#running out of queue if anyone has something to submit

[couldtheycatchkira]

FAQ

Is this about Kira Yoshikage? This is about the international serial killer "Kira" who kills through an indetectable, contactless, remote method. He might be in Japan, though.

Can you put a "Don't know this character/See Results" option? No. This is an active global serial murder investigation and time is of the essence. If you truly don't know who they are, either: look them up, ot just go by what I'm told are called "vibes". Do not default to "Could Not, Would Die" or "Could Catch, Would Survive" simply because you don't know who the character is.

What is the current wait time? About a year, maybe, and counting.

I thought this was for detectives only? We're desperate. Why do you think this is a suicide squad?

How many submissions can I send in one ask? Six. If you go to seven I am deleting the submission without review. Don't even think about attempting eight.

Do submissions need pictures? Not necessarily, but if you want to, make sure it's at the least an OFFICIAL RENDER. I don't like using fanart! (Nothing against fanartists, I just don't want to search something like "Kermit" and get images of strangely muscular frogs (you can imagine the hell I went trying to avoid AI images for Ramona Flowers)). IF YOU ARE SUBMITTING SOMEONE'S FANART FOR A CANONICALLY-UNSEEN CHARACTER (such as, for example, Adolin Kholin), LINK THEIR TUMBLR BLOG SO THAT I MAY CONTACT THEM FOR EXPLICIT PERMISSION.

If a character was already submitted as a standalone/part of a group, can I submit them as part of a group/a standalone? Yes, however you need to wait the full seven days after their poll goes up. In the event that both are submitted in a short amount of time from one another, I shall personally space them out in the queue so that there are at least seven days between them. This is to prevent a situation where, say, Princess Zelda is submitted in quick succession to "The Triforce Wielders" as a group, and you have two polls with Zelda running at once.

Can I submit a real human? No. Pets aren't allowed because they'd sweep, but do not send me video essayists or the like. I will not put them on the blog unless they, themself, send in their name on an official Tumblr account. I fully doubt this will happen, obviously, so simply do not do this.

Can I submit [ANYONE ELSE]? Baby life is short when you're dealing with a guy who can kill from a distance at any time. You should do whatever you like. Submit a guy who can't separate his darks from his lights. Move to a new city. Find a 200 sqft apartment. Get five roommates. Ghost all of them. Start a company that sells leg warmers for dogs. Declare bankruptcy. Move to a different new city. Enter a torrid romance with a guy who calls himself "The Creature". Cheat on him with a different guy who calls himself "Monsieur Beast", a legally distinct entity unaffiliated with MrBeast. Start an electro-flamenco band with both of your exes. Get trapped in a stupid and gay little maze. Fight your way to the castle beyond the Goblin City and take back what has been stolen from you. Eat a lettuce wrap. Move back to your hometown and tell no one.

[incorrectfmaquotes]

Today marks 6 years since I started this blog!

Thank you all for following! Whether you followed back in October 2017 or earlier today, I appreciate every single one of you.

And for some other things I wanna say, which I don't think affects anyone and isn't exactly news, especially to anyone who might be paying attention, but more just me acknowledging it: I haven't really been attending to this blog that much in the past couple of years, but especially this one. I've largely just let the queue run and fill it up with older quotes every couple of months. I made this blog when I was in high school and had more free time; I am now something that somewhat resembles an actual adult (if you squint maybe) with more Adult Responsibilities and Situations (but as I have unfortunately realized, adulthood does not erase feeling teenage emotions all that much). I've had less time and frankly less bandwidth to devote more time to this blog - especially to create quotes at the rate I did the first 3 years. And something that has hindered me even more in attending to this blog and is in part why I started to do so was that starting around 2020, a lot of times, I could not open my inbox, direct messages, or activity page on this site. I don't know if the culprit of that was my browser, my old laptop, or our famously well-functioning website Tumblr, but this would frequently happen and would do so for weeks at a time. I'm not saying this was the only reason why there have been unanswered asks and submissions for years (see above: increasing Adult Situations and the Toll they have taken on me), but that certainly played a heavy hand.

I'm in some new circumstances and over the past couple weeks, they have been a bit more stable and consistent - I've actually made about 85 new incorrect quotes and have put them in the queue, an amount I don't think I've been able to manage since the early months of 2020 before quarantine. Opening the inbox and DMs seem to be less of a problem lately, so I've also put in the queue a good amount of those submissions I've had sitting in my inbox for a while and will try to do more, though unfortunately some of the blogs that have submitted quotes have since been deactivated. I'm going to try to answer some asks in the coming days, but again, a lot of these are months and years old, and a part of me feels a bit awkward only just responding now and I'm wondering if it's respectful at all, but I still wanna do it.

That is to say, even though I am in a more manageable situation, I'm not promising that I am now going to attend to this blog like I did in the beginning, or even that much more than I have the past few years. I have learned that circumstances can change with no notice at all. I'm also not saying there's no guarantee that I'll be even less present here or won't stop running this blog altogether when the current queue runs out - not that I'm planning on it, but I can't completely rule that out as a possibility. But even if I ever stop attending to this blog, I don't think I'll ever delete it altogether, if you're worried about that.

So, thank you for sticking around with this blog for the past 6 years! And for sticking with this post that got a lot longer than I thought it would be. This post probably sounds like a whole lot of nothing, but I still wanted to say it, and I thank you for putting up with it. Hope you have a good day! 💕💕💕

[therealdragonpost-generator]

I am remembering things about this generator. First off:

FinalRelationshipValue="{} {} (a {} {} {}), {} (a {} {}) and {} (a {}). One time, {} {} {}, who {} it. "

I'm remembering how silly strings look without their added data in them. Like, yep, that sure is a statement :) Such a valid sentence.

Also, with the disorders, I forgot that I researched statistics for things like "percentage of people missing an arm" and used that in the generator. Your guy has a 4 in 10,000 chance to be missing an arm, and a 28 in 1000 chance to have ADHD. Where did I get this data from? I don't remember. I googled something and found numbers and called it good enough I guess. Anyways there are only three disorders, those two and "Sleepy Bitch Disorder" Which is :\ well that's not a lot. But! I remember asking a few times for things to add, and no one submitted things, and those were just the three I added in to test the feature out. BTW your dragon could potentially have all disorders at once. It's not very probable but it could happen.

Also I absolutely had bias stuff in some of the results, such as for common pronouns and creatures. I have removed all those biases for v2.0.0 👍

Looking at the Hydra code and 😬 that's a lot. Like, it's not hard to understand, there's just a lot with it. Every time a head is added, it cuts the percentage in 1/2 for the next head, and then the final head count needs personalities for each head. But not every thing is multiplied either. Hydras are in v1.1.0 tho, and I never finished them 😔 In fact v2.0.0 might not include them, we'll see how that goes.

Anyways I've started on cleaning up v1.0.2 so that I can understand things easier for when I make the web version. Until then . ..

It'll still be one every 3 hours, so 8 Dragons a day. All the old copyright rules still apply, anyone can use any creature that spits out. I have a .bat file that'll run the Python program 250 times in about 5 seconds, which'll make 31.25 days, basically lasting us until 2025

Also I'll be setting up a bunch of proper blog tags over the next week or two, and update the pinned content as well. Reviving an abandoned blog is a lot of work :P

[roblox-confessions]

🟥Introduction

A confession blog for Roblox and it's games. This blog is predominantly aimed towards games with fandoms, such as Regretevator or Phighting, but anyone of any RBLX game community can submit a confession, as long as it is about the platform or a specific game.

View the read more to see submission guidelines and further information.

Want more confessions? Go check out @robloxconfessions2. They're pretty cool.

THIS BLOG DOES NOT HAVE A DNI. ANYONE CAN INTERACT.

⬜Information

Each post will be tagged accordingly with the game it's for. Potentially triggering subjects (if they are to arise) will be tagged with #CW [insert whatever here].

For the sake of keeping things organized, please specify the game you are submitting a confession for. If you don't, I will try to guess or I will put it in the general tag. If I have incorrectly tagged something, please let me know and I'll fix it as soon as I can.

Posts will also be marked with a number for the purpose of people being able to respond to previous confessions anonymously. If you wish to respond publicly simply just comment on the post.

The mod may sometimes add commentary if it feels it has something to say or add, but generally won't otherwise.

If you have any questions or want clarification on something, please send me an ask.

🟥Mods

Currently, there is only one mod, so please don't spam my inbox if your post takes a while to appear. This blog runs on a queue.

Mod X (It/It's)

⬜Submission Rules

Please don't submit anything extremely NSFW. Suggestive is okay, but nothing beyond that. This community has mainly minors.

If you're responding to a previous confession, please specify which one.

On above note, if you are responding to a previous confession, please do NOT try to start a fight or get aggressive. I will be lenient, but if I suspect you're baiting for an argument, I'll just delete your response.

If you never see your confession, feel free to send it in again.

[addictedtostorytelling]

howdy! ive just watched 1x07, blood drops, and somethings really bugged me about the whole thing... I assume it's gone this way be ause greg wasnt in this episode and they didnt have another DNA tech cast BUT - i cant help but think the "dark twist" at the end of the ep (spoilers for people i guess?) could have been solved at the very start via basic DNA tests. i mean, with that much blood in the house surely they would have collected and tested dna from every member of the family just to match up who bled where. even if the sisters didnt have any scratches or visible injuries, surely they would have had their dna collected just for elimination. please tell me its not just hinky to me!!

hi, @someoneplsloverobbierotten!

so the collins family secret definitely could have come out earlier had someone compared brenda and tina's dna profiles at any point during the course of the investigation.

that said, i tend to believe there are some sensible in-universe reasons as to why no one actually ever makes that comparison (at least prior to when tina reveals the secret as part of her confession).

one is just a matter of simple timing/logistics: i.e., there is such a preponderance of blood evidence in the collins house, it literally takes catherine until halfway through the episode to collect all the relevant samples and bring them back to the lab for processing. it then presumably takes another long while—even given csi’s tendency to considerably misrepresent the speed at which dna tests can be conducted compared to what is actually accurate to real life—until said tests are completed. that so, it is unlikely anyone even generates complete dna profiles for brenda and tina until close to the end of the episode anyhow.

—and that’s if they generate them at all.

because that’s the other thing: i don't think there is ever a compelling reason to compare brenda and tina’s dna profiles to each other at any point throughout the episode, and especially not when there are other, more pressing tasks relevant to the investigation which need to be completed. 

more discussion after the "keep reading," if you're interested.

__

see, in my limited understanding, the way things work at the lab is that evidence of the highest investigative priority tends to get processed first. moreover, results from the higher priority tests then determine what tests are performed subsequently and in what order.

it's not just a “start with the task at the top of the queue and work down” deal, where the tech just moves through all of the evidence submitted to them in the order in which they receive it, but rather more like a decision-making tree, where each completed objective and answered question suggests what must come next, with some branches of investigation either increasing or decreasing the priority level of others or even altogether making them obsolete, depending on what they unveil.

the fact of the matter is all of these processes take time, and not all tests can be run at once. particularly in a case like the collins homicide, where the amount of available evidence is itself overwhelming, it would be impossible to run every collected sample and possible test and especially simultaneously. priority has to be given to whatever tasks are deemed most relevant at the moment, while other less-pressing ones get put on the backburner to either be returned to later or else completely discarded.

for example, the tech’s top priority might be to work up a dna profile based off of a certain contribution. the resultant profile might then rule out certain suspects, making any dna collected from them no longer relevant, while simultaneously suggesting other suspects as likely candidates, making any dna collected from them the next top priority.

in the case of the collins homicides, blood evidence is indeed of importance to the investigation—however, not all the blood evidence collected is equally important to the investigation, and neither are all of the tests that might possibly be run to process it.

when the blood evidence first reaches the dna lab for processing midway through the episode, off-camera greg—or whichever tech lands the assignment—gives some samples and tests higher priority than the others.

while i can't say so for certain, i would think that in a case like this one, where there is no immediately obvious suspect and the motives behind the killings remain unclear—is this actually a ritualistic cult killing a la manson or just a copycat crime made to look that way in order to conceal the true nature of what has happened?—the team would be interested in trying to use the blood evidence to fill in those two big blanks, if possible.

that so, i imagine their top priority might be something along the lines of establishing if there is any extraneous blood not belonging to the slain collins family members present on scene—which is a strong possibility, considering stabbing killings often result in the killer(s) sustaining injuries to their own hands and arms while in commission the crimes—in order to potentially identify a suspect.

fulfilling that priority would require testing samples from both the blood pools in the bedrooms and hallway and the blood symbols drawn on the walls against the blood of the known victims in order to determine if there is any non-victim blood in the mix.

performing this test would require the collection of both blood from the victims and from the blood pools on the floor and blood symbols drawn on the walls.

brenda and tina’s dna may well be collected at this point for rule-out purposes, as well—though, not necessarily, particularly given neither one of them has any obvious open wounds on their person and all of the blood pools and symbols in the house seem to be fresh.

also, even if collected, their dna likely would not warrant automatic profiling; only in the event it became relevant to the investigation would it move to the top of greg or the other dna tech’s queue.

any further dna testing would then derive from the result of the preliminary set of tests—i.e., in the event that all of the blood collected matched the victims, there would be no need to then compare those samples to the ones collected from brenda and tina; however, if there happened to be an unknown dna contribution mixed in with the victims’ blood pools or the symbols, then grissom and the team would be interested in determining from whom that unknown contribution derived.

if the dna profile of the unknown blood contributor shared enough markers in common with the deceased members of the collins family, then at that point, the team would have it tested probably first against tina’s dna sample—as she is the more likely contributor—and then, if it didn’t match hers, brenda’s, and if it didn’t match hers, other blood relations from the extended collins family (i.e., aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, etc.).

however, if the profile showed no familial resemblance to the collins family at all, then at that point the dna tech would likely test any other potential dna evidence found on scene (like the saliva on the bidi) against the unknown blood contribution. they also would run the profile through codis to see if it matched anyone already in the system.

throughout this whole process, even if both brenda and tina’s dna were tested against the unknown contribution, their dna profiles still might not be looked at in conjunction with each other or in conjunction with any other samples from the family that might indicate brenda’s true parentage.

for example, if they tested a blood pool that contained blood from mrs. collins and an unknown contributor against brenda’s sample, then they might realize brenda wasn’t mrs. collins’s biological daughter but rather her inbred granddaughter. however, if they tested a blood symbol from one of the boys and an unknown contributor against brenda’s sample, then they might not realize there were anything awry, as their levels of shared dna might still be within the normal range for a full sibling match (roughly 38 to 61%) and not necessarily automatically suggestive of inbreeding. they also might not recognize that brenda was inbred if they only tested her sample against that of the unknown contributor.

it is therefore not a given that greg (or any other dna tech) would necessarily realize that brenda and tina share more than the expected twelve alleles between them in common.

and in their case, much more than the expected twelve, as not only is tina brenda’s biological mother but also her biological sister, as well.

since in the episode, it is never suggested that there are any blood samples taken from the house that derive from an unknown, non-victim contributor, i doubt either brenda or tina ever has their dna tested and especially not against each other—or at least not until after tina makes her confession regarding brenda’s true parentage.

it just never would be a priority given the preponderance of evidence the lab has to deal with from the case otherwise, the case’s “rush” status, the directions the investigation takes, the types of information the csis are ultimately interested in, etc., etc.

so all in all, ymmv, but i personally am okay with the revelation coming closer to the end of the episode. i don’t necessarily think it’s an unlikely sequence of events that no one would draw that connection prior to tina's confession.

thanks for the question! please feel welcome to send another any time.

[maximuswolf]

Marvel rivals has become increasingly insufferable and i think its the curse of hero shooters and PvP games in general

Marvel rivals has become increasingly insufferable and i think it’s the curse of hero shooters and PvP games in general I have played Overwatch for quite a lot of hours (1000+) and over time I noticed that it became stale because you run into the same people again and again after a while, and also, the matchmaking starts being boring because as a PvP game, i essentially find it aggravating to face people all the time. And then the devs make questionable decisions sometimes like reworking a character and watering down their skill ceiling, which made me uninstall me 3 years ago Now in Marvel Rivals. It has the same issues. I’ve played 20 games today since Ultron came out and just decided to uninstall. It has the EOMM matchmaking. It has the same faults of Overwatch. You don’t run into the same people because you can switch servers thankfully, but still it has the same curse of being a PvP game. And I just decided: why am I playing something I’m not enjoying?Even if I try my best, I just don’t enjoy the game at all. I’m a GM3 Hulk and Jeff player, and I honestly regret spending money on the game. I could’ve used that money to buy one of my friends something nice instead. But you know, the product was good in the beginning so i voted with my wallet. And now I’m doing the same again by leaving and uninstalling Now I’ve justified this to myself in all sorts of ways, It wasn’t a big deal, just a minor betrayal, or maybe I’ve outgrown it or something, but let’s face it…i ripped myself off.. my time, mood, patience, but the truth is I let it happen again and again. Maybe I thought it would get better. That some patch or hero would fix the emptiness.But not this time. This is the last of that sort of thing Now I’m cleaning up. I’m moving on. I’m going straight. Choosing quiet. Choosing peace. Choosing singleplayer games. Choosing stories that don’t judge you for failing once. Choosing offline. Choosing to pause and breathe. Choosing to sit back with a controller and lose myself in something that was built to heal, not to keep me addictedI’m looking forward to it already. I’m gonna be just like you.The backlog. The controller. The damn relaxing ambient soundtrack. The complete edition, the save file, the platinum trophy, good sleep, less stress, no battle pass, no ranked anxiety, no voice comms, no teammates ruining your night, no rage queues, no forced metas. Just me, the story, the ending, the credits. Peace.To anyone out there who is going through the same as me and has stumbled upon this post..Choose your future. Choose life. Submitted May 30, 2025 at 12:11PM by Wanderer-Named-Ken https://ift.tt/1XoCeFM via /r/gaming

[dailymanners]

@reblog-always

Now might be a perfect opportunity to remind you all that the submission box is indeed open, and submitting something like this could be a big help as I have been starting to run out of ideas on what to write on.

I'm not trying to be snarky in a "um why don't you write it yourself sweaty :) " sort of way btw. This is genuinely a good idea and I would like to encourage people to submit more because it is sometimes a struggle to come up with ideas on what to write on.

If no one wants to submit something on this I'll look into it and write it up to load it into the queue.

Which also reminds me, if anyone isn't feeling confident or sure enough to actually submit something but still has an idea or request they'd like me to look into and write on feel free to send me a message on it. It would really be helpful, I've been feeling more lately like I'm running into a wall as far as ideas.

If you're invited to any sort of social gathering or a get-together, always ask before bringing someone else along with you unless it's already been clearly stated that the invitation is a plus one or that you're free to bring along whoever you want.

If it's a small private gathering of just a few people, then the host might have wanted it to stay small or only have it be the specific people they invited and unexpectedly adding more people can be emotionally straining and exhausting or disrupt what they had planned. For both large and small get togethers there can be limited space and when more people show up than expected this can put a strain on space and resources like food and drinks.

[ros-textposts]

[rainbowrocketquotes]

Welcome to Hell

— INFO

howdy, this is the actual real official pinned post that has actual stuff about the blog in it i promise

this is run by one busy asshole: me. my name is han, and i use it/they pronouns.

i run the blog almost entirely via the queue function, which currently posts once a day, from 4pm-12am PST whenever it is filled. i try to get submissions put in the queue as fast as i can, as well as answering asks whenever i have the time. don't let that discourage you from submitting posts and sending asks, because i love getting interactions.

— RULES

i genuinely don't care who interacts here, because i know people will interact regardless. however, i reserve the right to block whoever the hell I want, which includes anyone who sends hate or negativity to the blog, sends hate or negativity to me, or sends hate or negativity to anyone via the replies or reblogs on my posts. DO NOT SEND NEGATIVE ASKS. i will IP block your anon.

— TAG GUIDE

dms are welcome, but please for the love of god stop sending me rants about how my posts are innacurate. i do not want to read them. there are other quotes blogs. go there.

i try to answer every ask i recieve, but sometimes i just dont see them for a while or they get lost in the void. keep that in mind if you dont see something, because you might just need to send it again.

i tend not to tag sources, because it got a little out of hand finding quotes, and i ended up not being able to source a lot of things.

the tag i use for non-quotes is ".ooc", and the tag i use for headcanon posts is ".hc", if you want to block them for whatever reason.

".ad" is the tag i use for advertisements and promotions, if you need to block that one for whatever reason.

...however, ".gc" is the tag i use for quotes that come directly from me, or my friends.

that's all i have for now, feel free to check back here later in case it gets updated in the future. au revoir.

[haveyouseenthis-childhoodshow]

Woohoo this will be a very interesting poll blog, partly because I have no idea what people would consider to be popular fanfics/which fandoms are going to be overly represented (and I hope people also submit more underrated good ones!).

Personally, I am doing 3 polls a day (bc I have a really busy work week), but I got a lot of submissions recently so I was thinking to increasing that to 4-5 polls during the winter holiday season because I will have more free time then. I was originally going to make polls in advance and queue them. However (bc my weekends have turned out to be really busy as well), I’ve been making them the day of (in which case, more than 3 is difficult to do right after work for my self-imposed 6pm polls drop). I also submit them all at once (bc that’s easier for me) but I know it would be better for visibility to spread them out (for example one in the morning, one in the afternoon, and one in the evening) or to have a regular schedule (for example, the band poll blog submits one poll a hour).

It depends on how easy it will be for you to format the specific poll! For me, it takes about 15 minutes per poll (because I also include photos, user submission commentary and my own commentary). They’re also slow to make when you start out but once you got the technical layout down (for example, knowing what the poll button options are going to be, or what standard tags to use), it becomes easier and faster to make them.

The frequency depends on how you want to format them. If it’s only a link to the fanfic and the poll options, then you can think about posting more polls a day. If the polls include user submissions or you putting down the fandom/plot summary/word count/etc, then that will take a little longer to format and so it would be less stressful to submit less polls a day.

In the end, it’s totally up to you, your real life schedule, and your current mental health/stress levels.

Remember that this is something you’re doing for fun and if anyone tries to stress you out or pressure you to submit more or harass you because they don’t like the formatting/fandom, just remind them that you’re a person with a life outside of Tumblr (bc I think we all forget that sometimes) and that this is meant to be for fun, not an obligation.

Let me know if you have any other questions! I’ve also been asking other poll blogs (like @haveyouseenthisqueerfilm ) questions about how to run polls or how to include specific topics, and everyone has been really kind and supportive!

Good luck with your blog, very excited to see what people are interested about, and hope you have fun <3

<3 Mod A

So!

People are apparently very excited about this silly little idea I had. I wasn't expecting so much enthusiasm, so I wasn't quite prepared for this. So now I need to figure out how to actually run a blog like this. And one thing I have to figure out is how many polls I should post per day.

So I thought I'd ask you guys!

For context, I currently have 197 submissions.

Tagging similar blogs so I can draw upon the wisdom of my elders: @haveyouheardthisband @haveyoulistenedtothisalbum-poll @haveyoubeentothiscity @haveyoureadthishorrorbookpoll @haveyouplayedthisirlgame-poll @haveyouseenthis-childhoodshow @haveyouwatchedthisyoutuber-poll @haveyouseenthisseries-poll

[artificialqueens]

🏳️‍🌈PRIDE 2023 CHALLENGE!🏳️‍⚧️

Hello friends! As requested, we have put together a stunning Pride challenge for you this year! This challenge will run the entire pride season, and the goal will be to work together as a community to rack up enough points to earn amazing prizes for the blog. 

Current point total: 13,340

We'll post soon with more detail regarding the prizes and point levels, but here’s an idea:

Special roles in our Discord server for participants

Digital art, such as lockscreens and avatars

Sticker sets as both digital art and physical stickers for those who want to order them

Extra benefits for top point earners, such as voting on image themes 

A STUNNING new pride-themed banner for the blog designed by the extraordinary @imstillafuckinglibra

How do we earn points? Well, by submitting fic *or art* during this challenge period! ALL submissions will count, and as you can see after the jump, there are a ton of ways to earn bonus points, including reader interaction with those posts. 

Also—before you freak out! You don’t have to do any math yourselves, you precious little angels! I will be taking on that burden myself!

I’ll post the points earned at the bottom of each fic or art post, and after each queue finishes I’ll update the totals. (If you *would* like to try calculating your own points, here’s a little spreadsheet you can use.) 

There are a few fics ready to queue up, so I’ll post them tomorrow and you can see how the points add up even when the writers don’t have the challenge in mind. 

NOW! ONTO THE POINTS!!

Glossary:

“Art” is for any creation that’s not fic. So drawings, digital art, photo collages, etc. 

“New Creator” means anyone who hasn’t posted on AQ before. 

2nd, 3rd, and 4th posts refer to during this challenge. 

“Next Part of a WIP” would be a new part of something that’s already partially posted on AQ 

“Uncommon Ship” would be a ship with less than 50 posts here on AQ

“Rare Pair” would be a ship with less than 10 posts 

“Brand New Ship” would be for the first post of any given ship

*(If you want to check the numbers for any ship, you can use this database: https://artificialqueens.tumblr.com/all-ships)*

“Includes Art” is for fic that has art or illustrations in it. 

“Returning Writer” is for any writer who is posting after an absence of 3 months or more. 

“Sexy” art doesn’t necessarily mean NSFW. Just anything with sexy vibes, whatever that means to you. 

“Fic-inspired” is art that’s inspired by a fic, whether it’s your own or someone else’s, and whether that fic is posted on AQ or elsewhere. 

FAQ:

Q: What is “pride season”? Do you mean June? The summer? A: Yup. (It’s open-ended on purpose to give ourselves space to achieve all goals.)

Q: Am I allowed to cross-post my work here that’s already on AO3? A: Yes! You are encouraged to do so; it’s a great way to rack up points and advertise your work!

Q: What if people ‘cheat’ by sending in prompts and then filling them themselves?! Or sending in anon feedback about their own work?!?!?! A: Obviously this will be taken very seriously. We will first send a team of forensic investigators to their house, and then submit all evidence to the FBI. (In case it’s not clear, I’m kidding.)

Get going, everyone! If you would like to participate in our Discord server for any reason: brainstorming, sprints, giving feedback, finding betas, volunteering to beta, etc: please let me know! @veronicasanders

Thank you so much to @petitmonde for their help and inspiration, and to @imstillafuckinglibra for his beautiful graphic design work. 

❤️🧡💛💚💙💜

[catholic-character-tournament]

Hey OP I know there's still almost a week left, but I think an option should be that a character who gets over a certain number of votes (IDK 2000[questionmarkthattumblrwon'tletmeaddforsomereason]) but still loses can be reintroduced to the tournament elsewhere with the justification that if they got that many votes but still lost then it can be chalked up to a seeding issue because, given most of the polls being under 1000 votes total, it was probably just an issue of seeding.

Am I suggesting this for selfish reasons[questionmark] Yes, absolutely. But also there are five or six days left and I may theoretically be doing The Enemy a favor if the tides turn because [gestures at the numbers] a lot of people clearly care about this and maybe if the matchup happens AGAIN later in the tournament, we can get an even wider sample size and really duke it out

Someone should have told me X pairing was bad because they're both fan favorites, either one of them getting disqualified in round 1 is just bad for the game.... However, I am a little noodle with no backbone and am terrified of judgment and I know another tournament host deleted a poll because people were talking about wincest?? And people got mad at the host for being a bad sport and saying they manipulated the outcome because they were unhappy??? (No judgment to the host, they told the people they were uncomfortable, I wouldn't be very happy if people were talking about SA in my tags)

Proposal: How mad will you guys be if you-know-who loses this round BUT takes the slot of whoever has less number votes TOTAL. So like X character who has 1500 votes takes the spot of X character who only got 150 votes.

Pro: It's more fun. They're a fan favorite. I worry that people will turn out if such a popular character doesn't even make it to the top 32. One of the most highly submitted characters. The poll has only been live less than two days and it already has more than twice as many votes than any other poll.

Con: Against the rules and people may get mad at me.... I don't want to open the doors to do this for everyone.

Other Proposal: Every round leading up to the semi finals, a 24 hour poll of "won with the least number of votes and lost with most number of vote" and who every wins that one stays. Soccer tournament style. I think. i don't know. I don't want spots.

& Being totally totally honest, if my blorbo does get into the top 32 I dont think I'll have the motivation to run part two "whos most likely to get into heaven" because these polls are a lot of work and i need at least one blorbo to seriously root for or its not fun for me. You could call me a bad sport idc the polls take at least 5 hours to make 32 with the graphics, organize the propaganda, queue and then continue to check the reblog in case there's more propaganda.

This isn't like a threat or anything, if anyone else would like to host the "most likely to go to heaven" tournament, I'd totally welcome and support them. It just wouldn't be fun for me and I'm not going to do something that doesn't bring me joy. That being said, I will still finish this tournament no matter what.

[tommyinnitartchive]

Tommyinnit Fan Art Archive!

profile picture by bounckery twitter.tumblr

unofficial fanart-blog for @tubbosfriend

Ok first let's lay out some ground rules:

- NO pro-shippers, NSFW, truthers, or leak-blogs of any kind. If I find out that you are any of these or knowingly interact with people who are any of these that is a hard block from this blog.

- IRL shippers are often not welcome. I understand there are certain CCs that are fine with shipping, or even encourage it, but under no circumstances is boundary breaking shipping allowed to be connected to this blog.

If you see that I am following an artist or reblogged from an artist who is any of these or willingly interacts with anyone who are any of these; PLEASE tell me privately. This can be done through either DMs or a non-anon ask. There MUST be proof added, no "dude trust me."

ALRIGHT! Now onto the good stuff.

Welcome to the tommyinnit fanart archive!

I created this blog to satiate that part of my brain that still feels grief over the Library of Alexandria and that's what I hope to achieve! There’s only one person running this blog and school is starting up again so pardon if submission/ask answers come slowly!

This blog will be almost entirely focused on drawn artworks such as drawings/paintings, animatics, comics, or drawn poetry. You are able to request fan-fics to be added to the archive, however there is no guarantee it will be added if it’s linked to an external website like AO3

Alternate Universe*, crossovers, duo/trios/groups, SMPs, character, and content creator art will all show up here. If the art is part of an ongoing series I will reblog its introduction/explanatory post, and if that is unavailable I’ll reblog its first installment.

*AUs also includes work based off of fan-fiction

If you’ve noticed your art was reblogged to the archive and you wish it hadn’t been, 100% tell me and I’ll remove it as soon as I am able. Every reblog runs on a queue system so if I’ve reblogged one of your artworks there’s a high likelihood I’ve already queued more

Tagging system and rules for submission under the cut!:

Tagging!:

Duos currently being tagged: clingy duo(tubbo), allium duo(ranboo), crime boys(wilbur soot), bedrock bros(technoblade), vice duo(quackity), hotel duo(awesamdude)

Groups/trios currently being tagged: bench trio(ranboo+tubbo) sleepy bois inc.(philza+wilbur soot+technoblade) business boys (timedeo+lukeorsomething+bitzel+wispexe)

All groups will have the suffix "(group)", while duos will have a suffix indicating character or content creator, "(c)" or "(cc)" Example: ballstrio(group), bastardduo(c). (Events such as MCC, MCM, or TwitchRivals will look like "[title](event).")

TW's and CW's*: blood, death, suicide, abuse*, spiders, dissociation/derealization/depersonalization, head injury.

*Every post you are able to request a CW/TW tag for, even if it's not on this list. This is especially true since I may forget to tag something often. With abuse in particular I may not recognize when something can be triggering since it is such a large part of dsmp!tommy's character, and is portrayed in many different ways in art.

On submitting artwork to be reblogged:

1.) You’re allowed to submit your own work, however it cannot be directly sent through an ask or submission. It has to be linked to a separate post. When requesting art for another artist you cannot request WIPs, sketches, or doodles. However you can request those for your own work.

2.) If you want to submit or request artwork to be reblogged, DO NOT @ me in it. Please send it through an ask or submission with a link attached. This is so that all requests can be limited to a single, easy to manage place.

3.) A submission request has to be for a tumblr post. I do not want any external links to artwork on other websites like AO3, Instagram, Twitter, etc. This is because there is no guarantee of that external post staying up which undermines the purpose of this archive, and I refuse to repost any artwork, or have any artist’s work be added to the archive without their knowledge.

4.) ABSOLUTELY, request art from a deleted post/deactivated blog. Those are absolute diamonds here

And I think that’s everything, have a good day everybody!

[salt-volk]

If we can have an open discussion, my present problem with the blog is you have to walk on eggshells to say basically anything. You can’t say “That user who just cussed me out for making a trade offer they didn’t want was an asshole,” you have to say “Hhhhhhh user just cursed at me for making a mistake and it felt terrible. 😥 But perhaps they’re having a bad day?” You can’t say “User is a fucking scammer, here’s proof. What a shitty thing to do to people,” you have to say “Um I suspect [1/?]

user may be a scammer? Here’s the proof… what do you guys think?” and even then the comments will accuse you of having an unhealthy obsession with stalking the user. You can’t say “User’s custom prices are ridiculous,” you have to say “Erm, as a disabled full time worker full time college student with seven kids, it makes me a wee bit sad to see customs selling for 900MP. But I understand it’s nobody’s fault but staff’s, and staff are trying their best.” I’m not even confident I could criticize the person who openly practiced zoophilia with their unconsenting dog without having to be overly gentle. I know you guys are trying to prevent harassment and I appreciate it a lot, but I don’t think this is sustainable. It’s wrong to delete informative asks because their wording is harsh but true. It’s wrong to police people’s language past the point of disallowing slurs or threats or violence. I am growing very uncomfortable with the tone policing here. And I don’t know what to do, because an uncensored salt blog would likely be worse.

[Hi anon. Your concern is honestly very valid, I didnt realize there was this slippery slope happening honestly, I really apologize for that. I admit most of it was due to the rules that are set up being very gray and not solid to understand mostly for us mods (which is on me). I'll update the rules and make it a lot more clear and go over them with mod yoshi before the end of the week.

People are allowed to call others assholes. People are allowed to say they dislike someone for no reason. While not nice this is a salt blog. Salt blogs are kind of an evil every site has, and moderated ones like this exist so worse ones dont show up. If you're uncomfortable with seeing people dislike others for little to no reason, please feel free to block the namedrop tag, we always make sure to tag it whenever anyone is being discussed. And if you dont like the nature of salt blogs, you are free to disengage with this one if you have been active.

I'll be the sole mod for the rest of the week, while I get some adjustments in place. Hopefully once I place new rules of what is and isnt allowed it'll be easier for both of us to mod, as well as anons to understand what to post.

Queue will run regularly tomorrow! Some might be pushed a little back due to something that needs sorted out. If your ask didnt go through, please understand it's probably being held hostage by me just for a little bit. You can double submit it if you want to make sure it gets through.

-mod egg ]

[amjustagirl]

The sky of the sky (of the tree called life)

Pairing: Suga x reader

AO3 Link Here:

Summary: She doesn’t take much notice of him at first, not when he’s one of thirty nine faces that greet her with varying degrees of interest when their teacher introduces her to the class.But then he hits her in the face with his friendship and she starts to get to know him - through the smallest things, in the littlest ways.

Author’s Notes: This is the first fic I wrote and initially posted as a lone (AO3 link (was still getting the hang of Tumblr lol). Lifted the title from ‘I carry your heart’ by E.E. Cummings. Anyways - this is my humble attempt at a fic, my love letter to one Sugawara Koushi. 

Ume doesn’t take much notice of him at first, not when he’s one of thirty nine faces that greet her with varying degrees of interest when their teacher introduces her to the class. She doesn’t take much notice of anyone really, not when her mind is consumed with thoughts of college prep and exams and chores, so he remains a stranger, even after weeks of sitting next to him in class.

Still, he greets her every morning with a pleasant ‘Ohayo’, and doesn’t take offense when she merely responds with a small smile. He offers up his notes without comment when she asks to check her English notes against his, and even occasionally slips her a banana from the stash he always seems to be carting around. His grades are decent and his homework is always submitted on time so he’s popular with their teachers, even though he seems to spend most of his break time sketching what looks like volleyball plays or buried in heated discussions with Sawamura.

Overall, he seems like a nice boy - if a little obsessed with volleyball.

She looks at her lunch box in dismay. There should be food in it, rice and tamago and fish that she most definitely packed last night, but her lunch box sits on her desk, clean and empty. She groans, glancing at the clock. Five minutes after the lunch bell. She ponders on whether to wait until dinner or be jostled to death by a thousand teenagers, but then her stomach growls, loud enough for Yuna-san in the front row to turn and stare at her, so she supposes there isn’t much of a choice.

As she approaches the canteen, she can hear the usual bustle and sound of too many students trying to feed themselves in too small a space - but then she hears a shrill shout - ‘cream buns for sale’, and the immediate cacophony of excited shouts that follow makes her think that her chances of getting food in the next half hour plummet to precisely zero.

Her assessment is right, but that doesn’t stop her mouth from dropping in horror as the canteen practically descends into a warzone, her schoolmates collectively losing their minds. The girls’ tennis team looks like they’re leading a charge through the left, but they’re being resisted by the concert band. The volleyball boys’ team seems like they’re causing plenty of chaos down the centre. Sawamura-san, engaged in a vigorous shoving match with the basketball captain, and Azumane-san - the large, quiet boy she shares home economics class with, cowering while trying to swim through the crowd with a feral looking boy perched on his back.

She apologises silently to her stomach and turns to head back to class.

‘Imai-san!’ Sugawara waves at her from the back of the crowd. ‘I’ll help you get some buns! What do you want!’

‘Oh – two buns, any flavour?” she calls back, a little dazed. He answers with a cheerful thumbs up.

She watches bemusedly as he expertly weaves his way through the crowd to Azumane-san, gesturing wildly to the little boy on her back, before combining forces with a bald boy to shove Azumane-san bodily through the crowd to the front of the queue. The boys grab armfuls of buns each, elbowing the displeased soccer team in the face.

Sugawara spins around, and there’s a glint in his eye that she can recognise from far away (courtesy of being an older sister to two troublesome younger brothers), but her legs don’t move despite her mind hollering at her danger, danger, Imai Ume, even as he raises his arm to toss the buns to her.

One bun lands neatly in her hands. The other smacks her right between her eyes.

She yelps, hands clapping over her face, checking to ensure her glasses are still in one piece. A curry bun may be relatively light and fluffy, but it still hurts when used as a flying projectile.

She hears footsteps clatter towards her. ‘Oh my god, I’m so sorry - please don’t cry!” Sugawara says, his voice high pitched in worry, hovering next to her awkwardly. “Daichi will never let me get over it if I make a girl cry.’

She snorts despite the sting between her eyes. “It’s fine, Sugawara-san. Thank you for helping get some food’.

‘Are you sure? Maybe we should go to the nurse’s office just in case!’ he fusses, shuffling his weight from one foot to the other nervously, ‘I’m such an idiot, I can’t believe I missed that toss, I should just resign from the volleyball team already - ‘

‘Eh eh eh? Suga - what’s this talk about resigning from volleyball!’ The small, feral boy from earlier leaps onto Sugawara’s back.

‘How can you resign? This is the year we’re making it to Nationals!’ the bald boy rounds up the rear, yelling at Sugawara indignantly.

‘I missed a toss at my classmate, I’m no longer qualified to be a setter.’ Sugawara wails, unfazed by the weight of his two juniors on his back. ‘I should just die now’

‘YOU THINK YOU’RE ASAHI NOW EH, DRAMA QUEEN!’

She takes advantage of their chaos to slip back to class. They don’t get a chance to speak to each other again for the rest of the day, kept busy with classes on calculus and chemistry for the rest of the afternoon. But the next morning he crows a loud ‘Ohayo’ at her, and she smiles at him, wider than she did before. 

----------------------------------- 

Spring passes into summer surprisingly quickly, and Ume slowly, but surely, gets used to hearing the song of the cicadas in evenings instead of the rumble of cars in the streets, to the uphill bike commute she takes to ferry both herself and Yuji to school and kindergarten respectively.

Becoming accustomed to something doesn’t mean liking it though. She remembers her mother saying that things would be easier when they move to Karasuno from the city. That living with family in a close knit community like Karasuno means more hands on deck to keep their family afloat. For the most part, Ume supposes her mother’s right. Her grandparents are sweet and try their best to help out, if a little too old to chase Yuji around the house or fetch him up and down the mountain to preschool every day. Their neighbours always offer them too much food, and their grandchildren provide Yuji with enough entertainment most evenings for Ume to catch up with schoolwork and revision.

But sometimes, after she’s corralled an unruly Yuji to bed, and shooed a sullen Keiji to sleep, and she herself can’t fall asleep because the cicadas are too damn loud, Ume wonders if her mother uprooted them to Karasuno so she could run away from the fact that she’s stuck raising three children alone, disappearing off on such long business trips that Yuji doesn’t even ask her anymore if their mama’s coming home.

Thankfully, Yuji, with the short memory of a six year old, finds living in the countryside a joy. He joins the neighbour’s children in catching cicadas, and when she tells him that it’s cruel to catch animals for sport – even ones as annoying as cicadas, he laughs and promises that he always lets them go.

Keiji, though, remains quiet and withdrawn, hiding in the bedroom whenever he’s home from school. She tries chatting with him at the dinner table but her efforts are usually met with the surly silence of a thirteen year old. So she doesn’t push him too much, too fast - she already asks too much of him as it is, sharing most of the chores and supervising Yuji so they don’t become a burden to their grandparents.

So it’s a surprise when Keiji asks if they can head to the park for a picnic on a clear summer’s day, but she agrees immediately, swallowing her shock, making sure to pack onigiri and fruit and strapping Yuji to her bike. It’s strange when Keiji drags them all over the park looking for the perfect picnic spot. It’s even stranger when he decides that the playground, full of shrieking children, should be the appropriate spot for a picnic. But there’s a tree for shade and it’s convenient enough for her to watch Yuji while he runs loose in the playground, so she holds her tongue and spreads their picnic mat on the floor.

‘Can I get us some ice cream?’ Keiji asks.

She’s about to tell him to wait til he has proper food in his stomach before moving on to dessert, but catches sight of Keiji staring at the ice cream stand intently, hands in pockets, cheeks flushed pink. She follows his gaze. The ice cream stall looks fairly old, run by an oba-chan and a young girl with short hair and a cheerful smile. Oh.

‘Why don’t you go get an ice cream for yourself? Yuji and I can get some later’, Ume replies, busying herself with the picnic basket to hide her smile.

She settles on the mat, back against the tree, setting her textbook on her lap. The summer air is crisp and cool, and the sunlight shining through the leaves dances on her skin.

‘Hey Imai!’ Suga stops to greet her, hand raised in a friendly wave.

‘Hello!’ she waves back. ‘No volleyball practice today?’

‘No - we have a mandated break on Saturday afternoons’, he walks over to her. ‘Despite what my unruly kouhai think, overtraining causes injuries. Besides, we need time for summer homework’.

She nods, noticing the stack of books under his arm, and before her brain processes her sudden impulse fully, she asks ‘Do you want to join me? We can share the mat’.

He blinks at her, and she cringes internally, expecting him to politely decline. He may chatter at her absentmindedly about his team, and she may share her notes with him when she notices he’s distracted, but it’s not as if they’re friends outside of school. To her surprise though, he agrees easily, kicking off his shoes to join her on the mat. They sit together in silence, absorbed in their respective work. The sun is warm but the breeze is cool and crisp, so it’s comfortable and altogether pleasant.

‘Onee-chan’, Keiji calls, running back over. He raises an eyebrow when he notices Suga and drops into a slight bow before turning to his sister. ‘Can I have my onigiri? I want to pass it to my friend.’

She opens her mouth to nag him to make sure that he has lunch, but promptly shuts it. Instead, she tosses him two onigiris - hers, and his. ‘Make sure you eat, Keiji’, she calls, and he’s off, running with the wind.

‘Hey, Imai, I packed too much food. Share some of it with me?’ Suga offers mildly. She’s about to say no, thank you politely, but her stomach growls - traitor, and he just chuckles at her, snapping his lunchbox open and pressing half his sandwich into her hands. She thanks him, taking a bite and has to stop herself from moaning in delight because it’s full of egg mayo and chicken katsu and it’s so, so good.

‘It’s delicious, right?’ he says, grinning around a mouthful of his half of the sandwich. ‘You can’t study on an empty stomach, that’s against the law’.

She laughs at that and splits her stash of strawberries and watermelon with him.

Later, she shocks herself again when she tells him as he’s about to leave that she’ll probably be at the park again next Saturday - and he’s welcome to join her if he pleases. She wonders if he can see the uncertainty in her eyes, but he shoots her another smile and agrees.

-----------------------------------

She packs two extra onigiris next Saturday, and the Saturday after that. She also starts including peaches from her grandparents’ farm because she learns that he has a weakness for them.

Keiji ignores Suga for the most part, leaving for the ice cream stand as soon as they arrive in the park. Yuji, on the other hand, soon learns he can get Suga to do whatever he wants if he pouts long enough. Suga, for his part, does not help, often buying the little boy far too much mochi and ice cream.

‘Stop it Yuji.’ Ume says wearily. ‘Suga needs to study and you’re distracting him’.

‘But he’s the only one I know who can push me hard enough on the swings’, Yuji whines, scruffing his shoes into the ground.

‘It’s fine, I’ll take it as my break’, Suga says, smiling kindly down at the little boy. ‘Shall we see how high you can fly, Yuji-chan?’

She watches, shaking her head as Yuji cheers, dragging Suga off in the direction of the playground.

‘You seem good with kids’, she remarks when he returns - thankfully after a short while since Yuji, with the typical attention span of a six year old, is quickly distracted by the other kids playing a game of tag.

‘You think so?’ Sugawara responds, turning back to his books. ‘That’s good to know. I’m planning on going to college to train to be a teacher.’

The image of him dressed in a rumpled shirt and tie greeting his class with a cheerful ‘Ohayo’ every morning flashes in her mind. She imagines him smiling wide and indulgent at his student’s pranks, listening patiently to his students’ questions and problems, diligently pouring over his students’ assignments late into the night.

For some reason, her heart clenches. She doesn't know why.

----------------------------------- 

‘Tohoku Medical school?’, he asks, eyeing the flyer sticking out of her bag.

‘Mm.’ she mumbles, distracted by the peach juice running down her hands. Then she realises what he’s just said and wrinkles her nose. ‘The entrance exam is hard though. Not a lot of people pass.’

‘Ugh, stop that, your grades are so good- negativity begone!’ He nudges her teasingly with his elbow. She rolls her eyes at him in response.

‘Why, though?’ he asks, before quickly adding. ‘If you don’t mind saying’.

She’s about to rattle off her prepared answer of heeding the noble calling of saving lives and making a difference one person at a time, but for some reason, she doesn’t.

Instead, she jerkily answers - ‘My dad was a doctor’.

She can feel him raise his eyebrows at her use of past tense (and not present tense) and suddenly the peach in her hand doesn’t seem as appetising as it was before.

‘Cancer’, she finds herself saying. ‘Last year’. She looks down at her feet, refusing to see what she expects will be pity in his gaze.

But he doesn’t say anything. He leans his shoulder against hers, and they stay that way for a while.

She doesn’t protest this time when he comes back from the ice cream stall with far too much ice cream, and the tightness in her chest dissipates as she watches him let Yuji flit between his chocolate and vanilla cones like a honeybee, even though she knows she’s going to have a hard time putting the little boy to bed tonight.

-----------------------------------

'I like Suga-san very much.' Yuji declares later as she tucks him into bed.

'So do I', Ume says. So do I’.

The call of the cicadas don’t seem as loud, and she falls asleep easily that night.

 -----------------------------------

‘You should be studying’, she reminds him, playfully rapping on his knuckles with her pen.

He scratches the back of his neck sheepishly, looking up from his sketches on volleyball plays. ‘A couple more minutes and I’ll get back to work’.

She shakes her head indulgently at him. ‘You spend far too much time on volleyball as it is’.

‘I suppose I do’, he hums, busy drawing indecipherable pictures in what she’s termed his volleyball notebook.

She’s suddenly reminded of Yamada and Takashi, the two basketball idiots in her class, goading Suga about ‘being a loser for losing his starting position to a first year’. Sawamura usually erupts in anger when he hears them as he’s wont to do whenever he encounters the basketball club, but Suga, for his part, only responds with a serene smile.

‘Is it worth it?’ she asks, before she can stop herself. ‘Sorry’ she says frantically, as her brain catches up with her mouth. ‘That was rude of me’.

He breathes a rueful laugh through his nose. ‘It’s fine, I’m not offended’. But he stops his scribbling, and his mouth slants downward in a way that Ume doesn’t quite like.

‘It’s worth it’, he then says, voice quiet but full of conviction. ‘It’s worth it to play with my team. I want us to keep getting stronger, I want us to keep playing together, and I want us to go to Nationals and win’. He gazes into the distance and smiles, bittersweet. ‘And everything else doesn’t matter’.

It’s her turn to lean into him with her shoulder.

‘I’ll bring Yuji to watch you at the finals’, she says. ‘And we’ll watch you at Nationals on our TV’.

He laughs and she smiles, wide and bold and bright.

---------------------------------- 

Sugawara spends their lunch breaks talking about his team’s latest exploits all the time. She laughs when he tells her about the hijinks that the team constantly gets up to, from setting fire to the Vice Principal’s very obvious toupee, to an all out prank war with the basketball team featuring copious amounts of dead fish and paint bombs. She particularly enjoys Suga’s impression of Nishinoya’s ‘rolling thunder’ war cry, and rather suspects the whole team is intent on driving Sawamura into an early grave.

Despite having a tendency to smile indulgently at his team’s penchant for chaos and hellfire, it’s clear that Suga cares deeply for each and every one of his teammates. He broods about Tsukkishima’s lack of ambition and desire to bond with the team, Yamaguichi’s lack of confidence, Kageyama’s and Hinata’s inability to communicate like regular human beings. Even when he jokes about Ennoshita’s latest attempt to evade Sawamura’s talks about ‘passing on the captainship’, she can sense the undercurrent of worry and concern.

Perhaps that’s why she volunteers to give tutoring Tanaka and Nishinoya a go, after he explains that they’ll end up missing the Tokyo Training Camp that Takeda-sensei went through so much trouble to arrange. She also tells herself that the reason she’s doing it is because Second year Math is covered in the university entrance exams - and absolutely not because Suga practically lights up with relief when she waves his thanks away.

----------------------------------

Tanaka and Nishinoya remind her of Yuji and even Keiji (well, before), rowdy and loud and full of boyish mischief. They fall out of their chairs when they notice Kiyoko-san walk by the classroom deep in conversation with some boy, and she has to rap them on their knuckles with a pen to get them to focus on solving question number two - please and thank you - before they settle back down.

Still, they’re surprisingly attentive and almost respectful even when she’s trying to impress upon them the dryer points of Math, so it’s easy to become fond of them. They get through vectors after she likens the trajectory of vectors to the movement of a volleyball. Statistics were a struggle, but fortunately, volleyball statistics save the day. Calculus seems to be the biggest hurdle, but she’s hopeful they’ll get it, once she finds a way to relate it to volleyball or better yet, convince them that differentiation and integration are very, very manly pursuits.

That said, it doesn’t help that the basketballers in her class seem to have a deep rooted grudge against the volleyball team - though from Suga’s stories, the animosity is probably mutual. Yamada in particular seems to take special pleasure in taunting the two boys.

‘Eh, Baldy! Y’all lose another game yet? I saw you guys crying the other day after school’.

‘They’d probably win more games if chibi-chan here grew a few inches’, Takashi, his fellow basketballer sniggers.

‘Ignore them’, she tells the two growling boys firmly. ‘You don’t need to get kicked out of your team for starting a fight with these guys’.

‘Awww… are you two kouhai hiding behind your female senpai? ’ Yamadai jeers, leering at them. ‘What losers, just like your Suga-senpai. Heard he got turfed out of his starting position by a first year’.

At that, Tanaka and Nishinoya practically levitate out of their seats as one, snarling ‘Huh?!!! You fucking -’

‘Bit rich of you to pick on them, eh Yamada?’ Ume interrupts. ‘I heard Ono-senpai say last week that if you fail your tests one more time, you’re going to get kicked out of the basketball team. Who’s the loser now?’

‘Bitch!’ Yamada growls, hands slapping his desk.

‘Maybe you’d have a better shot at passing your exams if you spent your time studying instead of disturbing others - who unlike you are actually working hard,’ she adds, smiling at him sweetly.

Thankfully, Takashi has some sense of self-preservation and drags Yamada kicking and screaming out of the door. Tanaka and Noya swivel their heads towards her, twin expressions of shock on their faces.

‘Holy shit, that was so manly?!’

‘Imai-senpai, you’re almost as cool as Kiyoko-senpai!’

‘Yeah - almost as good as the time she ignored us when we asked her to marry us.’

‘No - better, but not as good as the time she slapped me’

‘Thank you’, she responds dryly. ‘Can we get back to differentiation, please?

‘Yes, Imai-senpai!’ They snap into a salute.

----------------------------------

‘I hear from Tanaka and Noya that you’re very manly’. His eyes twinkle at her.

‘Psh’, she says airily. ‘They exaggerate’.

But she laughs when he slips her half his sandwich as thanks.

----------------------------------

Noya and Tanaka pass their exams (by some miracle, thank god), and they graduate from her tutoring sessions.

She passes her exams too, tops her cohort even.

Her classmates start to take more notice of her, requesting for copies of her notes and tutoring sessions on topics they don’t really grasp. It's not really that much of a problem to just have an extra set of notes for her classmates to copy (she learnt her lesson when Takashi spills juice all over her precious biology notes - an accident, of course), and extra tutoring sessions are a good way for her to revise what she previously learnt - so she doesn’t really mind.

Of course she knows they think they're picking her brains and hard work, but it's not as if she minds. They're reasonably polite when they approach her, and she can pretend she doesn’t hear them gossip about her behind her back (that her parents are rich enough to send her to not one, but two cram schools, that they must know the principal who leaked the exam topics to her somehow).

Still, she can’t help but feel a spike of irritation when Yamada manages to corner her alone in class one day after school.

‘Oi, Ikai. Can you give me a copy of your math notes? I hear they're pretty good.'

She blinks innocently at him. ‘My notes cover whatever sensei taught in class if you were listening’. Which he probably wasn't, considering he seems to spend most of his time tossing spitballs or bouncing a basketball obnoxiously against the wall.

‘Tch.’ He leans towards her. ‘Come on, don’t be a stingy bitch. Just lend them to me for a bit.’

She narrows her eyes at the audacity of this bugger. 'No.' she says simply.

'Eh?' Yamada glares down at her.

'Did a basketball hit you too hard in the head yesterday? I said no.' She turns her back on him, packing her school bag, keeping her sharpest pencil in her hand, just in case.

He takes a step closer towards her, both hands heavy on her desk. 'But you share your notes with everyone else!’

‘Well, yes - but that’s because they're tolerably polite when they ask, and unlike you, they actually get my name right.’

He slaps her table hard with his hands. ‘Stop being a bitch, just give me your notes already'.

She should just give him what he's asking for or placate him with the promise that she'll give him a copy tomorrow - but she suddenly feels so sick and tired of giving more and more of herself - to her mother, her brothers, her classmates, and now this rude asshole - and she's so done, goddamnit.

'No.' She snaps, lifting her chin defiantly at him. 'What are you going to do about it?'

He snarls, grabbing hold of her wrist. 'Stubborn bitch, just give me the notes already!'

'Let go, pig!', she shouts, trying to wrench her wrist away, mind whirring to calculate the force and speed needed to shove her pencil into his face. His grip tightens, and he digs his nails into the thin skin of her wrist.

He smirks down at her. She tries not to flinch.

'Hey, Imai. Got worried about you when you didn’t turn up at the library.' Suga calls out, loud and clear from the door. Ume exhales a breath she didn’t even know she was holding as he walks deliberately towards them.

‘Yamada-san. I always knew you were an asshole, but I didn’t know you stooped so low you’d bully a girl’.

Yamada takes a half step back, but does not release her hand. 'Piss off, Suga. It’s none of your business'.

‘Perhaps’, he responds, humming diffidently. ‘But I thought I should remind you that if you get just one more strike on your disciplinary record, you’re off the basketball team’. His mouth stretches into a semi feral smile. ‘For good.’

Yamada coils back, looking as if he’d like nothing better than to strike Suga in the face, but then, seemingly thinking the better of it, he drops Ume’s wrist and smirks again. ‘We were just having a friendly discussion, eh Imai?’

‘Remind your thick skull to keep it that way.’ Suga says, meeting Yamada’s glare with an even gaze of his own.

Yamada looks away. 'Tch. I can't be bothered with you dumbasses', he sneers, stalking out of the class.

‘Are you ok?’ Suga asks her immediately, glancing at her once over, stopping short when he spots the red welts ringed around her wrist. ‘Did he do that to you?’ he asks, voice dangerous.

‘I’m fine.’ She follows his gaze and yanks her sleeve down, hiding the marks from view. ‘It’s nothing.’

He opens his mouth, about to insist that it is very much not fine, but she cut him off quickly. ‘Really! It’s my fault he got annoyed with me. He wanted a copy of my notes and I was very rude and didn’t want to give them to him,’ she laughs awkwardly. ‘Besides, it’s a good thing you stepped in when you did, or I’d have gotten into more trouble - because I was about to stab him with my pencil’.

Suga’s mouth drops open. ‘With your what?’

She unfurls her palm to show him her pencil, pink and sharp but altogether unconvincing.

He bursts into cackles, wheezing. ‘Maybe Tanaka should’ve taken his time to get me. I would’ve liked to see you try to fight Yamada with that’.

She snorts. ‘I’m just glad Tanaka showed some self-restraint and didn’t jump Yamada himself.’

‘Well, I’m pretty sure that’s because Ennoshita was there to stop him.’ Suga says wryly. He drops his gaze back to her wrist. ‘But seriously, if I’d known he hurt you, I’d have jumped him too’.

She looks at him sharply. ‘Suga… If any one of you get suspended, you can’t play in the Inter High Preliminaries.’

‘Not if we don’t get caught for it’. He gives her a zen smile as she splutters in shock. ‘Anyway, don’t you usually leave school to pick Yuji-chan up by now?’

‘Oh no, Yuji’s probably waiting for me!’ She cries out in alarm, dashing across the classroom.

At the doorway, she comes to a pause and turns around. ‘Suga!’

‘Mm?’ He tilts his head at her.

She smiles shyly. ‘Thanks’.

He smiles back. 

----------------------------------

She ends up preparing a copy of her notes for Yamada anyway. He’s stubborn and stupid, and she figures that Suga’s interference, while welcome in the moment, is only likely to spur him on to pester her again. But when she walked into class the next morning, Yamada is nowhere to be found.

‘Did you hear Yamada-kun got caught with the vice principal’s burnt wig in his locker?’ she hears Yuna whisper to Mizuki before the bell rings.

‘Oh no! Is he in a lot of trouble?’ Mizuki gasps.

‘I don’t know, but I heard from Takashi that he’s been suspended from the basketball team indefinitely!’

‘No! Don’t they have a game next week?’

Ume looks over her shoulder at Suga, sitting with a self-satisfied smirk on his face.

‘I may have mentioned to Noya what happened with Yamada-san. Tanaka, of course, was very happy to help out’, he says simply when she corners him after school.

Yamada does return to class eventually, but he refuses to even look in her direction for the next month. She figures she’d much rather not press for answers she suspects she wouldn’t like. Instead, she spends the night cutting out twelve crow charms from black felt with the help of a very eager Yuji, hand stitching each member’s number in white thread and leaving them in Suga’s bag for him to find.

 ------------------------------------

She sneaks Yuji with her when the school buses students in for Karasuno’s match with Shiratorizawa.

They all watch with tears in their eyes when the final whistle blows and the boys win.

‘Congratulations, Suga’, she tells him the next day and adds. ‘I think Yuji’s found a new way to fly’.

He grins at her, his eyes burning proud and bright.

 ------------------------------------

Fall fades into winter. The days start looping, one after another.

Wake up. Get Yuji to kindergarten. School. Homework. Pick Yuji up. Make dinner. Pack leftovers for lunch. Do laundry. Revision. Tuck Yuji into bed. More Revision. Sleep.

Rinse. Repeat. Rinse. Repeat.

She curses when the cock crows every morning, and falls asleep before her head hits the pillow every night, so she wonders how he manages to survive with practices lasting daily into the night. Or maybe he doesn’t, she thinks to herself, watching the shadows beneath his eyes grow, grey and dark.

‘Is it worth it?’ she asks. (Do you ever regret it, she implies.)

‘Yes.’ he says. (At least I hope I don’t, he sighs.)

 ----------------------------------

 She notices immediately when his seat is empty. Sawamura tells her it’s to be expected, Suga always catches a cold in winter.

‘I don’t mind helping to bring his homework to him’, she volunteers. ‘You’re going to be staying late in school for practice anyway’. She avoids Sawamura’s knowing look as she writes Suga’s address down, his homework tucked safely into her bag. 

His mother beams, surprised and delighted when she appears at their door. She’s promptly shooed upstairs, and Yuji is lured into the kitchen with promises of mochi and ice cream. She knocks on the open door. He’s crouched on the bed, watching a replay of Karasuno’s finals match against Shiratorizawa.

‘Hey. I brought your homework.’ She frowns, noting the paleness of his face despite the redness of his cheeks. ‘Shouldn’t you be resting?’

‘I’m watching the match to fall asleep!’ he says defensively.

‘The match is at least two hours long! If you’re well enough to watch the match, you’re well enough to do your homework’.

‘Give me a break’. He groans, sneezing into the crook of his elbow. ‘I’m dying here’.

‘I’m pretty sure you can’t die from a common cold’ she says dryly.

‘Says the one who wants to be a doctor’, he playfully responds.

She rolls her eyes. ‘Don’t argue with me. Get some rest. You don’t have much time before you head off to Tokyo for Nationals, and the Center Shinken* is just after that’.

His smile drops, and he suddenly looks troubled. ‘Do you think I’m crazy?’

(For chasing too many dreams?)

She blinks, confused by his change in mood. She glances at the Miyagi University of Education pamphlet pinned to his wall - only one in three applicants get in. She furrows her brow, thinking about him spending every lunch break, every afternoon and night in their rundown school gym, even as everyone else is spending their days buried in schoolwork and revision.

But then she hears the echo of his words - It’s worth it. I want to play with my team, the cries from the huddle of boys, the memory of him holding a trophy under bright lights and her face softens.

‘Where’s all this self-doubt coming from?’ she says lightly. ‘You already achieved your dream of going to Nationals with your team. Now all you have to do is pass one exam.’

‘As if it’s so easy!’

‘Well, it’d be easier if you rest up so you can get back to work faster!’

‘Ugh, spoilsport’, he pouts at her.

‘Onee-chan’, Yuji pipes up, poking his head into the bedroom. 'Obaa-san said it's time for Suga-san to eat his medicine and take a nap.'

‘Hello, Yuji-chan!’ Suga waves at Yuji, who gives him a gap toothed grin in response.

‘You should tuck him in and tell him a bedtime story’. Yuji tells his sister seriously. She chokes and thinks she should have taken the chance to dump him under a bridge when he was a baby.

Suga laughs so hard he wheezes. 'I won't mind a bedtime story' he chokes out.

Both boys turn to look at her expectantly. 'Fine.' she says, relenting. 'I’ll tell you a bedtime story if you promise you'll try your best to go to sleep'.

They grin and settle down, Yuji on his sister’s lap, Suga laying against his nest of pillows.

She begins telling them a story she’s told Yuji many, many times these past months - about a kind-hearted Prince in a kingdom troubled by a yearly winter plague, who set out to find the cure for this illness, flowers that bloom on the highest of mountains in the deepest, darkest winter days. A Prince who tries to scale the mountain to find the cure, year after year, but is thwarted by blizzards and avalanches and snow monsters.

A small smile grows on his lips as she describes the Prince’s companions - the stalwart captain of his guards, the burly woodcutter with a heart of glass, and he stifles a laugh when she recounts how the Prince manages to trick his frosty hearted little brother to join them along the way. His breath evens out when she reaches the end of her tale, when the Prince and his companions scale the mountain and look down on a field of flowers, green and gold.

'And they lived happily ever after?' Suga murmurs, half asleep.

'And they lived happily ever after' Ume agrees.

She pulls his blanket up under his chin as he slips into sleep, hesitating as warmth furls and unfurls in her chest, before brushing her hand tenderly against his cheek.

----------------------------------

Third years are released from school for self-study.

She works alone at home. The winter days grow long and dark and hard.

(Her heart clenches. It starts to ache.)

----------------------------------

They graduate on a spring day, a shower of pink and white petals blessing their way. He catches up to her in the hallway after the graduation ceremony, hand at her sleeve.

‘Congrats on Tohoku’, he tells her, bright eyed. ‘I knew you could do it’.

‘Congrats on MUE’, she responds with a laugh. ‘See - you weren’t crazy after all’.

‘I suppose I’ll be seeing you around Sendai City? Your campus isn’t too far from mine.’

She opens her mouth to tell him not to be silly - Sendai City is nothing like Karasuno town, a million people within its bounds, and the probability of them meeting randomly on the streets is very, very small, but her throat suddenly becomes dry.

‘Suga’ she begins, balling her hands into fists.

‘Mm?’ he beams at her, brighter than the sun, and it’s all she can do to not to look away.

‘Thank you’, she says quietly. ‘For bringing some light into my life’.

‘I should be thanking you’, he replies earnestly. ‘You’ve been a good friend to me this past year. I don’t think I’d have passed my exams without you’.

“No, Suga,’ she says. ‘I mean - I like you’.

‘Oh.’ he breathes. ‘Oh’.

‘I like you’, she repeats, her voice growing stronger. ‘Because you were kind to me when there was no reason to. You bought bread for me, even if you ended up throwing it in my face. You stole and burnt a wig for me, just to put Yamada in his place. You spent your summer days buying Yuji too much ice cream, swinging him so high he thought he could touch the sky.’

‘I like you, Suga,’ she says finally. ‘Not just as a friend - but as a girl likes a boy.’

He stares at her, eyes wide. A few beats of silence pass.

‘I’m sorry’. He grimaces. ‘I don’t know what to say’.

‘It’s fine’, she finds herself saying. ‘It’s ok’.

(Her heart clenches. She wills it not to break.)

----------------------------------

Ume does not look back. Her bag is packed, and she leaves for Sendai City that week.

Her apartment is small, but she shares it with a few other girls. At night, she re-acquaints herself with the sound of cars rumbling on the street. The song of the cicadas haunts her in her sleep.

(Her heart clenches. She does not break.)

----------------------------------

Suga prides himself on being relatively observant and good with things like subtlety and tact and feelings - things that volleyball obsessed idiots like Daichi wouldn’t even notice if it hit him in the face.

He observes people and notices things, the way Kiyoko isn’t as indifferent to Tanaka as she seems, the way Yamaguchi’s serve suddenly improves when Yachi shouts ‘Gambatte’, the way Yui’s vocabulary immediately regresses whenever she’s talking to Daichi - though to be fair, he’s certain the only person in their level to not know about Yui’s crush on Daichi himself, so maybe that doesn’t count.

(‘I like you, Suga,’ he hears her say. ‘Not just as a friend - but as a girl likes a boy.’)

But then his brain short circuits and stutters to a stop, and it’s all he can do to watch dumbly as Ume turns on her heel and walks off, head high, back straight, he wonders if he’s not much better than the rest of them after all.

----------------------------------

‘Imai Ume said she likes me’. He finds himself telling Daichi, as they walk home from school, pork buns in hand, for the very last time.

Daichi grunts something unintelligible through a mouthful of pork bun.

‘Use your words, Daichi’. Suga can’t help but snark. Daichi grumbles and swallows.

‘Yes. I knew that already’. Daichi says simply. He starts on his second pork bun.

‘What?’ Suga retorts. ‘What do you mean you know? How did you know?’

This time, Daichi chews and swallows before he responds. ‘It was obvious to me.’ He turns to look at Suga squarely. ‘So what are you going to do about it?’

----------------------------------

(‘I’m Sugawara Koushi! But everyone just calls me Suga’. // ‘Imai Ume. It’s nice to meet you.’)

To be honest, he didn't think much of her at first when she joined their class. She had a habit of keeping to herself, never lingering in class before or after lessons, eating lunch alone at her desk, nose buried in a book, but he was brought up with good manners - so he kept greeting her every morning until her small nods turn into quiet smiles.

Of course, he just had to embarrass himself by hitting her in the face with a curry bun (Noya and Tanaka will never let him live it down), but in hindsight that probably kickstarted their friendship. And he’s very grateful for it. She's always passing him copies of her notes for lessons he’s missed or summaries of exam topics she thinks might come in useful, all painstakingly handwritten and colour coded - and even gives him the go-ahead to share it with Daichi. She volunteers to tutor Noya and Tanaka, and he’s sure that it’s in no small part due to her effort that they pass and get to attend training camp.

Yet he’s never considered her more than a friend. Right?

Right?

If he analyses the case of how he feels about one Imai Ume carefully, sifting through the puzzle pieces one at a time, he realises that he's not quite right.

There are little things that come to mind. Like his heart skipping a beat when he hears her laugh for the first time. The flush of his cheeks when he finds out she actually brought Yuji to watch their games. The rush of pride and joy when she tells him ‘I think he’s found a new way to fly’.

And maybe there are bigger things. Like the burst of blind panic in his chest when he hears Tanaka shout for him. The burning urge to break Yamada’s jaw and wipe that smirk off his ugly face when he sees red marks marring her skin. The cold satisfaction in his chest when he (and half the volleyball team) strike that bastard exactly where it hurts.

He remembers the sunshine dancing on her skin, the warmth of her shoulder pressed against his. The touch of her hand ghosting against his cheek. The faint memory of a fairytale about a Prince who gave his all and finds everything he set out to seek.

('And they lived happily ever after?' he asks // 'And they lived happily ever after' she agrees.)

The puzzle pieces fit. It finally clicks.

‘Shit,’ he swears, dialing Daichi’s number.

‘It’s midnight’, Daichi mumbles, voice rough with sleep. ‘What could you possibly want from me?’

‘I like Ume’, Suga says - and just saying it feels right. ‘I like her, Daichi’.

He hears an almighty yawn - and then he can almost see Daichi smile.

‘So what are you going to do about it?’

----------------------------------

What is he going to do about it?

Get hold of one Imai Ume and tell her that his mouth moved faster than his brain (and heart), of course. 

----------------------------------

But what can he do about it?

Not very much, as it turns out.

For starters, he realises they’ve never exchanged numbers. He never felt the need to, they were classmates, no, seatmates, so she was always there, like the sun and stars in the sky.

He tries to find where she lives by asking around but soon meets a dead end. Karasuno Town isn’t large by any measure, the main shopping street fanning out into a smattering of small rural neighbourhoods. But he knows for a fact that Ume stays with her maternal grandparents, and she’s never once mentioned their surname, so he’s left with little to go on.

‘At least I know she’s moving to Sendai City’, he mopes to Daichi over a steaming bowl of ramen.

Daichi, probably tired of the number of times he’s heard him repeat this, just slurps his noodles noisily.

----------------------------------

He and Daichi rent a flat from a little old lady who pats their chests and pinches their cheeks. It’s halfway between their schools, five minutes from the convenience store, and the rent is pretty cheap.

They soon settle into the rhythm of university life. They cycle to school in the mornings for lectures, struggle with tutorials, and fight over chores. Their social life isn’t too shabby either - they both make plenty of friends and even join volleyball teams.

Still, Suga can’t help feeling like something’s missing. ‘Someone, not something, you dolt’, his inner voice tells him, sounding suspiciously like Daichi.

He starts seeing the ghost of her everywhere.

He stares when he sees the slant of her shoulders in his classmate in the front seat. He crashes into Daichi when he thinks he hears the birdsong of her laughter float down the street. He picks up a habit of doing a double take at almost every girl he meets.

‘Stop it’, Daichi tells him crossly. ‘People are going to think you’re some kind of freak or pervert.’

He tries, he really does. But then months pass, and he starts to think that maybe Sendai City, with its million residents and a million more trees, might have hidden her out of his reach.

 ---------------------------------- 

Summer arrives, and he returns home to Karasuno. He and Daichi and Asahi find themselves back in the school gym often, and he finds himself being dragged into practice match after practice match with his unruly kouhai. It’s a good way to spend his holidays, but he can’t help thinking if there isn’t a route he hasn’t explored yet.

‘No, Sugawara-kun, I can’t give you the contact details of our alumni, even if they’re your old classmates’, Takada-sensei says indignantly. ‘And don’t even think about breaking into the staff room at night!’

Eh. At least that was worth a try.

----------------------------------

Tashiro senpai means well, he really does. But Daichi lets it slip that he’s been moping over some girl (‘For months!’, he roars), so on a Friday night, Suga finds himself thrust head first into a party at Tashiro’s apartment, surrounded by way too many people and not enough food. Daichi’s chatting with Yui (Go, Yui!), and he doesn’t know anyone else, so he doesn’t say no when Tashiro pushes cans of beer and cups of cheap spirits into his hands.

He’s a few months short of being able to legally drink, and it’s the first time he’s drinking outside his family home - but well, what Daichi doesn’t know won’t kill him. Soon though, the living room feels far too warm and the music is far too loud, so he figures he may as well seek fresh air and whatever refuge he can get on the cramped balcony beyond the kitchen.

He leans his forehead against the bannister. Gah. His head hurts. His stomach churns.

A raindrop splatters on to the back of his neck, then another, and soon he can hear the gentle patter of rain against the roof. He rights himself with a groan, and begins to head back inside. As he slides the glass door open, he turns and sees the silhouette of a girl emerge into the balcony, two apartments down, clearing her clothes from the laundry rack.

He stops. He can almost hear Daichi roaring at him at the back of his mind, but Suga can’t help but stare and think ‘there’s something awfully familiar about that girl’, but then - hasn’t he thought that about almost every girl he’s bumped into these past few months?

She takes a step forward and her face is lit by cheap fluorescent lights. He can see her clearly now, recognises the tilt of her chin, the curve of her cheeks and - by god, it’s her. His legs move and he lurches to the edge of the balcony, shouting her name like a loon.

Their eyes meet.

She yelps. And promptly drops her laundry basket, scrambling back inside.

He dashes back into Tashiro’s living room and trips into the corridor, ignoring Daichi’s shouts as he slams his fists into her front door. Her door remains stubbornly closed, and he keeps yelling, keeps beating her door. He can hear Daichi follow him, and he’s certain he’s going to get a bollocking tomorrow morning, but he doesn’t care, he’s finally found her in the midst of a million people and a million more trees and nothing else really matters.

The door swings open, and Imai Ume stands in the doorway looking livid. ‘My roommate is this close to calling the police,’ she hisses.

Daichi yanks him back with his shirt and snaps into a low bow. ‘Sorry for the trouble caused’, he says, and adds - that sly dog, ‘He may have drank a bit too much Umeshu’.

‘For God’s sake, Sawamura’, he faintly hears her squawk. ‘Can’t you take care of him a little better? He looks like absolute shit’.

Suga stares at her glassy-eyed. All he wants to do is to take her hand and tell her all the things he’s dreamt of saying these past few months (starting with I’m sorry I was an idiot- and ending with I missed you) - but his mind is suddenly foggy and his ears are ringing and his stomach keeps bloody churning and he suspects his body might have just given up on him completely.

‘I told you’, he manages to say. ‘I told you we’d see each other again’.

He pukes at her feet and promptly passes out. 

----------------------------------

When he wakes up, the sun is high in the sky, and he knows because he’s pretty sure it’s trying to stab him between the eyes. He flops over to his side.

What happened last night?

He cracks an eye open. He’s pretty sure he isn’t wearing his own pyjamas. The sweatshirt he has on is a touch too snug, the pants a touch too short - so definitely not Daichi’s either. He can’t be in Tashiro-senpai’s room either, because one, he’s pretty certain floral bedsheets aren’t his thing, and two, if he squints, he can see a pile of medical textbooks in the corner that definitely does not belong to him.

He groans, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed, groping bleary eyed for his phone.

- You have 7 messages! -

[Daichi, 12.48am]: You are a very lucky man [Daichi, 12.48am]: Imai didn’t call the police on you [Daichi, 12.49am]: I had to clean up your puke [Daichi, 12.49am]: Wanted to lug you home but you’re heavier than you look [Daichi, 12.49am]: So she said to leave you and walk Michimiya home [Daichi, 12.50am]: Figure you’ll thank me anyway [Daichi, 12.51am]: Stay safe. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do

‘You have got to be kidding me’, he moans. Fuck. His head still hurts.

Ume pokes her head into the room. ‘Oh, you’re awake. Feeling better?’

He snaps his head up and immediately regrets it. ‘Ow’, he whines, dropping his head in his hands.

‘I guess not’, she says. ‘Here’, she pokes him in the side. ‘Spare toothbrush. Wash up, and I’ll get breakfast ready so you can eat some meds’. She tugs him to his feet and pushes him into the bathroom.

This isn’t how he imagined meeting Ume again would be like. Getting piss drunk, puking at her door, and passing out in her bed? He’d take getting arrested over this any day, he thinks, moping to himself. Not to mention Daichi's probably going to kill him when he gets back. He shudders, then winces as he splashes cold water into his face.

Ume waves him into the kitchen. ‘Sit’, she says, and so he does. She sets a bowl of rice and fish and miso soup in front of him. ‘Eat’ she says, sliding a bottle of aspirin and a cup of hot tea at him. His stomach still hurts, but he's not about to let her effort go to waste.

‘Ittakimasu’, he says, putting his hands together, inclining his head slightly. Ume nods and sits across him, sipping her tea.

‘Thank you’, he says contritely. 'I'm sorry for the trouble I caused last night'.

‘It’s no problem. I managed to convince my roommates you were just a drunk ex-classmate, not some rapist or serial killer so they let you in', she hums, amused.

He groans. ‘I’m so sorry’.

'It's fine', she says, waving him away. 'I think Sawamura was a lot more mad than my roommates, since he had to clear your mess and then wrangle you into clean clothes’.

‘Well I think Daichi got to walk Michimiya home last night, so I don’t think he’ll be too mad’, he says drolly. She laughs at that, turning to clear the dishes into the sink.

‘Hey, Imai’. He takes a gulp of his tea, his throat suddenly dry.

‘Mm?’

‘'I - I missed you - you know, as a friend', he stammers at his hands. 'And I’d like to see you again. Maybe we could catch up over dinner sometime this weekend?'

She stills for a few seconds. 'I don't think it’d be a good idea to do that', she finally says.

His heart clenches. He wonders if he’s too late - if the distance that Sendai city with its million people and a million more trees has put between them is too great, if she no longer remembers their shared smiles and golden summer days. But then he sees the stack of blankets tucked into the corner of the couch, sees the food she must have woken up early to make, and wonders how his past self could have been so blind.

‘Imai’, he says. She keeps her eyes resolutely on the dish sponge in her hands. He exhales, and tells himself that it’s his turn to be brave. He takes a step towards her.

‘Ume’, he repeats, taking her hands into his. ‘Look at me’.

‘Stop it Suga! My hands are soapy’, she cries.

‘Nevermind that’, he says stubbornly. ‘Listen - I’m an idiot - and a coward. I meant it when I said I missed you, but I didn’t mean it as a friend’.

‘Wha-’, she begins to say but he cuts her off.

‘I like you, Imai Ume’, he breathes, bringing her hands close to his face. ‘I really like you - as a boy likes a girl. I want to keep holding your hands. I want to see you again - see you everyday, if you’ll let me'.

Her eyes widen, then she blinks slowly - once, twice, thrice.

‘Do you mean it?’ she asks, her eyes meeting his, and he’s struck by the thought that the stars in her eyes are so bright they can light up the night sky.

‘Why would I lie?’ he answers. ‘I’ve been looking over my shoulder every day for the past six months, hoping desperately to see you again.’

‘Oh', she breathes. ‘Oh’.

She gives him a look so full of affection and warmth - like sunlight breaking through the rain - that he knows he was right to be brave, knows that the past six months of searching and dreaming and longing hadn’t been a waste.

‘So… I take it you want to see me again?’ he asks cheekily.

‘Maybe’, she says, but her voice is teasing and she leans on to her toes to press her lips gently against his cheek.

‘I - I take that as a yes?’ he stutters and hates himself for flushing a bright pink, but refuses to release her hands.

‘Let me wash my hands first. Then - yes’, and she laughs, wide and bold and bright. 

----------------------------------

Coda

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 He opens the door and smiles at what has become a very familiar sight these past few weeks - Ume fast asleep at the kitchen table next to a half empty pot of tea, head pillowed against her textbooks. Usually, he’d just scoop her up and put her to bed, but they’ve not had much time together this week, what with him running all over the prefecture with his fledgling team for practice matches, and she with work and exams, so he decides to be a little selfish.

‘Ume’, he calls, shaking her shoulder gently. ‘Dearest. Wake Up.’

‘Mmph. Five more minutes. Go away.’ She mumbles, pushing his hand away.

‘Ume. Ummmeee,’ He drags out her name, finding extra syllables where there were previously none until she stirs, grumbling incoherently and he has to stifle a laugh when she swipes her hand across her mouth.

‘Oh! It’s you. Welcome home’, she folds herself upright, rubbing her eyes slowly. ‘Where’s Yuji? How was the match?’

‘Of course it’s me – who else would it be?’ he chuckles. ‘I dropped Yuji off at Kei-kun’s place for a sleepover with the team, they promised not to stay up all night eating junk and watching crappy movies but I don’t believe them. The match was great - we won! Yuji-chan did really well, he earned quite a few points and saved a few balls. You would’ve been proud of him. I know I was.’

‘That’s good, I’m sure he’ll tell me all about it tomorrow when he’s back.’ She nods towards the fridge. ‘I made mapo tofu for dinner – not too spicy though, your stomach will thank me after that long bus ride back.’

He hums a thanks, sliding the plate into the microwave, narrating a play by play of their match today, stopping only when he hears a loud yawn.

‘Go to bed, Ume’, he frowns at the lines of exhaustion on her face. ‘I shouldn’t be keeping you up, you have a morning shift tomorrow.’

‘Mm – I will, later. Was waiting for you. Mm’ not that tired,’ she protests, but then yawns again so widely he’s pretty sure he hears her jaw crack.

‘Bedtime, sleepyhead’, he says teasingly, lifting her into his chest.

It’s a testament to how tired she is when she doesn’t try to swat at him as she usually does, choosing instead to wrap her arms around him, pressing her face into his neck. His breath hitches, and he wants nothing more than to hold her close and hide in bed preferably forever, but reminds himself that they’re adults now (with awful things like jobs and responsibilities and worse, bills to pay), so he settles her onto their bed, tucking the pillow beneath her head, the sheets under her chin.

‘Goodnight, sweetheart. We’ll catch up properly on the weekend’, he whispers, pressing a kiss into her dark hair.

‘Mmph, love you’, she mumbles, half asleep.

‘Love you too’, he shuts the door with a click, a soft smile on his face.

He’s mentioned off-hand to her before that they’re lucky to be this happy.

‘It’s not all luck’, he remembers her replying. ‘Happiness isn’t easy to come by. It’s a choice. It takes effort and hard work to earn that choice, and you need to take the time to build it up, brick by brick, piece by piece.’

He used to wonder what she meant by that - but six years in, and he thinks he finally understands what she means.

She’s meticulous in the way she makes him happy - the way she catalogues his quirks and deals patiently with his follies. How she knows to always leave food in the fridge for him after work so he won’t get cranky. How she tries her best to stay up and listen to him complain about his frustrations with pushy parents or irresponsible kids, how she tries to watch every one of his (and Yuji’s) games should time permit. He can see it even in the way she smiles indulgently when she sends him off with Daichi and Tanaka for izakaya and drinks.

For his part - he wonders if he does enough. He wakes up early most mornings to hitch a ride with her to work so they get a chance to chat about their day. He buys flowers from the florist down the street for her every week, and slips sandwiches and post-it notes in her work bag when he knows she’s had a long shift. He holds her close when she collapses on the couch, boneless and exhausted from a hard day.

He thinks about the life they share - weeknights spent sitting together, him sketching lesson plans and volleyball plays and she reading up for exams and work cases, weekends spent in grocery stores and parks and volleyball games. Six years together - they’re happy, and they show it in the quietest of ways.

They’re driving back to Karasuno this weekend - ostensibly to celebrate Keiji’s birthday and meet a couple of friends. But he’s conspired with Keiji and Yuji so he can sneak her away to the park for a picnic under the tree where they share memories of long, quiet talks and golden summer days. He’s hidden her ring in a picnic box full of homemade onigiri and sandwiches, strawberries and peaches.

He plans to go down on one knee and ask if she’d like to continue working on being happy with him forever.

He hopes she’ll say yes.

(She does.)