from fanfictions, from things other people wrote and what they thought, and together as a community we turned the plot diagram into a story as Jin continued to fill in the pieces. I was an active reader of the manga when I could find a fan translation, but that got hard to find as well, and it was not up as fast and lyrics were. So, I continued to stick mainly to the musical side of the series, the original side. And it was there that I found the section of time that revealed to me how much I loved this series and how different it was from other.

I am certain a lot of what I’ve already said could be completely applied to anyone entering a series. Catching up to One Piece is a job in its own right, and as I’ve done it and then fallen away, I always find myself experiencing it in a new way than those who grew up with it, because nostalgia does play a large role in our enjoyment of things. But, I still believe the media difference in Kagerou Project compared to other series is what makes it special and this enjoyment thing so vastly different. The emotions that Jin drew from us, not from his writing, but from how he released the story and built it through this schedule, it felt like as he was creating this series, we too were creating it alongside him. It was something born from songs, and maybe our theories, those written on Japanese blogs, maybe they helped him write some of the different routes later on too. The feelings I have about this series, I see them summed up in the time between August 31, 2013 and September 2, 2013. Those who have gone through this will know what I’m talking about. On the first date, we were given the video for Outer Science. The song had already been released on an album, but it was now we got a music video. I remember being told by many upset fans it was to be the last video of the series, and that was it (I do not remember if the anime was announced before or after this, but it seemed liked the end was near for all of us at the time). What this song entailed was the “Bad End” of the series, similar to how many videos game have. We were treated to a song where the villain of the series, one of Azami’s snakes, who we dubbed Kuroha when in Konoha’s body, was killing all of the characters before the “Queen”, Mary, and how he kept taunting her to reset. Yes, the last music video we got for a series we all held dear was one were we could make out characters were getting tossed in front of cars and being decapitated, and while none of this was explicitly shown in gruesome, the mere idea that we could see Kuroha dragging Seto away by his collar but not visualize his head was too much for us. I, myself, joined in on the parade of people making really terrible fan art that depicted the blood as “jam” and Seto, Kuroha, and Mary were all sitting around jolly having a good time. It was one of the biggest disillusioned denials in any anime fandom. So, disheartened by the images we had been given and sad that our beloved series was coming to an end, this went on for two days.

And then-

On the second date, September 2, 2013, we were given a wonderful surprise.

The “Good End” of the series, the song titled “Summertime Record” was released with a music video, depicted Haruka Kokonose, back in his body, no longer Kuroha or Konoha, a slightly new appearance. Everyone was alive, everyone was happy. The whole song sang about the good memories shared and the video depicted reflection and spoke of nostalgia, and showed the entire gang in the future, back together again, going their separate ways. All of us began crying at the sight of this video. We had been played by Jin, Sidu, the whole team. They had evoked despair in us, and then toyed with us for two days and then said, “No, we can’t leave them like that”, and granted us our good ending. We were given a proper farewell to the series, or what would have been a proper farewell, and sent along with a message from the creators through dialogue that flashed on the screen at the end of the video.

One of the biggest issues I have with getting people into this series is I never know where to tell them to start. It’s so hard for me to tell them “Just go watch the anime”, because the 2014 anime was bad and although it helped bring more people into the fandom, it did not cause the same affect, it did not take us on the same journey that we had over the course of 4 years (now 7?) I also have the problem of telling them to read the light novels or manga, because, at the time of me writing this, we have one novel left to be published. The manga is more of a wild card, as many fans are angry at Jin’s writing of certain characters right now as it seems to be causing continuity errors and the constant decision to make everything a different “route” in the time line makes it more annoying than fun nowadays. It seems more as though Jin doesn’t know how to reach the good end as is going to keep hitting as many bad ends as he can until we get to the perfect one. We have been given some promise of an anime remake, one that makes me hopeful for the anime industry knowing that it is happening because Sidu, like us, was angry about how Mekakucity Actors ended. (At the time of me writing this, there has been no news since last August 15th in 2016, about the anime). I want to point them to the songs, but then I feel as though I have to point them to the wikia page to understand what each song means, and its honestly not a lot of fun to read the explanation when there is unknown out there, because everything has either been proven or disproven by the other media entries that already exist. I know that all series have this problem where it might be hard to let new people in because of spoilers and the fact that everything has already occurred, there is nothing to predict, but my point here is not really about that.

My use of this fact existing in any media was a way to explain my thought process, to justify my illogical nostalgia that makes me want to dictate how a person consumes this series. Perhaps the evangelical in me is the one that believes all of these stories are beautiful and that Kagerou Project in particularly needs to be experienced by everyone. Maybe it’s the self-centered part of me that just wants to be able to have everyone just talk to me about the series. I love Kagerou Project, and I know all day I’m going to be watching Mekakucity Actors and cringing at episode nine’s CGI while I take photos in my Momo cosplay and still cry at the ending when I hear Jin sing Summertime Record at the credits. I love this series, and I want everyone else to love it too. But, a part of me cannot stop thinking about that two day period in 2013, that time where we felt such anger and then such elation that we collectively cried over some stupid song that is part of a “Vocaloid song series”, which is possibly the statement that turns people off the quickest to this series. The journey Jin took us on, emotions we felt during that, maybe we will get to experience it again if we ever get Mekaucity Reload and it lives up to what all of us who love this series hopes it can be. Maybe then, we will be free from the “shackles” of Kagepro, as we all exclaim on this day while we anxiously wait for any piece of news about the series.

…

Maybe then-

I guess it must be goodbye now.

You won’t forget again, will you?

Don’t worry. I couldn’t forget a tale like this.

I wonder about that. I bet you’ll have completely forgotten about it by tomorrow

And is that so bad? I mean, if there are better days to come…

But, we’ll meet again somewhere, won’t we?

Of course we will. Well, I’d better get going now.

Right. I’ll see you later.

We will all meet again.

[pinkfan-gurl]

Center Stage

02

The Ropes 

“I don’t understand why we’re staring at it like this,” Yukine groaned, covering a yawn with the crook of his arm.

Hiyori pulled the strap of her bag further up here shoulder. “You get used to it,” she deadpanned.

“Guys,” Yato whined, shooting them both looks, “I’ve already asked you to be quiet. I’m almost done so just shh.”

Yukine groaned and took a sip of the soup in his foam cup leftover from the ramen he had for breakfast. He hadn’t expected his life at the boarding school to be overly glamorous but last night was terrible.

Yato’s room was originally a custodial closet that had been remodeled as a bedroom. There was only enough room for one bed, which was really just a box-spring and a mattress, pushed up against the corner furthest from the lone toilet. A small desk was shoved near the door, making it hard to get in or out of the room and the microwave took up space in the middle of the room.

Yukine ended up having to sleep on stacked sleeping bags he borrowed from Hiyori to cushion himself against the tile floor. Not only that, but there wasn’t any heat in the room so he nearly froze to death thanks to the draft coming from under the door.

Now here he stood, tired and hungry, staring at a stupid wall honoring a bunch of people he could care less about. Was it too late to change his roommate to someone else? Because he wasn’t sure if he would be able to make it through a semester living with Yato, let alone a whole school year.

A whole school year…. Where was he going to go once summer finally came and school was  over?

Off to the side, Hiyori coughed into her hand. Yukine was grateful for the distraction; the last thing he needed was to think about home. “Sorry, guys,” Hiyori said. “But I have to get to class early so I can help a friend with her homework.”

Yato turned on his heel, jaw dropped and looking personally offended. “But Hiyori! You can’t just leave!”

Hiyori leveled her eyes with Yato and gave a short laugh. “Sorry. But I have to go.”

Yukine watched as Hiyori scurried away. “Hey, Yato,” he turned to Yato who was grumbling to himself, “I’m going to go to class to. Because I don’t want to hold you up.”

He added the fib at the end in hopes that he could just slip away, but Yato slung his bag over his shoulder with one hand and then draped the other one over Yukine’s shoulders. “Don’t worry, buddy,” Yato said, cheerfully, “I can wrap it up. I’ll take you on a tour of the school!”

Yukine blew out a breath. School didn’t start for another half hour and clearly there was no way of shaking this guy, but the whole staring at the wall for ten minutes in silence thing had already put him in a bad mood. He didn’t think that Yato giving him a tour of the school was such a wise idea if there was any hope of Yukine trying to salvage any positive feelings for the older boy.

“No really,” Yukine tried pushing Yato away from him, but Yato nearly tightened his grip around Yukine’s shoulder, “I don’t need a tour.”

“You should change that attitude, Yukine.” Yato puffed up his chest pridefully. Yukine thought he looked kind of like a penguin when he did that. “I’m basically a god at this school; people would kill to be in the position that you’re in now.”

“Sleeping on the dirty of your utility closet and having your sweaty hands leave a wet mark on my shoulder?” Yukine responded flatly. Yato jumped back at that last comment, wiped his hands on his pants looking quite embarrassed. Yukine made a mental note.

“It’s a health condition,” Yato sniffed back. This time he kept his hands in his trackpant pockets. “And I’m pretty popular, Yukine. These people are my people, these hallways are my castle. Sometimes it’s hard being me.”

Yukine sighed deeply and dropped his empty cup into a nearby garbage bin. “Please don’t tell me you live in this delusional fantasy world of yours all of the time.”

“What’s that?” Yato cupped his hand around his ear and leaned close to Yukine. “I can’t hear your negativity over my fans screaming my name.”

“No one is screaming your name.”

Yato ignored his comment, putting on a bright smile and approached a random blonde guy at his locker. “Yo, Finnian,” Yato held out his hand for what was probably meant for a fist-bump, “what’s up, pal?”

The blonde stared at his hand with a confused smile. “Uh, can I help you dude?”

Yato shook it off with a laugh and kept walking as if he didn’t just get flat out rejected. “Ah, Finny, such a kidder. I’ll you later bro!” He shot him a pair of finger guns and then did a twist so that he was in step with Yukine again.

“That was just pitiful,” Yukine said.

Yato grinned. “You’re just jealous because he was speechless in my presence.”

Yukine resisted the urge to punch him in the stomach. “I’m not sure that’s the phrase I would go with.”

Yukine hadn’t realized Yato had stopped walking until his sweaty hands were clenched around Yukine’s mouth and he was being dragged backward. Yukine kicked and fought, but Yato just shushed him until they were backed away into an empty classroom.

This time when Yukine ripped Yato’s hands away, they came off. “What the hell, man?”

Yato didn’t have his usual dumb smile that Yukine had quickly grown used to, which was a little unnerving. “Phantoms. At least five, and they’re probably not happy about yesterday still.”

“Can’t you just apologize?”

“It doesn’t work like that. There’s been an unspoken feud between the actors and the stage crew since before my time here and there doesn’t seem to be a change in that any time soon.”

This school just seemed to be getting better and better. Yukine just couldn’t catch a break could he? “So we’re just going to duck and hide every time we see one?”

This time Yato laughed. “Oh of course not. Usually they just leave me be, but today they’re going to be especially bothersome. It’s probably better to just fly under the radar for today. It will be back to normal by toma—”

“Didn’t expect to find you here.” Yukine turned toward the owner of the new voice and found himself staring up at a beautiful, busty blonde. She didn’t look happy, though, which made Yukine want to fold up like a lawn chair.

Yato groaned in exasperation. “What the hell do you want, Bishamon?”

The blonde, Bishamon, moved her eyes from Yato to Yukine and then back to Yato again. “Didn’t know you had a thing for seducing freshmen.”

Yukine felt his face heat up in embarrassment. Is that what she thought they were doing in here? Getting handsy? He wanted to throw up at the thought.

Yato didn’t seem to bat an eyelash at the comment though. “Says the slut who wears a bra as a shirt when you go out into the city.”

Yukine inhaled sharply and kept his face parallel with the floor. He could feel the tension radiating between the two, and the fact that Bishamon was at least three inches taller than Yato made her even more frightening. If they fought, Yukine was pretty positive Yato would die after the first punch she threw.

“Class starts in five,” she said coldly. Yukine didn’t dare look up. “Make sure the freshman isn’t late.”

The door closed and Yukine released the breath he had been holding. “Who the heck was that?”

“Viina Bishamon,” Yato spat. His blue eyes looked dangerous, like they could spit lightning at any moment. All of the care free glow that had clouded his aura seemed to have vanished. “Along with her right hand man, Kazuma, she is my biggest rival in the theatre department.”

Yukine waited for him to elaborate as to why they were at such odd ends with one another, but Yato simply pushed the door open and murmured, “Let’s get to class.”

“You mean you’re not going to expla—”

“—you don’t need to know right now.” Yato responded harshly.

Yukine faltered for a minute before wrinkling his nose and stomping past Yato. “Whatever, ya weirdo! I’m going to class! And I’m going to get myself a new roommate at the end of the day!”

He couldn’t stand twenty-four hours with Yato, let alone a whole semester. A whole school year was a complete joke. And throughout all of the morning’s tragic events, Yukine was still hungry.

[bleachlists]

Bleach Characters as Tumblr Memes

As requested by anon. :)

I love meme lists. So here is the ultimate (?) meme list! Which actual memes are Bleach characters?

1. The “Surprise bitch” meme: Aizen

This is a meme about someone who you think is dead and gone, but then that person shows up in dramatic and snarky fashion. Or, in the case of Aizen, somebody you thought was in prison, who then just keeps showing up.

Aizen: Although it should not have been a surprise, since I planned this all along. From the day that I...

Ichigo: EVERYBODY GET DOWN - HE’S ABOUT TO MONOLOGUE!!

Aizen: ...

Aizen: Rude.

2. The “Quit telling everyone I’m dead” meme: Grimmjow

This is similar to the last meme, only instead of the presumed dead person being cool and in charge, this presumed dead-person just shouts off-stage that he’s not actually dead. That sounds like Grimmjow to me.

Ichigo: And in the end, he fought alongside us. That is why it is so sad that we lost him.

Grimmjow: QUIT TELLING EVERYONE I’M DEAD

Ichigo: Sometimes I can still hear his voice.

3. “Dat boi” meme: Orihime

Okay, full confession: I don’t understand the “dat boi” meme. It’s just a unicycling frog, right? And then people write “here comes dat boi” “oh shit whaddup.” I even looked it up. And that is the only explanation I got. Why does this frog ride a unicycle? Where is he going? I don’t get it at all. So anyway, then I was wondering - who in Bleach likes absurdist humor that other people don’t understand? And that would be Orihime, of course.

Tatsuki: So...the unicycling frog is fighting the giant robot?

Orihime: They’re on the same side!

Tatsuki: Of course. That makes way more sense.

Orihime: I know!

4. “Bode”: Yoruichi

This is another absurdist meme. You post pictures of cats with the word “bode” written over the cat. It apparently came to someone in a dream. This one is good for Yoruichi because (a) cats and (b) it messes with people.

Ichigo: WHY DOES SHE KEEP SENDING ME THESE PHOTOS??

Ichigo: I DON’T UNDERSTAND

Yoruichi: Bode.

Ichigo: WHAT DOES THAT MEAN???

5. The “lost in a crowd” meme: Hitsugaya

This one is all about losing someone in a crowd and then shouting something significant to find them. Hitsugaya is short, and hence prone to lose people in crowds. Plus, he’s really good at shouting.

Hitsugaya: Hey! I’m an adult now sometimes!

Rukia: Wait...you’re an adult now?

Matsumoto: There she is!

Hitsugaya: THAT’S NOT EVEN HOW THIS MEME WORKS

6. The self-care meme: Kira

This is a meme where you define self-care as something impossible and/or ridiculous (self-care is tying balloons to your eyebrows and then going through a car wash). That feels Kira-like to me.

Kira: Self-care is drinking sake until you cry.

Hisagi: ...

Hisagi: That’s less a hilarious meme and more a cry for help, dude.

Kira: That line is so hard to navigate.

7.The “you tried” gold star: Mask de Masculine

‘Cause he gave one to Rose, remember? With that star-shaped wound right through Rose’s torso? 

Rose: ...that’s not funny.

Mask: I think it’s pretty funny.

8. The “15 minutes late with Starbucks” meme: Unohana

I’m not saying Squad 4 is often late with the healing...but Squad 4 is often late with the healing. And if anyone’s gonna stroll in fifteen minutes late with Starbucks, it’s Unohana. Nor will anyone say anything.

Unohana: I am here.

Shinji: That’s cool but most of us are already dead.

Unohana: Good thing I only brought one cup.

9. The “color of the sky” meme: Yhwach

The original “color of the sky” post was Aizen: sure the pictures are cool or whatever, but it’s too long. Way WAY WAY too long. Much like Aizen’s monologues. Then the meme came along, where you take the “color of the sky” post, truncate it, and had some sort of surprise at the end. And sure there’s relief that it doesn’t go on for so long, but it’s also not as cool as the original. Kinda reminds me of Yhwach, for some reason. *coughs*

Yhwach: Sometimes I just don’t feel appreciated.

10. The “shoving breadsticks in purse” meme: Riruka

You’re on a date. The date says something bad. You shove breadsticks in your purse as you leave the restaurant. So this meme goes. It sounded kinda like Riruka to me.

Riruka: So what’s more important - being cute or something else?

Date: Uh...something else?

Riruka: [shoving breadsticks angrily into her purse] I have to go

11. The “hoe don’t do it” meme: Ishida and Ichigo

For the first part of Bleach, it was always Ishida saying “Hoe don’t do it” and Ichigo doing it. Then at the end, it switched and Ishida was the one doing things while Ichigo said “Hoe don’t do it.” Symmetry. It’s what makes Bleach what it is.

Ichigo: And that’s why we’re basically the same person.

Ishida: Oh god no.

12. The “looks at smudged writing on hand” meme: Ichigo

Not because he doesn’t care. He’s just...really bad at names.

Ichigo: Wow! Great job helping defeat the Quincy, Inoue, Chad, and...

Ichigo: [looks at smudged writing on hand]

Ichigo: Ugly Itching?

Ishida: YOU KNOW WHAT MY NAME IS 

14. The  “snail” meme: Chad

Wherein you take various words and replace the first consonant with “sn” to create a snail version. Snurch = snail church, snall = snail mall, etc. I feel like Chad would be on board with this mostly because he respects snail culture, as he respects all animals.

Chad: And this is the “snouse” (snail house) I built for my new “snuddies” (snail buddies) with their “snard” (snail yard) and their “snailbox” (mailbox).

Ichigo: ...

Chad: what?

15. “Bitch, where?” meme: Charlotte

This is a meme about someone calling you ugly, and you responding, “Bitch, where?” That sounds like Charolotte to me.

Charlotte: And that shinigami was all, “You ugly” and I was all, “Bitch, where?”

Yumichika: You’re ugly under the makeup too, though.

Charlotte: Bitch, where?

Yumichika: ...I walked right into that one.

16. Kinkshaming meme: Kensei

I just feel like Kensei must spend a lot of time kinkshaming his fellow visored.

Shinji: I love being upside down!

Love: Personally I think nothing can top being a superhero.

Rose: Unless it’s a long, deep talk with your guitar.

Hiyori: Whatever. As if that’s as good as hitting people in the face with your shoes.

Mashiro: I prefer hitting them in the face with a super kick!

Lisa: Or ignoring them because you are too busy reading porn.

Kensei: ...I’m gonna have to kinkshame you all.

[thedeliverygod]

Good Enough

yatori college AU

Chapter 12/? 

AO3|ff.net

After getting over her initial surprise and swallowing, Hiyori let out, “I hope that’s true, but what makes you say that?”

“Yato-chan hasn’t really ever invited anyone over since Bisha.” Kofuku answered absentmindedly as she started to scoop the contents of the skillet into bowls.

“Bisha…?” She repeated slowly, curious.

Kofuku blinked and looked upward, “Oh, that’s right, you wouldn’t know her. Sorry.” She went back to her work, “Bisha was Yato-chan’s girlfriend for a short time in high school, but they’re both way too hot headed around each other. They fought almost constantly to the point Daikoku even hated being around them. They’re kind of still friends, but it’s mostly because they have to be. Bisha’s new boyfriend Kazu-kun is friends with Yato and Bisha and I are still friends as well.”

“Oh.” Hiyori answered quietly, playing with her hands.

An ex-girlfriend that was dating his friend; it was no wonder he didn’t seem too keen on dating again. Not to mention the possibility that maybe he still had lingering feelings even though it’d been a few years.

“Hiyorin?”

Her name pulled her out of her thoughts and she blinked curiously, “Yeah?”

“I’m still waiting to hear more about you.” Kofuku reminded her with a small grin.

“Right, sorry.” She nodded apologetically, “Um, so I’m in my second year of college and I’m pre-med. My dad’s family owns a hospital and I’m looking to take over the family business, I guess is the best way of putting it.”

Kofuku titled her head, “What about stuff you do for fun?”

“Kind of just whatever my best friends drag me into, Yama-chan and Ami-chan.” She shrugged and gave a small smile, “I mean, I’m kind of into mixed martial arts too, but I don’t really talk about that much. My mom has always been strongly against it so it’s kind of a secret interest of mine. I just watch it more than anything else, but I actually have managed to take one class.”

Her eyebrows raising in interest, Kofuku gave a giggle, “I certainly wouldn’t expect you to be into that just from how you look, but that’s interesting! It’s always good to be passionate about something.” She pointed upward toward the cabinet again, “I’m ready for the plates if you could get them, please.”

Hiyori nodded before swinging open the door and gathering a stack of plates, “So what are you passionate about then, Kofuku-san?”

“Funny you should say that.” She answered with a small smile, though Hiyori noticed it was sort of bittersweet, “I’m still looking for it, I guess. I’ve tried a lot of things but I’m just so clumsy and absentminded that I mess things up a lot.”

“I’m sure you’ll find it.” Hiyori answered consolingly, helping Kofuku fill up the dinner plates, “If it helps any, you seem to be a really great friend. Yato speaks very highly of you and Daikoku-san both and you’ve been extremely welcoming for me as well.”

“That’s so sweet!” Kofuku flung herself around her tightly, causing a spoon to go clattering to the floor, “Thank you!”

Hiyori inhaled, trying to regain the breath that’d been knocked out of her as she awkwardly hugged Kofuku back, “Y-you’re welcome.”

“Is the food ready yet, Kofuku?” Yato called loudly from the back door followed by the sound of shoes scuffing around on the floor.

“Yeah! Just have to set the table!” She answered back just as loudly before Yato came around the corner, Yukine trailing just behind him.

Yato moved to the sink to wash his hands, but glanced over to Hiyori, “You can go ahead and sit down, we’ll get it. You’re supposed to be a guest, after all…”

She gave an awkward smile in return as she met both his and Yukine’s eyes, nodding appreciatively, “Thanks.”

As Hiyori made her way back to the living room, she heard Daikoku’s deep voice echo through the kitchen as well, “Wow, everything looks pretty good!”

“Thank you!” Kofuku chirped in response, though she let out a small whine shortly after, “Aww, I guess it got a little burned on the bottom.”

“I told you, that’s why you can’t leave everything set on high just to try and get it to cook faster.” Yato commented automatically, followed by a yelp, “Hey, ouch!”

Hiyori tilted her head curiously as she sat down, listening to the conversation and intently and wondering what happened.

“You did great, don’t listen to what this idiot says.” Daikoku said consolingly, though his tone was a bit gruff as well; his frustration more than likely aimed at Yato.

Hiyori heard Yato huff in response, “Hey, this idiot is a pretty decent cook who knows what he’s doing. Right, Yukine?”

“Eh.” The younger boy answered half-heartedly, “I guess so.”

Hiyori’s lips parted in surprise as Daikoku walked into the room, a few plates in his hands and a grin on his face, “Didn’t sound too enthusiastic to me.”

Yato followed behind him, pouting and grumbling before he whined, “Yukine.”

As the rest of them set everything down on the table, Yukine took a seat next to Hiyori and shrugged, “What? It’s not terrible, but it’s not like it’s the best thing I’ve ever eaten, either. Daikoku-san is definitely the better cook, hands down. As for Kofuku-san…” He took a quiet pause, “I guess we’ll find out.”

“Well I kind of hoped her get started, before I got pulled into the shop again…” Daikoku commented with a rub of his neck, sitting next to Yukine once he had lowered all of his dishes down to the table.

“Phew.” Yato let out a sigh of relief as he sat down his things as well, sitting at the side of the table closest to Hiyori as Kofuku sat down across from her.

Daikoku shot him a glare and pointed, “I can take back that booze and just make you drink water, y’know.”

Yato clung to the beer can protectively, “Fine, sorry.”

“Speaking of,” Kofuku interjected, looking up at Daikoku with a confused look, “Nothing for me, Koki?”

“Uh…” Her husband rubbed his neck once again, “I kinda agreed that you maybe probably shouldn’t drink while Hiyori-chan is here. Maybe once she gets to know you a little bit better, you’re a little… too friendly when you’re drunk.”

She immediately pouted and whined in response, “But Yato-chan is too!”

Though he flushed, he answered, “Only when I drink a lot, and I don’t plan to. Pretty much the only time I ever do get smashed is when I drink with you, so it’s better for both of us this way.”

“But that’s not fair.” She whined again and stared Daikoku down with the best puppy dog eyes that she could manage.

He glanced away, “Sorry, maybe after they head home for the night.”

“Yeah, I have to walk Hiyori home too. So it’ll probably just be this one drink, maybe two at most. That’s it, I swear.” He snapped the top of the can open with a loud pop.

Though she still made a small grumble, Kofuku answered, “Okay, fine.”

Seizing the moment of silence, Hiyori brought her hands together, “Thanks for the food!” The others repeated after her, though much more casually. After having a few bites of different things, she complimented, “It’s all really great. Thank you for having me over, by the way. And thank you again to Yato and Yukine-kun for inviting me.”

“Of course, of course!” Kofuku answered in a sing-song voice, “Feel free to come by any time, Hiyorin; with Yato-chan and Yuki or by yourself, either way. We love having guests.”

She gave a small laugh and repeated, “Thank you.”

“That’s assuming we don’t scare her off.” Yato commented before taking a bite of his food.

“Entirely possible.” Yukine added on after finishing a sip of his water, “I’m still debating about whether or not I’ll hang around after I become a legal adult or not.”

Surprisingly, Daikoku was the first one to answer. He rolled his eyes, “Right, sure you are. Even if you tried to ditch us, you’d be back.”

“He’s right. Even if it was unwillingly, you got attached.” Yato titled his head and smirked, resting his head against his palm, “So now you’re stuck with us.”

The conversation died down a bit as everyone started to focus more on their food, though picked back up again shortly after. Though Yato wasn’t quite as talkative as Kofuku, he finally seemed to talk a little more freely than he had earlier that day as the group dissolved into multiple different stories as well as suggestions for things that Hiyori should do with them in the future, which she eagerly agreed to.

Feeling her phone vibrate in her pocket, she pulled it out and felt dread move through her body as she saw that it was her mother calling. “Sorry, I’ve got to answer this.” She bowed apologetically before getting up from the table and heading towards the back door, sliding the screen shut as she answered, “Hi, mom.”

“Hiyori, it’s been so long since I’ve heard from you. Is everything alright?” Loud voices and some laughter pouring through the screen door as she sat down at the edge of the porch, Hiyori’s mother paused to ask, “Where are you?”

“I’m out at a restaurant with Ami-chan and Yama-chan to celebrate all of our first tests going well. I just stepped away from the table to answer.” She lied effortlessly, something she wasn’t really proud of, “And yes, I’m sorry about that. I’ve just been really busy lately.”

Her mother hesitated for a second before answering, “Oh, I understand; I’ll try not to keep you that long, then. But Hiyori, I am a bit worried about you—you sound different lately, like you’re not yourself.”

“O-oh? What makes you say that?” She questioned in an innocent tone though her hand gripped her phone just a bit tighter.

“You sort of sound distant at times, like it’s hard to focus and you’ve got too many things on your mind. I spoke to Kouto-san recently and he said that he tried to visit you and that you didn’t have the time to speak with him.” Her tone wasn’t exactly angry or disappointed quite yet, but it definitely sounded like she was waiting for a reason.

Hiyori felt her stomach drop and she stuttered, “A-about that… He showed up on a Monday afternoon without any notice and as you know, that’s one of the days that I tutor, so there really wasn’t much I could do.”

“I know you had obligations, but couldn’t you have rescheduled or maybe spent a little time with him afterward before he left? He traveled a long way to see you, you know. Kouto-san still cares about you a lot, Hiyori.”

She was unhappy, but she at least she wasn’t reprimanding her; Hiyori took solace in that, at least. Fujisaki more than likely hadn’t brought up the scene she’d caused in the coffee shop, or else the conversation would have started off sour to begin with.

“I might have rescheduled if it had been earlier in the day, but I was literally leaving for the tutoring session when I ran into Fujisaki-san. I really spent more time with him than I should have, to be honest. But anyway, Mom, even if he still cares about me, it doesn’t matter. I’m focusing on my studies right now and things ended on a really bad note anyway and I’m not interested in continuing anything with him.”

She had given this speech to her mother what felt like over a hundred times and she tried her best to not let her annoyance come through in her voice. As she took a breath, she heard the sliding door quietly be pushed back and she snapped her head upward to see Yato.

Her mom sighed as well, “Yes, yes, I understand. Still, don’t forget that the Fujisaki family is very kind to us. At the very least consider him a family friend.”

“Just checking on you.” Yato whispered before moving to close the door again, though Hiyori waved him to come out instead.

“…Okay.” Hiyori answered as Yato gave her a confused look but followed her direction, sitting down next to her quietly.

Hiyori’s mom gave a sigh as well, “Alright. Well, going back to what I was saying before about you sounding different, are you sure you’re not taking on too many responsibilities at once? Maybe tutoring is a little too much to take on with university level classes.”

“Yukine-kun did extremely well on his first test this semester, too. I promise I’ll reconsider if I feel overwhelmed, but so far it’s been working out well for both of us.” She answered confidently, though she looked down into her lap as she turned away from Yato.

“As long as you’re keeping that in mind, that’s all I ask. I’ll let you get back to dinner with your friends. Give me a call whenever you’ve got a decent break in your schedule.”

“I will. Bye for now, Mom.”

“Goodbye, Hiyori.”

As soon as she hung up, she let out another sigh; this time much more loudly, “Sorry… Really wasn’t expecting her to call tonight.”

“Sucks since I was hoping tonight would take your mind off of all that, and it still gets brought up anyway.” He tilted his head back in frustration, “Right before I opened the door, I heard you were talking about that asshole, so I’m sorry.”

“You have helped! You really have.” She answered loudly, leaning in closer to him to get his attention, “I’m really enjoying it and I’m sure I’ll completely forget this phone call by the time we get back on the train. But yeah, I just probably need to take a little breather before going back in.” As he looked back down at her, she continued sheepishly, “Thanks for making sure I was okay.”

He blinked, “Yeah, of course. I saw you looked kind of frustrated when you got up and after you took a while, I wanted to make sure you weren’t upset or that nothing serious was going on.”

“I really didn’t expect him to tell her that he came here, to be honest. Since he obviously had to skip classes and all, but she didn’t seem to be bothered by it in the slightest.” She reached up to touch her forehead, “Not that I should be surprised by that. That’s why I didn’t tell her what really happened, because I’m afraid she’ll just treat it like nothing, like she does for everything else.”

Yato was quiet for a moment before she felt his palm rest over her free hand, “I’m sorry.”

“Thank you. It does bother me a lot, but I’ve got a lot of support from other places, so it’s okay.” She looked up and flashed him a small smile.

He returned her smile with one of his own as he locked eyes with her.

“Hiyoorin, Yato-chan, is everything okay?” Kofuku stuck her head out through the cracked door before she caught sight of his hand over Hiyori’s and the smiles on their faces, “Oooh, I interrupted something, didn’t I? Sorry!” She giggled loudly as Hiyori and Yato pulled away from each other, ducking back inside.

“H-hey, Kofuku!” Yato called after her sheepishly, though she was already on her way back to the living room. “Sorry.” He mumbled as he looked back to Hiyori, his face red.

She parted her lips but it took a few seconds for her response to come out, her face burning and her heart racing as well, “Don’t worry about it.” She got up first, making her way to the living room without looking back to wait for Yato. As she entered the living room, she avoided everyone’s eyes and apologized, “Sorry, my mom called and I hadn’t spoken with her in a while, so I didn’t want her to worry.”

“Oh, okay.” Kofuku answered in a knowing voice, making Hiyori’s face burn even more as she went back to eating her food.

“What’s wrong with you?” Yukine commented as Yato slowly made his way back into the room as well.

Hiyori looked up for only a split second before she met his eyes and looked away again and she was sure he did the same.

“Nothing.” He muttered in response as he sat back down, immediately using the food as a distraction as well.

As silence swept over the table, Daikoku took a sip of his beer and commented quietly, “Well, this isn’t awkward at all.”

“Maybe we should move on to dessert.” Kofuku suggested.

“That’d be great, Kofuku-san. I can help you.” Hiyori immediately volunteered as an excuse to leave the room, but after seeing the other girl’s mischievous smirk flicker across her face for a brief second, she started to regret her decision.

Standing up, she waved Hiyori towards her, “That’d be wonderful, Hiyorin. Let’s go~”