#it’s the messiest shot ever cause he doesn’t think to keep it clean

[szczek]

i have never felt this much angry i’m tearing up and want to murder my dad

[eleanor-writes-stuff]

red lights mean you’re leaving [one-shot]

In a city the size of Coruscant, it should be mathematically impossible to keep getting the same Uber driver. Kylo's tempted to believe that maybe the fates have something big in store for him and the driver he knows only as Rey, but first he needs to stop putting his foot in his mouth every time they meet.

(Also known as: three times Uber brought Kylo and Rey together, and one time the fates did.)

Also available on AO3.

Kylo Ren is the kind of person who’ll turn his nose up at seven out of ten restaurant suggestions, the kind of person who scoffs at the idea of taking public transportation, the kind of person who’s built up a reputation at work primarily to scare people out of sharing an elevator with him.

And yet here he is, getting into a vehicle that isn’t his own and paying to put up with the presence of a stranger for at least half an hour, because Kylo Ren is also the kind of person who doesn’t have any close friends he can call upon for a ride to work when his car refuses to start one fine Tuesday morning.

The thing is, for a while there it almost looks as if this whole ‘summoning a total stranger from the Internet and getting into their car’ thing might work out just fine. The car appears around the corner, a worn but obviously well-maintained Toyota, and just seconds later he opens the backseat door to find a clean-enough interior and a friendly but not chatty young woman behind the wheel. They exchange quick good-mornings and she double-checks his destination as he does his best to fold his long legs into the backseat, and then they settle into a relatively comfortable silence the woman doesn’t feel the need to fill. Everything appears to be going smoothly, right up until–

“Oh, I’m sorry,” the woman – Rey, according to the app – says as he reaches for his coffee, catching his eye in the rear-view mirror and flashing him what appears to be a genuinely apologetic smile. “Could you put that away, please? It’s just, I’ve got a strict no food, no drinks rule. Learned my lesson pretty quickly on that one,” her eyes are back on the road, but he can hear the grimace in her voice.

And he can empathize – he really can, after all those childhood road trips with his Uncle Chewie, the messiest eater he’s ever known – but surely she can be reasonable. “It’s a spill-proof lid, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Kylo assures her.

Her eyes dart to the mirror for barely a second, but it’s enough for him to see the way her smile has turned tight to match the hint of annoyance coloring her voice. “That’s great, but it’s still got a hole for you to drink from and this road is particularly bumpy, if I remember correctly, so I’d just really appreciate it if you could put the drink away for the rest of the ride.”

“But it’ll be cold by the time I get to work,” he points out, the beginnings of a scowl tugging at his lips. “Besides, I’m an adult. I think I can handle a to-go cup of coffee in a slowly-moving vehicle.”

“I would expect an adult to understand and abide by rules,” Rey snaps as the car slows to a stop by a traffic light, giving her the opportunity to level a glare at him through the mirror. “So please, respect my rules, be an adult, and put the damn drink in the cup holder.”

He’s sleep deprived, still grumpy over his car, and he hasn’t had nearly enough coffee to deal with this – thanks to her. The ridiculous thing is, he probably would’ve been done with his drink by now if she’d just been the tiniest bit reasonable about this. “Or what?” Kylo retorts, fingers curling stubbornly around his cup. “You’ll kick me out and risk a bad review?”

“You know what?” Rey pulls closer to the side of the road and flips on her emergency lights. “Yes, I will. Not like I actually need this job,” she mutters, most likely to herself. In a firm voice she adds, “So either you put the cup down, or you get down.”

They hold eye contact in that godforsaken mirror for a good twenty seconds, as cars speed by them with displeased honks and her lips begin to curl into a smirk. Something about that, about the way she challenges him, prompts a belated observation on his part: she’s attractive, this ridiculously stubborn Uber driver of his. He’d noticed her earlier, of course, filed her under pretty when she flashed him a smile the way most people reflexively and unwittingly categorize every new face they come across, but now she’s all determined eyes and smug smirk and attractive.

But Kylo Ren is not one to be cowed by a pretty face – not even one with a smirk he’d like to wipe away with a kiss – so he maintains eye contact with her as he brings the cup up to his mouth, raises it at her the way one would a glass of champagne during a toast, and takes a good, long sip of lukewarm coffee he’d spit out onto the sidewalk if he could.

It had taken him nearly twenty minutes to give up on his car and another ten to get an Uber; at least ten minutes have passed since then. He wishes he’d remembered that before committing to this particular course of action, because now there’s nothing to do but swallow a mouthful of bitter, almost room temperature coffee and call upon every bit of self-control to keep his face from twisting into obvious regret and disgust.

Instead he makes a show of finally placing his cup in the provided holder and leans back into his seat with a lazy smirk.

“Fucking arsehole,” Rey fumes – quiet enough to pretend it was meant for her ears only, loud enough for the both of them to know exactly who it was meant for – but she turns off her lights and starts driving again anyway. The rest of the ride is tense and uncomfortable the way he’s used to, the way long stretches of silence between two strangers should be.

Rey doesn’t speak again until they pull up to his office. “This was… kind of ridiculous, if you think about it. We both behaved like children,” she admits sheepishly, and Kylo should not be able to picture the embarrassed little smile he just knows she’s wearing right now.

He doesn’t dignify her comment with a reaction as he gathers up his things.

“Look, it was nothing personal, okay?” Rey persists, a hint of her earlier frustration seeping into her voice as he opens the door and steps out of her car. “It’s just a ground rule, that’s all.”

It’s clearly an olive branch – albeit one offered with a growing scowl – and he knows he should accept. He could say it’s okay, he understands, he’s the exact same way with his own car and really, this whole thing was ridiculous, maybe he could make it up to her sometime is she free tonight can he have her number –

But he’s had a shitty morning, and he’s probably never going to see her again no matter what he says, and he’s better off taking his frustration out on a stranger rather than a coworker he’ll have to deal with for the rest of the day.

“Whatever,” Kylo scoffs without so much as a glance at her, slamming the door behind him for good measure. His memory and imagination team up to supply him with an image of what her pissed off face might look like, and for just a moment he sees them as they’ve never been and never will be: standing so close he can feel the warmth of her skin, her face scrunched up at him until he leans down, a quiet laugh rumbling in his throat as he presses a placating kiss to that adorable nose of hers to smooth away her irritation.  

In reality, he looks up just in time to see her peeling away from the curb in a sudden and reckless burst of speed, twin red taillights searing themselves into his memory as the last page in a very, very short book that could’ve been a heavy tome in a different lifetime.

In a city the size of Coruscant, it should be mathematically impossible to get the same Uber driver twice. So when a familiar name pops up in response to his request for a car just three days after their initial meeting, Kylo can’t help but wonder if maybe there is such a thing as fate after all.

After Tuesday’s fiasco, he’d been pleasantly surprised when his car started up just fine the next day and even the day after. But here he is on a Friday morning, running late yet again (except not really, it’s hard to be late when you’ve specifically tailored your routine to get to the office two hours before everyone else), cursing his car and weighing the pros and cons of having his father take a look at it while he waits for his second chance with Rey.

Judging by her barely muffled groan at the sight of him, she A) probably hadn’t expected to ever see him again either and B) is significantly less pleased by this turn of events. He silently vows to make it up to her, placing his cup in the holder as soon as he’s in the car.

“Sorry about last time,” Kylo tells her as he settles in, a slight wince marring his apologetic smile. “I’m a dick when I’m caffeine deprived. Even more so than usual, I’m told.” His attempt at self-deprecation earns him a short burst of laughter, and Rey turns around to offer him a blinding smile in person.

She’s back in her seat before he can react, and he’s left looking to the rear-view mirror for glimpses of her once again. “So, are you sufficiently caffeinated for this ride, or am I going to have to pull over again at some point?” Rey asks almost… playfully, he realizes. Teasingly, with a grin to match.

“Sufficiently caffeinated and on my best behavior, I promise,” he assures her in his best attempt to match her tone. It must be a decent attempt, because she’s smiling as she pulls away from his building and merges into traffic.

The silence is comfortable again, in a way he’s rarely ever experienced with anyone else. Maybe he will ask for her number this time, just to see if the fates have actually done him a favor for once with this act of serendipity. It would be a first for him, and she’s certainly nowhere near the type of woman he’s found himself with in the past, but she’s proven that she can go toe to toe with him, and each glimpse of her smile causes an unfamiliar tightness in his chest, and she has the most adorable way of bobbing her head and tapping her fingers to the beat piping from her speakers.

But first he’ll have to actually make conversation – if he doesn’t want to come across as a total creep, at least – and a quick glance out the window tells him they’ve got maybe ten minutes left. He wastes another two minutes casting around for a possible conversation starter, and in desperation finds himself blurting out, “Hey, would you mind turning that off?”

Rey’s eyes momentarily flit to the mirror. “The music?”

“Um…” There’s no time for hesitation or awkward pauses, not with their time running out. “Yeah, the music,” Kylo reluctantly says, suppressing the urge to tug at his hair in a combination of nerves and embarrassment. Maybe with the music off, she’ll be more inclined to talk to him?

“Do you have something against rap or…?” she asks slowly, eyes completely focused on the road as she turns the volume down but leaves the music on.

He realizes in that moment that he’s probably dug himself a grave he can’t possibly crawl out of, not with only five minutes of his commute left. “They just…” The stupid thing is, he doesn’t even mind rap, not really. And she’s got decent taste in it, lyrics that actually mean something rather than verses upon verses of empty threats and brand names.

Rey still isn’t looking at him, but it’s pretty clear that she’s expecting an answer. “They just sound so angry,” he finally says, his weak tone giving the words an almost questioning inflection. Kylo knows it’s the wrong thing to say the moment he says it, and not a second before.

“Angry?” Rey echoes disbelievingly, and in the mirror he catches a glimpse of her setting her jaw. “You try being born into a prejudiced world, a system that’s rigged against you, where you have to work two times as hard as the average person to make something of your life and three times as hard just to be taken seriously. And even when you finally succeed, you still have to watch the rest of your community continue to struggle against an unfair system. You try going through all that and not sound angry about it,” she concludes forcefully just as his office comes into view.

So he’s managed to annoy her yet again, a solid two for two when it comes to being an idiot and saying something dumb. “It’s just music,” he mutters tersely to himself, because how the hell had he managed to mess up something as simple as small talk? What kind of jerk gets in someone else’s car and asks them to turn off their music, anyway?

Because the universe hates him, Rey mistakenly assumes his words were directed at her. The car jolts to a sudden stop in front of his office, and she takes the effort to turn around and glare at him in person. “It’s not just music to me,” she fumes.

“No, that’s not what I–”

She pointedly unlocks the car and crosses her arms, a clear dismissal. He can’t even bring himself to feel the slightest bit of irritation at her behavior, not when he’s the childish dick who refused to follow a simple rule the first time around and then ruined his second chance by criticizing her music.

As he watches Rey’s car disappear into traffic once again, Kylo realizes that this was never an act of serendipity. It was an act of kindness, the fates saving him from days or even weeks of hopeless pining and impossible daydreams and pointless what-ifs.

It shouldn’t be too hard to forget an Uber driver he’s spent a grand total of one hour with, right?

Two weeks later, he’s no closer to forgetting Rey than he had been the second time he watched her drive off in anger. It’s embarrassing, really, that he’s so obviously pining that even Hux can tell something’s off about him.

So Hux does as Hux always does when it looks like the closest thing he has a to a friend might be going through something: he drags Kylo to a bar, pays for all of their drinks in lieu of offering actual emotional support, and then bails less than two hours later to go meet his girlfriend.

“What the hell, Hux? You said you’d give me a ride home,” Kylo protests, watching his colleague settle their tab. “I could’ve just driven here.”

“No, because then you would get it in your thick head to drive home,” Hux replies patiently, tapping away at his phone. “And we both know you’re in no condition to get behind the wheel. Come along now, I’m calling a car for you.”

“Fine,” he huffs, downing the last of his whiskey. Hux leads him out of the bar and bids him good night as soon as he’s secured an Uber. Kylo watches him disappear down the street where his car is parked, and spends the next five minutes checking his email while he waits for his ride to arrive.

There’s an email from his uncle that he really should get back to immediately, but a familiar car pulls up just as he hits reply and the email is promptly forgotten when an exasperated voice cries, “You again?”

Twice might be a coincidence, but thrice has to be some kind of sign, doesn’t it?

“Hi,” he says, not quite looking Rey in the eye. Even from his periphery he can see how her features are all twisted up in irritation. “I’m sorry, my friend used his phone to… I swear, I didn’t know it was you.”

She doesn’t look convinced, and Kylo would be offended by the implication if he hadn’t spent the last two weeks trying to calculate the odds of finding her on the app again. “Anyway,” he shoves his hands into his coat pockets and fixes his eyes on a distant point beyond her car. “You can leave, if you want to. You probably wouldn’t have accepted if you knew it was me, so… it’s okay. I can just get another ride.”

Kylo keeps his eyes on the flickering lamppost, waiting for the sound of her car to fade away so that he won’t have to watch her leave. A few seconds later, he hears her voice instead.

“Just get in,” Rey sighs, unlocking the car. “You’re my last ride of the night, and you’re on the way for me anyway.”

He should ask if she’s sure she doesn’t mind, reiterate his offer to let her go on her merry way and just get a different ride. But Kylo Ren is a selfish and greedy man, and he isn’t about to walk away from a third chance he knows he doesn’t deserve but desperately wants anyway.

“Okay,” he agrees quietly, and Rey doesn’t so much as spare him a glance while he gets into her car. He wonders what it would be like to sit next to her instead, wonders what it would be like to have her in his car the way he’s spent the last two weeks wondering what it would be like to have her in his life. In the short amount of time between him getting into the car and Rey driving off, he sees impulsive road trips and annual drives to his mother’s place for the holidays and a thousand routine visits to the grocery store.

The sound of her shifting gears pulls him back into reality, where they’re just two strangers who can’t seem to get along no matter how hard he tries.

“Rey,” he begins as they make their way across town, traffic practically non-existent at this hour on a Thursday night. This can only end in disaster, if their previous encounters are anything to go by, but he can’t not try. “About the other day–”

“No, don’t,” she interrupts before he can get an apology out. “As always, it was as much my fault as it was yours. We just seem to bring out the worst in each other, don’t we?” The smile she offers him in the mirror is tinged with underlying sadness, and the resignation in her voice leaves him restless.

“That’s not… it’s not us, I’m the one who keeps messing up,” Kylo insists. “I mean, it’s so stupid. I don’t even mind rap music,” he admits. “I don’t know why I said that to you.”

“Still, I shouldn’t have gone off at you like that,” Rey says firmly. “I just… Can I tell you why I relate so strongly to people who’ve had to struggle all their lives to succeed?”

“Please do,” he rasps, his throat drying up at the idea of her willingly sharing personal information with him.

Rey catches his eye in the mirror. “I should warn you, this story contains some Very Sad Backstory,” she tells him, her serious look at odds with the way her eyes seem to sparkle with a joke. “Are you sure you’re ready to get that personal with your Uber driver?”

Most definitely would probably be coming on too strong, and I want to get as personal with you as two people possibly can would just creep her out, so Kylo settles for a nod. “Yeah,” he adds a second later, because he doesn’t want to look desperate but it won’t do to seem uninterested either.

“Okay,” Rey makes a show of inhaling deeply and bracing herself. “Here we go. Once upon a time–” her lips twitch with a grin, and it only grows wider when she finds a similar expression on his face. “Once upon a time, there was a little orphan girl in London.”

He loses his smile.

“The girl had to work twice, sometimes even thrice, as hard as everyone else her whole life, because she was an orphan and poor and a girl, so the odds were pretty much stacked against her right from the start. She lived in a terrible orphanage, run by a man who cared more about exploiting free labor than he did about children, and she saw how even the people who had long since come of age continued to work for the man anyway because they had no other choice. Good luck finding even a minimum wage job if you’re a dropout or failed your GCSEs – the only two outcomes when you work for Unkar Plutt,” Rey spits the name out with a bitterness he wouldn’t have thought her capable of, not with the sunny grins and cheery disposition he’s glimpsed. “Everyone’s so busy earning their keep that there’s hardly any time to study, so all the kids either fail or drop out, and then they’re stuck working for Plutt for pretty much the rest of their lives.”

“Anyway,” she clears her throat and dives right back into the story, leaving him to marvel at her almost flippant tone. “The little girl grew up working for Plutt, thinking this would be the rest of her life, thinking she had no other choice. One day she found an old CD player – they were starting to go out of style, and whoever had thrown this one out hadn’t even bothered to remove the CD inside. It was a mixtape, a compilation of songs that spoke of tragic backstories and humble beginnings and overcoming the odds. Those songs opened up a whole world of new possibilities for her, and the rappers were success stories, role models, hope.”

Kylo’s so lost in the picture she’s painting that he doesn’t even realize they’ve reached his building until Rey turns around. “So yeah, that little girl grew up to feel pretty strongly about rap music,” she shrugs, a slow grin tugging at her lips. “The end. Any questions?”

He leans forward, getting closer to her than he’s ever been before. “Just one,” Kylo says quietly, searching her eyes for any hint of discomfort. He doesn’t want to go too far, doesn’t want to push her after how well the ride has gone, but–

“Did things ever get easier for the little girl?”

Rey’s smile softens, her eyes almost warm as she nods. “She worked her butt off in school, got a scholarship here in the States, and found her grandfather. Things are pretty great for her now.”

“I’m glad,” he murmurs, his eyes flitting down to her lips for the briefest of seconds before he realizes what he’s done. “I, um… I should go.”

“You should,” Rey agrees, and god, he prays he isn’t imagining the reluctance in her voice. “Good night, Kylo,” she says gently, her voice barely above a whisper.

She draws away then, moves back into her seat and flips the lock, and it’s not the cold dismissal she’d left him with the last time but it’s still a sign. He’s not going to be the man who makes something out of nothing, the creepy stranger who can’t take a hint and asks for her number when she clearly wants him to leave.

Maybe this is all the fates can offer him: a chance to make things right, a chance for them to part on a civil note and move past this odd, fleeting acquaintance. At least this way he’ll be the man she trusted enough to share her past with, not the asshole she kept bumping into.

“Good night, Rey,” he tells her, and they share one last smile in her rear-view mirror before he gets out of the car and shuts the door behind him. In the darkness of a moonless night sky and dim streetlights, her taillights burn so much brighter, leaving an imprint of red seared into the back of his eyelids long after she’s disappeared into the night.

It’s not the happy ending he wanted, but at least there’s some sense of closure, and a soft smile he can keep in his memory, and a warmth in his chest that he hasn’t felt in years.

A month later, the fates start a new chapter.

He’s on his way to meet his uncle for lunch, a bundle of nerves and shame and gratitude, too focused on his near future to pay much attention to his present and the woman who’s come to an abrupt stop right in front of him to fish her phone out of her bag.

“Sorry, it’s my fault, I wasn’t watching where–”

The woman turns around, and he loses all coherent thought.

“Kylo?”

It’s Rey. Rey, in a nice blouse and a pencil skirt, her hair pulled back into a bun and her face carrying the faintest hint of make-up.

“Oh my god, it is you!” Rey’s whole face lights up, there’s no other way to put it, and her smile brings back every ridiculous daydream and fragile hope he’s tried so hard to bury this past month. “This is incredible. I mean, what are the odds, right?”

What are the odds, indeed, and how many more chances will he get before he runs out? “Rey,” he croaks, and she waits while he clears his throat and collects his thoughts. “Rey, I’ve been meaning to ask you something and I’m sorry if it’s weird, I know it’s crazy, we barely know each other and you’re just an Uber driver–”

Her smile disappears and oh god, he’s done it again. “Just an Uber driver?” Rey scowls. “First of all, not that it’s any of your business, I actually work here,” she points out the building they’re right in front of, the building that houses his uncle’s company. “My boss made me take a sabbatical so I joined Uber to keep busy. But the point is, what’s wrong with being just an Uber driver? It’s a living, an honest one at that, in a broken system that doesn’t always give people good choices–”

How has he fucked up again and why is she so beautiful like this and shit, he’s never going to get another chance at this so–

“Please have dinner with me,” Kylo blurts out unthinkingly, cutting Rey off mid-rant.

“You–” She sputters, eyes wide as saucers. “I–” Does she even know that she holds his heart in her hands right now, that she could tear him down with just one word? “What?” Rey finally settles on, staring up at him with a look of utter confusion and not much else, not even the slightest hint of her feelings on the matter.

Kylo braces himself; this is it, his last shot. “You’re incredible,” he tells Rey, lips curving into a smile despite his nerves, “and passionate, and thoughtful, and God, you’re gorgeous. And I’m an idiot who keeps putting his foot in his mouth but what I meant to say was it’s insane for me to feel this strongly about someone who’s just my Uber driver, it’s impossible for me to miss someone I’ve only met three times. And yet I’ve spent the last month praying I’d see you again, and now here we are, impossible as it seems. So if you don’t hate me, even though I was probably the worst passenger you had to deal with, will you please go out on a date with me?”

Rey is still for the longest moment, seemingly frozen into place as she processes his impromptu speech. And then –

“Give me your phone.”

He furrows his brow. “What?”

She laughs, shakes her head at him fondly and holds out her hand. “Give me your phone, Kylo, so that I can add my number to it.”

“Oh. Oh,” he hands over his phone as soon as his mind catches up to her words, and he can barely breathe as Rey pulls up a new contact and programs her number into his phone for the express purpose of having him set up a date.

“So just shoot me a text or something, and then I’ll have yours,” Rey tells him, their fingers brushing as she hands the phone back. “For now I’ve really got to go,” she says, her reluctance painted all over her face, “or I’ll be late for lunch.”

“Are you heading in?” Kylo points at Skywalker Engineering, desperately hoping to prolong their time together. Rey nods, and he can’t help the relieved smile that stretches across his face. “Can I walk with you? I’m supposed to meet Skywalker for lunch, so…”

Rey frowns. “But Luke told me we’re having lunch with his nephew about the new legal department he’s setting up.”

“Um, yeah, about that–”

“Ben!” A familiar voice draws their attention to the front door, where a beaming Luke stands with an armful of folders. “You made it! And you’ve met Rey, that’s great. I’m just going to drop these off and then I’ll join you.”

He disappears back into the building, leaving Kylo with a stunned Rey.

“My real name’s Ben,” he explains, nervously rubbing the back of his neck as he observes Rey’s reaction. With his luck, she’s probably heard all about how he disappointed Luke and ran away from home and sold his soul to Snoke’s law firm. “I wasn’t lying to you or anything, I promise. Kylo Ren is the name I usually go by at work, but I hate it there so I’m leaving and Uncle Luke just so happened to be looking for–”

To his amazement, Rey bursts into laughter. Giggles, almost, her eyes dancing with mirth and delight. “You’re Ben Solo? The prodigal son and naughty nephew Leia and Luke have been trying to set me up with for years?”

Naughty nephew? He should probably talk to Luke about that but for now – Rey, British orphan, found her grandfather… How has it taken him this long to put it all together? Rey isn’t even a common name. “You’re Rey Kenobi!” Kylo realizes. “You’re Old Ben’s long-lost granddaughter.”

“Oh my god,” she gasps between bouts of laughter. “You’re named after my grandfather,” her laughter dies down as she scrunches up her nose. “You’re named after my grandfather,” Rey repeats, quieter this time. “How do I feel about that?”

“That could be weird,” Kylo acknowledges. “You don’t have to call me that, though. No one ever does, aside from my family.”

“Never mind that,” she says, suddenly impatient. “Do you know what this means? Your family has been trying to set us up for years!” Rey points out, her earlier grin making a reappearance.

The fates indeed, he thinks to himself. “You know, I thought it was unlikely enough for me to get the same Uber driver three times in a city this big. But now that I know who you are and how long the universe has been trying to bring us together, I’m pretty sure it’s fate.”

Rey smiles, a coy thing he’s never seen before and immediately decides he’d like to see a whole lot more of. “Are you saying we’re meant to be?”

Kylo moves closer and offers her his hand. “Only one way to find out.”

Her hand in his shouldn’t feel this familiar, this right. But everything about Rey throws him off balance in the best of ways, and Kylo wouldn’t have it any other way now that her fingers are laced with his and she’s giving him that soft, warm smile he holds so dear.

If Luke thinks it’s weird that they hold hands all the way to the restaurant, he makes no mention of it. . . .

Well, he mentions it eventually, but only when Ben officially brings Rey to Sunday dinner as his girlfriend two months later.

This was meant to be 3000 words at most but here we are, because I have no self control and I’m extraordinarily long-winded.

I hope you guys liked it. As usual, I’d love to hear from you if you have any comments/thoughts on this piece.

[hailqiqi]

I was tagged by @kristallioness. Woohoo! Thank you for the tag, I love doing these :)

(BTW I never told you how damn proud I am that I got you both into Voltron AND shipping Plance. Mwahaha. You can stream it on kisscartoon if you still don’t have netflix.)

🎀 - Are you named after someone? My middle name is my paternal grandmother’s middle name. My first name was my mum’s second choice after dad vetoed the first one (Jade), and I’m fairly sure dad only agreed because he was a giant Rocky and Bullwinkle fan so I may be 50% named after a villain in an 80s cartoon.

🎀 - When was the last time you cried? I’m fairly sure it was recently but I don’t remember? My memory pretty much sucks. I’m sure it was ‘I feel really sick’ or ‘I’m so stressed’ tears, though.

🎀 - Do you like your handwriting? I hate my handwriting!!! With a passion. In Year 3 they started taking away our pencils and giving us pens to write with once our handwriting had improved to a certain standard and I was the last kid in the year to get a pen...and I’m pretty sure I only got one because we all had to have one by Year 4. Fast forward 14 years and I’m crying in Chinese Calligraphy classs because despite being the only person in the class who can read the characters my work is by far the messiest, and I was trying really hard. The teacher (bless his soul) did a lesson on a much older form of writing the week after and I actually did really well at that one (shame it’s not in use anymore).

It used to bug me that my Japanese and Chinese handwriting were so awful despite consistent efforts, but in the end I accepted that my English handwriting is awful too so... I guess it’s my defining characteristic or something.

Funnily enough, I went to see a psychic when i was 20 and she told me that in a past life I was a male calligrapher in Southern Japan. So perhaps I used up all my good handwriting skills in that life.

🎀 - What is your favourite lunch meat? Good, thinly shaved ham is really hard to beat, but I also love porchetta and bresaola. I think porchetta wins (if it counts?)

🎀 - Do you have kids? One! She’s three. I’d like another but I should probably worry more about adult things like money first this time.

🎀 - If you were a different person, would you be friends with you? Possibly? I make friends fairly easily and there’s not a lot in common between my friends so... If Different Person Me were a total bitch then maybe not, though. I feel like there are too many variables to answer this question properly.

🎀 - Do you use sarcasm? Frequently, but I feel like I used to be funnier.

🎀 - Do you still have your tonsils? Yep! I wish I didn’t though, the fuckers keep swelling up.  The doctors were talking about taking them out last year but then the chronic tonsilitis finally went away. It’s like they heard us talking about them.

🎀 - Would you bungee jump? Fuck no. I had a shot at free abseilling off a bridge 10 years back and broke down crying in front of a bunch of high schoolers instead. I think I’d be ok with the abseilling now, though, so maybe I’d be ok bungee jumping in twenty years?

🎀 - What’s your favorite cereal? Oh man, this one’s hard! I love Captain Crunch, even though I think it’s way too sweet now. But I used to love it as a child, and you can only get it in the states so I could only ever eat it when I went to visit my dad in the US. And now even though I’m 30, whenever I visit my stepmom stocks the pantry with about twenty boxes of Captain Crunch for me and it just makes me feel so loved.

🎀 - Do you untie your shoes when you take them off? Nope. Only before I break the backs.

🎀 - Do you think you’re a strong person? Honestly, I’m not sure. Objectively I’m strong in some ways and weak in others, but I don’t think I’m very strong to be honest.

🎀 - What’s your favorite ice cream? Chocolate chip cookie dough! Closely followed by torrone and dulche le leche swirls.

🎀 - What’s the first thing you notice about someone? Oh look, a person. I am unobservant as fuck. I once spent an entire afternoon talking to my cousin without noticing that she was 6 months pregnant and it was VERY obvious.

🎀 - What’s your least favorite physical thing about yourself? I have bad skin, and my hair doesn’t listen to me. Probably those two? Which is dumb because as things go, those are quite fixable. I don’t like looking at pictures of myself because I feel like my nose + mouth together are kind of ugly, so I’m guessing that, but literally nobody anywhere has ever said those features of mine are bad-looking so I’m aware it’s likely just my own neurosis.

🎀 - What color trousers and shoes are you wearing right now? Navy blue slippers ‘cause I’m indoors, but the backs are broken and they’re hanging off my feet. A pair of plaid short-shorts that look like they’re from one of those colour palette challenges with lots of pale oranges and pinks and browns.

🎀 - What are you listening to right now? "Happy” by Pharrell Williams is going round and round my head, so that?

🎀 - If you were a crayon, what color would you be? Probably red from all the blood once you ground me down into a crayon.

🎀 - Favorite smell? Petrol.  Yeah, I’m weird. I just like it!! I also like the smell of Jacaranda trees in bloom, and frangipanis.

🎀 - Who was the last person you talked to on the phone? A friend from my kid’s school.

🎀 - Favorite sport to watch? Football, or Rugby. I don’t tend to really watch sport though.

🎀 - Hair color? Chestnut a.k.a. mousey brown are the words I was given growing up, but it’s the same colour as Pidge’s from Voltron and fics seem to call that ‘honey’, so can I start calling it ‘honey’? I like the sound of that.

🎀 - Eye color? Exact same colour as my hair. Kind of light brown.

🎀 - Do you wear contacts? On stage or on set, but I haven’t been on either in a long time! I should wear them more really, my glasses make me look pretty nerdy.

🎀 - Favorite food? I have no idea! Right now my brain seems stuck on Taiwanese Fried Chicken, in all its forms, so I’ll go with that. I never really liked eating until i was about 21 though, so although I like it now I don’t think I have a proper ‘favourite’ food. Maybe yakiniku or Korean BBQ? I would sell my soul for either, so that.

🎀 - Scary movies or comedy? Comedy, because I’m a wuss. @mistyhollowpro is writing a Zombie au and I’m forcing myself to read it because I love her writing but I have to keep the lights on because I’m that much of a wuss (and zombies scare me more than ANYTHING).

🎀 - Last movie you watched? "Trolls”, I think. I really wanna watch Kimi no Na Wa but haven’t had a chance.

🎀 - What color shirt are you wearing? Dark blue t-shirt.

🎀 - Summer or Winter? Summer! I hate being cold. It’s more tolerable when you live somewhere it snows but I don’t so SUMMER.

🎀 - Hugs or kisses? Proper kisses.

🎀 - Book you’re currently reading? I mostly read fanfic, so none? I have to read ‘Memories of my Nagasaki Grandmother’ for my MA, though, so does that count?

🎀 - Who do you miss right now? OK, so like I was born in Country A, lived in Country B until I was 12, then moved to Country C, then spent a year in Country D, then lived in Country E for almost ten years and am now living in Country F. My friends are across a few more countries, too. The better question would be ‘Who don’t you miss right now?”

🎀 - What’s on your mouse pad? I don’t have one!

🎀 - What’s the last tv program you watched? “Voltron”. I keep meaning to watch Dr Who and catch up but it feels like such an investment

🎀 - What is the best sound? The sound of a clean, empty home and no obligations.

🎀 - What’s the furthest you’ve ever travelled? See ‘Who do you miss right now’ question. If the question is from the perspective of the US I guess the answer is Australia or Japan.

🎀 - Do you have a special talent? Talent is a myth, everything is just practice. Some people just start practicing at the age of 3 or something and therefore appear talented.

...So, no, but I’m getting better at singing and tend to pick up languages quite quickly.

🎀 - Where were you born? In a military hospital in South Florida that later got flattened by Hurricane Andrew.

Tagging a mix of both people I chat to and people I’d like to know more about: @purpleplatypusbear21 @joeshmoe189 @ashesandhoney @mistyhollowpro @pidgepitchu @airbender-dacyon @alteanmouse / @kataracy