#suzu/shirayuki

[shirayukisredhair]

some transparent lovelies from the art exhibition site 🍎

[onedivinemisfit]

Kicking off Do-Si-Do with my own pitch first, mainly because it’s a project that’s been riddled with delays and accidents - I lost three, THREE sketches, AND other resources, can you believe. Anyway. Concept is;

“Haki has manipulated Lata into hosting the Lilias Charity Gala, and all the academians are invited to make eyes at prospective patrons and sponsors, and shenanigans ensue~”

Been tossing ideas back and forth with @sabraeal who picked my pitch from the event lineup, wait till you see her fic >:3

[ansmangacaps]

[zenyuki-festival]

Favorite Flower

https://archiveofourown.org/works/56666317

[redmemoirs]

current wip~ that one lilias gang cover

[what-plant-metaphor-am-i]

Found this forgotten doodle in my sketchbook and it made made me laugh 😂

[claudeng80]

Brains and Hearts

Garrack Gazelt/Lata Forzeno, "Theft"

(Possibly a prequel to Absence Makes The Heart)

Lata Forzeno has no need for any more reasons to avoid Wistal and the entire south of Clarines, but the weather is giving him a new one. Thankfully, the front room of the Wistal pharmacy is shady, a necessary respite from the summer heat. Even over the cheerful chiming of the door bell, he can hear the slam of a drawer somewhere in the back, followed by the patter of boots. It’s quieter than the Lilias pharmacy, but that’s not a bad thing. It always reminded him of a beehive, scholars coming and going at all times.

Thankfully, it’s a familiar face who rounds the corner. “Shirayuki,” he says, as brusque as always because if he let on that it was nice to see her, Obi would never let him live it down.

“It’s been a while,” she says back, not bothering to conceal her smile. “Do you need the services of the pharmacy, or did you just miss the smell?”

“That knight of yours is a bad influence,” he says. “You used to be so polite.”

“If you’re looking for politeness, the court meets on the other side of the palace.” Shirayuki looks as startled as Lata by the newcomer, who’s leaning in the door of a side office. She’s wearing a lab coat like it’s a fur cape, elegant from the crown of her blond head to the tips of her shoes. “Here we deal in facts.”

Before he’s even realized it, Lata’s folded into a court bow, and the sardonic smile on her lips accepts it as her due. Whoever this is, she’s interesting. “First words of sense I’ve heard all day,” he says.

*

Somehow his polite visit turns into an invitation to lunch, but the three of them have only just sat down to eat when a quiet shadow blocks the light. Lata scowls, anticipating an insolent smirk and a slouch, but instead the interruption is a tall, clean-faced man he doesn’t know. Or he doesn’t know him personally; even a recluse such as him recognizes the prince’s aide.

“Now?” Shirayuki asks, and the man murmurs another sentence in her ear. All the while he watches Lata and Garrack out of the corner of his eye, with the air of someone for whom orders have trumped courtesy. He knows he’s being rude, but it’s an inevitability. Shirayuki sighs, and he freezes; she pushes her chair back and he relaxes fractionally. “I’m sorry to leave you, but this is the only chance-”

She leaves her sentence as unfinished as her drink, following the knight out of the cafeteria and leaving Lata alone with a beautiful woman he’s known for a whole fifteen minutes. He’s heard of the legendary Garrack Gazelt, of course; one doesn’t spend any time in company with either Suzu or Ryuu without hearing the name regularly. He did read a monograph of hers once, just to get Suzu to stop begging, and her writing style was both clear and precise. He’s inclined to approve. However, he had pictured someone rather older and not so stunning.

“Ryuu said he asked you for advice,” she says, and it sounds more like an accusation than thanks.

“A time or two. He has a good head on his shoulders.” They both nod, united for a moment. “A little too serious, though.”

“Lilias has been good for that.” She stirs her drink; he’d thought at first it was alcohol from the way she sipped it, but from closer it smells like cold Lilias tea. Funny that the supposedly-exclusive recipe has caught on here as well. “I’ll grant you that it was a good decision for him to stay. You can’t have Shirayuki, though.” She brandishes her spoon, and he could laugh.

“I’m a geologist. What use do I have for herbalists?” Garrack cocks an eyebrow at him, and he can’t help but bristle. “They chased me all over the North. I had a veritable infestation of them. Besides, I’m not the one you should be worrying about. There’s no reason to accuse me of stealing her when that prince exists.”

“That’s the truth.” They both look at the door Shirayuki had followed the knight out, then she sighs and downs the rest of her tea. “You’re more my time than hers, anyway.”  She leans back and eyes Lata again, and this time he’s not sure whether he should admit to the scratch on his shoulder (courtesy of an overhanging branch on the ride down) or the way his heart is pounding in his throat. She probably already can tell, by the look on her face.

“Are you staying long?” she asks, lightly.

He has a couple of appointments over the next few days, and at some point he needs to go make his bows to his mother, but as much as he is an idiot when it comes to women, he knows that’s not what she’s asking. He’s attracted to her; inexplicably the feeling appears to be mutual. “Long enough for whatever you have in mind. I am at your disposal, my lady.”

@ans-arcade

[bubblesthemonsterartist]

the poison is in the tail

“You’re in luck!” Shirayuki’s voice echoes through the dark apartment, her socked feet padding against the hallway runner. “My neighbor is awake, and is willing to let you borrow a change of clothes.” Suzu is a life saver. And a clothes saver. While Shirayuki doesn’t think Obi would bat an eyelash at wearing some of her pajama shorts as hot pants, she doubts she’d be able to look at them the same way again.

There’s no response. The silence stretching from the bathroom is… concerning.

Read more on AO3

[sabraeal]

a heart felled by you, held by you; Part 2

[Read on AO3]

Obiyukiweek 2024, Day 1: Quadrille

It’s not that Suzu didn’t know Lata’s name or whatever; it’s impossible to forget when it’s stamped right across the office he refuses to use three months out of the academic year— why should I let the university know where to find me? he’d huff, stoking the forge. If they’re going to interrupt my work to harangue me about class numbers and securing grant funding, I have no interest in making it easy for them— and scrawled on every lower right corner of his notes. It’s what every colleague calls across the university atrium before he hurries to out pace the persistence hunter that is professional collaboration; and what Ryuu had tried to stutter through for a whole week when he confused formality for maturity.

But between the towering aisles of his yet-to-be-catalogued accessions, and the number of times Shirayuki— and sometimes even Suzu himself— have been left to make his excuses to professors and professionals far above their pay grade, the idea that’s he’s a noble— a capital ‘F,’ weasel-thing-rampant Forzeno— well, it doesn’t seem quite real.

Not until now, when the doors on this stately manor swing open, and—

“I thought you lived in a shithole,” Suzu blurts out, momentarily blinded by polished marble and gold filigree. He’s no expert on architecture and has only a dubious grasp on history, but even he can tell this place is old. Storied, his mental Kazaha supplies, buzzing through his thoughts like flies over an ungrammatical carcass. “Or at least, that’s what Shidan said when—”

“I said apartment.” Shidan glares at him, like it’s Suzu’s fault he spent ten highly memorable minutes complaining about the stack of specimens that almost toppled onto him that one time he tried to brave Lata’s front parlor.

“It’s a townhouse.” Lata’s all noblesse oblige now that they’re ensconced in his family’s home, acting generous and tolerant, like they’re a good friend’s dogs that he knows are going to piddle on the carpet and he’s determined to be gracious about it. The kind of patience that’s pushed out between a man’s teeth instead of welling up from some internal font of goodness or whatever. “Private land ownership is the only way to receive permission for a forge of that size. And yes, I do.”

“But why not hang out here?” Suzu peeks into one of the fancy urns lining the walkway— disappointingly empty— before letting it rock back onto its pedestal. “It’s big and fancy and there’s a bunch of people whose job is to wait on you hand and foot. I’d never leave.”

“The commute,” Obi offers, sticking his own head down some fancy pot too.  “Or maybe the wallpaper bothers him.”

“That’s certainly one way to put it,” Lata mutters, steering Obi away from the crockery with a scowl. “This is family land, owned by countless generations of Forzeno since time immemorial—”

“672.” Kazaha strides down the runner with his hands clasped behind his back, like he’s the king of the castle— or like it might convince the man who is that he’s not about to have any sticky fingers. “That’s when Motouji Forzeno ordered a fitting home to be built for him within a day’s ride of the capital, which at that point was still based in Wirant, not in Wistal. That only happened once the Wisteria family inherited the throne from a series of strategic marriages over the previous three generations—”

“And in any case, not mine.” He clears his throat, shoulders pulling straight beneath the heavy wool over his tunic, looking more lordly per inch than he ever has at the university. “At least, not in name.”

For as long as Suzu’s known him, Shidan’s never been a confrontational kind of guy; Lata might duck and dodge and, if cornered, bite and rend any interference from the university’s board, but Shidan chooses the path of least resistance. Or more accurately, the path of least surveillance— he might sit and stay and sign the papers the higher up sent his way, but as soon as they had their back turned cajoling some of the more recalcitrant academics in their department, he’d slip right off the leash, doing what needed doing before the deans were any the wiser. That’s how they’d gotten into this whole orimmallys project anyhow, and that all worked out in the end. Mostly.

So when Shidan hums, all considering— the way he does when he’s about to quibble over wording on a paper, but so nicely Suzu won’t even know he’s gotten the run-around until he’s halfway to the dorms— it’s a sign. A portent, even.

“Your father gave you lease over the entire place, didn’t he?” He’s got his gloves caught in his hand, running fingers along some fancy wainscoting. There’s some gold leaf on it, gilding a few fussy fleur-de-lis, and his fingers run slow enough that there’s got to be some grit. Dust, even. “That’s what Garrack said, at least.”

Lata’s brow sours like samples left too long on the bench. “And of course, Head Pharmacist Gazelt would be the expert on my family’s internal affairs.”

“No,” Ryuu murmurs ponderously, so soft they all hush up to hear him. “But she’d be less invested in avoiding them.”

Big blue eyes blink up at his lordship, and if they were any less guileless— or maybe, if Ryuu was any less fifteen— there’d be some sort of dust up. Some flavor of raised voices and shaking fists, and maybe someone would end up with a cold ass on the big field of snow Lata calls the front lawn. But instead he just sucks in a breath, whistling like a hole in a window when the wind’s got its back up, and says, “I thought I was being quite generous offering you all a place to ready yourselves before the gala, but now I’m quite wondering just why I extended the invitation.”

“Because you’d rather be annoyed with us than risk being left alone with one of those lords?” Suzu barely realizes he’s spoken until five sets of eyes swing his way, goggling like he’s hauled off and said something out of band. Again. “Or ladies?”

A laugh’s dour cousin scrapes out from Lata’s chest as they climb what Suzu assumes is the grand stair, if only because it’s larger than the last three. “Yes,” he agrees, more weary than waggish. “Something like that.”

“Hey.” Obi hangs back, lingering on the landing with one thumb hooked over his shoulder. “Is that you?”

There’s a portrait beside him, larger than he is— or Suzu, or Shidan, or any man he’s seen living; so big that it must have taken a whole crew of footmen to install, if only to keep one of them from being crushed under a lordly boot. He’s got to squint to see above the knee, daubs of oils glistening in the gaslight, making it hard to pick out more than the curve of thick, dark hair, or the stern, squarish set the to jaw, or—

“I gotta say,” Obi hums, arms folding over his coat. “Quail hunter isn’t what comes to mind when I look at you.”

“I’m not.” Lata paces a step back toward them, then two, glowering up at the most detailed bird carcass Suzu’s ever seen outside the ruts of a country road. “That would be my father, in his youth. He had a great love of…working his will on the world, one way or another.”

“Ah…” Kazaha sighs, searching for something properly ingratiating to say. “There’s a certain, hm, strong family resemblance.”

Suzu seizes the opportunity to inform the professor, “He means that you both look grumpy.”

“That’s not what I said.”

“Right,” he agrees blithely. “It’s what you meant. Like I said.”

Lata snorts, starting back down the hall. “If you think I am ill-tempered, wait until you meet my sire. Why, I’m practically a ray of sunshine next to that old—”

“Oh, are we gonna?” Obi whips around, determined to be underfoot as he asks, “Will I finally get to meet my Knight Grandpa? Sir Grandpa—?”

“I would thank you not to call him that.  And no.” Lata’s mouth thins to a line as tight as his shoulders. “Besides, if we are to take Knight Grandpa at its most literal, it would not be my father, but instead the man who was my master as a squire.”

“Is he gonna be here? Can I meet him?” It’s not physically possible for Obi to wend himself around Lata’s legs, but by the way he bats his eyes up at him, he’s spiritually there. “I promise I’ll be a good little knight. I’ll even bow and scrape and write poetry about women lying in ponds—”

“No.” After a begrudging pause, Lata adds, “He’s dead, actually.”

Obi pops up, shoulders suddenly soldier-straight beside him. “Oh, well. That’s a pretty good excuse. Did he die from some battle wound or…?”

“The drink,” Lata confirms. “He wasn’t, honestly, a very good master. But he was a friend of my father’s. That seemed to matter more back then.”

A laugh saws out of Obi, rough enough Suzu’s surprised it doesn’t take a bit of throat with it. “Seems to matter just as much now.”

The professor doesn’t do anything so obvious as look at Obi, oh no— he just simply clasps his hands behind his back, favoring the hall in front of him with an approving nod. “Doesn’t it just.”

“You frown the same way.” Both men peer over their shoulders, but Obi makes confusion seem casual, whereas Lata just scowls. Ryuu, for his part, doesn’t seem to notice. “You and your father, I mean.”

“Yes.” Lata surveys the hallway over his shoulder before turning back around. “It runs in the family.”

A beat passes before Suzu dares to venture, “Hey, weren’t the girls supposed to get ready here too?”

“Yes.” The professor isn’t known to smile, and he certainly doesn’t now, giving them all a disapproving glare. “They arrived on time.”

*

“What if” —Shidan’s clever little botanist practically froths over the vanity like a flask left too long on the hob, spilling linen and lace where she leans— “I told him I had something in my eye.”

This is hardly the first volley of hypotheticals Garrack’s fielded from that quarter; oh no, the girls had all been down to chemises when the preliminary speculation began— what if…I said I needed some air?— and now what had already been a serviceable set of natural curves has become a feat of human engineering, bolstered by a bulwark of baleen and batiste. There’d been endless layers added on; bust improvers and corsets and girdles, all requiring additional helpful hands, and it lends a weary edge to Izuru’s, “Oh, it’s a him, now is it?”

Shidan’s long-time assistant hasn’t bothered to batten down her hatches— at least, not as much as the botanist girl’s— with only enough corsetry to turn her posture from academic to appropriate. Another assurance that she’s coming along nicely, just the way Garrack always thought she would so long as Shidan’s quiet perfectionism didn’t infest her work ethic the way his little pet project did the university’s water supply.

“What next?” It has to have been ages since there was a woman in this place— heavens know Lata isn’t bringing any inamorata around here to parade around in front of his mother’s mirror— but the painted wood Izuru slumps over is pristine. Or, well, as much as whale bone lets a body slouch.  “Identifying details? A name?”

“He’s hypothetical,” the botanist snaps, which almost guarantees that he isn’t. Too bad she hasn’t caked on the powder yet; even with the lights dimmed as they are, it’s impossible to miss the flush that creeps up her shoulders, pouring onto that pretty face. “He doesn’t exist. Yet.”

There’s quite a bit Izuru seems to have to say about that; her shoulder straighten, her mouth cants, and—

“Is that supposed to be romantic?” Shirayuki frowns into the mirror, hands swallowed up by the untameable beast that is Izuru’s hair. “Having something in your eye?”

“Well, not usually,” the botanist admits, undaunted by the sharp elbow of reality bursting her dreamy little bubble. “But an eyelash…that’s all right. Delicate even! Demure. And when he bends down, BAM.”

Shirayuki blinks. “You hit him?”

“Kiss him!” The girl slumps into a chair— despite all her scaffolding, she makes a better show of it than Izuru— heaving the most world-weary sigh. “I would kiss him, Shirayuki.”

It’s years since she’s been that diligent apprentice, quietly working under Ryuu’s precise direction, but Shirayuki still flushes as red as her hair at the barest mention of grown adults touching in any way but a professional handshake. Garrack would have thought Zen would handle that— three years is a quite a lot of time, and considering what some of her cohort got up to on these cold Lilias nights, she’d have expected the bar for blushing to be a few sexual acts higher. Under the clothes, at least.

“W-wouldn’t that be an awkward angle?” Shirayuki busies herself with Izuru’s hair, letting it twist around her hands as she pins it in place. “You m-might crash heads! And noses.”

“Fine.” The botanist flops on her chair, thoroughly put upon. “What about dropping my handkerchief? I let it flutter, just like this”— there’s no fabric in her hands, but she sticks out an elegant arm, turning away as her fingers go limp— “and when he bends to retrieve it, I—”

Garrack snorts. Not a soft one either; for as unintended as it is, it draws quite the audience. The pretty botanist included, one of her well-shaped eyebrows raised.

It’s a struggle to keep the laugh in her chest from bubbling out, making this whole situation worse. Or injure this girl’s more tender emotions, at least.“Listen, you really think a lord would stoop? For a botanist?”

“He will if he wants to be kissed!” she huffs, arms crossed. Quite a bit of lace froths out over them, like a puffed-out pigeon’s chest. “Which he will, since I’m going to be the best looking girl at this gala!”

There’s one of these girls in every cohort— a little too pretty for their own good, always thinking about which assistants they might be able to catch alone in the fourth floor stock room. Clever, of course— you don’t end up in Lilias if you’re a slouch in that department— but just a bit silly. Whimsical. Destined to be disappointed when they find out royals don’t marry researchers.

At least most royals with most researchers. It probably doesn’t help that the statistical outlier is in the room right now, sending her a long suffering look. “Yuzuri…”

“That’s no slight on the rest of you, Shirayuki,” the botanist— this Yuzuri— assures her, “I’ve just been planning for this my whole life. Or at least since I found out Wirant throws one of the Solstice things.”

“We’re supposed to be here for professional purposes,” Izuru reminds her, having worked for Shidan too long to believe in mixing work with pleasure.

“Oh, boo, Izuru!” Yuzuri straightens, bustling over to the mirror to fuss with the glossy fall of her hair,  pinning up parts of it with her fingers and frowning at the results. “Don’t be dull.”

“It’s not dull,” Shirayuki protests, placing the last pin in hopes that this time, Izuru’s hair might not simply bend the mess of them to breaking. “It’s what Shidan’s asking us to do. I’m not saying you can’t dance too, but if you’re going to be mingling with the nobles, maybe you should try to talk to some of them about what we’re doing with the Phostyrias. Just a couple of them giving permission for us to plant the bulbs would really be—”

“Oh, fine, fine.” She waves one hand— painstakingly manicured, done up in a pearly sort of polish that wouldn’t last five minutes once she was back in the greenhouse— but undeterred. “I can chat them up a little bit too. For the project.”

Tonight might be the darkest night of the year, celebrated in the coldest, most ass-end part of the whole country, but when Shirayuki smiles, Garrack might well be back in her office at Wistal, enjoying the mild summer breeze winding through her window. “Thank you, I really appreciate it.”

“You better,” Yuzuri huffs, twisting her hair in her hands. “Don’t think I don’t notice that it’s the girl with a guy who’s down to kiss her anytime, any place that’s asking the rest of us to consider this a work party.”

“I…” Shirayuki sputters, and hoh, there’s that blush again, with a vengeance. “Obi wouldn’t…I mean…that’s not…”

Well, well. Looks like she’s been a little behind on current events of the frigid north. And maybe not so wrong about royals and researchers after all.

“What if I asked him off into a side corridor? Or an alcove? Maybe a balcony,” Shidan’s botanist continues, saving Shirayuki a few more stumbles. “Those always have the right ambiance. And then I ask him to check the clasp on my necklace, and—”

“At that point you might as well ask him to kiss you,” Izuru is quick to point out, stepping up to help her hold a swag of hair in place. “You’re not really being subtle.”

Yuzuri groans, pins clattering against painted wood. “But where’s the romance in that? There’s got to be some uncertainty, some risk—”

“You do know,” Garrack hums, crossing her ankles on the convenient hassock in front of her. “Shidan and I are here specifically to help keep down the kissing, don’t you?”

The girl sighs, eyes rolling in her reflection. “But you’re not really going to do anything, are you, Master Gazelt? You know how silly this whole rule is. Aren’t you just going to look the other way?”

Her mouth twitches. It would be funny to see that old goat get twisted up over some twenty-year-olds playing mother-may-I with their tonsils. “Maybe,” she allows, “if I thought it was funny enough.”

*

It hardly seems fair to say Suzu is disheveled when he hardly ever seems, well, sheveled, for lack of a better word. But with his shirt still merely half-buttoned and flyaway wisps of blond escaping their tie with every scrape of his hands over his scalp, Shidan has little else to call him.

“Is the mazurka step-step-clap-turn, or is that the redowa?” His half-coat flaps out around him as he marks out the movements— poorly, but at least recognizable, even if Shidan would be at pains to reproduce them. “Or maybe it’s the waltz? Help me, Obi,” — he seizes the knight as he slips through the door, rumpling the black wool of his coat— “I can’t remember!”

“I’ll run you through the steps before we get out there,” he promises, detaching Suzu from his lapel with more gentleness than Shidan would, under the circumstances. Suzu is a valuable member of his team, a long-time collaborator who will perform any number of demeaning tasks to see a project through, so long as he can avoid a single shred of responsibility and complain about his sorry lot the whole time, but well— even Shidan has his limits. “It’ll all come back to you once you got the band to back you up. These things always make more sense with the music.”

Suzu stares at him, utterly blank, and Obi huffs out a laugh. “Theoretical versus practical knowledge, right?”

“Oh.” Suzu endeavors to smooth back his strays, but they only pop back up in his palm’s wake. “Right. Yeah. Of course. Easy, then.”

“Right.” Obi pats his shoulder with a purposeful sort of confidence, as if he could pass it through flesh and fabric with the ease that footrot does through hoofs. “Easy.”

That is until Ryuu glances up from his book, brow furrowed in the faintest vee, and says, “If that’s the case, then how are you and Shirayuki so bad at it?”

Obi whips around, wide-eyed with betrayal. “H-hey!” he squawks. “We’ve gotten better!”

Ryuu doesn’t reply— not verbally, at least— but the look he turns to Obi is eloquent enough to speak for itself. And what it says is: not appreciably.

“Why are you even concerned about all that?” Kazaha’s costume is so crisp carpenters could use it to cut corners, cape and coat and pants and stymieing haircut all in perfect place. “It’s not as if anyone is going to ask you to dance.”

“Why not? I’m dressed all nice.” Suzu blinks down at himself, taking in the uncuffed sleeves and half-buttoned shirt and the coat canted askew on his shoulders, and adds, “Well, I will be.”

Kazaha may cluck his tongue, may shake his head hopelessly, but even still, he reaches out, straightening Suzu’s cuffs before buttoning them tight. “Because you’re a man, idiot. Girls might inquire if you’d like to take a stroll down Pavilion Street when we’re at the university, but in a ballroom, men do the asking.”

Shidan can’t say Suzu’s ever been popular with the female population, especially among the more established academics who are already well aware of his reputation as a rather acerbic eccentric, more apt to be cozened under tables or smudged with sweat and grit from Lata’s forge than doing the more respectable pastime of benchwork. But there’s always a flush of fluttering young freshmen flouncing outside the lab each year, eager to catch a glimpse of— or even speak a word or two with— the herbology department’s most striking scholar. That is, of course, until they actually talk to him.

“Really?” Spoken like a man who has had invitations hurled at his retreating back for five years running. By Kazaha’s strangled sigh, it’s clear he’s thinking the same. “I’m very pretty, though.”

“That may help with young ladies wanting to dance with you,” Kazaha informs him, pulling his lapel into a shape somewhat approaching acceptable. “But it will be expected that you approach them.”

“Oh.” It’s startling to see that sharp face turn thoughtful. “So I don’t have to do this dancing thing at all.”

“You do.” Shidan’s order scrapes out at the same time Kazaha’s does, creating an odd sort of echo before he presses on, “We’re the guests of honor at this gala. The department is expecting us to socialize with potential donors.”

“Well sure, but that doesn’t mean I gotta—”

“You will,” Shidan promises him wearily. “And you’ll have to at least pretend to like it, if you want to continue our work in the lab.”

“And not in some tiny closet,” Obi adds, brightly. “Where you’ll have to knock elbows with Kazaha just to get a beaker on the burner.”

“Well, yeah.” Suzu slumps, waving off Kazaha’s continued ministrations. It’s too late, however— he already looks respectable. Not enough to pass for a peer, but someone well on his way to professor. “But what if I just hung out along the wall instead. Then I could talk to people, and—”

“It’s rude for young men to be idling when there are eligible young ladies waiting for a partner.” Obi’s words nearly sparkle for all their polish, but he ruins the effect with one of his slant-wise grins. “Don’t worry, I told you I’d show you how to cut a rug. It’s better than getting stuck in a conversation with one of those stuffy old—”

There is a gravitas to the way the doors open in this place, a stately creak that does not imply age so much at maturity; this manor was built long before the sovereigns of Wisteria sunk their roots into Clarines’ throne, and it would last long after they were nothing more than musty portraits in halls long forgot. For as much as Lata might chafe under the weight of that history, might complain about the burden of expectation placed upon a son— the son— of Forzeno, he looks every inch the part as he steps over the threshold, trousers tailored and coast pressed within an inch of their lives, more institution than man.

“The guests are arriving,” he intones with all the cheer of a funeral bell. “Are you through with your preparations?”

“Almost!” Obi sing-songs, helping Kazaha tug the sleeves of Suzu’s jacket straight. “There, done.”

Lata surveys them with the same sharpness as he does his specimens, assessing them as if their flaws were as easily apparent as a gem’s through a loupe. With a long-suffering sigh, one pristine glove pinches at his nose, as if it might be any help at all stemming the incoming headache.

“Passable,” he grates out, stepping aside. “Now if you would follow me, I will ensure that you all make it to the hall.”

Obi’s mouth twitches, threatening a smirk. “Can’t trust us to get there on our own, eh, sir?”

“I have been an academic for nearly as long as you have been alive.” The fit of his coat already has Lata at his full height, but he lifts his chin for good measure, just to give his glare a few more momentum before it meets Obi’s grin. “And there is not a single scholar alive that can travel from one point to another in a straight line.”

Both brows raise now, scrunching the scar right to his hairline. “Not even you?”

Lata clears his throat. “If you would all come this way please. In an orderly fashion,” he adds, when Suzu traipses after him, elbows nearly colliding with Ryuu’s nose as he comes up behind. “I would prefer to avoid any accidents before we even arrive.”

Obi slinks closer, like a cat approaching a precariously placed cup. “But not after?”

A heavy sigh flares out of Lata’s nostrils. “I would prefer you not. But ‘after’ is not part of my purview.”

For all that Obi enjoys dogging the professor’s irritable heels, he makes no move to follow him. Instead, he lingers just inside the door, watching as first Suzu, then Ryuu, then Kazaha pass. Being polite, Shidan assumes at first, but then the moment for him to fall in line comes…and passes, utterly unmarked, save for the amused glance Obi turns his way, gold flaring in the lamplight.

He’s a different man than the one that appeared with the snow, all those years ago. Even more so from the boy that simply manifested in the university’s library, slotting himself between the two royal pharmacists with an ease that had Shidan squinting even then, trying to figure out how such incongruous pieces could fit. Lilias drew all types, it’s true, but even so— he’d never seen one quite like this: a knight with a thug’s scar cut into his brow, swaggering through the stacks like they were old enemies.

Don’t be fooled, Garrack had written him once, loops spiking tight with barely restrained humor. He might look a little rough-and-tumble, but that kid cleans up well.

He sees it now— the strong line of his shoulder accentuated by the cut of his coat, the belt at his waist complementing the taper of his torsi, the loose trousers that only barely obscure the acrobat’s body beneath. There’s no way to cover the scar, not even with a judicious application of pomade, but there’s no need— not when it only makes him look roguish, like a man who might sweep a girl into an alcove and teach her the sort of things proper young ladies only learned from novels. Still dangerous, but not deadly.

Worrying, really, considering. Shidan doesn’t make a habit of listening to scuttlebutt, but, well, he does have eyes of his own. And red is hard to miss. More so than the black he always finds bent beside it. “Obi, if I might have a word?”

That brow of his pitches up, amusement apparent in every angle. “You academics really will do anything to keep from having to go where you’re told.”

Shidan blinks, confused, before shaking his head. “I only thought I might remind you, that er…” There’s no delicate way to put it, not when he’s already wearing a smirk that would set every fine young lady’s fan fluttering. “That this year there is to be no Solstice kissing. By Lata’s request.”

“So I’ve heard.” Obi’s head cocks, curious, though when he takes in the emptiness of the room, the pointedness of the request…the slant his brow takes is clearly…confused. “Is there any reason you’re telling me, specifically?”

It’s a romantic sort of night, he might say, and it’s easy to forget yourself in the moment. Or maybe, you already stand so close I couldn’t fit a paper between the two of you, all it would take to close it is a well-timed trip. Or perhaps more accurately, you’ve been together so long all you need is an excuse. Trust me when I say you should take it.

But Shidan knows better than to speak, not when silence is all the more eloquent. The mind, he finds, often finds the most pressing reasons all on its own. Especially when one's thoughts never strayed too far from them anyway...

“Hey!” Obi presses a hand to the placard of his coat. “I haven’t caused trouble for years.”

It’s a feat worthy of song that Shidan keeps from reminding him of the last time him and Shirayuki rode through these gates. And yet, there’s no graceful way to admit that he hadn’t been talking about that sort of trouble anyway.

“Months, at least,” he relents, grudgingly. With a few moments of thought, he adds, “I’ve been really good this week.”

Shidan, with the patience of a saint, restricts his reply to simply, “If you’re sure.”

Obi does him the courtesy of hesitating. “Well, none of that’s been of the kissing variety, anyway. Not like any of the ladies here are going to be looking to make time with a guy like me tonight.”

He gives him another one of those charming grins, and Shidan sighs, resigning himself to an evening of being pointedly unobservant. “So you say.”

[floatsthruspace]

I found this in my drafts after posting the other one!

Hi! This is the exact moment where I was convinced. I was convinced that this needed to happen. Obi was my favorite character after Shirayuki. This was the moment I put two and two together. And ever since, I've wanted a very specific plot line to play out. Obviously, I try to read through every fic on AO3 and here. There are so many brilliant authors and artists and other creatives that make this fandom a joy to return to. They all live rent free in my head.

Ive tried and failed to put down my thoughts in words. I am not a writer. But here is a snippet of a song fic (?) I had in my head for the longest time. It won't leave me alone. If there is something similar out there please please tell me where ;-;

Can't keep my hands to myself- Selena Gomez

Can't keep my hands to myself

Shirayuki had a problem. At first, she didn't think nothing of it. They are best friends and they spend so much time together. They work so well together and they can communicate without a word. Of course some of that communication would be through touch. A brush of a hand here, a touch to his strong shoulder there, and her hand wrapped around a wrist. She never noticed it was different from when she worked with Ryuu or with Suzu or even Mitsuhide. Until she did.

They had been working for two weeks to pull this garden together. She wiped her brow as she walked over to where Obi worked. She admired his form as he moved wood poles to where they need to be and then returned back to his task with the plants. She placed her hand on his shoulder as she leaned over him to peer at his work in harvesting the herb in his section. His muscles tensed as she let her palm run down his arm.

No matter how much I'm trying to

Her palm tingled as he pulled her through the market place in search of the stall that Suzu raved about last night. She couldn't help that her mind went straight to how strong his hands were and how rough his callouses felt on her skin. She tried not to think about how he gently tugs her along to speed her past groups of people. She tried not to think about how his hands would feel on her skin and how her hands would feel on his skin... Shirayuki barely misses crashing into a patron at the tea stall. She takes a steadying breath and focuses on her path following Obi.

I want you all to myself

As Shirayuki stood up and wiped her brow she wondered if Obi regretted suggesting they stop to rest in this town. She couldn't help it, she saw a garden in disrepair and knew it would help the town to have a community space. It just needed a little love. She looked over at Obi and saw him bent over a pile of wood looking for strong pieces for the outer fence. She admired his lean frame as he stood up with his prize. That's when she noticed his fan club had gathered nearby. She frowned and grumbled at the group of girls waiting to give him water or a rag to wipe his sweat. One of the more daring ones was gushing about how strong he was to be able to pick up those heavy planks of wood. Shirayuki didn't miss how she hung off his arm. Obi for his part was eating it up. She had enough when the girl giggled at him and ran her hand up his arm. She marched over to them and put her hands on his shoulder to focus him back to the task at hand. She asked him to help her with the wheel barrow. She grinned as he followed her without hesitation. She glanced over her shoulder at the pouting fan club. For good measure, she made to fuss over him about taking care of his hands and watching out for his shoulder. She rubbed his hands while glancing at his eyes just so. When she saw his blush she felt warm all over. They continued to work together using the wheelbarrow to spread the soil in the garden. She helped him use his planks to patch the fence. They worked into the early evening and neither of them noticing that they were alone. Glances and hands brushing past each other were the only things on their mind.

Thants all I got! Thank you for reading!

[meefy]

I had this on Discord but as it is always Love Lata hour on my blog, I felt it deserved a place here too.

Lately during my AnS reread I've realized how Lata is so much softer than he comes across sometimes and it starts pretty much as soon as he is introduced at the castle's night banquet.

When Shirayuki starts to ask why he left Lyrias, Lata tells her rather bluntly that the only thing he'll ever care about there is his research alone. He's been there 15 years and has no friends, colleagues, or ties of any kind (and he tells Kirito some forty chapters later that he has friends only in his hometown). He has no reason to stay in Lyrias except for the work he does - work that brings him fulfillment and joy in spite of nobody around him understanding why he is bothering with his kind of research at all.

Suzu tells Shirayuki in Chapter 65 that none of Lata’s fellow mineralogists understand the purpose or goal of his research, and I suspect that in part is why he is so isolated (besides the fact that some of the other scholars hate nobility). The other minerologists see Lata as a haughty rich noble with enough time and money to expend in a useless jewelry-making hobby, or just pointless research for the sake of knowing. One can imagine that, having come to Lyrias excited to show off his work, Lata was pretty sorely disappointed and put off by everyone around him early on even without being scorned for being nobility. I believe that is probably part of why he runs from Shirayuki and Obi in he beginning; he has no reason to believe that, after 15 years, anyone will take him or his research seriously (and this is something he also echoes when he admits he wasn't expecting her to label him an expert).

And I suspect there are two underlying reasons why Lata agrees in the end to help Shirayuki’s team (other than to reward her persistence, which is the explanation he gives her). One, because they are likely the first group of scholars to see value in his work and how it can be used in an applied setting - the fact it is in a completely different domain doesn't matter, really, and given how the few times he smiles in this arc are when he sees the fruits of his labour it is safe to assume that, mineralogy or pharmacology, it brings Lata a great deal of satisfaction to see his research going to greater use.

The second reason is a more sentimental one, and that is that, plainly put, Lata likes what he does. He wouldn't have stayed isolated for 15 years in a city where nobody liked him if he didn't, and even Obi later remarks that Lata becomes very solemn whenever crystals are brought up. He strikes me as someone who is happy to do "meaningless" research simply to learn how stuff works. And Shirayuki, at the castle's night banquet, echoes this feeling when Lata asks her why she wants the phostyrias project to succeed: because they're pretty! She gives many other reasons - her values, her career - but it's this reason that strikes Lata the most.

Look at how he regards her right after she makes her declaration, like he's thinking that finally, someone gets it. She wants to keep going with her research not just for its deeper hidden meaning, but because they're really pretty flowers.

And Lata just wants to have fun with his pretty glitter crystal stones.

It doesn't have to be more complicated than that!

[onedivinemisfit]

Hello! You've mentioned that you would like to get back to obiyuki chronic pain/disabled AU? I would like to some more of this too. So, where do Obi and Shirayuki go next? Do they meet Ryuu and Garack? Or do they go to Lyrias and meet Suzu and Yuzuri? Do they catch Feelings for each other?

Hnnng yes, I love that you do~

So they take the hay cart to the nearest town, and then a carriage to Wistal. Obi gives Shirayuki the assassin’s league dagger before they split up, saying it will help her in a pinch. Neither realizes they’re both sticking around in Wistal at least for the time being, which is dumb of them cuz hello ur both in need of cash. Shirayuki gets a job at a downtown pharmacy, meanwhile Obi goes knocking at guildie doors for work. Yes they’re gonna end up living on the same street but in different boarding houses.

Shirayuki is def gonna get some attention from Garack and Ryuu once they realize there’s a new, very competent face in town, whom rumors hold has ties to the underworld. <- that’s the running gag here.

You could say it’s at times a lower-stakes AU, if only because Obi and Shirayuki’s respective disabilities can never be ‘overcome’. Shirayuki can help out with research, but she can’t do long field trips, or ponder at a desk for hours at a time. Obi’s been asking around for less risky jobs too (her influence a lot of the time) because not even adrenaline can get him to fully ignore his busted knees anymore. Instead he’s out there doing courier runs and the occasional break-and-enter.

They’ll catch feels over the course of getting to know eachother, helping out (yes Shirayuki gets called to a safe house at some point to patch him up by then she doesn’t give a fuck about the ‘criminal’ label) doing their daily life thingies, bonding over health issues, and slowly, sloooooowly starting to consider a future… mebbe together?

I love the Lilias Crew more than anything, so I just gotta find the right moment to have them meet. If that’s under less than legal circumstances compared to canon, so be it. And if either of the two meets Zen and co., first it’ll be Obi, probably via marquis Haruka. He’ll land himself a job with royal implications and regret ever taking it xD but I will draw a line in that this AU’s obiyuki will never play the super important royal diplomat figures. Again, gotta keep the stakes lower, more a focus on the everyday struggles that come with disability </3

[ansmangacaps]

[kitkat1128]

For the AnS asks: 3, 6, 14, 15, and 29 pleaseee 💖.

Thank you for the ask! <3 #3: Character who grew on you eventually Hisame! I didn't think I would be routing for him and I wasn't really threatened by him either. It was quite awesome writing that made me want to ship him with Kiki, despite being a MitsuKiki shipper! And the fact that he grew as a person as well was so wonderful to see. #6: Character you would date in real life Honestly, Zen would be a wonderful choice for me if Shirayuki wasn't dating him but then again he might not like me, maybe as friends? However, I can relate to Tsuruba a lot so if he were to ask, I would totally date him! #14: Most hated arc I... might be boring. The Lyrias-Olin Maris Research Arc for me was boring. The science-y part was fine, but I barely remember it and the interactions with Lata, Yuzuri, and Suzu are great, but it just doesn't peak my interest 😅 So, I would say not hate but just not interest. #15: Your controversial take I do not mind what anyone ships however they want whoever they want. However, I just don't like when it's at the expense of another character's personality. Such as how ObiYuki shippers still think that Shirayuki will dump Zen or that Zen is abusive in any way. Again, I respect ObiYuki shippers however, I have firm faith that ZenYuki is never to break. #29: Things you still don’t understand How on EARTH did the Olin Maris become what it is now, harmless and non-poisonous!?! Of course, maybe if someone gave it to me like I was 5 then maybe, and that I should just read the Olin Maris Research Arc but... no 🤣

Again, thank you, love! <3

[redmemoirs]

lata being haunted by his students lmao

[what-plant-metaphor-am-i]

Messing around with a randomised Snapchat filter and characters on AnS book covers:

👍

He would

Fact

Also Fact

OK SO, this ^ made me laugh at first bc Mitsuhide is Mr. Lawful Good, but then I realised...he has technically been arrested in canon. Like as far as I'm aware he's the only one of them all who has been arrested... 😂

Well anyway I gave Mitsuhide another chance for something more 'him' and…

tbh if he ever does decide to get married I can see this one happening for sure lol

Bonus Suzu: