onlines

[ennaku-sirri-da]

Self care is putting your face in a very soft cat/muppet

( plaintext: Self care is putting your face in a very soft cat/muppet )

Click for better quality!

[ ID: Traditional uncolored fanart of the Smile For Me game involving Dr.Habit, and a habitician sona of the artists friend called Buddy. The style is semi realistic leaning on the cartoony side, with a significant amount of detail.

In the artists AU interpretation Habit has marionette features such as segmented, jointed dark line-cuts around his mouth, hands that are visible. Scarring is seen on hands. He is also fur covered. His face is gaunt and freckled with protruding furry cheeks, then fur-ruffles under his makeup-applied eyes, then a thin pencil stache with surrounding chin hair. His voluminous curly hair poofs out into drawn spiralling curls, from under his big fedora. Habit wears a faux fur-like coat with rougher yet still soft material for teal sleeves. He also sports a long artificial-feather boa holding little flowers. His shoes are long-covering and leathery ribboned heels.

Buddy is a shorter purple catgirl who greatly resembles an upright cat. She is a Russian Blue with a round spotted face, scruffy fur of medium length and very thick eyebrows. Their dark straight hair has a poofy quality to it. They wear a sleeveless dress with a long skirt, complete with socks that end in fuzzy cat's paw patterned flip flops.

Habit joyously links his arms together with his hands, holding Buddy in the embrace. He looks emotional with his eyes closed and a shaky laugh. His boa cloth wraps around his shoulders and drops down, spilling little flowers all around from the effect of him moving, laughing. His long coat trails on the ground, his legs set in an forward-facing position showing the full height of the heels kept close together. Buddy is also laughing with a fallen flower tickling their nose, eyes closed happily and fluffy ears pointing up. A bit of his fangs are seen. He holds his round paws near each other in Habit's grip. Her skirt falls smoothly in a downward way as she fiddles her legs out and about.

Habit is sitting on a large tree trunk that the artist has decorated with clunky yet flowing swirling shapes. In the immediate backdrop behind them is a large apple tree, its roots near them outlined thickly with pencil. The roots are decorated rougher-sketched than the trunk. The top of the tree is filled with many apples and rounded leaves in bunches and bunches. ' Some ' is written incompletely in sketch at the far left. End ID]

--

sOMEBODY ONCE TOLD ME....

Actually, no.

Kyaaaaa! * Blasts you with this *

[ ID: The same image as above but edited. It's got a softer more blurred look, and is glazed over with a deep yellow color that shines most at the center, with Buddy and Habit. In variously colored sketchpens of blue, pink, green, red, orange, brown, the lyrics on the far left to Boney M's 'Somewhere In The World' continued, dropping down in lines-

' Somewhere in the world

There is peace of mind

Theres a place for me

In this world

Somewhere in the world

That's what I must find'

A significant distance below these is written

' Time...

Changer of seasons...

Time will see...

Another Flower Blooming. '

There are loose, big blue, pink and brown hearts drawn inside one another, overlapping with trailing tails. They are drawn around Habit and Buddy's faces and in thick oil pastel smaller red hearts emanate from Habit, while blue hearts come from Buddy. End ID]

Talk under the cut! Please read if interested!

Sooo first off Buddy belongs to my very good and very fluffy friend @ prrusten on Twitter and Tumblr!

If I remember right, Buddy( It's a pun! HEHE...a friend...and a 'bud'-- not yet in bloom) was a stressed Habitician who came here in hopes to get cheered after going through a bad spell in her life. One day, she meets a shivering stranger named Rose, who keeps talking about not knowing exactly where he came from or who he is, getting flashes of memories. She decides to provide shelter to this Flower Kid, and they eventually bond to become the best of brothers, being each other's light in their places of the mind. All Will Change, when Rose signs their lost souls up for a place called " The Habitat "....

Habit admires Buddy. Kind like me, to all, he thinks.

Buddy has much more complicated feelings after the overseer of the Habitat's spiral and subsequent attack on her and her friend....pulling out his thorns, cus he's got no teeth!

But they keep trying, again and again,

Rewinding, resetting.

They get it really wrong, one time around. Funeral, sworn to silence, moving on. Rose can't accept it. They get it right, the other times around.

This is that world. This is the world where the cycle was broken. This is where, in a long time, into the unknown, they could be friends....

My brother.. and someone else very dear to Me :" ) (teary smile emote) /platonic

PS: This picture is platonic!!!

[infinitystation]

some doobles

[gerbiloftriumph]

So you wanna be a king (pt2)

(or at least cosplay one.)

Continuing the cosplay creation saga for anyone interested, here’s how I put together my King Graham cosplay:

Part 2: Jerkin 

Disclaimer: I’m totally novice at cosplay and only do it for like one event per year if that, so take what you will or throw it all away.

Also this is not really a step by step tutorial post because this is several years ago and the details are hazy.

If you’re following along, then you should have a cloak and cowl (click for sort-of-instructions-here). 

Step one: Pull out those reference screencaps you made in the first part and stare at them. Repeat that you still love this character and that you’re committed to this nonsense. Ready? Let’s go.

The long sleeved purple undershirt I just happened to find at Goodwill. Please try to find something lightweight--this costume is warm. 

But you won’t be so lucky to find a jerkin at Goodwill too. You’ll have to make it, or at least modify something.

Still, it’s just an elaborate brown tank top, more or less. You don’t even have to worry about attaching sleeves! Surely this is an eas--wait, what are those lace things? Could you even bend down to pick up inventory items with laces that thick and close together? How can I translate that into something semi-practical I can wear without wanting to eat my adventuring hat? 

It’s a great design, but I’m mortal, not digital. If you can determine a simple way to get that lacing to look accurate while still being comfortably wearable, let me, novice cosplayer that I am, know. (maybe if they were just made separately, flat, and sewn on, like a decal thing?)

I had planned on building this out of fake leather/suede-ish material, but then I remembered I wanted to also wear this as my new RenFest costume, and I didn’t want to die in July. 

So I went to my local Joann’s and picked up a considerably lighter, thinner, and satisfactorily rich looking brown fabric (I think it was this stuff: https://www.joann.com/kona-cotton-solid-quilt-fabric/1378397.html) for both jerkin and bracers. I’ve lost the original receipt, so I’m not sure how much I bought. Too much, because my storage bin is full of leftovers. I’m sure 3 yards is more than plenty, but measure to be sure. 

Tunic time!

This is the point where the “How To Graham” tutorial breaks down and becomes especially fuzzy and experimental, because I kept none of my in-process notes. High five, Gerbil, very helpful indeed. You might just want to glance at this for ideas before doing your own thing. 

I laugh in the face of patterns, hahahaha. (bad idea, don’t be me.)

I got my favorite fitted t-shirt (Disney Afternoon ftw), paper, a ruler, and old scrap fabric to maul as practice. I pinned my shirt flat to paper and traced both the front and back separately (folded the sleeves in so my tracework was sleeveless). The front had a deeper neckline but was otherwise nearly identical to its back partner. Once both sides were traced, I added a half inch margin around them, cut them out, and started working on fake jerkins, so I could sculpt the right fit before I got out the nice fabric. I wanted the jerkin to be pretty form fitting as Graham’s is, so I curved the sides in a bit deeper. 

I made at least two fake jerkins, fyi.

Since I went pattern-less (hahahaarrgh), tests were crucial, especially regarding the neck hole. The t-shirt is elastic, but my fabric is not. I personally require at least 22″ around the neck to get the thing over my nose, and it’s barely enough clearance. (I’m fairly certain I measured some other shirts with my fabric ruler for a loose size to aim for, then did edits on the junk fabric til I had a size that worked.)

Tests also showed that the back piece needed an additional two and a half inches of fabric on the bottom thanks to how it sits on my shoulders. In the above image, you can see the green fabric is higher, but I wanted the piece to look balanced from the side. 

It’s a touch hard to see as it’s usually hidden by the cloak, but I find a balanced jerkin is a happy jerkin. 

And here’s that additional fabric without a human in it. (ack don’t look at my uneven stitches)

By now, you should have a belt (in my method it doesn’t matter how it clasps, so pick any belt you please as you’ll be wearing it backward) so you can determine how long the flappy things on the front and back should be. Where your belt sits comfortably is where your side laces will stop and your trim on the flap things will start--the belt hides the transition. 

Graham’s belt sits low on his (fantastically defined) hips. I prefer it on my waist so it doesn’t slide up when I’m walking, so my flap things are longer than his. For reference, my flap things...no, wait, there must be a technical term....Google says it’s a peplum. My peplum (??) are 8″ish long, though his look like they’re about half that. 

For reference, as a 5′6″ person, from hanger to hem my jerkin’s back piece is approximately 28″ long. The most important things here are how long it is overall, and if the neck hole is big enough to fit over your head: nearly everything else can be altered when wearing it via the lacework I have planned.

Look, at this point, you might want to give up on me and find a real shirt pattern, fitted or not. I understand. I’ll wait. This isn’t actually a step by step tutorial so much as a vague What I Did And It’s Probably Wrong. 

Okay, you’ve traced your favorite shirt (or bought a real pattern like a good person). Your tests have shown that your peplum sit at the same height on your leg, and you like the shape and feel of it when you wear your scrap fabric test (I recommend using safety pins to replicate the laces during the early size test phase). You’ve cut out the front and back shirt shaped pieces of brown fabric (with that half inch hem margin all around), and now they’re sitting on your floor, mocking you. 

The actual construction part!

The only attachment you’ll give these pieces is via the shoulders. If you’re new to this Making Your Own Clothes thing and your fabric has a nice side and a not nice side, put the nice sides against each other and sew along the not nice side so when you turn it over your hem is inside. 

I seam-ripped a collar from a shirt I loved but was too worn to wear otherwise--no math or sewing your own collar from scratch if you swipe it from another shirt. No one will ever see it since your cowl tucks into it, so it doesn’t matter how it looks, though natural colors are better than, say, blue, in case your cowl slips a bit. There are lots of lovely videos about attaching collars: this one seems nice, if you skip ahead to the actual sewing-on part at 4:50. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k31FWDp1s5I

At this point, since you’ve fitted it and trimmed it and done all that you want to it to get the shape you like, you’ll want to hem your shirt by that half inch margin all around so it’s clean and easy for the next part. It only looks vaguely shirt-like now since it’s held together just by the shoulders. 

Now, let’s get medieval on it. 

Time for lacing!

I used a blond suede leather rope to mimic the lighter color on Graham’s sides (check the beading or leather working section of the craft stores, and make sure it’s thick enough that it won’t snap under light strain, and thin enough it’ll fit through the grommet size you select). I already happened to own an anvil (...why?), so I just needed grommets. Mine appear to be 12mm--I got them in Ancient Copper. You’ll use them in the bracers later, too, so leftovers are a good thing for once. Hobby Lobby or Michaels can hook you up with supplies, but Etsy and eBay have more diverse color choices. 

Every inch from where the armpit opening stops to where the trim of the peplums begins (the height of which was established earlier when I decided to how to wear the belt), I made a mark for a grommet, and marked its corresponding partner. For reference, I have 9 holes down each hem, for 18 total holes per side, and a grand total 36 grommets in the tunic. I jammed an awl through the holes marked and applied the grommets as per the packet’s instruction. 

Like making a metal and fabric sandwich. With a hammer. 

It’s totally therapeutic. I can see why Amaya’s into this stuff. 

(It’s not a Looney Toons anvil, by the by: like this, instead.)

Unspool the suede rope and thread it through the grommets. To try and mimic the game, I use a ladder shoelace tie, starting with the grommet pair beneath the arms and running down until I tie a bow in the last pair. I tuck the loose ends into the waistband of the trousers. So, this: https://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/ladderlacing.htm

Finally, I made (because I couldn’t find to buy) my own trim about 1/2″ wide from some scrap light brown suede in the Joann Scrap Bin, and attached it to the peplum (is this truly a better word than flap, vote now).

And that, friend, is a jerkin that would make any real medieval person flinch but should be cool for cosplay. You should try it with your cloak and cowl. If you’re following my method, you get to layer up, lucky you: anchor shirt, long-sleeved-purple-undershirt, jerkin, cloak (snaps through the jerkin’s collar onto the anchor shirt), cowl (to cover your shoulders so you don’t see the cloak tugging at your jerkin collar). 

Yeah, it’s warm. Sorry.

Drink some water.

When you’re done sweating in it (eww, I know it’s awful, sorry), handwash it. Strip the rope out of the grommets, use handwashing detergent in a (clean!) bathroom sink, then hang it over a bathtub to dry before relacing it using that ladder shoelace technique and storing it on a hanger. I always have it laced, and pull it on over my head with it laced, too.

And with that, you’ve got about half of your entire cosplay done. Congrats! Take some time to relaaaax. You’re gonna be a king. 

(is this helpful at all to anyone? should i keep going?)

(peplum?? really????)

[chuckling-chemist]

31 Days of Fanstuck Day 4 Mayola: Enter

“Alright. We’re good. I’m in. Man that was fucking weird.”

Mayola spoke into the voice-enabled chat service to her server player, but the quick ping she gave meant it immediately went to received. She let out a long, irritated breath through her nose. Okay. So Pallia was busy. Big deal. She’d get to it eventually. Right now she had to focus on more important things.

Like, was it freezing fucking cold here all of a sudden, or was she just shivering for no reason?

Mayola walked over to the nearest window, the one that looked out from her kitchen into the rest of the world. Back on Alternia, it was one of the best looks out onto the very ocean where her hive precariously sat above. Every step of her bare feet against the wood of her floor sent another rack of shivers through her body. Her shoes, her favorite pink pumps with the knives hidden away in one of Aisral’s mechanisms, still sat inside her strife specibus. At some point after knocking out a bunch of pink gremlins, she accidentally unequipped them and never had the chance to put them back on. 

Something she should ideally do. After she figured out where the hell she was.

She heaved herself up onto the countertop, sitting on her knees just so to cover them up with the thick fabric of her dress as opposed to exposed to the open air and looked out with despair.

Her hive still sat over water. It sat over the white ice of what looked to be some sort of massive frozen lake. Out in the distance she could just make out the barest hint of snow drifts, complete with the powdery bullshit falling gently onto the ground.

A growl grew in the back of Mayola’s throat. Snow. Cold. Hell. 

There was a reason she lived in the south. Not like Sandyhorn’s bizarre weather patterns ever fixed that particular problem.

She took her shoes out of her specibus and slid them back onto her cold feet before getting back onto the floor. It wasn’t much, but even the small comfort was enough to get her from the kitchen into her bedroom and switch out her clothes to something warm. It took some time, but she managed to whip together an outfit to keep her warm from an old cloak she alchemized with a scarf to make a fur-lined black coat, as well as a relatively plain long-sleeved dress that Aisral made her once out of cold-resistant, waterproof material. Just to be safe, she alchemized her heels with a pair of snow boots to make a pair of fuzzy pink boots with retractable knife-heels. 

Finally warm, Mayola tramped out onto ice, coat bundled tightly around her to stop the wind biting through it. Abaiasprite, previously meandering somewhere in the hive with her newfound ability to explore land, flew up to her the second the door opened and followed closeby. 

“Are you sure you’re warm enough, my child?” she asked.

Mayola smirked. “Warm as I can be,” she said.

The great ghostly eel nodded. She might have the ability to verbalize, at the end of the night it was still her lusus. Abaia never questioned her more aberrant qualities. 

To both of their benefit, the ice covering the water was thicker than she envisioned earlier. Thick enough it did not crack as she shuffled onward through the wind. It also, for whatever reason, wasn’t accumulating much snow. Which was good for her. If she had to suffer through the “one step forward, half a step back” experience of walking through the snow, she’d have to turn back now just to make some trail mix.

She tapped the mic to turn it back on for a second. “Hey Shorty, how cold does it have to be for a whole goddamn lake to freeze over?”

MESSAGE RECEIVED: ??:?? STATUS: Unread

Goddamn it. 

“A lake freezes at less than 32 degrees, with layers of ice adding for every fifteen days it stays below frozen temperatures. A world like this has probably been frozen a long time,” Abaiasprite noted. “That said, I do not believe this is a lake.”

Mayola laughed. The chilly wind hurt the inside of her mouth. And were her nostrils freezing? That’s what it felt like. “If this ain’t a lake, what is it?”

“We will find out when we reach land.”

For both of their sakes, when was less time than imagined. The surprising flatness of the land threw off her ability to judge distance, and the snow banks collecting on portions of the ice made the first true island of actual land filled with real snow virtually impossible. So when she stumbled upon an igloo that only came up to her waist off to the side, sitting atop a mass of brighter white than the off-white of the ice she’d been walking on, Mayola nearly missed it. It had only been thanks to Abaiasprite poking her with that ghostly tail and pointing toward it that alerted her to its presence.

(Remind me to combine her with something that has fucking arms.)

She didn’t need to announce her presence to any residents. The loud crunch of the snow managed to be heard even over the whistle of the wind against the lake. It alerted the owner of the tiny little igloo, and an equally tiny bright blue basilisk hobbled out onto the snow. He held a curious looking cane, one with a pink-looking serpent twisting around from the base for the beast’s head to form as the handle.

“Uh...hello?”

The basilisk looked up to the heiress with a friendly smile. “Greetings, maiden. We’ve been waiting for you. How do you fare on our beautiful planet?”

Mayola couldn’t help herself. “I’m fucking cold is what I--ow!”

Abaiasprite smacked her with her tail and, despite the limited facial expressions she could have, managed to shoot her a glare that could kill. 

“I ain’t used to this fuckin’ weather’s all. Which, where the hell’m I?”

The little basilisk chuckled, cane tapping into the snow for emphasis. So at least he had a sense of humor. “Ah, maiden of the winds, servant to the breeze, you have finally landed where you should be. You are the Land of Frost and Chimes, the planet eternally in winter.”

[naui-cheonsa]

♡ fuzzy pastel cloud pajama set from romwe ♡

✿ read my review below! ✿

Hey there cutie patootie! Here goes another review from the most beautiful store Romwe, the best online clothing store that offers thousands of cute, high-quality and most affordable fashion items!

Right now they have this awesome sale where everything is under $6.99 so don’t forget to check it out!

Last time, I got pajamas from Romwe which my mum loved, so this time, she wanted pajamas as well! I ordered this item above for her, and since I don’t want to take pictures of her, I can’t show you the pajamas put on ;o;

However I hope you still find it helpful!

I did not have a tracking code for this order because I forgot to ask for it heheh, so I don’t know exactly when it was shipped out. However, the order was made on the 17th of January, so it was shipped on that same week and arrived at my door step on the 26th, just 9 days later. So, in total, this order took 9 days to arrive!

As always, the parcel came perfectly protected inside a huge, firm plastic bag. And to prevent any damage or leaking, each item was included in a zip plastic bag, so it arrived in the best condition possible.

Here are the pajamas:

They are exactly the same as the website shows!

The shirt is ultra comfy and the patch design on it is very very soft as well - it doesn’t feel stiff and itchy at all so it doesn’t irritate your chest.

The shirt and pants cuffs are perfect, they adjust very well to the ankles and wrist (if you roll up your sleeves anytime you won’t have any problem because they feel both loose and comfy!)

Its size is a Medium, and they fit really well! My mum has a slim body, so this size adjust to her body perfectly. As I’ve said a ton of times already, if you order from Romwe, don’t worry about the sizes because Romwe’s size charts are very trust-worthy and if you check it with your measures you will never be wrong with the sizes you get.

The waist of the pants adjusts perfectly, so whether you have a small waist or a less defined one, don’t worry because the fabric is stretchy on the waist area and will fit you well! 

As you can see in the above pic, the material of it is SUPER fuzzy and it feels even softer when you touch it. It really feels like a plushie! It’s adorable, and my mum is in love with it and she won’t stop caressing it lmao

The inside of the whole pajama is covered in the same plush fabric as the outside, so it is appropiate for any types of skin and therefore, if you have sensitive skin or something like that, you won’t have to worry about feeling your body itchy, irritable or uncomfortable.

It’s actually the opposite; this pajama is so soft and comfy that you will feel like it’s carressing you all the time ;w;

Since it’s so puffy, it is very thick as well, so it will keep you warm on the coldest winter nights!

RATINGS

Shipping: ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ / 5

This order took a total of 9 days to arrive to my home using the standard shipping method, and just like my last orders from Romwe, it took such little time! Their orders usually take from 6 to 10 days to arrive, so they never disappoint me.

Romwe also offers you the tracking code for all their orders and arrives really fast, which is really cool!

Packaging: ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ / 5

Once again, all the items shipped to me arrived perfectly packaged and protected, and due to that protection, their packages never show any rips, wrinkles, strange smells…

Quality: ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ / 5

This item left my mum and I speechless! It may seem like a normal pajama set, but seriously, its quality is so nice that you will fall in love with it. As I said, it is super thick, warm, and cosy. It’s so comfy that it feels like you’re sleeping among clouds ;o;

Design:  ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ / 5

The design of the pajamas overall is super duper cute, and the touch of it is so nice you won’t stop carressing it! The colours is a pale grey, and the blushes of the cloud patch are in a shade of pink that makes it so adorable~ I love it so much.

Communication:  ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ / 5

I don’t know if they forgot to send me the tracking code or if it was my fault because I didn’t ask for it, but other than that, the communication I always have with Romwe couldn’t be sweeter. Any doubt or question you have, they will reply to you real quick and treat you so kindly! So don’t be shy and write them if you are hesitating about something~

Overall: ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ / 5

Aahh I always says this on my reviews, but seriously, the overall experience with Romwe has been a pleasure this time too! I love ordering from them because their items are amaziiiing and they never ever disappoint me.

The best thing about them is that they offer the most affordable prices with the highest quality you can find! Romwe adjusts to every budget and you can seriously spend a little ammount of money and get such a lovely clothing haul!

So I highly encourage you to check out their store and make sure you find some new fashion stuff to treat yourself, ‘kay? Romwe is soo worth it, you will thank me later!

Thank you very much Romwe for sponsoring me, it is always a pleasure!

And thank YOU for reading, beauty <3

[sneezingpotatoes]

The Road Trip [Part 2]

About 2 hours had passed since the boys had left their apartment, and Yuko was already knocked out, head resting on the car door, face buried snugly into his blanket, with his headphones barely staying clipped to his head from all the pressure. Harima had finished his red bull, and was now halfway through his first bottle of coffee. The feeling of fatigue was lingering around him with a constant itching at the back of his throat, and he was dedicated on keeping it at bay. The soft humming of the engine and smooth melody playing on the radio rubbed his ears gently, trying to sing him to sleep; It was like a continuous battle for him. He wished he could be sleeping right now, but he instantly shut that thought down and glued his eyes onto the road.

Harima tightens his scarf around his neck, feeling a sudden chill and rubs at his nose with the back of his wrist, cringing when the slightest touch sends his overly sensitive sinuses into a sharp, needling uprising. “O-oh crap…” He mutters under his staggering breaths, so desperately trying not to awaken his sleeping companion. Before he can attempt to prevent them, the sneezes escape from his grasp, jerking him forward, with his face still shielded by the back of his wrist. “Ihh… Hihh’sscht! Ihh’ISSCHT-NKG’isch!” The man sniffles quietly to himself, trying to stop the flow of sneezes that are forcing their way out of him. A weak sounding moan followed by a ‘bless you’ is heard from his right side; Yuko was rubbing at his eyes, lightly yawning with his glassy orbs fixed directly onto him. Harima broke the eye contact and quickly pulled up his scarf to cover up the wetness on his face.

“What time is it?” He whispered, voice clouded with sleep.

Harima glanced down at his radio and lightly sniffled into his scarf. “Quarter ‘till 12pm.” His voice came out thick and lower than usual from his congestion, with a slight voice crack. He attempted to quietly clear his throat, but it hadn’t helped on reviving his voice.

Yuko lifted an eyebrow at the man, feeling betrayed and lied to. “… So now you’re lying to me.” The teenager folded his arms at the man in disbelief.

Those words hit Harima hard in his gut; He knew exactly what Yuko was referring to. “I’m not lying to you, kid! I’m not sick, seriously. Now you can either choose to believe me or not, but just stop being such a worrywart.” He fought back the strong urge to sniff as best he could in order to help his case.

The teenage boy aggravatedly huffed at Harima and glared out the window. “Fine. Let’s see how long you can keep this up.” Yuko was fed up with him, and was eager to challenge him. “I’ll ‘believe’ you for now, but if it turns out you’re actually sick, which you obviously are, prepare for a big bowl of I told you so.”

Harima smirked at the boy and shook his head, only for his smirk to melt down into a wry frown as his head tilted back slightly and for his eyes to flutter, with a small tear rolling down his cheek from the prickly sensation in his flared nostrils he’d been trying to hold back for the longest time. He quickly grabbed at his scarf and pulled it over his nose, so that the giant piece of cloth could absorb all the liquids that would spray out of his mouth and nose. “Nnh.. Hhn’ngtsch-nnk’gssh! Kg’tschuh!!” He pried open one of his eyes, only to see Yuko’s hand grabbing the steering wheel, steadying the car for him.

“Damn it, Harima!” Yelled the boy in a panic, “Be careful! You’re gonna kill us!!”

The man helplessly shut his eyes once again, trying his hardest to maintain the sneezes. “W-wehh… well what the h-hell d’you want me to do?! I-It’s not liehh… l-like I can he-NGTsch!! C-can he— IKGSsch-isschiih!” Harima gave up on talking and just decided to let the sneezes possess him until they decided to give him a break, and hope that Yuko was good at steering from the passenger seat. “Nngschiih! Hhh— ehh? Ikg’tschh!! Ugnh…” He falsely allowed a desperate moan to leak out and quickly massaged the bridge of his nose, trying to relieve the pressure and returned his attention back on to the road, while continuously sniffing into his scarf. He muffled a ‘Thanks’ through his heavy congestion and the material of the cloth as the teenager blessed him, letting Harima regain control of the vehicle. Maybe it was time to admit that he was sick and that he needed a break, he thought, but of course his pride would always take over and insist that he was fine and that he would be okay.

Yuko glanced up at the struggling man in concern; his glassy eyes were hazily scanning the road, his leaky chafed nose seemed to be very bothersome for him, and his cheeks were now flushed a dark shade of pink. A light, muffled cough was heard from Harima in his scarf, sounding wet and lung rattling. The teenager could tell at this point, the man was too fatigued to care about hiding it anymore and was just trying to stay well enough to maintain control of the vehicle. Yuko bit his tongue so hard it threatened to bleed; it took all of his might for him to hold back the boast of being correct for once. “… It’s okay to pull over and let me drive, Harima.” He was both concerned and fearful of the situation; He didn’t want Harima to break out into another sneezing fit and lose control of the car again, only for him to not be so quick to recover for him. “You sound like you’re fighting something really nasty, and it’s beating you like a dead horse…”

The man used his scarf to clean his nose for the fifth time it seemed, and shook his head at Yuko, eyes never leaving the icy road. “I’m not stopping.” He brought up his fist to catch the forcefully wet coughs he’d been hiding back from Yuko, seeing how his light coughs were making the itch worse, rather than relieving them. “I’ve only been driving for 2 hours, are you kidding me?” He muttered between his lung shattering coughs that took his breath away, making him gasp for air. “Just relax, I can handle this, kid. I’ll let you know when I want to switch.”

Harima’s words flew in one ear and directly out of the other for Yuko. How could Harima tell him to relax when they almost veered off the road from his harsh sneezing fit two minutes ago? The boy gave out a ‘tch’ and folded his arms, rolling his eyes at the foolish man. “Relax? You almost killed us. As far as I’m concerned, you’re in no condition to be driving period.”

“Whose car is this?” He barked at Yuko, trying not to waste the little breath he still had left. “Whose name is on the insurance?”

Yuko fell silent, being stumped for a response. He knew that the answer was obviously him, but he didn’t want to admit to it. He sunk deeper into his blanket, trying to hide his unspoken frustration with the stubborn man.

“Exactly, now shut your mouth before I… Ihh-hih…” It felt like tiny bristles were prickling the inside of his flared, red-rimmed nostrils. The man slowly hovered his cupped hand beside his mouth in preparation for the sneezes that would decide to escape him. “Great, hih-here we g-IKGSsch! …hh’sscht-isschiih-‘tschuh!” He forced himself to pry one of his eyes open and glare at the road, vision being blurred by the tears from the burning sensation.

Yuko was watching the man from beneath his blankets, face completely buried with only his eyes visible, along with his feet resting on top of the dashboard as if he were watching a horror film. “Bless—”

“—hh’sscht-ikgscht!! Ehh-hiih!? I-I’b dot… d’NGTSschiih!! Ha’ekk-chhiihsh!! Ih’tchiihshehh!!” He had given up on covering and returned his hand back onto the steering wheel, and with each sneeze, his head would duck down into his chest, raising his head again to fix his gaze back onto the road, only to almost instantly duck back into his chest. He could feel all the sick liquids on his face and scarf, and knew he had gotten some on his coat, but he ignored it and fixed his fatigued gaze back onto the road, sniffling hard, trying to at least get rid of some of the moisture on his face.

Yuko was thoroughly disgusted with the man; he just looked like a beat-up pile of garbage, and he could tell Harima was suffering; His eyelashes still had light flutter to them, as if something were in his eyes, he still hitched softly between breaths, and he softened his sniffling in concern for Yuko, but it clearly wasn’t helping him. “B-bless you…” He muttered under his breath, trying to keep his strong feeling of disgust from coating his voice. He knew Harima must’ve been embarrassed— He was embarrassed for him.

“Ihh-hh… T-Thanks, Yuko, but you mighhh-hihh… want to save those blessings… F-for laterhhh…” Harima’s voice trailed off into a torturous build-up. His chest was moving to a beat of its own, and he couldn’t control his breathing properly. “U-ugnh, not agaihh… n-nnh…” He fought the urge to let out a desperate moan, as the climax he had reached faded into a slow and soft hitching again. A clicking of the hazard lights were heard as he pulled over to the side of the road; he finally decided that it was time for him to rest and recover… Or at least clear his system of whatever was needling its way through his nostrils, interrupting his driving.

Yuko sat up and removed his fuzzy blanket, preparing to get out of the car. “Does this mean—”

“— This is the only s-stop we make, understood?” Harima flatly interrupted the excited Yuko, staring him directly in the eye, conveying to him that he was most definitely being serious. “I-If we’re running low on gahh-hihh… g-gas, tell me.” The man brought his coat sleeve to his nose, trying to avoid the lingering, rebellious sneeze, causing his voice to be muffled into his arm. “And do NOT crash my car. If you do, I’ll have your head on a silver plihh… p-pl’Itchiihsh! Hih’kgscht-ugh!!” He didn’t’ even bother trying to finish his sentence; He was too warn out to, anyway.

Yuko giggled at the suffering man. “Mmhmm, mmhmm, yeah, whatever.” He mumbled, trying to quickly brush him off and get into the driver’s seat. “Just get some rest already! I don’t want you looking like this in New York.” His soft smile seemed to warm up Harima, as he got out of the car and approached the passenger side.