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davidmann95 · 4 years

Note

So... Crossover #1: any thoughts?

Anonymous said: You seemed not to think much of Crossover #1 on Twitter. Your full thoughts?

wcwit said: So Cates' Crossover #1, best bad comic of the year or just regular pretentious trash?

An incidental note upfront: What you’re seeing there is the apparently SUPER-RARE SECRET VARIANT COVER I unwittingly picked up at the store - at first glance indistinguishable from the standard cover, the kid getting four-color-fucked by mysterious comic book rays is in fact themselves reading a variant cover of the book, rather than the main cover again in an infinite painting-within-a-painting sort of deal that’s the standard.

So I wasn’t gonna get this: my initial post on the comic and what an obviously awful idea it was back when we only knew half the premise and it was known as Pray The Capes Away actually got some out-of-nowhere traction recently, and I’ve grown rapidly tired of Cates’ Marvel work. Even learning that it was going to be Image’s biggest debut in decades - Jesus fuck, how and why - mostly just made me wish it was Commanders in Crisis getting those kinds of numbers. But Sean Dillon/@deathchrist2000 and Ritesh Babu both got early looks at it and assured me that I, specifically, needed to see the last page, so in I dove. I’ll be posting my reaction to the last page below because I recorded it for their amusement, and below that I’ll talk about said last page. It may surprise you, however, that that wasn’t my main takeaway from the issue.

Let’s accentuate the positive first! This book is gorgeous. Geoff Shaw was terrific back with Thanos Wins, but this is an incredible stylistic level-up aided and abetted by Dee Cunniffe’s colors: it’s rote as hell to say “They mix the elevated and the mundane so well!”, but even beyond the obvious ben-day dots stuff there’s such a tangible sense that the comic book beings don’t belong here, that they’re of higher, misty, platonic stuff and we squishy non-paper-people inevitably crumble and break and bleed in their wake, communicating that big idea so much more powerfully than the actual loads of text on the subject. And if we’re talking good things, I’ll concede it’s possible that there could be subtleties that play out in more interesting ways as it goes on, and that not everything is meant to be taken at face value: a smart friend who actually did like it mentioned being interested in it as clumsy but potentially effective exploration of ‘what if the fun hobby you had inadvertently became contaminated and stigmatized by forces beyond your control?’ In a post-Comicsgate world where we recently ended up inches away from the Superman logo almost certainly becoming a fascist propaganda symbol ala the Punisher skull for at least a generation, that’s a defensible lens to view this book through.

For all Donny Cates’ legitimate talents however, I don’t think an expectation of subtlety is gonna work out with this one.

Okay first off getting into the rest of it the main characters’ name is Ellipsis because “Those three little dots...they can become anything”, so there’s that. More importantly, in the world of this story where comic fans face social oppression after superpeople materialize and fuck up Colorado, they face EVERY KIND OF OPPRESSION: there are clear parallels drawn in here to the violence and harassment faced by people persecuted for their religion, people seeking abortions, queer people, and people of color; this motherfucker even drops a “hates and fears” to let us know comic collecting basically makes you one of the goddamn X-Men. Which in theory could be a purely misjudged allegory rather than stemming from actual, obscenely inflated to the point of disgusting fears of ‘nerd oppression’, except that the book literally opens with a quote from Wertham. If Cates didn’t want to make the message “Hating comics? That’s bad. Like, racism bad”, he utterly, grotesquely failed by inextricably intermingling imagery of real-world bigotry with systemic, deluded fanboy paranoia, at least as of this first issue that’s supposed to meaningfully convey the premise. As a queer dude I think I’m somewhat in my lane to say it’s too blunt and broad and dopey to be particularly offensive, but the co-opting of oppression is what this is rooted in.

The idea of ‘comics good no matter what people think, ain’t it?’ extends to the last traditional local comic store standing in this world: much as superheroes are the primary cause of suffering in this world but the point of the story is still supposed to reveal the beauty in them, part of this is that the comics community isn’t perfect but it sure is great. Which is expressed here via Ellie’s boss Otto, a loveable asshole who yells at people coming in trying to sell the wrong kind of comics to fuck off, but at heart is we’re supposed to understand a good enough dude that the shop he runs is “the only home a lot of (the benighted nerds) have left” (because I guess in this alternate universe the physical stores are still the main hub through which comics fans talk with one another?).

So here’s a story of my very own! That’s me in 2013, it must’ve been some kind of special day because I’m wearing a shirt with a button. I’d at that point only frequented one of what would be my thus far four regular comic shops. The first was a great place, and while to say I had a sense of community there would be overstating it a bit, I was on really good terms with the owner and we regularly chatted when we had the time. When I left for college my store there wasn’t as well-stocked, and for some damn reason all variant covers were double-price, but I got along really well with the owner there too. The third I wasn’t so lucky; the guy regularly behind the desk was never overtly hostile, but clearly wanted to wring my neck every time I asked when a missing comic might get in or if I could update my pull list, and given I’m in the ‘ideal’ demographic for being a comic book store regular and was dropping a solid lump of money there every week, I wonder how others were treated there (the store nearly went under, was saved on the last day of operation by another store that wanted to incorporate it as part of its franchise, then shortly afterwards DID go under and is now I believe a beef jerky place). My current store is fine, I didn’t chat much with the folks behind the counter even before we all had medical incentive to get in and out of places fairly quickly but it almost always has what I’m looking for.

Just because those were my regular stores of course doesn’t mean those are the only ones I’ve ever gone to. About a year before that picture was taken - it’s the closest I could find - when I was 17 my store didn’t have something or another I was looking for, so I head across town to see if another place I had looked up had it. This other place didn’t have what I was looking for either, though I distinctly remember picking up a few issues of Hickman’s FF while I was there since I had foolishly fallen off, hence my remembering the year. I bought a couple issues, but hung around for a bit looking to see if I might grab something else out of a dollar box, setting my comics down. Without realizing it, I’d set my books down on top of another issue, and when I decided I wasn’t getting anything else, I just picked that up along with the rest of the pile and was about to walk out before the owner stopped me. He explained what I had done though assumed it had been deliberate, and because I was a good-hearted little geek I even recall thinking “Well, he’s gonna chew me out, but I guess I deserve it. I’ll try and take this to heart as a learning experience.”

Then he pulled up his shirt a little to show me the gun on his belt. He pointed at the security camera monitors at his desk, and explained to me that if I ever did something like that again, he would have it on tape, and he would pull that gun on me and hold me there while he called the cops.

As it turned out, the comic was free.

The whole thing was so sudden and bizarre and unexpected I didn’t actually freak out until the drive home. It wasn’t until weeks or maybe months later that I managed to tell my dad about the experience, because I *had* nearly stolen a (free) comic and my guilt was mixed in with my nerves and I guess I was somehow too close to register just how disproportionate his response was. It wasn’t until now, nearly a decade later and thinking about it for the first time in a long time as I write this, that I wondered if that might have gone differently - especially living in the midwest - if I hadn’t been a white, squeaky-voiced 17-year-old.

So, minor spoiler, when our cantankerous but well-meaning LCS owner yells to call the cops and grabs and yells at a small kid for pocketing a comic (and later displays fantasy racism towards said kid), I am not filled with nostalgic love for the brotherly safe space that is comic book stores, where this guy while not meant to be seen as perfect is still framed in part as a charming, witty representation of Why We Love These Places, And This Community, And This Genre, And This Medium. Cates is clearly drawing on real time at his local stores, but he equally clearly has a very different takeaway from those experiences than me. And I am, again, in a demographic - white, cis-male, abled, bi but more interested in women, disposable income, a lifelong collector - that the industry and a lot of the guys who sell it to us contort themselves around catering to, even if I had a single very negative experience and later an ongoing low-key uncomfortable one to help disabuse me of any notions of the purity of the dork community. In the world of Crossover as of #1, toxicity is intertwined, deliberately or not on the part of the creators, with what we love on the cosmic and small business scales alike, but at least in the latter case it’s the whole picture that’s beautiful, not any single kernel that needs to be worked on to be dug up.

So underneath is my video reaction to the last page of Crossover #1. Very minor spoilers because I mutter the last two words of the comic to myself, but under the video I discuss said final page and some other scattered thoughts. Whether you read that or not, my takeaway is this: I’m fascinated with wherever the hell this thing is going, I’m glad my dad liked it well enough to want to keep getting it because now I’ll get to see where it heads, but my first impression is that this is at heart meant as cheapass Oscar-bait for people who only read Batman. It’s big and high-concept but also small and intimate! It’s meta and about how great you, the reader are for your consumption, especially the consumption of this! It’s going to be in large part about a forbidden love between a couple divided across impermeable social lines (a couple where they’re a seemingly straight white man and woman, but one likes comics)! Maybe it’ll become Not That, and I’m sure it’ll do at least something interesting along the way because Cates has done good stuff before and there are some inherently interesting big ideas for him to play with here, but for the love of god if you’re thinking about getting this buy Commanders in Crisis too or instead, it’s another new book out of Image about superheroes dealing with the collapse of the multiverse but that one is really fucking good.

So the final page splash reveal is that when the comic book child discovered in here got out of Colorado, which has had an impenetrable energy shield erected around it by one of the heroes for years, she and others were ferried out of there...by Superman, as the narration declares that “This is a story...about hope.” They don’t say the word, but she sketches her savior, Ellie and Otto freak out and go “Is that---” when they see it, and on that last page we see that while a crude drawing it isn’t a rough analogue character, it’s a guy with a cape and trunks with an S on his chest. Surprisingly, I don’t have much to say: it’s just another blunt signifier that superheroes rule and are the best, paired with the most utterly devalued notion as of late of what makes Superman special in ‘hope’. I mean, I’m perversely excited to see whether this is building the entire series on a hook it can never deliver on, or if Cates actually has talked DC into an intercompany crossover; believable given they’ve done a bunch of those over the last several years, and why else would Mark Waid be supervising as ‘story editor’ on this? I guess it’ll shake out one way or another with #6 given Cates has said it “has one of the more epic and — I would argue historic — sequences in comic book history in it.” But I’m far less convinced this is gonna truly go into the meaty question of “What does Superman mean and what makes him unique in this world where superheroes in general are indisputably either failures or monstrous bastards given the scale of destruction their presence has brought about, and he himself failed to stop that?” than as some kind of holy grail of how great superheroes are despite how dang violent they’ve gotten these days for the crew to chase after, whatever additional twist will surely be placed upon it. At least he’s kinda helping an immigrant kid get over a wall, if that’s deliberate?

Random final thoughts:

* If I wrote the opening essay and turned it in in a college course, I would be expelled for plagiarizing Grant Morrison. This is not a joke.

* If mainstream American superhero comics ended January 2017 in this universe, its own last ‘crossover’ was Civil War II, which is hilarious.

* God, please tell me if it takes the dive after all that this isn’t somehow tied into whatever Waid’s Superman project is.

* I wouldn’t normally crap on issues with the finer details of worldbuilding, but A. This is rooted in a nominally ‘real’ world playing by recognizable rules, B. I’m ragging on this anyway so what’s the harm, and C. It’s really obvious. So: Why is one of the racists against the superheroes the guy who loves superheroes so much he’s the last holdout in the entire world still selling comic books about them? How does this modestly-sized shop exist long-term with apparently a significant regular customer base if there are no new comics or even reprints to restock with, ever? Who’s buying the serialized cop/cowboy comics that the U.S. government apparently created pretty much overnight (nobody, it’s just another Wertham dig)?

* The solicit for issue #3 proclaims “Don't miss this one, folks. If you do, it just might drive you...mad.”, so now I fear some kind of Ultra Comics riff.

* “Kids love chains” is the most metal-ass quote of all time and I hate that it’s being wasted as an arc title on this book.

#Donny Cates #Geoff Shaw #Dee Cunniffe #John J. Hill #Mark Waid #Me #Superman #Opinion

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koiotic · 4 years

Text

The Fire Nation becomes a democracy (maybe the real political restructuring was the friends we made along the way)

I have no impulse control so I wrote a thing based on my own post

Tagging @dreyri-infinity-aldranaris because they commented on my original post and it gave me two years of serotonin

———

“The war’s over.”

Katara blinked. “What?”

“War’s over,” Sokka repeated blankly.

“What?” Her voice cracked a little, but he just held up the piece of paper in his hand, looking a little dazed.

“People were yelling about it when I went to buy food. Apparently someone beat us to taking down Ozai.”

“Who?” Aang cut in before she could ask, disbelief clear on his face.

Sokka took a deep breath, then reread the paper in his hands like he needed to double check. “Zuko.”

Katara laughed, and she was aware it sounded a little unhinged. “No way.”

With a small shrug, he passed her the paper. ‘Firelord Ozai was removed from power by his son, the banished crown prince Zuko. The new Firelord ordered the removal of Fire Nation troops from all foreign territories and has started peace negotiations. There have been discussions of a large scale change to the Fire Nation’s governance.”

“This... This is... What?”

“This...” Aang hesitated, then glanced up almost hopefully. “This is good? I think?”

“So what do we do?” Katara asked.

“We could go talk to him?” Aang suggested, far too optimistically for her taste.

“Aang, he hunted us! This could be a trap!”

“But what if it isn’t?”

“Either way,” Sokka cut in, “I want to know what in La’s name is happening.”

•••

“We’re making it a democracy,” Zuko said for what felt like the millionth time. The advisors were still staring at him like he had two heads.

“But- but your majesty, we can’t ju- just do that!”

“Why?”

There was more spluttering, but no one seemed to have an answer. One of the advisors buried his head in his hands.

“Well, if no one has any more objections, that’s sorted then.”

•••

Sokka was honestly still expecting this to be a huge joke and/or trap, but no one started shooting fire when they landed in one of the gardens. The gardens of the Fire Nation royal palace. In the Fire Nation. Which was inhabited by firebenders.

But no fire yet, so that was at least a plus.

There was a very high-pitched “hi!” and then a blur of pink was cartwheeling towards them, followed much more slowly by a girl in black, who seemed far less enthused to see them.

“You must be the avatar, the waterbender and the asshole with a boomerang,” the girl in black said, a tiny trace of a smirk on her lips.

“The asshole with a boomerang?” Sokka asked, half offended half amused.

“Nice to meet you!” The pink blur announced, stopping in front of Appa. She was a girl, looking around the same age as the other, but radiating excitement and enthusiasm like her life depended on it. “I’m Ty Lee, and this is Mai!”

She slung an arm around Mai’s shoulder ignoring the other’s glower.

“Hi,” Katara said, a little faintly. “Uh, Katara, Sokka and Aang. We came to talk to Zuko. Sorry, who are you?”

“The royal guards,” Mai deadpanned.

“Cool,” Aang said after a beat. “Um, is Zuko here?”

Ty Lee shook her head, braid swinging around wildly. “He’s in a meeting right now, but you could come have tea with us while you wait!”

“What she means,” Mai drawled, “is that she wants you to get off the bison so she can pet it.”

———

As it turned out, there didn’t appear to be a trap. Ty Lee seemed way too enamoured with Appa to attack them, and Mai didn’t seem inclined to do much at all. The two girls led them to a table in an alcove and even sipped their tea own tea first; Sokka was fairly sure that meant it wasn’t poisoned. If it was, that was some serious dedication to killing them.

“Would you like some coffee?” Ty Lee asked.

“What’s coffee?”

“No idea, but Zuko’s been drinking it and he hasn’t slept in two days. It’s pretty good!”

“No thanks,” Sokka said quickly, before Aang could respond. He was hyperactive enough on good old fashioned sugar in his tea.

“So...” Katara said after an awkward pause. “Zuko’s the Fire Lord now.”

“Yep!” Ty Lee said brightly.

“Okay. Right. Cool. But... how? And why?” Sokka possibly sounded a little frenzied, but that wasn’t the issue right now.

“I believe,” Mai said evenly, “his exact words were ‘fuck it, I’m ending the war’.”

Aang blinked. “So he... just did that?”

“I thought you of all people would know that Zuko never gives up.” Mai shrugged. “When we were kids, I asked him for a knife and he spent three weeks making one from scratch.”

Ty Lee giggled. “We still haven’t told him she just wanted him to pass her a knife at dinner.”

Sokka was having a hard time reconciling the image of Angry Jerk Zuko with the absolute dork being described to him.

“You grew up with him?” He asked, mostly to have something else to think about. And also for the possibility of blackmail worthy information.

“We were best friends!” Ty Lee chirped.

“-with his sister,” Mai finished dryly. “Actually, you’re probably lucky she’s out at the moment.”

“Is she worse than him?” Katara asked, then seemed to remember she probably shouldn’t be insulting the new Fire Lord in the Fire Palace of the Fire Nation. Did Sokka mention the fire?

Ty Lee laughed again. “Azula’s great, as long as you don’t do, say or be anything that annoys her. Like talking to her too much. Or breathing too loud. Or standing too close to her. Or not telling her that she’s the best, smartest, most amazing person ever enough.”

“She’s a bitch,” Mai said blankly. “I like her so much.”

Was everyone in the Fire Nation insane? Was Zuko actually the most normal Fire Nation person they knew?

“She sounds nice,” Aang said, a little awkwardly.

“She is!” Ty Lee agreed. “She only threatened to kill me once today! That’s a record!”

He caught Katara’s eye across the table, and tried to silently communicate ‘what the actual fuck is happening?’. She sent back a helpless shrug.

Sokka had never been happier to see Zuko.

The new Fire Lord appeared a moment later, and Sokka almost didn’t recognise him. Thank the spririts, the ponytail was gone. Well, not really, but there was more hair around it. Looking at it no longer made Sokka want to pin him down and fix that spirits forsaken hairstyle. He was wearing what was probably Fire Nation royal clothing, but it looked like it had been at least a two days since he last slept.

“It’s a democracy now,” he said, and then seemed to process the three new people in front of him. “Oh, fuck.”

Aang gave a little wave.

“Uh, I’m really sorry? For hunting you and all that?” Zuko looked like he was expecting someone to kill him, and wasn’t strongly opposed to the idea.

“What do you mean it’s a democracy?” Sokka cut in, as the last few seconds started being processed in his brain.

“Oh,” Zuko blinked. “The Fire Nation. I made it a democracy.”

“Wait, you can do that?” Katara asked.

Zuko gave a small shrug. “Well there’s nothing to say I can’t.”

Sokka considered himself to be very eloquent. He was a smart guy, a hobbyist in poetry, and generally great with words. “Dude, what the fuck?”

“Do you have a problem with democracy?” For a second, Angry Jerk Zuko was back.

“No!” Sokka almost yelled. “Democracy is great, but what the fuck is happening?”

“I... made the Fire Nation a democracy?”

“No. We gathered that much. How in La’s name are you even the Fire Lord?”

“I’m not the Fire Lord,” Zuko said slowly. “I’m the head of a democratic government.”

Sokka briefly considered screaming, then shelved that thought for a later date.

“How did you become leader of a democratic government?”

“Oh, I fought my dad.”

His head was starting to hurt. He had a feeling that wouldn’t be going away any time soon.

“Why did you just switch sides? You were yelling at us about honour like, last week.”

“Well I kind of realised that hunting the avatar was kind of stupid, and that I may have been misinterpreting the message my dad was trying to send.”

“Which was?”

“Well, he said ‘you’re banished until you find the avatar’ but apparently that means ‘I’m hoping you die on this suicide mission and I never see you again so I can make your sister crown princess’.”

And that... that was a lot to process. There was a beat of silence, then Aang chimed in. “Are you currently in the market for a friend?”

“A what?”

If Sokka had known all it took was a hug from a tiny airbender to render Zuko completely nonfunctional, the past few months could have been a lot easier. Aang practically vaulted over the table and caught Zuko in a hug, and the firebender looked rapidly between him and the others with a look of abject confusion.

“Great,” Mai sighed, “you broke him.”

Ty Lee perked up almost immediately. “Are we allowed to hug Zuko now?”

“No!” Zuko managed to get out, a little strangled.

“I’m your dad now,” Aang declared, clinging on staunchly even when Zuko tried to shake him off.

“No one is my dad!”

“Then I’ll be your grandad!”

“My grandfather also tried to kill me!”

“I’ll be your great grandfather!”

“That was Sozin!”

“Your other great grandfather-“

“Please let go of me.”

“Respect your elders, young man!”

“You’re, like, ten!”

Sokka glanced over to Katara again, but to his horror, he recognised the look on her face. “Katara, no-“

“Katara, yes-“

“Please, don’t-“

“We’re-“

“No, we’re not!”

“We’re keeping him, Sokka.”

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dominobread · 4 years

Text

|| Lost chance ||

Pairing: Sorta UnrequitedJJ x fem!reader and sorta Pope x fem reader

Warnings: like one cuss word, sad feels, mention of abuse, maybe angst if you squint, and crappy writing

Note: I could not figure out how to do this story, I kept switching perspectives to see what would work. It's kinda weird, I tried to make this from JJ's perspective as much as possible

{ Masterlist }

______________________________________________________________

JJ Maybank and y/f/n y/l/n had known each other since third grade. When the pair met, a few boys were picking on her and JJ and John B made sure that those boys went home with bruises that day and ever since a friendship was created. Later down the road came Pope Heyward, y/n's best friend and Kiara Carrara and they all soon became inseparable.

Y/n cared for everyone, but she had a different feeling towards a certain pouge, the girl had feelings for JJ Maybank ever since she could remember. They made quite the pair, everyone thought they should be together, with the amount of times they were seen together goofing around, being paired together to play games like chicken (or anything for that matter) sharing a bed at John B's, late night talks while sharing a blunt and it was impossible to not notice the lingering looks she gave him. It was impossible for anyone to not see that Y/f/n Y/l/n was in love with JJ Maybank.

The boy knew, when she thought he didn't see her staring, the slight smile that appeared when he was around, how she blushed when he touched her, but the problem was he didn't feel the same. No. He had sights for another Pouge girl. And y/n knew. She loved Kiara like a sister, but the girl could never stop the feeling of jealousy rise every time JJ threw Kiara into the marsh laughing, how he helped her out of John B's van and onto the HMS Pouge when they stopped anywhere or picked her up, how while she stared at him, wanting him to feel the same way about her, he was whipped for another girl.

Y/n didn't let it get to her though, tried to at least. When she felt vulnerable on the subject she went to Pope, to talk, to cry, to joke, he helped her when the pain was too much. He was her anchor when things became too much. He was her best friend next to JJ, cause that's all they would ever be.

No matter how much she comforted JJ, cleaned him up after he got beat by his dad, ran errands with him, did anything with him, he would still choose Kiara. She would just need to accept it. Easier said than done.

_____________________________________________

It was like any other day, go out on the Pouge, pick everyone up and do whatever. John B and JJ went to Pope's dock first and then y/n's.

When they arrived she outside came with a huge smile plastered on her face. "Hello there." She greeted waiting for the response she wanted. "General Kenobi" Pope answered with butterflies in his stomach. JJ helped you onto the boat, muttering a "He forgot to cough when he said it" to her, causing her to laugh. JJ wouldn't admit it, but he enjoyed the Star Wars movies that she showed him. They were "nerd movies" according to him, movies that Pope would watch before he ever would, but they were interesting. She sat down next to JJ after giving each John B and a blushing Pope hugs.

When they got to Kie's dock she was already waiting on the edge. "Hello boys" She said. JJ held out his hand for her answering with "Milady" in a poor English accent. Y/n tried to not think anything of it, JJ was always goofy like that, but it was hard not to catch his hand lingering on Kiara's when she got on. It was hard for JJ to ignore the frown that formed on her face.

It's not that JJ didn't like Y/n, he loved her, just not in the way she hoped. He knew she loved him, he knew she hated that he liked Kie and he hated how he couldn't give her what she wanted. He hated how he couldn't love her like she wanted him to, but he just didn't see her that way. He knew she deserved someone to treat her right, she was smart, beautiful, caring. Spoke the truth about a situation when no one else would. Those few things and so much more and yet he couldn't love her. Not like another pouge did.

The day played out as usual, with the friends driving around the marsh drinking and having a good time. They played a few rounds of chicken, JJ and y/n being paired together and winning every time. JB and Kiara wanted to see who could chug a cup of beer faster (Kiara) and the boys bickered about meaningless stuff that the girls loved. On the way back to the Chateau y/n fell asleep with her head on JJ's shoulder, no one thought anything of it, they were best friends, but Pope couldn't help that tinge of jealousy that he could feel in his stomach.

The pouges all hung out at JB's the rest of the day, and even when night came. "You cheated!" Y/n screeched. "I did nothing if the sort" JJ retorted. "Yes you did you little cheater! There is no way you won fairly!" The others were trying to hold in their laughter from their childish behavior. "How could I cheat? It's War." He exclaimed. That's when the idea popped into her head. "Oh I don't know..." She finished with tackling him.

The two wrestle on the floor of the living room for a bit with the others placing a few bets until the she finally found what she was looking for. She yanks the few cards from JJ's sleeve showing it in view for everyone to see. "I told you he cheated" She says with a triumphant smirk on her lips. "Yeah yeah." JJ says while getting up, chuckling a bit.

"I'm gonna get some more beer and popcorn, anyone want some?" He asks. "I'll come with." JB answers, leaving Pope, Kiara, and y/n to find a movie to watch.

The two walk to the kitchen and just when JJ is about to open the fridge John B asks, "So when are you gonna ask y/n out?" JJ turns around with confusion laced into his face. "Dude, I don't like her like that."

"JJ, don't lie, we all see it." He says while opening a can of beer.

"I don't though, don't get me wrong, y/n is great, but I like Kiara, not her." John B can see that his friend isn't lying and his face drops. "Dude, you do know that she likes you, right? Maybe even loves you"

Love

That's the one word JJ didn't want to hear.

With one long sigh he says, "Yeah, I do, I just... don't like her like that." He says feeling a little guilty. "Well than you need to stop leading her on, cause it would really suck if she confessed her feelings and you rejected her." John B Pat's his shoulder and pushes off the counter to exit the kitchen, but before leaving he turns around with some pity in his eyes. "You're lucky, man. You have an amazing girl who wants to be with you, you may never get a chance to be with her again."

But that's the thing, he knew he was lucky, he just didn't want to be with her.

When JJ came out of the kitchen he saw y/n and Pope on the floor arguing about what movie to watch and Kie and JB watching. The two finally came to the conclusion of Star Wars episode lll : Revenge of the Sith which was nothing new, they always watched some Star wars movie together. The third one the most due to the fact they both loved prequel memes and would take a swig of beer whenever they heard a meme was said, usually leaving the two a bit tipsy by the end of the movie. Everyone each found a spot. John B in the chair, Kie on the floor, Pope on the end of the couch and JJ and y/n squished together on the other side of the couch.

JJ tried to watch the movie but he couldn't stop thinking about the girl sitting next to him. Would she try to confess her feelings? How would he let her down? Would they still be friends? Finally the thoughts became too much.

"Hey, y/n?" The girl looked up at him, eyes shinning with confusion and annoyance from interrupting the movie. "Yeah?" She said with a mouthful of popcorn. "You wanna go outside?"

"Sure." She said popping up, brushing popcorn off of her. The two didn't notice a pair of eyes watching them walk out the door with disappointment and confusion.

When the pair sits on the edge of the dock, it's just silence for a few minutes. The girl takes the time to admire the boy next to her. His soft blond hair was tousled pointing every which way, his ocean blue eyes looking towards the water, the light of the moon making them pop compared to his tan skin. They sat there for a bit, it was a perfect night, not too hot, not too cold, the moon provided light but not so much light that you couldn't see the stars, and the water was so still it was as if you could walk on it. It was perfect.

The girl was trying to build up the courage to finally tell him, her best friend, that she was in love with him. That she wanted to kiss him whenever she wanted, that she wanted him to hold her when they were together, that she wanted to say 'I love you'. It seemed like the right time. So why can't I just say it? Cause he likes Kiara. Maybe you're wrong?

"JJ-" She starts.

She could see the confusion in his face, the rise and fall of his chest from the deep breath he takes. "I like you, like more than a friend." The statement took him aback.

She took a deep breath "I've liked you for a while now and I'm sick of pretending that I just want to be your friend. I'm sick of seeing you with other girls and having to listen to you talk about them, JJ. And then I have to hear you talk about Kie and I hate it because I love you and maybe you don't feel that way, but I had to tell you." JJ just stared at her with disbelief and pity. Looking down at her shaking hands she took a a deep breath waiting for what he'd say. A few minutes of silence past before he spoke up.

"Y/n, you know it's never gonna happen, right?" This causes the girl to look at JJ in disbelief and heartbreak. "It's just... I don't know, i- I don't love you like that, I'm into someone else and..." He trails off when he sees tears fill the eyes of his best friend.

"And what?" She asks in a whisper, not trusting her voice with fear of it cracking and making a bigger fool out of herself. "I don't want you to think something is going on between us, I want you to find someone who can return you your feelings."

It felt like someone took her heart and stabbed it with a bunch of needles. She felt the hot tears stream down her face, dripping onto her clothes, making everything around her blurry. The boy just sat there as his best friend silently cried because of him. After what felt like hours y/n found the courage to clear her throat. "Listen, you sitting here is making things awkward so how about you head inside?" She suggests. "What about you?"

"I'll head back in, just need a minute." That was a good enough answer for JJ, he tried offering the broken girl a small smile, but her eyes were still facing towards the water. Walking back he stopped taking another look at her. Her back was to him, but he saw her run both her hands through her hair something he noticed when she tried to calm herself, he could see her shaking trying not to make a sound as she cried and trying to muster deep breaths. It filled him with guilt. He walked back into the Chateau, taking a seat next to Kie. "Where's y/n?" Pope asks. "On the dock." He answers without taking his eyes off the screen.

"Is she alright?"

"She just needs to be by herself for a bit."

And she did. She sat there just staring into nothing. Wondering why she had to get her heart broken. I shouldn't have said anything. She played the scene over and over again in her head. He didn't love her. How could she be so stupid? Her stupid crush was so noticable that it ruined her friendship with JJ.

She couldn't go back in there and look at him, couldn't face him after what just happened. And even without JJ, the pouges would ask why her eyes were red and she would just start crying and embarrass herself all over again. No. She couldn't go back in there. So y/n got up and walked towards her house, tears pouring down her face.

_____________________________________________

It had been 30 minutes and Pope was getting anxious, and decided to go outside and see if y/n was still there.

"Pope, where you going?" John b asked as he got up. "Check on y/n." And he walked out the door. When he got to the dock and didn't see her there, a slight panic arose from the boy, instantly he checked if there was any sign of her falling in and possibly drowning, while looking he started dialing the girl's number. After a few seconds of waiting she finally picked up.

"Hey, Pope, what's up?" She answered trying to sound normal, but Pope could tell something was wrong. "Where are you? Are you okay?" He questioned.

"I'm fine, I just wasn't feeling well." She answers trying to hold back a sob. She wasn't okay, it felt like her soul wasn't entirely in her body and any ounce of happiness dried up. "You don't sound okay." He mumbled into the phone. "Pope, I'm fine I-" She took a shaky breath trying not to cry. "I wasn't feeling well." Voice cracking on the last part. "I'm coming over." The boy declared, hanging up before she could protest.

The girl sat on her bed just staring into nothing. Did that really happen? Did the boy I've been in love with since the day we met just say he would never be with me? Yeah she knew he had a thing for Kiara, but she still had the slightest amount of hope that he had some feelings for her. Would this ruin the two's friendship? No. She wouldn't let that happen. A knock on the door broke the heartbroken girl from her thoughts, she knew it was Pope, the two had a special knock that they made up as kids. She muttered a "Come in" not looking at the door. She heard him enter and shut the door, not looking at him until the bed dipped down a bit. The two held eye contact for what felt like forever before he finally asked "Did JJ s-" As soon as his name was said y/n broke down crying -just hearing his name hurt more than being stabbed in the chest- and Pope engulfed his best friend in a hug.

The two sat there, Pope holding her as if she would disappear if he let go for what felt like hours but was only meer minutes. "What happened?" He asked after a while. She told him, everything she and JJ said, every emotion that consumed her in that moment. It took longer cause she would have to compose yourself and try to finish the story and when she was finished Pope was filled with so much anger. He was angry that JJ broke her heart, that he was too blind to see how lucky he was, how she was hurt, but he didn't show it. Instead, he just held her until she fell asleep. He set y/n under the covers, kissed her forehead and left.

_____________________________________________

Y/n didn't talk to any of the pouges for 5 days, (except for Pope) It's not that she was angry with them -not even JJ- she just needed to heal and JJ understood that. John B and Kiara were confused why she wasn't answering their calls or texts, JJ wasn't confused, he felt guilty. He didn't want their friendship to end, he still cared about her. But he was confused to why Pope was ignoring him and giving dirty looks. Pope would come over every day to try to get her out of bed and failing to. He would say how John b and Kiara missed her, but she still couldn't face JJ.

Eventually she couldn't stand it anymore and found herself on the porch of the Chateau, helping herself to entering the house. When she opened the door Kie and JB tackled her with bear hugs asking if she were okay and why she went dark for days, answered the questions to the best of her abilities without saying what happened exactly.

The sight of her surprised JJ. Dark circles were under her eyes, she was paler, lips fuller than usual, and she seemed a bit thinner. She looked at JJ, catching him staring, and offered a small smile that he mirrored.

JJ scooted over to make room for y/n on the couch, it was second nature since she always sat next to him, but instead of taking her usual spot next to him, she sat next to Pope on the floor which didn't go unnoticed by the others, JJ especially. After a while of joking around and lighting up the mood after days of sulking from y/n (and JJ a bit) everyone decided to go out on the Pouge and once again she took a seat next to Pope instead of JJ causing something in the boy to stir. No. You're just in an awkward situation.

Eventually they all found a spot and jumped in the water, goofing around. Water fights and rounds of chicken (you also finding a new partner, guess who)

Later while everyone was seeing who could do a handstand the longest JJ realized that y/n wasn't in the water, soon finding that she was sitting on the edge of the Pouge watching everyone. He swam over, climbing over the edge and taking a seat next to his best friend, the girl who he rejected.

"Hey."

"Hi."

"How goes it?"

"Peachy."

He took a deep breath "It's not gonna be like this forever... is it?" He asked, causing her to look at him and seeing his face made her soften a bit. "Oh, J, it's obviously gonna be weird right now, I'm still not over it completely, I know you feel weird from the situation. Just give it time, things will go back to normal eventually." There it was. One of the many qualities he loved about her. Being able to state the obvious in a loving manner, it always worked at reassuring him. "Okay." He whispered. "I know where we can start." He said with a smirk, suddenly he was up with her in his arms jumping off the boat the two screaming.

_____________________________________________

Y/n was right, slowly things went back to normal, well as normal they could get. She still sat next to Pope everywhere the group went, but she and JJ were back to goofing around, not as much, but they still had late night talks, surfing together, but y/n was busier. She now helped Pope deliver groceries, studied together, went to the beach and JJ would be lying if he said it didn't bother him.

_____________________________________________

He noticed his feelings when the jealously started. When his mind would race when Pope made her laugh, when the two drove home together, and when he heard someone say that they would be cute together and he almost lost his shit, he realized he no longer liked Kiara, but had developed feelings for y/n. And they only grew from there.

He started to notice how her beautiful y/e/c eyes lit up when she was excited and how they shone in the fire light. He started to notice how the sun made her y/h/l y/h/c hair shine and how she hated how the salt water made it feel. He noticed how she made faces when she was frustrated and confused, how she had an amazing laugh even if she said it was ugly, how she would jump around and act like she was talking to someone else while telling a story for emphasis, how she cared for everyone and everything. He noticed that he was now totally in love with her.

But he saw her love grow for someone else. And he saw that same boy was in love with her too.

_____________________________________________

It killed JJ to see her be slowly pulled away from him and fall in love with the Heyward boy. It was possible he had a chance, but that was thrown out the window when he saw her and Pope kiss.

Y/n and Pope were leaving but she had forgotten her phone and when he stepped out onto the porch he was greeted by the sight of the two sharing a kiss by the car. He didn't give her the phone and she had to go inside to get it, not noticing JJ staring at her with hurt in his eyes.

He had thought maybe it was them just kissing for the heck of it at first. They wouldn't actually date. Right? But later that week she and Pope had confessed to the pouges about what was going on between the two of them. It was like JJ got punched in the gut. Kie squealed with delight and gave them a big hug saying how she shipped them from the beginning, John b congratulated the two. All heads turned to JJ. What could he say? I love you now? "Uhh... That's great guys, you deserve each other." He didn't mean for it to sound so bitter, but he couldn't help it. She gave him a questioning look, but didn't say anything.

The rest of the day JJ had to deal with the two love birds actually acting like a couple. With the constant touching and kissing, making Kie "aww" and John b fake gag. JJ was gonna gag for real.

That night he drank more than he's had at any kegger. He lost track of how many beer bottles he emptied and a bottle of vodka and not to mention smoking three blunts. He obviously threw up more than he ever had and spent the night in the bathroom, disheveled, drunk, in pain mentally and physically, and face tearstained.

At first JJ thought that Pope wasn't the right guy and Y/n was just doing this to make JJ mad, but he soon came to realize he was wrong. He saw how her smile was brighter when Pope was around, how he loosened up when she was with him, how they both held each other with so much love. And when he thought that the two already had shown how much they loved each other already, Pope, the guy who never got into fights, got into a fight just to protect his girlfriend when some touron got way too touchy at a kegger. She walked him home and patched him up and later that night JJ found her and Pope sleeping on the pullout bed at the Chateau, her head on his rising and falling chest. His mind went back to the night before.

JJ was outside smoking a blunt on the dock. Y/n sat next to him not saying a word, just taking in the moment, enjoying how the water looked at night. "Been a while since we've done this." He said without taking his eyes away from ahead of him. It was true, she had been spending a lot of time with Pope and barely any with JJ alone like she used to. "Yeah, I'm sorry." She said fumbling with her fingers. "You don't need to be, I get it. How's it going by the way?"

"Good, it's the happiest I've been in a while." He tried to ignore the pain in his chest. She let out a breathy laugh. "Remember the last time we sat over here?"

"Don't remind me of that." He says chuckling, making you laugh a bit more. "I think I'm the one who should be saying that."

"Probably"

There was a long pause.

"I actually came over to talk to you about that actually." He looked over now, curiosity written all over his face. "I wanted to thank you" The girl started. "For what?" 'I've done nothing' he thought. "For getting me to move on. As much as I hated what happened, I think it's good you rejected me, y'know? If it weren't for you I would still be crushing on my best friend who I have no chance with." Hearing those words crushed him more than she knew. "I'm just glad nothing changed between us." He said. 'but something did change' "I'm sorry I haven't been spending as much time with you, don't worry I'm gonna stop blowing you off. You are my best friend after all" Friend. The word stung. The girl engulfed him in a hug, something she hasn't done since that night. He relishes in the moment, taking in everything cause he knows he'll never get anything more than this. She pulls away, gives him a quick kiss on the cheek and gets up and walks away. Leaving a blushing JJ with tears in his eyes.

He takes one last look at the girl's sleeping figure. He now knows that the two were meant for each other. Pope was Y/n's boyfriend, her love and JJ was her best friend, no more, no less. And it killed him, but it shouldn't have. This is what he wanted right?

He said that they would never be together. He said that she should move on. He said that he didn't love her that way. He had no one to blame but himself. He lost his chance and couldn't get her back. So he sat back and watched the person he loved most love someone else.

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// Yeah I know, crappy ending but I'm a sucker for sad fics and also I put this under JJ Maybank cause it focuses on him and the reader more so than Pope and the reader\\

#jj x you #jj maybank obx #jj maybank x reader #obx jj #jj maybank #jj maybank x reader angst #jj obx #jj x reader

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curiousorigins · 3 years

Text

Some days I can't help but think how utterly fantastic and good natured the many people I've met in my life.

The boundless potential forces for good that have been fettered by circumstances of birth.

And boy does that frustrate me. I have friends who wanted to be doctors. Who studied like crazy, got EMT/CNA certifications while still on high school.

They were set to do important things and help people. But location drives so much of opportunities, wealth the second. Who you know determines so much of what's possible and when every one you know can't afford medical care and are lucky to keep a place to sleep... you don't know the right people to get there.

We're talking did everything right in high school, got into every college applied, national honors society, valedictorian or near enough people. The kind that did get full rides or near them.

I can't think of a single one who finished college. And not because they pulled a Steve Jobs, or Facebook dude garbage. Because their parent's got cancer. They lost the place they lived. Their sibling went to jail and someone had to take care of their kids. They got into a car accident and the bills were too much.

Crazy smart, crazy hard-working, and crazy good people. Who are pretty much working at McDonald's. And honestly, if they could afford life while working there and it made them happy... I'd be happy for them.

But it isn't a choice that they made, not really. It was do this, or don't eat. It's keeping their head above water.

I look at all these blue collar and white collar workers who are valued slightly more than these days wonderful people... And they're not better than them.

Hell, I went to college and ended up having to drop out same as them. Circumstances out of my control. They were smarter than a lot of the professors too. More clever than important fancy professionals. I knew lawyers and judges and have known doctors.

All that. Did everything right. Worked hard. Life interrupted. And yeah, it's fairly early on. They could still change course. But at this point they'd finish their medical degree at 40 at best.

I just can't help but think to myself, how different and better the world would be, if we truly empowered and supported people who want to help people.

Imagine if looking for a way to live, a trade or whatever in life wasn't limited by location where you grew up or money or knowing somebody. Access to ridiculous internet or technology... if jobs paid enough. For health care, dental care when needed, good to eat and a place to sleep period.

Imagine how much happier the entire world would be. Imagine healthcare if doctors weren't all upper middle class people pushed into the career by pushy families. Imagine if nurses had decent length of shifts and respect.

Sometimes the reality of it. All the beautiful brains that will fade into obscurity while those with power shame them openly. It just hits me with the force of an avalanche and anger burns my entire being... rock made liquid. Holy fire.

And it's just like, what's even the point? When the world breaks down such beautiful people who could have saved it.

#workers rights #capitalism is killing us #motivation #depressing state of affairs #land of inopportunity #beautiful friends #systemic inequality #income inequality #ranty ranty mcrant #I speak #I am OP

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belladxne · 4 years

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i will see you where the shadow ends | chapter 7

[see notes for ao3 and ff links]

part of the put your faith in the light that you cannot see series AU: Breath of the Wild pairing: KiriBaku word count: 6,410

chapter 7: there's a shadow where I used to shine, that tries to hide behind the smoke

Eijiro wishes he could say he leaves soon after that. He knows how long it takes to complete shrines, generally, and he can’t really afford to linger just because he’s comforted by the presence of other people. He knows he has to get a move on.

But, yeah, that’s not what happens.

It takes a few minutes to stop chatting with Hirooki, and then, of course, upwards of an hour to finish the trial hidden in Ha Dahamar Shrine. And after that, he knows he should set off, but he figures the smart thing is to catch a wild horse and register it at the stable, first. After all, travel will be a lot faster with a horse, so this will save him time in the long run.

The problem he wasn’t foreseeing is that he doesn’t know how to catch a wild horse, and it turns out a few tips from the guy who runs the stable did not make him an expert. The horses are all skittish—way more skittish than he accounted for. That probably was true for wild horses at the best of times—but it’s probably way worse, now, with the countryside they roam being littered with way more monsters and dangers than it ever used to be.

Or maybe he’s just making excuses, because it takes him over an hour to catch a single horse. They stick together in small groups, presumably for safety, and several times he gets close to one, only for another to spook and send them all running. Most of the time, he doesn’t even get that close, though. Twice he manages to get on a horse, only for the animal to then buck him right back off.

It also doesn’t help that he lets himself get distracted and sidetracked often, catching just about any bug or small creature he spots, now that he knows they’re useful. Several times he’ll forget all about the horses he’s trying to sneak up on, just to grab a lizard or cricket that darts across his path. It’s not long before one of the compartments of his bag ends up loaded with dragonflies and frogs and tons of other potential elixir ingredients.

He’s battered and disheveled from being bucked off of horses’ backs by the time he finally pinpoints one, just far enough from the rest of its small herd to be easy to approach. And she actually seems to be strong, healthy, and built for speed—he’s not sure how he knows, but he must have spent enough time around horses before, that he can tell from watching for a minute or so if a horse would be reliable for travel or battle. This one has a deep, reddish-brown coat and a white mane, and he can tell already that she’s probably one of the most reliable wild horses he’s laid eyes on today.

This one, finally, he manages to vault himself onto the back of and hold on tight, clinging and desperately trying to soothe the horse until she finally calms enough to accept his presence.

It’s somewhere around half past four in the afternoon when he finally rides up to the stable, exhausted and harried but triumphant as he announces his horse’s name as Riot and waits for them to outfit her with a saddle and reins once they’ve registered her.

He’d like a few more minutes to take a breather after the effort that went into the near two hours he spent chasing horses and bugs alike, but he’s wasted enough time. He stays still long enough to feed Riot a couple of apples from his bag in attempt to win her over, and then he’s swinging up into the saddle and urging her north, down the road to Kakariko Village.

Within five minutes of riding, Eijiro can tell he’s made a good choice—or, got lucky with which horse he was able to get alone, more like. Either way, he picks up quickly on the fact that Riot has remarkable endurance, and that she’s faster than most of the horses he’d seen so far, too. If he can get her to warm all the way up to him, the extra time spent falling on his ass trying to catch a horse might turn out to have been a more than worthwhile investment.

The first leg of the ride goes fantastic—better than fantastic. Riot travels so much faster than Eijiro could, of course, and the road to Kakariko is completely clear of monsters. And from Riot’s saddle, Eijiro can’t really give into the temptation to snatch up any mushroom or herb he sees growing along the side of the road. Not as easily, at least.

He closes half the distance left to Kakariko in what feels like no time, flying past the scenery at a gratifying pace with hardly any stops. The sun has dipped below the horizon, though the sky still clings to as much of the daylight as it can, before something finally grinds his progress to a halt.

There’s… well, he doesn’t know what to call it, up ahead. It looks like a round little tree on legs. It looks like a huge, fat Korok. The creature—he’s guessing it must be a Korok, albeit a particularly massive one, bigger than fifteen or twenty normal Koroks all put together—has the same light wooden skin, and a massive leaf around its nose that almost resembles a beard as well as some impressive eyebrows that look like carved wood protruding from its face. He also carries a satchel that, Eijiro realizes as he gets closer, is of the same material and make as the enchanted bag that had once been Izuku’s.

Eijiro remembers what the first Korok had said—that the seeds were for Hestu, who Eijiro wouldn’t be able to miss. You’ll know him when you see him, were the spirit’s exact words. This… was a pretty distinctive Korok. Eijiro pulls the reins to get Riot to stop before the Korok, who stands just to the side of the road, looking… well, he thinks he looks sad, maybe?

It’s hard to read the expressions and body language of the forest spirits, since their faces are just leaves that don’t really shift much from expression to expression, but he does look a little slumped over and unsure, Eijiro thinks, as he slides out of Riot’s saddle to talk to the large spirit. He doesn’t even get a word out before the Korok is straightening up in surprise.

“Shalaka?!” the thing says, incomprehensibly. Eijiro blinks, but before he can form a response, the Korok is continuing in his high-pitched voice, “You! You can see me?!”

“Uh… well, yeah,” Eijiro responds, scratching at the back of his neck. When he opens his mouth to ask if this guy is, in fact, Hestu, the Korok throws his stubby wooden arms up in delight and interrupts Eijiro with a bizarre little song made up of similarly incomprehensible syllables.

“It’s been a hundred years since anyone has been able to see me!” the Korok announces, upon completion of his odd little song. “I’m Hestu, and I need your help!”

Well—that solves that mystery. Eijiro doesn’t even blink at the way the Korok just assumes, immediately, that he’s able and willing to help. Mostly because he is both of those things.

“Those monsters over there stole my beloved maracas!” Hestu says, slumping over sadly with a gesture much farther up the road, apparently not particularly invested in giving Eijiro time to get a word in. There are no monsters in sight where he’d gestured, but Eijiro’s sure he’ll run into them when he gets that far. “I think they’re still there on the other side of those rocks up the hill.”

Eijiro nods firmly, still trying to make out where ‘those rocks’ are, if not where the monsters themselves are, when Hestu says something that instantly catches Eijiro’s interest.

“I can’t use my powers without them. Shoko...” Powers? He’s got powers? Maraca powers? Eijiro wants to see what that looks like. “So please! Please get my maracas back from them.”

“Of course,” Eijiro says, because it’s not like he hasn’t already fought monsters nearly every step of this trip. And with how much time he saved riding Riot instead of walking, he can afford the delay and still make it to Kakariko at a reasonable time. Not that he would have been able to leave this dude hanging without feeling unbearably guilty and turning back to help, anyways.

“Sha-shaka!” Hestu sing-songs, probably as thanks? Eijiro has just resigned himself to never having any idea what’s happening when he’s talking to Koroks.

Swinging himself back up into Riot’s saddle, Eijiro coaxes her forward at a trot. For the most part, the right of the path is open to the air, the ground falling away at a steep incline, but after about five minutes of riding, the path starts to close up ahead.

He knew it would eventually—he remembers, somehow, that Kakariko is nestled in the mountains, the path a fairly level road that had been worn through the steep hills and mountains of the area. Even if he doesn’t ever remember coming to Kakariko before, he’s got enough knowledge of the landscape that he thinks he probably must have. So it’s not a surprise when the road curves into the hills, natural walls forming on either side of the path.

And there—just as the hill forms its steep cliff as a wall on the right side of the path, there’s an opening. It seems open on the other side, so it’s not quite a cave, though it’s got a roof in the form of a boulder that must have lodged itself at the top of the opening at some point. But Eijiro guesses the rocky slopes are what Hestu meant when he said the other side of those rocks.

Climbing off of Riot, Eijiro moves around in front of the mare, running a hand soothingly down her face and receiving a gentle headbutt to the chest in response.

“Stay here a few moments, okay?” he requests, though he knows she’s not likely to understand him. Still, he pulls an apple out of his bag as a bribe and lets her munch on it, hoping it will at least endear him to her enough to keep her here waiting for him, in hopes of getting more apples out of him.

With that, he turns to the natural archway, draws his sword, and gets ready to go to work.

The worst part about this is that it should have been so easy.

It was only three bokoblins—sure, their fur had turned blue with maturity, so they were generally stronger and more intelligent than the red ones he’s encountered more often so far, but he fought a few already just on the way here! Several monster camps he’s fought had five or six bokoblins, even if most of them were still young and red-furred.

He’s already fought enemies stronger than this, this should not have been a problem for him.

And for a second, he really believed it wouldn’t be. He dispatched the first of the three before the group even realized he was on them, and turned to the others without much concern. Sure, it was two on one, and there wasn’t much room to maneuver in this pocket between the hills and the cliffside down, but he’d thought he’d had it.

That’s when it happens—the bokoblin wielding a spear lunges for him. It drives its spear downwards over its head and Eijiro tries to twist out of the way, but he just—he just screws up. His foot gets caught in a dip in the ground, his ankle twisting painfully as he dodges away, and in the moment of indignation and incredulity that he’d made such a rookie slip-up, the other bokoblin strikes.

Eijiro sees the boko bat swinging towards his face a split-second too late, and his ankle buckles when he tries to stagger back. He doesn’t get out of the way fast enough, and the bat comes slamming into his temple at almost full force. For a hot second, Eijiro sees stars, falling onto his ass hard. Dazed, he tries to blink the starbursts of color out of his vision, wincing as the bokoblin that just landed a hit roars at him.

He barely rolls out of the way of the next strike, and for a brief second the quick motion makes him so dizzy he thinks he’ll fall over, but it’s not exactly an option. Fuck, he has to end this now.

Eijiro swings the flat of his blade at the legs of the nearest bokoblin. With a yelp, the thing’s legs are swept out from under it, and it drops. Eijiro doesn’t wait for an invitation as he lunges forward, flipping the blade down to impale the creature.

Its last living companion is already brandishing its spear, so Eijiro doesn’t bother to dislodge the sword. He vaults over the body and throws himself into a clumsily-executed roll on the other side to buy some distance—and, fuck, his head hates that, oh, Gods, he might hurl. He unslings his bow from his back as he comes up from the roll, arrow drawn, nocked, and loosed almost immediately.

His arrow hits right between the last bokoblin’s eyes, and it falls atop the last one with little ceremony.

Eijiro drops more gently—his head is screaming at him, and it’s been jostled enough, so he lets himself flop down onto the grass beside the monsters’ campfire slowly. Lifting a hand to his head, he whines. Not only is a nasty bump already forming, but there’s a gash there as well, and Eijiro has a sick feeling in his gut.

The bokoblins are already starting to disappear, leaving him the only one sprawled out in his misery—whatever they are, this is the main thing that’s always set them apart from the other creatures that roam Hyrule.

They’re not made of anything substantial, apparently, possibly or even probably created entirely from the same Malice that had distorted All for One into the Calamity it is today. And since they aren’t natural beings, having only Malice holding them together, as soon as they’re slain they just—turn into an awful sludgy smoke and dissipate like they were never there. Apart from some stronger and older ones, who have parts that stubbornly cling to existence. Fangs, horns, maybe a heart from time to time, which, ew.

He knows all this, without remembering having learned it, just like he knows how to fight. Or, at least, is supposed to. That was so stupid. It was just three blue bokoblins. How can he not even handle three blue bokoblins?

Frustration swirls around in his chest, and he grits his teeth. He wants to scream. He should be better than this. How can—how can he even hope to help Katsuki and Izuku if he gets his ass kicked this easily? Fuck—they need him, and they’ve been fighting the entire Calamity for a century, and he can’t even—he can’t even hold his own for a few days against weak enemies. Gods, he hopes Katsuki can’t see him right now. With all of his heart, he desperately hopes it.

He squeezes his eyes shut, pressing his hands to them so hard he sees bursts of color behind his eyelids, in attempt to block out the light from the campfire that’s agitating his budding headache.

Gods, he hopes the chest the bokoblins had kept up on a platform at the back of their camp holds the maracas. If they’re not even here, he’s gonna scream.

But quietly. In his head. So he doesn’t make his headache any worse.

Eijiro’s headache is absolutely killing him, and he is, in a word, miserable.

Hestu had been so happy to see his maracas, it honestly made everything worth it. The problem was Hestu had been very vocal about his appreciation. The happy yelling and singing had been bad enough. The maraca-ing, once the two had discovered the seeds Eijiro had been gathering from the Koroks that dotted nearly every inch of Hyrule were actually stolen from inside Hestu’s maracas and would need to be returned, was kind of worse.

Eijiro hadn’t raised a complaint, though. Partially because he wasn’t heartless enough to ruin Hestu’s joyful new mood, and also because he used his maraca powers to make Eijiro’s new bag even bigger. He’s not sure how much more he can stuff in there now, but he thinks he’ll be excited to find out once he’s recovered a little.

For now, he’s tired and miserable as he continues up the road, keeping Riot at a slower pace to keep from bouncing his head around too much. For the first time since leaving the plateau, anxiety gnaws at him more than impatience as he thinks about his destination.

It’s not particularly late—maybe around seven, if he were to guess—and he knows he could make it to Kakariko within the hour. Maybe even within half an hour if he really pushed it, which he doesn’t think he has it in him to do. But the thought fills him with apprehension and—and something almost like shame, he thinks, as he considers it. He swallows, shifting in the saddle uncomfortably.

Inko had said that Aizawa had been an advisor to Katsuki. He’d—he’d been around one hundred years ago, and must have known about the plan for Eijiro to return. He was supposed to have advice for Eijiro, to help him help Katsuki and Izuku, but—

But how can Eijiro ride into a town where they know him, where they’re expecting such important things from him, looking like this? He doesn’t want to limp into town with a shoddily-bandaged gash on his head, looking half-dead on his feet. That’s not—that won’t—he doesn’t want to let them down.

He doesn’t want to hobble into town, wincing every step, and be told—oh, sorry. You’re in no shape to do this. I can’t believe we waited one hundred years for this. Don’t worry, though, we’ll find someone else to handle it.

He needs—he has to help Katsuki. He can’t let someone else keep fighting this battle for him—like Izuku had to, just because he was another chosen of Farore. And he definitely doesn’t want to ride into town and disappoint people who expected him to be the hero they’d waited so long for.

Just the thought of going into the village like this nearly paralyzes him. He just—he just needs a good night’s sleep, maybe; some time for the wounds to heal a little, or at least be somewhat less fresh when he gets there. He knows part of his dragon ancestry left him with the ability to heal faster than most people, at least he might be able to hide the pain in his ankle after a rest, and the swelling on his head might have gone down.

Yeah—yeah, that sounds like a better idea. The part of him that’s been so frustrated with his slow progress at least quiets down, just a little, for once. It’s just… it’s just one night, and if the result is that no one has to know how much weaker he is than he should be, it’s worth it.

He doesn’t know where else might be safe to stop, secluded from the road and tucked away, so Eijiro climbs off of Riot where the monster camp he’d cleared out for Hestu was, coaxing her through the archway to where the camp rests. The campfire the monsters had set is down to embers at this point, but that’ll be easy enough to fix.

Eijiro goes about setting up camp, rekindling the fire, and roasting some low-effort dinner with as much laziness as he can manage. If he can cut a corner, he does. All he cares about is not making his ankle or head worse, getting a full stomach in hopes that’ll give him some extra energy for healing, and knocking the fuck out.

The process is maybe twenty minutes at most, and the soft grass beside the fire is so much more comfortable than the cold stone he’d slept on last night. If not for the headache still pulsing mutedly behind his temple, he might consider this downright blissful.

He feels like there’s something he’s supposed to keep in mind, something important, but he’s too exhausted and frustrated to bother. Drifting off quickly, he figures he’ll remember in the morning if it matters. And then he’s out.

…—up already, asshole! Come on. Gods, you lazy—wake up, fucker!

Eijiro groans, turning his head as if to burrow it into the soft grass it’s pillowed on, like that can muffle Katsuki’s voice harassing him. Exhaustion blankets over him heavily, and the only thing even vaguely resembling a thought in his head is the desire to go back to sleep. His body feels like it’s made of lead and his eyes might as well be welded shut—it’d be so easy to drift off again, if not for the voice still pressing insistently at the edges of his mind.

Ei, come on, we don’t have time for this. Get ready.

An exhausted, pathetic huff escapes Eijiro in his irritation, his whole body tensing like if he curls in on himself enough he can block out any semblance of consciousness and go back to sleep, before falling slack in resignation, his eyes blearily cracking open.

And—oh, fuck.

He’s surrounded by red. Fuck, when he blinks his eyes a little farther open, the whole sky glows with it.

All for One’s getting stronger, asshole—he gets too fucking powerful during the blood moon. Which is right fucking now, by the way, which you’d notice if you would get the hell up.

The fucking blood moon! Shit, Hirooki had even warned him, and he still—he still went to sleep in a monster camp. In a split-second, panic pumps enough adrenaline into his veins that moving suddenly doesn’t seem like such a monumental effort as he scrambles to his feet.

Finally, fuck. For the first time, he notices how panicked Katsuki had sounded, only in its absence as relief colors his tone instead. You’ve only got about a minute. All for One uses the peak of the blood moon to bring its fucking cannon fodder back—be careful, dumbass, your ass is about to be surrounded.

Any lingering anger at having been woken up so rudely—and with so many insults, which, rude—evaporates instantly as it sinks in that Katsuki probably just saved his life. He draws his sturdiest sword and experimentally puts some weight on his bad ankle, which, ow, fuck, still hurts, but it’s better off than it was earlier and he thinks he’ll be able to move on it if he’s careful.

“Thanks,” he says, hoping Katsuki can hear him, as he readies his stance. Before his eyes, cinders of murky black Malice start rising off of the ground, drifting through the air all around. He doesn’t even think he’s ever seen the substance except when monsters first fade into clouds of it and dissipate—but now it hangs heavy all throughout the air, raising the hairs on the back of his neck.

Gaze analytical, he watches some of the Malice in the air swirl together in three different places around the campfire, merging into murky clouds that start to take on the shape of the bokoblins he’d handled earlier.

His sword is swinging for the nearest bokoblin almost before it begins forming, and he settles in for a fight.

It’s over fast. Maybe he accounted better for his ankle this time, or maybe he’s finally used to not fighting at full strength, or maybe it’s as simple as this time he was lucky and last time he wasn’t—whatever the case, it’s only a couple minutes before he’s standing triumphant again, this time without any more injuries to show for it.

Heaving slightly, he sheathes his sword and edges away from the monsters that had very nearly ambushed him in his sleep. As far as he knows, the whole monsters rising from the dead thing only happens once, at midnight, and won’t be happening again until the next blood moon—that said, he honestly does not want to take his chances. Even if the heavy presence of Malice clouding the air has finally dissipated.

He doesn’t think he can comfortably sleep next to this fire anymore anyways, without paranoia keeping him awake for hours.

“Hey...” he speaks into the night, still breathless from exertion as his eyes flick vaguely skyward, sort of in the direction of Hyrule Castle, though the hills block his view. “I don’t… uh, I don’t know if you heard me before, but I mean it. Thank you. I—you probably saved my life.”

He waits, eyes searching the righted sky, like the returned navy and the light of the stars can somehow provide him with a view of Katsuki. When no response comes, Eijiro feels his expression grow pinched, and he sighs as he drops his gaze to the grass.

He’s… tired. Frustrated. He’s only gotten four hours of sleep, his ankle still aches, his head still pulses and sends waves of nausea through him if he moves it too quickly, and he just wants to hear Katsuki’s voice again. It’s all he has of him at this point—he can’t even remember a face to put to it. To say he’s in a miserable mood would be an understatement.

Riot still hasn’t settled down where he’d had her tethered near the archway, a distressed whinny snapping him out of his disheartened ruminating, and he approaches her carefully, still unsteady on the injured ankle. The mare rears back on her hind legs, braying—being startled awake by reforming monsters and a sudden fight had clearly been just as upsetting for her, and Eijiro can hardly fault her.

“Hey, hey, sh-sh-sh-sh, it’s okay, girl,” he soothes, hands raised placatingly as he stays out of reach of her hooves. The last thing he needs after surviving those monsters twice is for his own horse to brain him less than an hour from Kakariko Village. Continuing to make soothing noises, he inches closer, digging around in his bag for one of his last apples. “Sorry, Riot, it’s okay now, hey, hey, calm down.”

Even once he’s brandished the apple, waving it before her temptingly, it’s a few moments before he can get her settled enough that it’s safe to get closer. His free hand strokes comfortingly down the line of her nose and over her neck as he feeds her the apple, and it’s another minute of murmured words and gentle strokes before she’s genuinely more calm.

He gets another headbutt to the chest, but this time it feels more scolding than affectionate, which he figures is fair.

With a sigh, Eijiro unties her lead from the tree just on the inside of the natural rock arch, and coaxes her through the opening back to the road. He feels even worse about going to Kakariko now, grumpy in the middle of the night, with his ankle and head still hurt, but even if he won’t go all the way to the Sheikah village he at least wants to get a decent distance away from here. He’s not going to be able to get any more much-needed rest, otherwise.

Pulling himself up and into the saddle, to get weight off his leg, Eijiro urges Riot forward at a slow pace. He only rides two or three minutes, just enough to be out of sight of the archway, and then he finds a curve in the winding, steep walls of the mountain pass to settle himself and Riot into.

It’s not nearly as sheltered, but he’s exhausted, and it’ll do. Curled up as comfortably as he can get, Eijiro pillows his head on the warm doublet Inko had given him and lets himself drift off into a restless sleep for the rest of the night.

The morning’s still fresh by the time Eijiro wakes up, groggy and still wishing for a few more hours of sleep. All told, though, he’d already gotten at least nine hours, even if the break in the middle did him no favors, and he doesn’t want to risk sleeping out in the open for any longer.

His ankle is still stiff, but no longer painful as long as he’s careful about putting his weight on it, and when he gingerly touches at his temple he discovers the bump has gone down significantly, even if the gash there hasn’t quite healed. It’s fine. It’s better than arriving in the haggard state from last night, at least.

He sets off quickly, only stopping once along the way when he comes across a small waterfall feeding into a little pool beside the road. He wades in and washes up somewhat, cleaning up his appearance as best he can in the cold mountain water, pulling his hair back into a ponytail, and then carrying on once Riot’s drunk her fill.

The roads of the pass open into the sheltered valley that houses Kakariko abruptly. If not for the wooden gates that the Sheikah had constructed further along the road, there would have been no warning that the steep, closed walls of the road were about to split off.

Eijiro pulls on Riot’s reins, coaxing her to a stop at the entrance to the village, on the railed pathway that overlooks the entirety of the settlement. Kakariko is a sleepy little village, safely ringed in by the walls of the mountains on all sides, and something about the cluster of houses with their curved thatch roofs brings him no small measure of comfort. The last of his bad mood seeps away, his eyes drinking in this proof that some things have survived the Calamity with eagerness.

There’s an elderly woman resting beside a tree a little ways along the road, who greets Eijiro warmly, pulling herself to her feet with some effort. She apologizes for letting him see her in her current state, explaining that she’s twisted her ankle—”It happens to the best of us,” Eijiro’s quick to tell her, the irony not lost on him—and then he’s sliding off of Riot to offer to let the woman ride his horse back to her house, to keep the weight off her ankle. She’s mid-sentence thanking him when her eyes land on the Sheikah Slate on his hip, and her eyes widen.

When she asks where he got it, Eijiro barely even starts to explain before she’s grabbing Riot’s reins, nodding in apparent understanding and insisting he get to Aizawa’s home immediately. She promises to board his horse for him at the inn, so long as he hurries to the large house below Lantern Falls, across the village, because the Sheikah have been waiting for him for a long time.

As she pulls herself into the saddle, she implores him one more time to hurry to Aizawa, before surprising him with a heartfelt declaration that she’s honored to meet him, though she thinks he’s probably used to hearing that. He’s not, and he doesn’t know what to say—but he doesn’t get the chance to say anything before she urges Riot on down the road, apparently intent on not keeping him any longer.

It’s still fairly early, maybe not much after eight, but the village already maintains a constant, if slow and sparse, press of activity—a couple of kids are strewn along the main road, as well as a girl around his age who’s just settling in to stand outside what looks like a shop, and Eijiro passes by a farmer hard at work in a pumpkin patch.

Everyone he passes eyes him as he makes his way down the road, most with curiosity and some with suspicion, but every once in a while someone’s eyes will drop to the slate at his hip and their eyes will widen, expression shifting quickly to awe. Flustered, Eijiro averts his gaze and quickens his pace.

Aizawa’s home is pretty hard to miss, built high on stilts over an island that sits at the foot of several waterfalls, in the protective curve of one of the steep valley walls. There’s one important-looking set of stairs that leads up to the raised balcony that wraps around the house, with a gate that arches over the foot of the stairway.

The two men standing guard just beside the gate instantly drop into defensive stances when they realize he means to make for the gate, and Eijiro lifts his hands placatingly, letting out a startled, “Um,” but the motion draws their eyes to where his hands had been resting. More specifically, to the Sheikah Slate.

Both men gasp, and then apologies are tumbling from their lips as they straighten their stances, moving aside to usher him through. Eijiro can’t even get more than a few words out to try and reassure them of no harm, no foul, without them insisting he go on ahead and assuring him that they’ve heard all about him from Aizawa.

It’s kind of overwhelming. He doesn’t know what he expected, but it wasn’t for people to all recognize him on sight and treat him so—so—important. Being told they’re honored to meet him and have heard legends about him—it’s a lot.

It makes him feel exposed as he makes his way up the stairs, each step feeling too loud—like anyone in the village could look over and see him at any moment, and maybe come to the conclusion that he’s some sort of huge deal.

He keeps his eyes on his feet as he climbs, just in case, because he’s not sure how he’s gonna handle it if he makes eye contact with one more awestruck Sheikah, until he’s finally near the top of the staircase. His eyes lift, and Eijiro blinks at the sight that greets him—there’s a little girl, maybe six or so, sitting on her knees, several pieces of colored chalk scattered in front of her. She’s got long white hair characteristic of the Sheikah, and a very concentrated look on her little face as she draws on a pillar just left of the patterned double doors to the building with a piece of yellow chalk.

The second to last step creaks under Eijiro’s foot, and the girl gasps and startles, whipping to look at him with wide, red eyes. She drops the piece of chalk in the process, and Eijiro leans quickly to catch it when it rolls towards him, so that it doesn’t fall off the edge of the deck.

“Sorry, sorry!” he says, gently, giving her his widest, friendliest smile. She still looks alarmed as she stares at him, so he doesn’t move too close when he climbs the final two steps, crouching just on the edge of arm’s reach to hold out the piece of chalk. “I didn’t mean to scare you! Wasn’t trying to be sneaky.”

Her eyes, still wide, flick from the piece of chalk to his face a few times, and her hands clasp tightly at the hem of her tunic instead of moving to take it back from him. Now he feels really guilty, and his smile turns apologetic as he carefully sets the piece of chalk down halfway between them. Still hoping to put her at ease, he turns his head instead to examine her handiwork.

It’s crude in the usual way little kids’ drawings are, but it’s colorful and cute, and there are five figures all scrawled along the deep brown pillar. Four of them are all holding hands—one he imagines is the little girl herself, since the white-haired figure is so small compared to the others, which include a taller white-haired figure and two more yellow-haired, adult-sized figures, all of them in the approximate colors of Sheikah clothing. The fifth figure is above, with long blue hair and big blue wings.

He lets out a low whistle, curious what the scene represents.

“That’s really cool,” he tells her earnestly, jerking a thumb towards the drawing as he continues to squat just before her, expression open and, hopefully, reassuring. “Do you live here?”

She still doesn’t answer him, biting her lip, but after a moment she gives a small nod and leans forward cautiously to grab the piece of chalk. The motion causes some of her hair to fall into her face, and as it falls forward he notices something peeking through the white locks—a tiny, pale horn.

“Hey, nice horn! Wanna see something cool?” he asks her, beaming, before he hardens scales around the top of his head, red dragonscales curling around his temples and along his hairline as two small, draconic horns peak out of his hairline in similar places to hers. “I can have ‘em, too! Horn buddies! I’m Kirishima Eijiro, it’s nice to meet you.”

Something about the phrase, horn buddies, it sends a pang of—of something through him, something soft and nostalgic, but before he can examine the feeling, the little girl’s eyes are widening once more, her eyes flicking from his horns, to his hair, to the slate on his hip before her mouth falls open into a tiny little o.

Great. Even the little kids know who he is here. That’s gonna take some getting used to.

She keeps staring at him, clutching her piece of chalk tightly in her hand, and Eijiro sighs when he realizes he’s probably not gonna coax any words out of her. With one more smile sent her way, he rocks back on his heels before standing, giving her a little wave. “Well, I’m gonna go inside now, okay?”

She nods again, which he’ll take as the biggest victory he’s gonna get, and then Eijiro turns to the double doors, taking a deep breath before placing his hands on them and pushing them both open at once.

Inside is a large, open hall, with several cushions lined up in rows for many people to sit at, and across the room rests a very haggard-looking man. At first, Eijiro thinks he’s asleep, but when he takes a couple steps into the hall, the man—Aizawa, probably—speaks without even opening his eyes.

“So, you’re finally awake.”

Slowly cracking an eye open, the Sheikah shifts forward in his seat with all the zeal of a man still mostly asleep.

“It’s been a long time, Kirishima Eijiro.”

#kiribaku #bakushima #krbk #bkshm #kirishima eijirou #bakugou katsuki #kirishima eijiro #bakugo katsuki #boku no hero academia #bnha #my hero academia #mha #fanfiction #fanfic #fic

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adamarks · 5 years

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Penny’s relationship troubles and how that relates to Simon and Baz

aka my Baz and Penny mirror post

I said I’d do this and god what a fucking emotional ride we’re about to go on. Strap in, my dudes.

In Carry On, it’s well-established that Penelope is Baz’s mirror character. She’s mostly static in the book (because it’s almost completely focused on Baz and Simon) and she’s used mainly as a literary device. Her mirroring Baz in particular is established very plainly. Both of them being top of the class; both of them geeking out over spells; both of them geeking out over marriage spells; their mothers both being headmasters; both of them getting out chalkboards and making the exact same types of lists. It’s very much in-your-face screaming in Carry On.

It’s not so obvious in Wayward Son.

The main reason for this is that Penny was upgraded from static to rounded in this book. She has an entire arc of doubting herself, which will most likely be completed in the next book. However, just because it’s not banging pots and pans in your face doesn’t mean the mirroring isn’t there.

Let’s dig in.

Rainbow did something I really, really loved with this book: she made sure we know that happy endings aren’t what we’re told. The story doesn’t end because the Prince and Princess kissed-- how did they hang on? How did they make it to the hundredth kiss? Did they even make it to the hundredth kiss?

This book tells us that sometimes they don’t make it to the hundredth kiss.

This lesson is what’s got a lot of people’s panties in a knot. Here’s the thing though: it’s not a bleak lesson; it’s a warning. It’s a reminder that we have to keep trying; we have to want that hundredth kiss.

Simon and Baz want that hundredth kiss. They just don’t know how to get there.

Wow guys I’m gonna have to struggle to not cry while writing this. Wish me luck.

Yes, the boys are morons that can’t communicate. How does Penny fit in?

She didn’t get to that hundredth kiss.

Micah and Penny are what happen when you just expect happily ever after to take care of getting you to the next kiss.

Micah declares what the lesson Penny (assumedly with Shepherd Tornado Chaser Supreme) is going to learn about relationships is in Chapter twelve:

“A relationship isn’t about the end. It’s about being together every step of the way.”

This may be Penny’s lesson, but this is also a sort of (in my opinion) apology from Rainbow. Because, what was Baz and Simon getting together if not just a nice little tie up as part of a happy ending. What are queer consumers of media usually fed? Our representation usually dies, breaks up, or ends up together all happy go lucky right at the end. We don’t get to see characters we relate to struggle. We don’t get to see them still be miserably in love but unsure how to make it work when shit gets rough.

Wayward Son is what happens when you don’t know how to keep going, but god do you want to.

“I told you that I thought we’d grown apart--”

“And I said that was natural!”

(also taken from Chapter 12 of Wayward)

Simon and Baz growing apart when Simon is so severely depressed and unable to communicate is natural. It’s natural, but it doesn’t mean that he’s going about it the right way. Simon is fucked up. He’s fucked up in a lot of ways, but (and this is coming from someone that’s struggled with the same kinds of thoughts Simon’s suffering from) that’s no excuse for him to hurt Baz in the process.

Simon even realizes that this is a terrible way to go about this. It’s why he’s thinking about breaking up with Baz.

i almost cried typing that just now rainbow why simon why i’m dying i-

BREAKING UP WITH BAZ IS NOT THE ANSWER, SIMON!!

Simon needs to learn how to communicate. How to talk about what he’s feeling and what he needs.

Here’s the thing though: Baz does too.

This is where Penny’s mirroring comes into play. Micah and Penny apparently didn’t talk for two whole months and she didn’t notice. They didn’t talk. They didn’t communicate. This is what killed their relationship.

This is what’s killing Simon and Baz’s.

In Chapter Fifteen we see Simon mulling over Penny and Micah breaking up:

“Penelope and Micah were going to get married.

And now... Merlin, what now?”

I’ll come back to the concept of “endgames” throughout this series, but for now, apply that to Baz and Simon.

Baz and Simon were supposed to live happily ever after, but ever afters don’t work like that. So, now what?

Everything sucks. We are all in Pain. The dumbasses won’t talk. What do we DO, JAY?

god, what do we do. suffer i guess idk.

Okay but for real, we don’t have to worry. Rainbow knows what their issue is. And! She’ll make sure it’s resolved! How do I know?

Well, I’ll tell ya.

Shepard.

We were introduced to a brand new, absolutely batshit, completely delightful character in Wayward. He’s spunky, he’s fun, but what does he do best?

Fucking. Talk.

He doesn’t shut the fuck up!! He’s completely honest and he just talks. Bitch will tell you his entire life story without batting an eye! This is what Penny needs.

This is where Simon and Baz are going to end up.

Perhaps not exactly, that doesn’t suit their personalities. This is what they’ll end up being, though: completely honest with each other.

These fuckers are constantly thinking about each other throughout the book.

“Oh he’s so beautiful.” “Oh he’s so charming.” “Oh he’s so funny and smart.” “Oh he’s so heroic and brave.” “Oh, i’d give him my whole being.” “Oh I wish he’d let me in” “Oh I love him so much.” “I love him.”

They’d both feel so, so, so much better if they just said shit out loud. Good god.

But neither of them are a) in a place where they can say it and b) in a place where they’ll believe it.

This brings us to our next biggie:

Baz still doesn’t like himself.

Simon’s obviously having troubles with self loathing. That’s not even a question in anyone’s mind. Simon’s depression and lack of self worth is one of (if not the) main vocal points of the book.

The issue with Simon’s sadness getting the spotlight is that we overlook Baz’s a bit. It’s thrown in so that we don’t notice immediately, because we’re not supposed to. Baz’s self-hatred isn’t as loud as Simon’s and he’s been dealing with it a lot longer. It’s a self-loathing he’s learned to live with-- he’s used to it by now.

Sometimes the demons we learn to live with are the most vicious of all.

I think it’s very clever that the most overt time we see Baz disliking himself is in his Things I Hate List in Chapter Fourteen.

“11. The wind in my hair.

12. Convertible automobiles.

13. Myself, most of all.

14. My soft heart.

15. My foolish optimism.

16. The words “road” and “trip,” when said together with any enthusiasm.”

It’s slipped in there awful sneaky! You’re giggling and going “oh thank god maybe I won’t be sad through the whole book” then BANG! there it is. But, right after we have “my soft heart” and you’re going “oh my poor baby he’s so sweet I love him” before you really had time to process number 13 as anything aside from an “lol i’m hot and icky and i hate myself” joke.

Baz is used to hating himself. It’s everyday whatever. Simon’s is only louder because he’s not used to being allowed time to think about the bad stuff. Everyday before the end of Carry On for Simon was just struggling to get to the next day-- whether that was at Watford or a home. Simon’s happy when he doesn’t have to think; Baz can’t just not think.

Penny’s just learned what doubting herself entails; Baz has been doubting himself for the last decade.

No matter how much they coo at each other, it won’t fix the underlying issue: Baz and Simon don’t like themselves.

This is the main internal conflict of the series for all of the characters: loving yourself for what you are.

This brings us to Agatha.

If you haven’t read my meta on simon being a dragon hell yes then you might want to. I discuss Agatha being a mirror for Simon fairly thoroughly in it.

Remember how I told you to put a pin in the concept of “endgames” earlier? Well, here we are. Agatha was supposed to be the “endgame.”

Endgames! Are! Bullshit!

Human beings are not our consolation prizes for getting through shit. Becoming stronger as people and loving ourselves more is our prize. Realizing how much you can withstand, how hard you can fight, how amazing you are for surviving is your prize for getting through it.

None of these guys realize this yet. Agatha and Simon just think there’s nothing good that’s going to come out of their lives and Baz and Penelope just think that maybe their “prizes” weren’t what they thought they were.

Maybe the rewards for our efforts were really just inside us the whole time. uwu.

Penny is just starting to think of plans again by the end of the book, but this time they’re looser, wilder, even more hairbrained than before and she really only has one plan at best! She’s learning that she can be strong and capable even when she doesn’t have all the facts and doesn’t have all the details thought through. Penny’s learning to loosen up.

Baz is in a better place by the end of Wayward too. He’s learned so much about vampires and even himself. Like sure I fuckin’ hate Lamb but he helped Baz to realize that... maybe he isn’t a monster. Maybe magical creatures aren’t lesser. Maybe he’s not any less human just because he can drink their blood.

They’re the only two that really, really develop in this book. Simon and Agatha change but mostly stay the same mentality-wise. Agatha still thinks she’s doomed to be a damsel in distress and Simon still thinks he’s just The Boy That Was. Baz and Penny are the most dynamic characters in Wayward Son.

I’m putting my money on next book being Agatha and Simon’s big development book. And at this point I’m convinced it’s going to be more than a trilogy.

Now! Let’s talk about Agatha and Penny.

@stressedidiot pointed out to me that Penny and Agatha holding hands and burning shit down in the last scene was supposed to call back to Baz and Simon. They’re absolutely right. I think the most important thing that was calling back to was Simon giving Baz his magic in Carry On.

This parallel confused me at first: why would Rainbow need to remind us of that scene? I know I personally have the Ladybird and Twinkle Twinkle Little Star scenes permanently ingrained in my head forever. Obviously we didn’t forget that Simon could pour his magic.

Here’s the thing.

Baz and Simon don’t stay together during any of the fight scenes in this book. They always get separated or one of them gets hurt or they’re scrambling trying to find or catch the other one.

They’ve forgotten that they work best when they’re together.

That was one of the main takeaways from Carry On. Simon and Baz work best when they’re together.

“A relationship isn’t about the end. It’s about being together every step of the way.”

Every! Step! Of! The! Way!

This is where my dragon Simon theory really comes into play. If Simon does end up with some sort of dragonesque powers, somehow Baz and him are going to share it.

When Baz figures out how to drink from humans without killing them, Simon’s going to be right there, ready to open up a vein.

This is the true beauty of their relationship. Simon wants to be the one to lead the dance of kisses and intimacy and communication, and Baz wants to be there to give him anything he wants. Baz has received Simon’s magic; he’s gonna drink Simon’s blood; and he’s somehow going to receive something from Simon regarding this dragon business.

“I’d give him all that I am.

I’d give him all that I was.

I’d open up a vein.”

They give and take and equal measures. They love each other wholly. I’m gesturing to my computer screen out of stress right now. They literally love each other that much!

Agatha and Penny sharing a magic conduit at the end of Wayward Son is a reminder of what happened between Simon and Baz and also foreshadowing of where they’ll be again.

Imagine how powerful they’ll be once they remember how to work together.

They were practically unstoppable before when they worked together-- they turned back a dragon.

But now their love for each other is stronger than ever. It’ll only grow once they finally talk. Once they communicate.

Two people, so strong separately coming together with only love and understanding for each other.

With their hearts beating together, they could do more than turn back a dragon.

They could change the world.

check my meta about simon’s wings being The Gay

And also my one about the scarf

Thank you for reading this word vomit. Just wanted to tag a few people that might be interested in seeing this shitstorm of a meta:

@goodie-giving-gecko-gets-gatos @singerofsimplesongs @wisest-girl @watfordwallflower @slaying-fictional-dragons @carrybits

#simon snow #baz pitch #tyrannus basilton grimm pitch #basilton pitch #penelope bunce #carry on #wayward son #wayward son spoilers #meta #agatha wellbelove #shepherd wayward son #i can't remember shepherd's last name #did they tell us?#rainbow rowell #snowbaz #dragon simon #Simon and Baz #baz and simon

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steve0discusses · 4 years

Text

Yugioh S4 Ep 27: Joey Punches Valon to Death and Seto Kaiba buys a Car.

My favorite character is back!

THE STORYBOARDER.

Like clockwork, the best storyboarder of all of Yugioh saw in the episode notes “This is the one where we shall Destroy Joey Wheeler” and he was like “Yes! this is extremely my thing!” and he’s back at it again, destroying Joey Wheeler with such finesse.

Like it’s so hard to explain in caps because you can’t see stuff move, but this animator is so good at the Yugioh vibe--he makes these character designs WORK for him (or her? No idea the identity of the mysterious storyboarder (or team of storyboarders--maybe this was one little group they freelance out to that worked really well together? I dunno) ) they really capture what Yugioh IS in a really unique way and still remain fairly economical in the animation sense. They do not hold back on any pose, and go completely ham into this ridiculous concept of a card game where you put on a special suit and punch eachother in the face.

Mind you, it’s still a card game and I skipped all that, but man...this is such a good storyboarder and I know that next episode they’ll be gone but for now I’m just gonna bask in it.

First off, Rebecca manages to figure out Seto’s 6-letter password in order to access billions of people’s personal data off of a satellite (we don’t get to find out what the password was) and although the storyboarder is great--they did make one fatal mistake.

The bane of every Californian who leaves California. LA is like a completely different country to San Fransisco but everyone only knows of two Californian cities and assumes we’re right next door to each other.

And it’s like...no, man. I don’t have Disneyland. Do I sound like a cheerful person that lives next to Disneyland? Do I say “bruh” and smile with the force of 1000 suns as we surf the coast on the backs of Lisa Frank dolphins? No dude, I have a strong Bay Area accent that makes me sound like a dry sarcastic asshole and I wear sweatshirts to the freakin beach because it’s very cold and filled with great white sharks.

(Sorry I just had to delete like 10 k words where I compared the entire cast to US cities by saying cryptic stuff like Joey Wheeler : Seto Kaiba is like LA : San Fransisco and like it was the biggest random tangent that only makes sense to me. Quarantine brain, y’all, I got SERIOUS quarantine brain. Anyone else? Anyone else just find themselves wasting like 2 hours thinking of which cities match the personalities of different characters on a show that came out so long ago? Man I need distractions right now.)

But back to what’s happening on the show, Yami is coming to terms with Joey’s struggle about as well as Yami does.

Which is mostly Yami saying “I’m pretty sure I killed Joey in that card game with Bakura in S1 and Tea had to bring him back from the graveyard so like wtv.”

(read more under the cut)

This was like 2003??? I think I keep forgetting when this season came out but we had printers at this point. We had google maps and a printer.

I don’t think I’ve touched a map like that since the 5th grade, where we had this competition to make a hypothetical road trip across America. It was Awful, and if you won the competition to get from SF to New York with the shortest distance, you would win something like pizza and a cool engraved name plate. We did not win pizza, because I could not even unfold this asshole map.

And now we have Google so like thanks, Mrs. Lambert, it was cool, but I’ll never use that information again. I hope. It was such a vivid frustrating memory that these maps still fill me with anxiety to this day, hearkening back to my 5th grade self just desperately trying to use string to measure how many miles the freeways across the midwest contain. (spoiler: a lot)

How OLD is this kid? Rebecca’s like secretly a 68 year old. She’s secretly Mrs. Lambert.

At this point we had a swell in the music as each friend of Joey joined in to announce their willingness to risk danger and save him.

Were they...not going to join him the whole time? It just seemed like a weird thing to bring up sooo after the fact.

Yami then turned to Duke and was like “but not you. You stay here” and he was like “Oh, thank gods.”

Rebecca stayed behind because the animators don’t want to draw her. Honestly, she’s incredibly helpful and they were mad stupid to leave the only smart one in the car. But youknow...this team loves being mad stupid. It makes the show more entertaining.

As they left we had a weird aside where Arthur Hawkins reflected “Rebecca is having just a REAL hard time trusting Yami” and it’s like--Arthur Hawkins! You’ve been dumping on Yami for like an entire season, that’s why. Like don’t pretend you’re all on team Pharaoh now. Why ever stop dunking?

But youknow, character development, Rebecca is going to learn the trust the ghost that possessed her crush/best friend that she’s had for 2+ years on a kid who’s been living in Japan this whole time who literally forgot who she was 2 weeks ago. You trust that ghost, Rebecca.

Or not. I mean you really don’t have to. You don’t owe Yami anything, dude. You don’t need to blindly trust idiot men, Rebecca. You just do you. Trust that instinct of “is this guy not trustworthy?” because yep. Chances are if you’re having that thought, that he’s totally not.

Storyboarder!

Storyboarder what ARE you???

STORYBOARDER!

after this followed a scene that I’ve seen gif-ed just so, so often that I assumed it was in a Yugioh Spin-off. I don’t know why I thought it wasn’t in this OG series, but I didn’t expect it to be here, in the Dartz season. But, it does make sense that this scene was under the best Storyboarder‘s direction because *chef’s kisses * it’s perfect. Every frame is a joy. The amount of sinister expressions on Mokuba, the level of sass coming off of Kaiba. It’s such a freakin shame that this man’s best work so far only lasts like a few seconds.

PS my bro looked it up and this car salesman has a wikipedia page.

He also looked up if anyone has shipped this car salesman and it’s our lucky day because this ship does not exist with any human ever in the world. Thank you, humanity. But, they DID make a wikipedia page so maybe we’re just putting off the inevitable?

I’m not even gonna cap it because I KNOW this is a gif you can easily download from everywhere but mm--this is a SOLID piece of animation. This animator is just flexing so hard, man. Yugioh did not deserve this much care and attention to detail.

Shippers rejoice, Seto Kaiba did briefly consider helping out Joey (before he absolutely drove away in the opposite direction)

(They’re clearly in the financial district already, PS. They are driving 5 ft to Dartz’ house.)

At some point Joey nabbed Valon’s card and so now he also gets to wear a bunch of stupid armor outfits.

This one is weird! It’s very Kamen rider-ish...but it’s a color scheme that feels very valentines day. It looks hard to wear. Good thing it’s animated.

I may need to capture this walk sequence though...if I still have the energy...the picture does not display his very energetic arms-in-the-air walk cycle I haven’t seen since that one Season zero episode. I dunno if it’s a reference to that, but I can’t think of any other reason why Tristan is walking like that.

This is when Mai finally shows up.

Valon lost his helmet during this fight, which lead to this:

What a good note to end on.

Anyways, I have no idea what my update schedule will look like or be, so if you’re new here and you want to start reading these from the beginning, I have a link for that:

https://steve0discusses.tumblr.com/tagged/yugioh/chrono

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entropic-introspection · 4 years

Text

Ok so TFA Optimus, Elita, and Sentinel all suffer from “gifted child syndrome” no I will not be taking questions because the essay is below the cut

Ok, so Optimus is our go-to protagonist boy, he’s pretty easy. He’s smart, very clever, maybe feels like he has to work harder to keep up with Elita and Sentinel who have the flashier in-built/Outlier powers. He screws up once, and his life sort of implodes. It’s not even necessarily his fault! He’s spent his whole life trying to be a good kid and being praised for it/following rules, and then got chucked out the minute something went wrong. Sentinel and Elita both should have listened to him or been smarter about exploring on a forbidden planet, but because Optimus was technically in charge of them he took the fall.

Except now he feels like it is his fault, and he internalizes the blame pretty badly. He’s now a washout, his plans for the future are gone, and he has no idea of what he’s supposed to do now. He doesn’t want to step out of line because he thinks he can’t without fucking up again. Which is also a problem, because if you watch, Optimus’ greatest strength tends to be that he thinks unconventionally and is willing to act outside of accepted doctrine to complete the overall mission. Dude’s actually very good at taking limited resources and using them to find viable solutions when he’s not tripping over himself or the idea of what a proper Autobot should be.

Him being in charge of team is both really good and really bad for him alternately, because being responsible for people again keeps him from focusing too far inward, but it also puts pressure on him again in very sensitive spots. Especially because his team is in no way shape or form “proper” Autobots, and sometimes that leads to them getting in trouble with Authority, which Optimus is terrified of doing again. Ratchet is honestly the best bot he could have been paired with, because Ratchet is old enough to have been through some shit and has learned enough emotional distance to teach Optimus how to say “fuck you and your emotionally manipulative bullshit”. Optimus goes from seeing his team of washouts as being a pity “thanks for trying” gift to his responsibility (in a good way!) and his friends.

I wanted a TFA season 4 for a lot of reasons, but one of those is that it would mean Optimus is no longer just on Earth where he’s got a fairly nice, stable routine and his supportive team around him. It’s the first time he’s back into a position of possible authority while being under constant scrutiny, and everyone’s watching him and his ““potential”“. That’s often a bad word to previously gifted children, aight. It is a bad bad trigger word that inspires some deep set panic of failing to live up to expectations. He’s expected to have plans and future desires. As someone who went through something vaguely similar and some ensuing depression, that’s uh. The future turns into a big worrisome question mark. I can plan for next week! Next year? Uh. Never. Never really thought I’d get that far...

Elita/Black Arachnea is very much “driven gifted child”. Her power is insane, she’s very smart, and physically talented enough that the Elite Guard is within her realm of possibility. Then something goes wrong and she’s all fucked up. No one wants her anymore, and she’s stuck between blaming herself and blaming others. Usually, she blames others (namely Optimus and Sentinel) because anger is a lot easier to deal with than guilt and self-recrimination.

So she gets stuck on the idea of “fixing” herself to be good, rather than really learning how to work with her new reality. And that’s frustrating to her, because here’s something without an easy fix. It’s not something she can work to overcome. It is very much a dead-end to her, and she’s not used to that.

Although she does make her entrance having thrown in with the Decepticons, I don’t count her as one. She’s strikes me as more of a neutral party willing to use either side in her current state. The Autobots do not like organics, and there’s too many people who would know her back on Cybertron, so it’s safer for her to throw in with the Decepticons until she gets herself sorted out, even if they don’t like organics either. That’s fine, because she can work hard and show off her potential and finagle her way up to a spot where she can travel with Megatron himself. Which like, damn?? Even if no one likes or trusts her she is good enough at what she does that they will bring her along on the crazy top-secret mission. So she’s gotten some internal validation that she’s still a good gifted child, she’s worth something, and she’ll be worth more once she fixes herself. (Honey it ain’t just your physical being that will need fixing after all this.)

Then she gets to Earth and meets Optimus again. And oops that opens up a kettle of worms she’s been steadfastly ignoring for a long time except to blame him whenever she starts feeling too upset about her condition. And he doesn’t want to treat her any differently. He still wants to call her Elita. He’s still fond of her. He has some very obvious spider-related PTSD. And on the one hand, she wants that. Wants to be loved by someone who knows her, wants that friendship back. On the other hand, it’s like. He’s refusing to acknowledge her, as she is now. He’s not looking at the whole of her, and that’s infuriating. AND THEN she has to deal with Black and Sentinel and it is driven home very hard that she won’t ever be “normal”. She’s going to be “broken” forever. It doesn’t matter what else she does, she’s always going to be a techno-organic freak. And that sends her off the deep-end a bit and leads to her shenanigans with Wasp and. Hm. Therapy is needed, really. For everyone in this verse but I’ll settle for her first.

Sentinel is our favorite asshole. Personally, I read him as “imposter syndrome gifted child”. He feels like he can’t keep up with Elita and Optimus because they’re both so much smarter than him. He’s just not as special as them. So he blusters a lot to cover that up, tries to force the world to make space for him and acknowledge him. If he’d slow down and find some inner-peace, he’d probably find that actually he is very talented and clever, and that by partnering with others he can cover for the areas he’s deficient in, but eh. That takes self-reflection, and folks with imposter syndrome have some trouble with doing that truthfully.

So when Aranea-7 goes down, he’s left with the feeling that he fucked up big time. Optimus though, he’s not saying anything. Optimus is willing to take the fall. Optimus is special and Sentinel doesn’t even have to say anything really and oh look, Optimus is still a Prime, and he gets his own ship and crew. Sentinel knows if he had spoken up, he wouldn’t have gotten that. Then the lucky idiot goes and finds the fucking All-Spark, like what the fuck that thing has been missing for goddamn centuries.

And then Sentinel gets to spend 50 years thinking that his two former best-friends and teammates are dead.

Now, honestly, 50 years is not that long to a Cybertronian, true. But! Even if we compress it down to a more human compatible time of say, 5 years, that is a long time to think someone is dead, and to maybe sort of blame yourself for it. And Sentinel got to see that these lucky, gifted kids who were so special weren’t safe. And he knows that he isn’t safe either, because it’s not like he’s that special. So he knows he needs to be a good Autobot and a good yes-man and stick by the rules and keep fighting for his spot at the top because otherwise, what will happen to him? And so he’s kind of a prickly asshole, but he’s good. He has to be good.

And then he gets to find out in short order that oops! Both his friends are alive, doing significantly better than expected, Optimus can still kick him to the floor after being out of the service for so long, and no one on the disgusting organic planet respects him. And now Ultra Magnus is out of commission, somehow he’s supposed to be in charge even though it feels like all he’s done is just stand there behind Magnus and be his secretary (pro-tip kids: paperwork and secretarial know-how is actually what makes roughly half the world run. If you hold the files, you hold the keys to the kingdom). But he’s in charge, he’s in the spotlight, and all he can think is “I can’t screw this up I can’t let them find out I’m a horrible little nobody what would somebody actually important do in these circumstances”.

Could Sentinel have a redemption arc? Probably! I’m not the one to write it though, and it would most likely involve a lot of him being stuck in places where his identity both does not matter and conversely does: his rank and abilities don’t matter. His willingness to help and interactions with others? Do. He needs a chance to interact honestly with people again to fix some of his underlying problems with trust before he can start on other shit..

#tf #tfa #maccadam #i'm a verbose mofo fair warning #the main takeaway is that as always cybertron needs some goddamn therapists

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ella-se-vuelve-loca · 4 years

Text

Chapter 12

Grand Masterlist

Series Masterlist

Previous Chapter

‘Hey! You’ve been pretty busy lately and I think it’s time we head out to Johann’s place today :) you down?’

Emilia texted me as I was still lying down in bed, not really planning on going out and just staying in bed… until now, that is. I haven’t seen my group of friends, besides Yoandri, in a little while. My time has been spent with someone and my thoughts have been.. elsewhere.

I’m just wanting to tell everyone and get this weight off of my chest, but at the same time, I can’t. If (Y/N) ever meets the boys, Richard won’t recognize her, right? He’s only seen her for a few seconds at that party we were at. It’s not like he’ll even remember what she looks like.

I know Chris is dying to meet her, having only heard the little stories I’ve told about her to him. He’s been patient, understanding that I wanna keep it private for a while, but it’s obvious that he’s excited and wants to know who she is.

‘Hell yeah I’m in! What time?’

We all were kind of lounged around Johann’s kitchen while we ate some Chinese food that we ordered. It felt good to see my friends again. We were laughing and talking about the things we’ve been up to lately while I thought about Emilia and (Y/N). Two similar, but totally different girls.

Something’s changed though. I don’t see myself gravitating towards Emilia as much anymore, not like I used to at least. I feel like I’ve been lost in my thoughts recently. I need to get back into the conversation.

“So, Joel, you’ve been pretty busy lately. I feel like I haven’t seen you in forever haha.” Emilia smiled. “What are you and the guys up to?”

“We’re just getting ready to release the new album and working on tour dates.” I took a sip from my drink. “We’ve all been pretty busy, so I’m happy that we’ve got some time off.”

“Last time we saw you was at a party with some of the boys from your band.” Johann spoke. “You left fairly early, bro. We didn’t get to talk as much.”

“Oh, yeah uh sorry about that. Something came up and I had to leave.”

“Was it about that girl you were talking to that night?” Emilia smirked and took a bite of her food as Yoandri looked my way with a knowing look on his face. “Wait, what girl?” Johann asked. “Um.. I don’t..” I could feel my face heating up. “Oh come on! She’s the real reason why you’ve been super busy, right?” I didn’t speak. I didn’t say it was true, but I didn’t deny it either. “Oh my God haha you ditched us for a girl?” Johann laughed.

“Hey, she’s not some girl.” I said. “I’m just stating the facts!” He smiled and leaned on his elbows that rested on the table. “What does she look like?”

“Guys, she’s so pretty and she’s actually real.” Yoandri laughed as Johann looked over at him. “You’ve seen her already?” He nodded as I bit my lip. “Let me see her. I can’t believe you never told me about her.” I took out my phone, going straight to photos and I scrolled until I found a recent photo we took together. He took my phone in his hands and observed the photo as Emilia stood behind him, looking as well. “She’s cute..” He scrolled a few more photos before handing me back my phone.

“Oh my God, Joel! She’s so pretty!” She smiled as I blushed slightly at the thought of (Y/N). “She is, isn’t she?” I glanced down at the photo of when we went to the carnival together and smiled at the memory. “We’ve been seeing each other for a little while now.”

“Well, hey! Let’s celebrate.” Johann lifted up his drink and spoke. “A toast to new relationships and finding love in the most unexpected places.” If I had been paying attention, I would’ve noticed that it almost sounded sarcastic.

At the end of the day, we helped him pick up the place and left on our merry way back to own our houses. I decided to stay behind and talk more with my friend while Yoandri and Emilia had left. It was nice getting to catch up with my friends, it’s definitely been a while. I was currently washing the dishes as Johann popped up behind me. “So… what’s really going on?” He asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Oh come on, Joel. I’m not stupid.” He placed a plate inside the sink and stood beside me. “You were in love with Emilia a few months back and ready to do almost anything for her… what happened?” I shrugged my shoulders and continued washing the plates and cups. “I met someone new and well.. here I am.”

“That quick?” He asked as I stayed silent. I can trust him… right? “It’s not a big deal.” I laughed it off as I finished rinsing the utensils and put them on the clean side of the sink. “Not a big deal? Joel, come on.. is this thing legit?” I washed my hands as I sighed, deciding to come clean to one person I trust. He’s been my friend for a while and I can tell him anything, right? He wouldn’t judge me and I can maybe start to feel some sort of relief by getting this off my chest.

“Can you keep a secret?”

He nodded and waited for me to spill the beans to him. “You can tell me anything, Joel. I’m your friend.” I have to say something. I’m tired of feeling guilty and holding this in. I have to tell one person, at least. “I’m gonna be honest here.. I… I only used (Y/N) to get Emilia jealous in the beginning. That was the only reason why I talked to her in the first place.”

“Ahh see? I knew you were still in love with her.” Johann smiled as I continued. “No, listen. Yes, it was bad intentions at the start and I was head over heels with Emilia, but dude… once I got to know her, I was hooked. She’s really amazing.” I smiled. “She’s so genuine and smart.. she makes me laugh and – ”

“Aanndd that was enough to get you over Emilia?”

“I’ll always love her, yes. She’s my friend but..” I bit my lip. “Whenever I’m with (Y/N), it just feels like it’s just us two and nothing else matters at that moment.” He stayed silent. “Johann, you have to promise me that you won’t tell her or anyone about this. What I did.. I don’t want anyone knowing, especially her. I don’t want to lose what I have with her.”

“Hey, dude relax.” He chuckled. “No te preocupes, you can trust me.”

This guilt is starting to eat me out alive.

I should never have done this in the first place. I should’ve just listened to Richard and leave her be at that party.

But then you never would’ve known how wonderful she really is.

“All things happen for a reason” she said. Maybe… I was supposed to find her. If I never did this, then I would’ve missed out on such a great person… but this is wrong. How this all started was wrong and it’s all my fault. How am I ever going tell her about this? Will I ever tell her? I don’t want to lose her. What we have is amazing and I don’t want to throw that all away. Will she ever talk to me again if she were to find out?

No.. I can’t tell her. I just can’t.

I fucked this whole thing up. I don’t want anybody else. I want her, only her.

I’m not any different from her ex. In fact, I think I’m worse. Using her just to try to get somebody jealous? Yeah, I’m a complete dick. I just didn’t expect for me to... actually really.. really.. like her. What have I gotten myself into? I wanted to tell her that night about everything. To just be able to come clean and hope that she’ll forgive me, but then she brought up her ex and I just couldn’t bring myself to break her heart even more.

I’m happy that I told Johann, though. Everybody else had left and he was there.. it just seemed right? I don’t know, I just really needed to get some relief. Saying it out loud made me feel a little better, I guess.

(Y/N) and I were currently in my car, looking for something to eat until we found a Ricobene’s near by, so we walked in and the sweet scent of food filled our noses. We ordered what we wanted to eat and found a spot we could sit at while we waited for them to call out our name. Her cheeks were rosy from all of the laughter we shared today and I honestly felt like we were on our way to being a happy couple. Like things are looking up for us, despite my biggest secret.

I can’t believe I’m lucky enough to be in the presence of this girl.

“Hey uh I wanted to ask you something real quick.”

“Sure. What’s up?”

“So, a couple of my friends and I are planning on having a little cookout in like a week. It’s just us coming together and having a good time.. and my bandmates will be there too. Well um.. I was wondering if you maybe wanted to come along? If you’re busy, I totally understand and it’s not – ”

“I would love to.” She cut me off. “Really?” I asked as she nodded. “Is it okay with you if I bring a friend or two? I’d like to have somebody there with me that I know besides you.” I laughed. “Of course. The more the merrier.”

I feel a little safe now to finally show her off to my friends. I mean, what’s the harm now? I doubt Richard will know who she is, Johann promised me that he wouldn’t tell anyone and the ones who know are excited to meet her. This is gonna be great, I know it.

It may have started off with me wanting to get with Emilia, but I found someone better and I don’t want to let her go.

“I’ll send you the details then.” I smiled as I saw her get up. “Oh! Hold that thought, they just called our name. Let’s go get our food! I’m hungry.” She laughed as she started walking away, me slowly following after her. I can’t wait to show her off now that I feel less guilty and everyone wanting to meet her. This is gonna be good, I know it.

After we had picked up our food, we had walked out and went back to my car and I drove us to a Drive – In movie theatre. (Y/N) has told me in the past that she hasn’t gone to one of these things in such a long time and wanted to go before they close it. I paid for our tickets and drove us to where there’s not a lot of people parked beside us. We both got out of the car as I opened the trunk, setting up the blankets and pillows I had brought with me.

“We’re all set.” I smiled as she climbed up, me following after her. “The movie should start any minute now, so we came just in time.”

She placed one of the pillows behind her back and sat up, reaching over for the food we had just bought earlier. “What? I’m hungry.” She laughed and reached inside the bag, taking out the breaded steak sandwiches. “Hey, I didn’t say anything.” She handed me mine and got herself comfortable.

People were grilling, many brought chairs to sit outside their cars and others were waiting in line to go and buy some snacks. This is such an old school type of date and honestly I am living for it. Soon enough, ‘Spider – Man: Into the Spider – Verse’ started playing on the big screen as people were now getting themselves ready to see the movie.

“I used to come to the Drive – In every once in a while with my family when I was younger.” She spoke. “Really?” I asked as she nodded. “I loved it. There was one time.. haha me and my dad had brought chairs, and these were the type where you could lie back and look up at the sky. We sat outside of the car while the rest of my family stayed inside. In the middle of the movie, I guess my dad must’ve gotten way too comfortable because the next thing I knew, I could hear him snoring next to me.” She laughed. “I tried to wake him up because the people who were next to us could hear him and he just told me that we’re never gonna see those people again and went back to sleep.”

“Oh my God..” I laughed as she leaned against me. “Yeah, that’s my dad for you.” Having her here in my arms.. I couldn’t wish for anything better. It honestly feels like we’re the only two people here even those there’s a little over a hundred of us here.

At some point during the movie, we had completely forgotten about it and just ended up lying down next to each other, sharing stories and stealing kisses. Honestly, tell me… what could be better than this? My index finger and thumb lifted up her chin so she could look directly at me as I leaned in for another kiss. I placed one of my hands on her waist, running my fingers up and down her side. I brought her a little closer to me as she pulled her lips away from my own and giggled. “I’m ticklish there..”

I raised my eyebrow and smirked. “Oh, really? Do you mean.. here?” I tickled the side of her stomach as she let out a laugh. “Joel! S – Stop! Hahaha!” She tried to push me away from her, but I held her in place as I continued, wanting to hear her laugh once more. “Joel! People – hahaha! – People are g – gonna be looking at us – ssss!” I stopped my movements as I let her breathe for a few moments.

“Oh my.. hahaha! Pinche Joel!” She chuckled and moved away as I lifted up my hands again. “N – No!”

“Relax!” I laughed. “I was just gonna do this..” I moved a strand of her hair away as I placed my lips on hers, giving her a quick kiss. “Did you think I was gonna tickle you again?” I smirked as she nodded. “I mean, I can always – ”

“No! Please!” We laughed as I leaned against my elbow, hoisting me up a bit as I looked at her. Her cheeks were rosy from smiling so much and her hair was all over the place… she was breathtaking. I got closer, leaning in as my lips hovered over hers for a few seconds. I could feel her breath against mine as I looked into her eyes. She’s so beautiful…

“Are you gonna kiss me or not?” She asked as I chuckled, leaning down and placing a sweet kiss onto her lips.

Another perfect date. I can’t wait for many more…

Next Chapter

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heartofsnark · 5 years

Text

Black Market Wonderland (Chapter Four): The Game is Not Played Alone

Notes: We get some Eisuke POV in this one, which hopefully doesn’t suck. Pov switches wont be like extremely common, but I do want to do them when I think it benefits the plot or just to occasionally switch it up. If it’s really jarring or off putting to have two different POV’s in one chapter, let me know. Again, thank you to everyone commenting, giving feedback and enjoying it. I’m glad you all like my little disaster bean Tsuneko. Also, lowkey scared Soryu is OOC here because things...escalate.

Word Count: 13228 (I’ve notice word counts are off between AO3 and my program, sorry about that, WPS Writer is a bit fucky of a program.)

Warnings: POV Switches, Fat Shaming/Body Shaming, Masturbation (it’s me dudes, someone had to nut eventually), Cis-Female Masturbation, Sex Toy, Bath Masturbation, Panic Attack, Threats of gun violence (Soryu is such a gem), Suicidal thoughts

Missed the last chapter? Link Here!

Eisuke waits in the lounge, trying to get work down on his tablet while he waits for Ota to finish. He’s forcing Tsuneko to work as his assistant at an event tonight, this doesn’t qualify for the bet, which she was quick to point out to him. But, it will give him some opportunities to see how useful she can be. He doesn’t lose and this will be no exception.

She’s intriguing that’s for sure, challenging him to a bet for her freedom. This is to her detriment of course, he probably wouldn’t be so determined to keep her if she was boring. It’s been a long time since he’s had such an interesting toy. She was right when she said there’s no practical reason to keep her around, but she’s become a source of amusement. Once he’s won the bet he might keep her around a while longer, just until he gets bored of her.

“Finished,” Ota yells out as he enters the lounge, noisy as ever, and Tsuneko is following close behind.

“Seriously can we talk about this dress?” She’s complaining as usual and gesturing towards her chest. When she tried it on in store she was wearing a blazer over it to make it more modest, but this works well on her too. The simple colors and silhouette keep it from looking too trashy with the amount of cleavage on display.

“It looks gorgeous on you, princess,” Baba tells her, his eyes linger on her chest. The only one of them not paying attention to her cleavage is Soryu who’s making a point to look anywhere else.

“Look, I don’t know how Kenzaki does his job, but I don’t think having my tits out is a part of assistant work.”

“Pfft, not bad,” he finally gives comment, “at the very least your outfit won’t embarrass me.”

“Oh yes, ‘cause I’d hate to make your life more difficult.”

She rolls her eyes and he’s caught between wanting to scowl and grin. It’s rare anymore to find people who can so shamelessly talk back to him, who don’t seem afraid of upsetting him, but she has a habit of pushing her luck. While entertained, he doesn’t want to tolerate any disobedience. It’s a weird place she puts him in and maybe that’s why he’s so intrigued by her.

“We’re leaving now, hurry up.” He stands from his seat and leaves the lounge, heading towards the limousine The click of Tsuneko’s heels follow after him.

They step into the car, Tsuneko looking as uncomfortable as she was earlier today. She may look more the part, but it’s clear she can’t relax in these environments. She’s just a commoner and a maid after all, from rural Kyushu at that, when she was first bought at the auction he had Kenzaki show him her files.

“Memorize this,” he tells her and hands her his tablet, a list of who the guests at the event are and rules on interacting with them is pulled up on it. Her eyes widen as she starts to read through it, it’s a lot to learn in a car ride, but it’s not impossible. It will be interesting to see if she can manage it. A part of him is concerned about bringing her to such an event, the very thing that makes her so amusing can make her a detriment in this situation.

The event isn’t extremely important and he knows any mistakes she makes he can easily recover from. She gets great feedback from guests she works with and is considered one of the better maids at the hotel, despite not being there for a full year. It’s clear she’s capable of being polite and friendly, perhaps that skill just leaves her when she’s speaking to him or the other penthouse residents.

His most pressing matter at the moment is the meeting with the Bucci’s, the Italian mob. Carolina, the boss’s daughter has taken an unfortunately interest in him. He can’t just brush her off and dismiss her, as much he’d like to, or he risks losing the deal with her father.

He should be able to sic Carolina on Soryu, he’s definitely her type, and if she’s interested in someone else he won’t have to deal with her. As far as he’s concerned, she’s just a pawn to get the deal with her father. It will be entertaining to see Soryu dealing with the clingy energetic woman.

Not only will the deal help his work with the Tres Spades, it will allow extra opportunities for the auctions, and maybe connections that can help to find his sister. He thought for a moment or two when he first saw her that Tsuneko could be his younger sister, they’re around the same age. But, he’s seen enough of Tsuneko’s chest between the lower cut dress and her uniform popping open to know that she doesn’t have a burn mark. Additionally, when he requested her information from Kenzaki he was informed that the manager had already checked to see if there was even a chance they were related just to find there wasn’t. He can’t help wondering is that’s why Kenzaki her application in the first place. She’s definitely one of the more interesting employees.

Eisuke continues to think about what he needs to do for his work and the plans he has until the limousine comes to a stop. They’ve reached the venue. He takes the tablet from her hand and changes what’s on it, an open document.

“Take notes and do whatever I tell you, I won’t be tolerating any disobedience, understood?”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” She waves him off, she still hasn’t told him ‘yes’ or ‘okay’, even when she does what he asks.

They walk into the event and it’s a fairly standard affair. Everyone dressed to impress and talking over wine or champagne. Each event is painfully reminiscent of each other. Tsuneko seems pained for a moment before she forces a smile, she’s trying at the very least. Whether it will be good enough remains to be seen.

The first individual to speak to them is Mr. Belrose, a wealthy man from France. He’s excited and robust, greeting her with a faire la bise, kissing Tsuneko on the cheeks. To her credit, Tsuneko seems to expect it and reacts kindly. It’s not unusual for those kinds of greetings to be shocking to people not use to them, but she either memorized the notes he gave or is smart enough not to show any signs of fluster.

Eisuke guides the conversation as he introduces her as his assistant, but Tsuneko doesn’t stand blankly off to the side. She stays engaged and takes notes, contributing when she has something relevant to say. Her and Mr. Belrose end up discussing pastries with her recommending places to visit while he’s in Tokyo. By the time the conversation ends he’s smiling and seems happy to have met her.

This trend continues as they continue making rounds and talking to guests. She’s not truly any less of a smartass, he can’t even say she’s putting up any sort of act. But, her tone is different, her little comments more like playful teasing than genuinely being annoyed. He’s just begun talking to Watanabe when he notices both of their champagne flutes has gone dry.

“Get us more champagne,” he tells Tsuneko and he can tell she wants to argue, but she doesn’t and instead goes to find champagne for them.

“You’re a lucky man, Ichinomiya,” Watanabe tells him with a grin.

“You’ll have to be more specific.”

“Tomori, she’s a beautiful girl,” Watanabe looks over at where Tsuneko is getting champagne, “I mean, surely you have a thing for her?”

Is that how it looks? Eisuke looks over at Tsuneko, she’s certainly attractive by most standards. She’s petite with collarbone length chocolate brown hair that falls in soft waves and her large expressive eyes are a soft plum purple shade. A soft round face decorated in freckles and a single dimple that shows when she smiles. She’s a bit chubbier than the average Japanese woman which might be detractor to some. He can see how to an outsider she may seem worthy of his attention.

“She’s a diligent assistant.” Is all he says before a woman he knows he’s seen before, but can’t place the name of, comes rushing over. She throws her arms around his arm and all but glues herself to his side.

“Eisuke,” her whine is like nails on a chalkboard, “I’ve been wanting to talk to you this whole time.”

“Well, why didn’t you come on over, Kaede?” Watanabe asks her and Eisuke’s trying to figure out how to pry her off of his arm, Kaede, that’s right. She’s Amachi’s daughter, he’s the owner of a modeling agency, a spoiled girl who’s only in these circles because of her dad.

“Ugh, well I couldn’t exactly come talk with that pig hovering around Eisuke.” She didn’t want to come over because of Tsuneko, interesting.

“I brought the champagne,” Tsuneko speaks from behind them, her glare at Kaede makes it clear she heard the pig comment. Maybe she can deter these kind of women? Eisuke and Watanabe take the champagne flutes from Tsuneko’s hand.

“Wait, I remember you,” Kaede says, her eyes trained on Tsuneko and her nails digging into his arm as she clings, “you were that maid at the I.V.C, why the hell are you here?”

Kaede was there clinging to him at the I.V.C as well when Tsuneko went off on a pervert that was harassing her.

“I’m working as Mr. Ichinomiya’s assistant today,” Tsuneko explains, her face remains stoic but her tone has lost any sign of playfulness.

“Assistant,” Kaede’s eyes seem to brighten at this, “that makes sense, you’re just here as the help of course. Why don’t you make yourself useful and get me some champagne too?”

“Given Mr. Ichinomiya is my boss, it would be up to him,” she says this politely but her meaning is clear, she won’t be taking orders from Kaede. The model scowls.

“Actually,” he draws out seeing one of the servers with champagne is finally nearing them and he pulls his arm away from Kaede’s grasp to get one of them. She looks smug as he grabs a glass, but her face falls again when he hands it to Tsuneko, “would you like some?”

“Oh, thanks.” Tsuneko’s eyes are wide with surprise, like it never even occured to her that she could enjoy some as well.

It’s time to test the waters of Tsuneko’s use as a woman deterrent. He makes sure to let their hands touch as he passes off the champagne and softens his expression as he looks at her. When he pulls his hand away it makes a small show of doing so slowly, letting his touch linger. One of Tsuneko’s eyebrow raise and her head tilts just slightly, clearly confused by his actions. Kaede however, lets out a huffy noise and storms off.

He can’t help smirking. It won’t win the bet, using her as deterrent, because many woman could probably fill that sort of role. But, it’s still some use he can get out of her, particularly when he has to meet with Carolina. It’s not unique or special to Tsuneko, those stipulations to the bet are aggravating to say the least, but he knows he’ll still win.

Watanabe gives him a look like he just caught Eisuke and Tsuneko in a private moment. Tsuneko shakes off the weirdness with an actual small shake of her head and starts drinking her champagne. The event continues on with no further issues or moments of interest.

The night winds down and it’s time for them to take their leave. Tsuneko lets out a heavy sigh as she sits down in the limousine. Perhaps it’s just from the stress of the event but she seems more relaxed in the car than she did before. She even pulls off her heels and starts rubbing her red sore ankles, unconcerned if she looks uncouth in front of him.

He can’t ask her to pose as his girlfriend or anything directly, his thoughts wander to his plans as the car starts moving. If he asks her, he’s sure she’d refuse and even ruin it purposely. She may have behaved tonight, but she’d never agree to something like that. The implication of it was enough to drive off Kaede; just forcing himself to look disgustingly in love and leave lingering touches. It may be enough to convince others he has feelings for her, not that they’re actually together. He can’t help disliking the thought of looking like a love stricken fool who’d sit idly by and not take what they want, he’d never lower himself to that kind of behavior. But, if it in addition to introducing her to Soryu gets Carolina off his back and keeps the Bucci deal safe, it will be worth it.

A loud stomach growl rings out through the car from Tsuneko’s direction and she’s glaring down on her stomach like it’s betrayed her. He can’t help letting out a short huff of air in place of a laugh.

“I haven’t eaten anything since lunch, give me a break.”

Eisuke thinks for a moment, he hasn’t eaten in a while either, the event didn’t have much in the way of food. A bakery with it’s lights still on catches his eye and he remembers Tsuneko’s babbling about sweets with Mr. Belrose. Most higher end bakeries he knows of would be shut down by now, but it’s something. He tells his driver to stop and park in front of the building.

“Oh, you don’t have to do that, I can just eat when I get home.”

“We’re going because I want to ,” he tells her and it seems to quiet her up for a brief second, even if she does roll her eyes at him. The car turns to park outside the bakery and she pulls her shoes back on before they walk inside.

He can’t help sneering a bit as he looks around, it was an impulse to stop here. Eisuke didn’t realize it would be so small. A simple layout with off white walls and maple wood paneling. At the front of the store is a large brightly lit glass case meant to display sweet, but it’s notably empty. He’ll have to pay extra for them to make something, he figures.

“Sorry, we just shut down the oven, we’re getting ready to close up in the next hour.” A young man comes out from the back in a pastry chef uniform.

“Nonsense-”

“Ah, uh,” Tsuneko interrupts and glares at him, “that’s fine, we understand.”

What on earth is wrong with her? He can just pay them to stay open longer, they’re both hungry, what’s the point in just leaving? Does she enjoy wasting his time?

“Hmm,” the chef chews his lip and seems to mull it over, “we do have one cake still left, it’s big enough to share if you two want it. Otherwise it’ll be thrown out.” The chef brings out a a large strawberry cream cake.

“You don’t mind us staying here to eat it?” Tsuneko asks him.

“We still have a half hour before we officially close, so it’s fine,” the chef tells her and she smiles brightly, the young man flushes up to his ear, “don’t worry about it.”

They take the dessert to settle in at a table to enjoy it. It’s an immaculate cake, piles of white cream and ripe strawberries between layers of sponge cake. On top a single large strawberry in a little dollop of cream. He goes to stab a fork into the top strawberry when it’s plucked off the top of the cake by Tsuneko’s fingers. Eisuke glares as Tsuneko starts to bring it to her mouth, she pauses when she realizes this.

“What?” she asks, still holding the top strawberry to her lips.

“I was going to eat that.”

“It’s literally right next to my mouth.”

“I was going to eat that,” he says again, scowling. How dare she just steal the top strawberry? She narrows her eyes and pouts, before a subtle smirk pulls at her lips.

Tsuneko makes a little show of putting part of the strawberry into her mouth and sucking off the cream, leaving the bright red fruit shining with saliva when she pulls it from her lips with a pop.

“Still want it?” She offers with a grin, like she’s got him and he wouldn’t dare eat something she’s licked.

He returns his own smirk and plucks it from her fingers to pop it into his own mouth; eating it right in front of her. Her face falls and she glares at him, pouting.

“Seriously?” She narrows her eyes at him and licks some cream still clinging to her lips.

“I told you, I wanted it.” He swallows the fruit, somehow tasting even sweeter than he expected.

“God, you act like a toddler.” The plate makes a scratching noise across the table as she pulls the cake closer to her and stabs her fork into it. She shoves a hunk of cake into her mouth and he drags the plate back towards him to get a bite himself.

This goes on throughout the meal; becoming a tug of war with the plate. The cake dwindles down to nothing and she swipes the final bite, licking cream from her lips. They both stand from their chairs and Tsuneko pouts when she sees him pulling his card out to pay, shouldn’t she be happy?

“I’ll pay,” she tells him and walks off towards the register. This nonsense again.

“Don’t be stupid.” He groans as he makes his way to the counter. His steps are larger than her’s by virtue of his height, but she practically hops to cut in front of him., shoving her own bank card into the machine. He glares at her back and the pastry chef rings her up. Eisuke can’t help but scoff when she has to put her card back in because she jammed it into the chip reader before it was ready.

There’s a grin across her face as she finishes the purchase and tucks her card back into her purse. She makes absolutely no sense. Buying a cake is nothing to him, but she’s still insistent on being the one to buy it. Usually the women he meets are constantly pestering him to buy them things.

She’s still an insipidly proud grin across her face as they go out to the car. At the very least it’s better than the pathetic look she had when they first bought her. He tries to focus on the buildings passing by as the limousine moves, but his eyes keep straying towards her. Her makeup is just barely starting to fade and he can see a hint of the purple bruises on her face.

It was a shock seeing her being sold that night, it’s against the rules of the auctions to sell someone against their will. He never expected to see one of the maids in a golden cage screaming at the top of her lungs, like a trapped animal. There were fresh bruises across her face, her eyes were wet with unshed tears, and she was cradling her bloody hand. While he hasn’t seen her look that pained again, he still hasn’t seen her happy. Even her proud little grins seems spiteful instead of truly happy. It’s clear she’s miserable by this whole thing and is desperate to get away from them.

If he was a nicer person he would have let her.

The limousine comes to a stop outside the hotel. He steps out and is around the other side of the car when he notices Tsuneko wincing as she gets out. Her steps are tender and careful.

“You look ridiculous.” He smirks and she glares at him.

“Well, excuse the fuck out of me for being in pain.”

“Come here.” He moves to pick her up and she jolts back like he’s burnt her.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m not going to waste my time waiting for you to hobble your way up to the penthouse.”

“Well, there’s not really any alternative, now is there.”

“There is.” He attempts again and she ducks away from him, letting out a whimper.

“Dude,” he’s taken aback being called ‘dude’, “you can’t pick me up.”

“What are you talking about?” He glares at her, is she calling him weak?

“I’m a chubby girl and, no offense, you’re kind of a string bean.”

He scowls, how dare she, Tsuneko isn’t able to avoid him this time and he hoists her up onto his shoulder.

“Ahhh, what the hell are you doing!?” She squirms where she’s over his shoulder, swinging her fists down against his back. He gets a firm grip on her thigh to keep her steady, her skin warm and soft under his hand.

“Stop squirming or I’ll drop you,” he threatens as he packs her into through the hotel lobby, her body heavy but not overbearing on his shoulder. A few guests give them odd looks, but he doesn’t pay them any mind.

She’s still yelping and smacking at his back when he gets her to the penthouse elevator. He’s put the key in and the elevator lurches into movement.

She hits him particularly hard in the back, a dull ache already starting to form, and he puts her down. What is her problem, she should be grateful he was willing to carry her. She glares at him instead and he scowls then she slams her fist into his stomach. A jolt of pain runs through his abdomen and he hunches over, grabbing at where she hit him.

“What is wrong with you?!”

“What is your problem!?” He tries to yell back, his voice a rasp from having the wind knocked out of him, he can’t remember the last time someone actually hit him.

“My problem is you! Do you have any idea how humiliating it is to be packed around like a sack of potatoes!”

“Is it anymore humiliating than limping through the hotel?”

“Yes,” she looks at him like he’s an idiot, “it’s a thousand times worse!”

“So when you don’t get what you want, you hit me, who’s the toddler now?”

“Oh, I’m sorry, do you not like getting touched without permission,” she jabs him in the chest with her finger, “I told you not to pick me up and you did anyway, so I hit you.”

“I own you, I don’t need your permission.”

“Hellooo?~ Did you forget the entire fucking bet?! You don’t own me until you win and you know what, even if you did own me, I’d still kick your sorry ass for that bullshit!”

The elevator comes to a stop and the doors open with a noise. Tsuneko stomps off towards Kisaki’s suite where her clothes are. He glares at her as she leaves before he enters the lounge. Everyone is there and they all seem to give him an odd look as he walks to his usual seat.

“What the hell happened?” Kishi is the first one to speak, taking a drag off of his cigarette and Eisuke glares at him, not that he seems bothered.

“Nothing,” he says and gets his tablet out to reviews the notes Tsuneko took.

“We could hear the woman screeching from here,” Soryu grimaces, like even talking about her or hearing her is a pain. Eisuke shifts in his seat and a twinge of pain goes through his gut, his expression must change because he gets some strange looks.

“Are you alright boss?” Baba asks him with a look of concern.

“She hit me,” he admits, avoiding eye contact as he pulls up her notes.

“Pfffft,” Kishi lets out a sputtering laugh and chokes on his cigarette.

“We can still get rid of her,” Soryu offers without hesitation.

“No,” Eisuke tells him as he reads over the tablet. Her notes are immaculate, well organized and clear to understand with an immense amount of details. She may be proving to be a handful, but he knows he can find a proper use for her.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tsuneko groans loudly as she stumbles into her dorm peels off her shoes. She could have changed in Kisaki’s suite, but after her fight with Ichinomiya, she just wanted to get out of there as soon as possible. The event dragged on for entirely too long, it’s like she’s spent years with Ichinomiya instead of hours. She puts the shopping bags of professional clothes down on her counter, she’ll tuck them away in her closet properly after she’s done everything else that needs to be done. For now those and the stack of documents listing auction items will sit right there and stay as far away from her consciousness as possible.

She checks on Kiyo, he’s snoozing with only half of his body in bed. Tsuneko grabs some comfy casual clothes, one of her favorite pajama sets, and heads into her bathroom. They’ll be nice to relax in after her bath. She scrubs off the makeup, revealing her plain baby face underneath, Kisaki really is a master with that kind of stuff. The dress takes her a moment to strip off, her bra and panties follow into the clothes pile.

It takes a while for her water to warm up and fill the tub. She’s infinitely thankful the dorms come with bathtubs and not just a shower, even if they’re on the smaller side. Showers are great in the morning when she’s in a rush, but when she needs to relax, baths are the best.

She sinks down into the steaming hot water, keeping her bandaged hand up on the side of the tub. It’s a bit of trouble to pour some body wash into her uninjured hand, but she manages it. She takes a deep breath, the familiar smell of her body wash is relaxing. A soft sweet scent of fresh cream that’s just warm and comforting to her.

It builds a gentle lather across her skin, flushed pink from the hot water. She scrubs down her neck and whimpers when she starts to tease her chest. That burn of arousal starts to build inside of her again, maybe it all the stress, but she’s been feeling so needy lately. Her body is begging for some sort of release.

She gently squeezes and plays with her breasts, avoiding her nipples for the time being. Soft moans and whines escapes her as she tries to imagine someone else teasing her and groping at her body. There’s a steady heat building between her thighs as her fingers sink into the squish of her breast. She can feel herself growing slicker with each movement.

Her fingers finally travel to her nipple, teasing over the sensitive peach pink skin. A breathy sound escapes her as she starts pinching and pulling at it. Her teeth sinks into her lip, she’s not sure how thin the walls are in these dorms, but she doesn’t want to test it. Even with the warmth of the water her touch is able to bring her nipple to a stiff peak before she moves to the other one. Her thighs clench together, trying to put some pressure on her clit.

Once she’s teased her other nipple for a moment, leaving her chest covered in suds as her hand starts to slip down lower. Her fingers rub down the soft squish of her stomach before finding their place between her thighs. She’s gentle at first, just teasing her slit, but she can’t stand it a moment longer.

She lets out a loud whine of pleasure when she presses her fingers to her clit, the bundle of nerves twitches at the touch. A jolt of ecstasy hits her and she presses down harder. She can feel her hot slick even through the water and she starts rubbing at herself. Her fingers move quick and her hips instinctively rock up against her own touch. The water splashing out of the tub from the movements. Her body is so desperate and her pleasure builds quickly. She dips her fingers down into her to stop herself from cumming so quickly.

It’s a slow pumping motion, her fingers aren’t long enough to give herself any kind of deep penetration, but it’s enough to keep her pleasure going without crashing over her peak. She scissors her fingers, trying to give her tight hole a slight stretch. A whimper escapes her and her clit throbs, needing more stimulation.

She drags her slick fingers back up and starts playing with her swollen clit again. It’s too much and her walls clench at the touch. Pleasure overwhelms her and her moan catches in her throat as the tension snaps, finally finding her release.

She’s reduced to whimpers and whines as rides out the aftershocks, softly teasing herself through until it’s too much. Between the heat of her body and the water, it’s like she’s melting. Her breath comes out in heavy pants and her toes are sore from curling. Once she’s caught her breath, she carefully washes the rest of her body, avoiding her sensitive cunt and chest.

She’s extra careful getting out of the tub, between the water and her now shaky legs it’s a bit more precarious. She dries her skin, whining when she rubs the towel down between her thighs, the fabric brushes across the sensitive lips of her sex. Once dry she changes into her pajamas and pulls her hair up into two messy space buns. Her face is still red, the after glow of orgasm clinging to her. The bathroom smells like body wash and sex now, despite what she did, she still feels clean.

She needs to take care of a few mundane things, now that she’s gotten her release. Kiyo is still snoozing in his cage, so she’ll have to let him out to play later tonight when he’s awake. She cleans up his cage then changes his food and water. The stack of documents catches her eye, she needs to deal with that. Everything about having to present at the auction is a headache waiting to happen. Instead of starting on that she marks the day off on the calendar, she has the duration of the bet highlighted, so that she can keep track of how long she has until she hopefully escapes this hellish situation. She puts a reminder on the day of the auction as well.

Tsuneko plops onto her bed, pressing her face against her pillow. She just wants to relax, while she usually is dying to keep busy, those assholes take up her time in the worse kind of way. Playing assistant to someone else wouldn’t have been bad, but dealing with Ichinomiya, ugh. She groans against her pillow. Those assholes frustrate and exhaust her in the worse kind of ways.

Even thinking of them is ruining her time to relax, her skin is still warm and clean from the bath. She idly runs her hands over her side and up over her chest, feeling her nipples through the thin cotton of her tank top. A whimper is muffled by her pillow and her thighs clench. Fuck, her body never seems to be satisfied.

Tsuneko moves to her knees and uses her injured hand to pull the pillow tight to her face to muffle any noises. She doesn’t waste any time shoving her other hand down her short and between her thighs. Her clit is already slick and swollen, it’s like the first orgasm did nothing to sate her. She rubs her fingers over it, making noises into her pillow.

Tension and pleasure pools between her legs, her orgasm building higher and higher. But this time, she can’t go over the peak. Her hopes of a quick second orgasm are dashed, her ecstasy plateaus and she can’t seem to build it high enough to cum. She rubs quicker and harder, it’s good but it’s not enough.

“Fuck,” she whines into her pillow, she just wants to cum damn it. Her bed creaks as she scramble to get her box out from under her bed. The baby pink box with a quilted heart lid and a Winnie The Pooh padlock is where she keeps all of her sex toys. She nearly drops the key, her movements are so frantic and her fingers are too slick. It opens, showing her growing hoard of toys.

She picks her big smooth silver toy meant to hit some spot deep inside of her. That spot has an actual name, but the lusty haze in her brains keep her from remembering it. She peels off her shorts and gets back on her knees, with her face in the pillow.

Tsuneko reaches back with the toy, a soft mewl escapes her when the toy brushes against her sensitive folds. She slowly pushes it inside of her, whimpering at the deep penetration and stretch of it opening her up. It hits that sweet spot and she sees stars. She starts fucking the toy into herself, losing all sense of patience, as she furiously chases her orgasm. Her slick drips down her thigh and coats her hand as she slams the toy inside of herself. Pleasure keeps building with every pump of the toy. She can’t keep any sort of rhythm or pattern, it’s just a frantic mixture of thrusting the toy while her hips bounce. Her hips slam down just she fucks the toy up in, hitting that spot so hard the tension finally snaps and she bites down on her pillow to muffle her yell, her body melts into pure bliss. A gush of slick rushes down her thighs as her cunt clenches down on the toy.

She pants into her pillow, drool smearing across it. A soft noise escapes her as she takes the toy out with a flood of slick following it. Tsuneko catches her breath for a moment and forces herself to sit up; there’s a big wet spot on her blankets, her thighs are coated in her own juices, and there’s a sheen of sweat clinging to her skin.

A shower would probably be a good idea, but her body is heavy. She stares at her clock, making promises to get out of her bed and clean up. A minute or two passes and the numbers grow fuzzier. It’s like her eyelids are weighted, keeping them open is a struggle.

When her eyes open again the clock has jumped to an hour or two later. Whatever dreams she may have had weren’t vivid enough to recall or she wasn’t asleep long enough. Orgasms and booze is the best way she knows she suppress the worse of her nightmares. Though she never seems to stay asleep for very long after an orgasm, which is probably for the best. If it could give her a long deep dreamless kind of sleep, she’d probably spend the majority of her time with her hand between her legs.

She stretches as she climbs out of her bed, the air is cool on her sweat and slick coated skin. Her toy is still on top of the sheets, she cleans it and tucks it back into the box. Tsuneko grabs her discarded shorts and a new set of pajamas before heading to the shower.

Her shower manages to be free of funny business She leaves the bathroom clean, with new pajamas, and newly done space buns. It’s a little after three in the morning, she usually gets up around five, so she might as well just stay up and get something done besides masturbating.

Kiyo is up and making noises as she comes over to his cage. She lets him out and he’s quick to tackle one of his toys. While he’s playing with that she puts the new clothes away in her dresser, the price tags still hurt, and changes the sheets on her bed.. Tsuneko grabs one of her binders, a black one with a cute minimalist cat face on it. It’s empty, one she bought on a whim because it was adorable with no real use, now she has something to use with it.

She takes the documents of auction items and punches holes in them to fit them into the binder. She’ll start reading over them on her lunch break and she still needs to visit the tea room, or whatever, where Oh said the hatter was.

Memories of the hatter and the auction flash through her mind. All eyes on her, an entire crowd just waiting for the chance to use her, to hurt her and she can’t even get away. Her throat is tight and she can’t get a deep enough breath. Her heart races like a runaway train, it’s going to burst out of her chest. She wraps her arms around herself and pulls her knees to her chest, hiding her face away from the phantom eyes she can still feel on her.

Something fluffy touches her thigh and she jolts in her chair, Kiyo is climbs into her lap. She hugs him tight to her chest and pets his fur. He makes soft noises and she focuses all of her attention on him, slowly she starts to feel better. Her breathing steadies and her heart race starts to normalize.

“You’re such a good boy, Kiyo.” She gives him a soft smooch and he nuzzles into her face. Tears she didn’t realize she was crying wet his fur, but he doesn’t mind and makes soft dooking noises.

She takes a deep breath, thankful her body will allow it and puts Kiyo down, time for a game of tag. Tsuneko boops him and runs away letting him chase her excitedly across the dorm. They play and chase after each other for around an hour. She catches him after her turn to tag him and scratches at his stomach, making him nip at her fingers.

Tsuneko makes him some breakfast, his favorite eggs and raw beef, giving him an extra helping. She feeds him a bit from her hand before putting him away, topping the bowl off again before she goes to get ready. She’s gone through her skin care routine, put on makeup, tied her hair, and changed into some slightly less pajama-y clothes. Her stomach growls, she’ll go to a gas station and grab a candy bar or something. She’s still running early and it will be nice to go out of her way. A little walk might help clear her mind.

The early morning air is cool and nice on her skin, there’s a little convenient store not that far away from the hotel. She walks inside, rows of colorful snacks and fluorescent lights greet her. Tsuneko takes her time browsing before picking out a bottle of strawberry milk and custard filled taiyaki. She’s getting her bank card out as she walks up to the register.

“Hello, princess.”

Her head jerks up at the familiar voice and sickly sweet pet name. Baba stands behind the register with a big smile in the striped blue convenience store uniform, isn’t he a thief? Does he need a day job?

“You work here?”

“Part time, I like to help out, now you know another place to find me.” Baba wink as he starts ringing up her order.

“Guess I’m not coming back.” Tsuneko slides her card and then her eyes go wide. There’s a display of Cinnamoroll lollipops near the register she didn’t see earlier. Not only is the little fluffy mascot on the wrappers, the actual suckers are shaped like him. She has to bite her lip to resist yelling out, it’s so cute. But, she’s already bought her makeshift breakfast, maybe she’ll come back after work and buy a bunch to fill her candy bowl and uniform pockets.

“Awww, don’t be like that, lovely lady.”

“I have a name.”

“And it’s a beautiful one.”

“Don’t make me sick before breakfast.” She sighs and grabs her bag before heading out the door.

“See you later, Tsuneko.” At least she knows he does actually remember her name. She gives a half-ass wave before she leaves the store.

She pulls out the taiyaki and unwraps it, munching on the custard filled cake as she walks towards the hotel. Tsuneko is licking her fingers clean as she reaches the back lot behind the Tres Spades. She’s getting her milk out of the bag when she feels something else.

It’s one of the Cinnamoroll lollipops, a pink bubblegum flavored one. Did Baba toss it into her bag for her? He must have seen her practically drooling over them. That’s actually really nice, ugh. It’s hard to hate him if he’s going to be like this. She tucks it into her pocket for later and drinks her milk.

She’s finished with her little breakfast and thrown her trash away by the time she enters the locker room. She immediately sees Sakiko and makes a beeline for her, remembering the conversation she had yesterday with Chiho and Mari. Tsuneko pinches Sakiko’s ear and yanks.

“Owww, what are you doing?!”

“What the hell have you been telling people?!”

“About wha-owwww!” Tsuneko yanks harder.

“You know damn well what I’m talking about.”

“Chisato, help!”

“You did it to yourself, Sakiko.” Chisato doesn’t even look away from her locker.

“Confess, asshole.” Tsuneko yanks again.

“Ahhhh, all I did was tell people about you bumping into Mr. Ichinomiya.”

“Don’t lie to me!”

“Owww-uh, okay maybe I told them he loves you.”

“And why the hell would you do that?!”

“’Cause it’s true!”

“Do you want to die?!”

“Not before I get a boyfriend,” Sakiko whines and Tsuneko lets go of her ear.

“Stop being an idiot.”

“Just tell me to stop breathing why don’t you,” Sakiko grumbles, rubbing at her bright red ear.

“It would certainly make my life easier.”

“That’s mean Tsuneko,” Chisato scolds in a deadpan voice.

“Well, yeah, I said it, that’s how you know.” Tsuneko opens her locker and her eyes widen, there’s a stack of new uniforms in her locker. She checks the tag, it’s doesn’t say a specific size.

“Did you finally get your new uniform?” Sakiko asks as Tsuneko pulls out one of them.

“Uh, yeah,” Tsuneko tells her because she doesn’t know what else to say, maybe Kenzaki noticed and put in an order for her?

She pulls on the uniform and the fit is amazing, like it’s tailored just to her. Tsuneko sometimes struggles with sizing, finding a balance between comfortable but not frumpy, but this is perfect. It’s not too tight across her chest or stomach, but still tailored enough that it doesn’t sag or swallow her whole. Her waist is still defined in it and it doesn’t make her look bigger than she is.

Is the neckline a little lower though? She feels like she has to do up another button than usual to completely cover her cleavage. She’s not too shy about having her chest showing, but it’s not exactly professional, so she just does up the extra button and calls it done.

“By the way,” Tsuneko starts as she shuts her locker, “do either of you know where the tea room is?”

“The tea room?” Sakiko raises an eyebrow, maybe they don’t know anything about it.

“Uh, like somewhere to get tea at?” Chisato tries, but she clearly has no idea what Tsuneko is talking about.

“No, not exactly, don’t worry about it.” She’ll just have to ask Kenzaki, he’s sure to know. They leave the locker room and get their work schedules.

Tsuneko spots Kenzaki at the front desk, checking in guests, and makes a quick beeline over to him. She waits patiently for the guests to finish registering.

“Is there something I can help you with Tomori?”

“Yes, Mr. Oh told me that I needed to go to the tea room at some point, but I’m not sure where that is.”

“Ah, alright then, please follow me.” Kenzaki isn’t bothered in the slightest, nothing seems to knock the passive smile off of his face.

He leads her through the lobby and down to the basement. Her mouth goes dry as they meander through the familiar halls, all she can remember is seeing them through cage bars. She swallows hard and tries to push through, then Kenzaki leads her down another flight of stairs she’s never seen before. She always though the level with the ballroom and auction was the lowest of the hotel, it’s even marked as the basement floor in the elevators.

“Here we are,” Kenzaki tells her and gestures towards a large set of double doors along the hall in this new basement level of the hotel.

“Alright, I’ll make a note of it. I still have rooms to clean, so I’ll come back later.”

“If you’ve been asked to come down here, it’s best for you to go on in. The penthouse guests and the tea room resident should take precedent over your other duties,” Kenzaki explains calmly, before leaving her alone in front of the door. Tsuneko tales a deep breath and lets her nerves calm down before she knocks on the door.

“Come in,” a voice calls out and Tsuneko pushes the doubles doors open.

Her breath catches in her throat. It’s like she’s stepped into another world. The ceiling looks exactly like a beautiful early morning sky, soft blue with puffy white clouds, so real she can almost convince herself she’s outside. What looks and feels like lush green grass is under her feet, but she knows it can’t be real. Masses of green vines and bright red roses are painted across the brick walls. Within the middle of the room is a table covered in a white table cloth, wooden chairs with white blue striped cloth. At the table sits the Mad Hatter, still dressed in the same costume from the night she was sold.

“Um, hello, I was told to come down here.”

“Alice,” the Mad Hatter jump out of his seat with wide eyes and rushes over to her. She startles back it’s so sudden, “Oh, you’re timid, I must treat you delicately.”

“Uh, no, I’m fine sorry,” she murmurs. Given his hatter get up and the wonderland vibe of the room, she can gather that this must be an Alice in Wonderland reference. She can’t say she’d ever liken herself to the fairy tale character, but that doesn’t stop the Mad Hatter.

“I finally found you, Alice,” he whispers as he clasps her hands between his, he’s like a kid who’s just been told he can have candy and a toy. His costume and aesthetic is far on the uncanny side, but his expression is almost cute underneath the caked on makeup.

“My name is Tomori Tsuneko.”

“Your eyes are so pure and innocent, you’re the perfect Alice.”

“Pffft,” she suppresses a laugh. She definitely would not consider herself pure or innocent, “uh, Oh told me to come talk to you about helping out with the auction shit.”

“Yes! I was so excited when he told me, your outfit should be here soon!”

“Outfit?” She grimaces, if it’s anything like what he wears, she’s scared.

“Yes, I know you’ll look beautiful in it, I’ve been wanting to see you again since that night!”

“You have?”

“From the first moment I saw you, I was a prisoner of your love.”

“Okaaaay,” she looks away from the entirely too earnest looking hatter, “someone’s been spending too much time with Baba.”

“You’re the Alice that I’ve been searching for,” there’s a hopeful lilt to his voice, “you have no idea how long I’ve waited to meet you, Alice.”

He casts his eyes downward and a pout pulls at his painted lips. The expression causes a pang in her heart, that she really doesn’t want to address. He’s a grown man in a hatter costume who’s working an illegal auction, he gleefully sold her, he’s not a child. She has to tell herself this, remind herself not to feel sympathy for this man.

“Well,” she scratches at her nose sheepishly, “I’m here now.”

“The reason you started working here, you breaking the Venus Statue,” his face lights up, “it was all part of the fate that brought us together. I don’t believe in coincidences, Alice. Our fates are connected. ”

“Well, I don’t believe in fate, so we’re gonna have a helluva time.”

“You say the oddest things, Alice.”

“So, wha-huh? Oh my god!” Brushing against her leg is the fattest, fluffiest Himalayan cat she’s ever seen, staring up at Tsuneko with bright blue eyes.

“Oh, Cheshire! And how are you doing today?” The Mad Hatter scoops up the cat, just a fat mass of fur in his arms.

“Can I pet them?” Tsuneko asks, despite how much she wants to reach out and just snuggle that precious fluff ball, she knows it’s wrong not to ask first.

“Of course, Cheshire’s pride and joy is her silky long hair,” he says as hands Cheshire over. Tsuneko’s arms strain to hold the cat, but she doesn’t mind and nuzzles her face against the fluffy girl.

“You’re such a pretty girl, aren’t you,” she coos at Cheshire.

“Would you like to help take care of her, Alice?” The Mad Hatter asks, his unnaturally blue eyes wide and a smile across his lips.

“Can I?”

“You may, but you’d have to come down here everyday to brush her fur.”

“I don’t mind.” Tsuneko smiles, cuddling a cat is now part of her job, that’s the best news ever.

“Wonderful!” The Mad Hatter bounces and claps his hands, you’d think he had just won the lottery.

“Okay, so-god damn it.” Her pager buzzes in her pocket and she has to let Cheshire go to answer it.

“Penthouse. Five Minutes.”

“My, my, how frightening.”

“Yeah, I gotta go deal with his shit.” Tsuneko sighs, the last time she saw Ichinomiya she’d sucker punched him.

“Oh, you’re leaving.” He pouts and stares at the ground, he looks like strange wounded harlequin puppy.

“Yeah, but I can come back.” The words comes out before Tsuneko even realizes it, the need to comfort him is overwhelming.

“Really!?” His expression is bright again, “Would you want to come back around nine or so and help me with a tea party?”

“Yeah, sounds good to me,” Tsuneko tells him with a soft smile.

“I can’t wait, ahh, you better get going or he’ll be mad.”

“What else is new.” Tsuneko waves him off and heads out the door. She takes her time to make it up to the lounge, taking her time with the stairs and helping a few guests before entering the elevator with her cleaning cart.

“You’re late.”

“I was in the tea room.”

“Ugh, I’d go crazy if I had to spend even a hour there.” Kisaki grimaces.

“Maddy is definitely an eccentric guy.”

“Coffee.” At the very least, Ichinomiya isn’t trying to harp on the whole punching him thing. She ventures into the kitchen and makes up drinks.

“I’ll go ahead and start cleaning,” she tells them after she hands off the drinks.

“You’ll be be working as my assistant all day tomorrow,” Ichinomiya says after taking a sip of his coffee.

“I can’t believe you’re dragging that woman along with us,” Oh grumbles as he takes a drink from his cup. Everyday is a struggle not to spit into their drinks.

“Dress appropriately and be here ready to leave at 8:30am.’

“Is Kenzaki still busy?”

“That’s none of your business.”

“This is my job and you’re my employer, this could not be more of my business.”

“Be quiet and start cleaning already,” Oh demands her and she can’t help glaring at him.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m going, you sexist dumbass,”she grumbles and goes to start cleaning.

“What was that?”

“I called you a sexist dumbass,” she repeats louder.

“You’re just asking to be put down at this point.”

“Whatever,” Tsuneko mumbles again, she’s still not sure how serious Oh is about killing her and every time he makes those comments she has to wonder. If she knew how empty his threats were, she’d feel better. Even if he is being honest and would kill her, at least then she’d know to be careful of him.

Once the lounge is cleaned she starts working on the suites. Kishi’s gives her a headache again, but she manages. Oh’s room is last, because his is usually fairly neat and just needs standard maintenance Tsuneko cleans the bedroom, living room, and kitchen before making it to her bathroom.

Oh is annoying her in particular today. Between the condescending way he calls her woman and the constant death threats. He may want her out of there, but he plans on treating her like shit until it happens. Baba and Kisaki generally seem pretty light hearted when they tease her. There’s something more, hateful almost when it comes to Oh and Ichinomiya. Kishi takes up space and ruins the air quality, that’s where his influence end.

A wrapper scratches across her fingers where she’s fiddling with the good luck charm, a force of habit at this point. She’s reminded of the cute little sucker tucked away in her pocket. Keeping candy in her pockets isn’t uncommon, but this is all she has on her today. Her eyes are drawn up to the shower head in Oh’s bathroom. She pulls off the wrapper carefully, saving it for the cute art work.

“Sorry, Cinnamoroll, know you died for a good cause,” she tells the little puppy shaped lolipop as she yanks the candy off the stick. Tsuneko unscrews his shower head, tucks the treat inside, then puts it back together. By the end of his next shower, he should be coming out sticky and smelling like bubblegum.

Content with her petty revenge of the day, Tsuneko finishes the rest of the bathroom and leaves the penthouse to start the rest of her work. The rest of the day passes by pretty easily; cleaning rooms, restocking amenities, and helping guests. She eats her lunch in the cafeteria with Sakiko and Chisato, the two of them idly chatting while she reads over the auction items. Tsuneko wants to see about them eventually getting lunch at Parole, the little bakery Ichinomiya and her went to. Not only was the cake good, the pastry chef was adorable, all she wanted to do was hug him when his face lit up red.

She’s finished the last room on her work schedule and it’s time to head back to Wonderland for the tea party. She can’t help but snort at the ridiculousness of that thought. The Mad Hatter is a strange man and despite trying to remember how he fucking sold her, she can’t help having a soft spot for him. Tsuneko knocks on the door to the tea room

“Come in, come in,” The Hatter ushers her in with a smile, “help me decorate for the party, Alice.”

He brings her through one of the many doors in his Wonderland that leads to a bedroom. The walls are a soft green and there’s a canopy bed with teal blue sheets. There’s a huge oak book shelf across one of the walls, piled with a mixture of books and strange little trinkets. The room itself looks like a jam packed antique and oddity shop, just an eclectic mishmash of random things.

“Uh, what about this?” she points at a candelabra.

“Why did you pick that?”

“I don’t know, looks nice.” Tsuneko gives a shrug, does it really matter?

“That’s not a very good description,” The Mad Hatter pouts like she’s scolded him, “this is how you should describe it, Alice.”

He snatches it from his hand with a flourish and waves his hand around it. His expression is bright again, all wide eyed and smiley. The Mad Hatter’s emotions seem to shift on every little whim.

“The feel of it is as sensual as juicy pear. It’s cold as ice, the temperature like a chameleon which stirs a sluggish soul!”

“Pear are sensual….?” She raises an eyebrow at him, now she’s just wondering if he fucks pears or something.

“The candelabra was in a deep sleep, but now it’s alive. With the appropriate descriptions, any object can be brought to life. Word have both the power to give life and to kill.” all jokes aside, she can kind of see what he’s getting at, that describing things in a creative way kind of makes it more fun.

“I think I get it.” She can’t say this is really her forte, but there’s something fun about his over the top antics.

“Now, let continue choosing decorations.” The Hatter bustles around the crowded room. He grabs random objects and presents them to Tsuneko before going into some flowery description about them.

“The painting of the cobra,” he spins and shows it to her, “silently command words. It’s dainty as a house mouse, brimming with an inner passion rivaled only by Perseus.”

“Uhhh, but it also hides the secret pain of knowing Medusa’s tragedy,” Tsuneko offers, using her limited knowledge of Greek myth. His smile is her reward for the attempt, even if she’s still not confident. Creativity isn’t exactly her strong suit.

“Hidden in the depths of this bronze goddess statue is a shy spotted garden eel. But, the sweet curve of her breast is like a sad melody from Chopin!.”

“That’s a poetic way to say nice rack,” she turns to find something else when she sees two random figures, “ahHHH”

Tsuneko jumps back and trips over one of The Hatter’s treasures. There’s two grown men in furry animal heads, one a mouse and the other a rabbit. Both dressed and vivid suits and just looming in the doorway.

“Alice, that’s so rude.”

“What!? A wild furry convention just broke out in your bedroom and you wanna call me rude!?

“These are our guests, The March Hare and The Dormouse.”

“What up?” A rough masculine voice comes from The March Hare.

“My stress levels, that’s what!” Tsuneko yells as she scrambles to her feet, this just went up a few notches on the strange meter. The weird almost furries start silently packing the ‘decorations’ out into the tea room.

Once her heart starts pounding, she does her best to help set up the little party. Eventually, everything seems to be in order to The Mad Hatter’s standard. Cheshire watches idly by, her big fluffy tail flicking back and forth.

“Let the party begin,” The Mad Hatter decides once it’s all done, tapping a teacup with a spoon. A discordant tone starts to play, where it’s coming from she doesn’t know, it’s almost like a distorted carnival song.

Tsuneko takes a seat and so does the two partial furry guys. Food arrives and she can’t help raising an eyebrow. It’s all strangely and vividly colored, reminding her of those bright toxic frogs. All of the food is in weird shapes, from lizards to mushrooms and a variety of bug shapes.

She slowly bites down on one of the mushrooms, it looks the least odd of the items. It has the texture of gelatin with an almost chemically artificial sweetness to it, like cheap icing.

“The steam lizard is as soft as mashed potatoes! The butterflies are crispy and fried to perfection! The grasshopper tastes lovely with the brown butter sauce, but the ladybugs taste better with the raspberry!”

The Mad Hatter rambles on and on, while no one else speaks. The March Hare and The Dormouse silently eat, while Tsuneko tries to search for one of the little treats that is actually good. She picks up one of the little butterflies, decorated like a monarch one and nibbles on it. Tsuneko nearly spits it out, it taste like fondant, awful like sugary play-doh. She ends up just pouring raspberry sauce on her plate and eating that alone. Exactly, how delusional is the hatter?

“Isn’t this fun Alice?” The Hatter asks her.

“Yeah,” she tells him, sucking raspberry sauce off her finger. Cheshire hops into her lap and, once her fingers are cleaned, she starts scratching through her fur.

“Cheshire is so happy with you here, Alice. I am too, this was the best nothing day ever.” The Mad Hatter gives her a big smile. His party is winding down, the Hare and Dormouse leaving without a word. Despite the inherent strangeness, she can’t say she didn’t like the odd little party. The Mad Hatter is at the very least entertaining.

“It was fun,” she tries to think of a nice way to say this. He can’t actually like this food and it’s definitely not good for him. No one likes fondant or bad gelatin, “but, if you don’t mind, I’d like to cook the food for a tea party at some point.”

“Really,” his eyes go wide and then he smiles, “I’d love that!”

“Lovely, how about the day after tomorrow, so I can get a menu together?”

“I’d like to have yorkshire pudding and lemon chiffon pie.”

“York...shire...pudding?” Her eyebrow raises at the unfamiliar dish name. She knows what pudding is, but the word yorkshire has her stumped, like those terrier dogs?

“Don’t worry, it’s a very simple recipe from my home country.”

That gives her no more information, his voice has a slight accent and that food definitely isn’t Japanese, but she can’t discern his race underneath the thick makeup. The little treats he has at the tea party are shaped like lizards and bugs, maybe it’s pudding in the shape of a dog? How would that even work, pudding can’t hold it’s shape, unless you freeze it. So, would it be like a dog pudding pop? That doesn’t sound right, either. She’ll just have to look it up later.

“Okay, I’ll-” her pager buzzes in her pocket, “what the fuck, I’m not even on shift!”

“Get up here, now, woman!” Oh barks demands when she answers it, someone tried to take a shower.

“They’re taking you away again,” The Mad Hatter pouts, staring at his feet.

“Don’t worry, I’ll be back.”

“Really?”

“Promise,” she says and offers her pinkie finger to him. He locks his finger with hers and a smile lights up his face, “you know what a pinkie promise means right?”

“That you promised?” His head tilts to the side a bit.

“It means that if someone breaks the promise, the other person can punish them. Traditionally, it’s cutting off the pinkie finger, ten-thousand punches, or swallowing a thousand needles. But, it’s up to the other person to decide what the punishment is. ”

“I don’t want to punish you,”

“That’s good, ‘cause you won’t have to. I have to help out Ichinomiya tomorrow, so I don’t know if I can stop by tomorrow, but I’ll be here the day after with as many treats as I can carry.”

“Okay, thank you Alice.”

“No worries, now if you excuse me, I have to go get yelled at.” She waves a bye to him and starts the journey back up to the penthouse. This should be interesting to say the least.

There will be a death threat involved, she knows that given Oh’s love of those. Even if it wasn’t her original intention, in all honesty she was just mad and feeling petty, this might be a chance to see how genuine those threats are. If the guy is willing to kill her over a petty prank, she’ll know how carefully she has to tread around him. Not that this will necessarily stop her from talking back and getting angry, because, well, that’s just kind of who she is. It’s not like she can’t bite her tongue and be kind to people she doesn’t like, but there’s some stuff she can’t let pass. And given how they purchased her at an illegal auction, she doesn’t really feel the need to treat them with anything resembling respect. They sealed their fate with her that night. Even if she loses the bet, she’ll never be kind or respectful to them.

She can hear laughter and yelling as she steps into the lounge. Baba, Kisaki, and Kishi are cracking up in hysterics. Ichinomiya is smirking and looking like he’s on the verge of laughing as well. Oh is in the middle of the lounge, yelling at them to shut up. His usually slicked back dark hair is falling into his face, just slightly damp, and the smell of artificial bubblegum is evident in the room.

“I was paged.”

All eyes are on her and she barely manages to keep the smile off her face. Oh glares at her and it gets easier, her breath catching in her throat. His hair down soften his appearance a bit, but there’s nothing but sheer venom in his dark blue eyes.

“What the hell is this?” He throws something at her and she just manages to catch the half melted piece of candy, no longer recognizable as Cinnamoroll.

“Hey, be careful, if that stuck to the floor, it’d take forever to clean,” she complains and toss the candy into the trash, trying to wipe some of the sticky residue off her skin.

“Did you seriously put candy in my shower head!?” He yells and storms closer to her, invading her personal space, looming over her.

“Yeah, obviously.”

“You’re not even going to deny it, really?!”

“You were an asshole, so I got back at you, simple as that.”

“Do you have a death wish?” He threatens in a low voice.

“Sor, don’t-”

“Sure, go for it,” she challenges, ignoring the shake in her voice and way her mouth’s gone dry. Her hands tremor, but she doesn’t break eye contact or back down.

“What was that?” His voice is practically a growl and he’s getting closer, trying to intimidate her.

“I said go for it,” she sits down one of the couches crossing her arms and legs as she glares up at the mobster, “put up or shut up.”

Oh doesn’t hesitate to pull a gun from the waistband of his pants and points it directly at her face, the metal glinting. Her chest tightens as her heart races, she swallows hard, but keep her eye contact.

He’s serious. He’s fucking serious.

“Stop,” Ichinomiya demands, from his position in his chair, looking over his tablet. Despite the harshness of his tone, he shows no signs of moving or looking up. Oh scoffs and lowers his gun.

“You’re not worth the bullet it would take to kill you.”

“And you weren’t worth the candy it took to ruin your night.”

“Are you seriously still pushing your luck!?”

“Yeah, I am, ‘cause this is fucking pathetic! You were gonna blow my brains out over a piece of fucking candy, do you hear how fucking stupid that is!?”

“Stop,” Ichinomiya repeats, this time harsher and more commanding, his eyes actually landing on the arguing pair.

“This is asinine,” Tsuneko grumbles and stands from the couch, walking towards the exit, “my shift has been over for hours, I’m going home, and I expect to get overtime for this bullshit!” she yells the last bit over her shoulder as she leaves.

She makes the journey back down to the employee locker room. Tsuneko has to focus on every little step, every movement, her eyes focus on just going. If she doesn’t do this she’ll break down and she knows it. She knows the tell tales signs. The way her throat constricts and her lips quiver.

The locker room is empty, all of the coworkers working the same shift as her have gone home and those on the later shift have already gone to work. Still she checks the bathroom and shower attached, no one, then she moves a trash can to block the door, so no one can come in.

She sits on the ground in front of her locker and pulls her knees to her chest. Her face is soaked in seconds as tears stream down her cheeks, hot against her skin. A disgustingly pathetic sob echoes in the locker room and she hates herself for making a noise like that, for being this weak.

She’s not been that good of a person and she knows that, she’s hurt a lot of people and done a lot of shitty things. A part of her wonders if it’s some sort of cosmic punishment, but her skepticism keeps her from committing to that line of thought. Anyone could have been put in her place, she could just as easily see Sakiko, Chisato, or even Erika somehow finding themselves in this predicament.

She’d rather it be her than anyone else. In all honesty, even if it isn’t karma at work, if anyone deserves to suffer like this it’s her. But, that doesn’t make it any easier. Nothing can make this easy. This is only the second fucking day of the bet and she’s had a gun pointed at her. She hates this, she hates being stuck with those men and for no other reason than Ichinomiya gets a kick out of it.

Her sobs fade to whimpers and sniffles. She tries to wipe the mess of tears off of her face. She’s got to win this bet, she can’t let this drag on for more than two weeks. Tsuneko remembers the deadlines she’s looked into for applying to those smaller colleges back into Kyushu. She wants to win this damn bet and get as far away from this hotel as she can.

The alternative makes a fresh batch of tears fall from her eyes. She can’t live like this and running away wouldn’t be an option. She’d rather die than have to deal with them beyond that, but not at any of their hands. If she loses, she’d rather go out on her own terms. Memories of thick woven rope she bought a while back comes to mind, it’s been sitting at the back of her closet since she moved into the dorms.

She shakes her head, she’ll cross that bridge when she gets to it. Tsuneko forces herself back up to her feet, she’s got shit to do right now. Her legs are like jelly as she stands up and changes into her street clothes. Twelve more days, that’s all she has to survive, no matter what.

#kissed by the baddest bidder #kbtbb #eisuke ichinomiya #Soryu Oh #ota kisaki #mamoru kishi #Mitsunari Baba #black market wonderland #kbtbb eisuke #kbtbb soryu #kbtbb ota #kbtbb mamoru #kbtbb baba #rhion hatter #kbtbb rhion

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