lils-writes

[lils-writes]

Lakefront

Read it here on ao3!

“Whatcha doing there?”

It takes a moment for Byleth to look up from the lake. Ripples break her reflection as she pulls her soaked cloak onto her lap. Red stains the fabric, stains that bleed onto the girl’s hands and knees. And she almost seems frazzled as her eyes find Claude’s; or at least, she seems as frazzled as an emotionless Ashen Demon can be.

“I’m trying to get these stains out before it’s too late.”

“Why not just use another one instead? If you want, we can get you a new one as soon as we’re back in the capital.”

Claude must have been blessed by the goddess, or perhaps it’s just a stroke of luck. Regardless, it’s nice not being chased away as he takes a seat next to Byleth on the grass. The summer air is almost choking, dry heat pounding down onto the heads that have the misfortune of being exposed, but by the water, it’s a little more bearable. It’s a little fresher, the cool breeze brushing Claude’s cheeks. Or maybe it’s the sparkle in those green eyes that makes it worth being outside under the blazing sun.

“Jeralt said the same thing.”

He waits for more to come, but the wait is in vain. Byleth simply goes back to scrubbing her cloak, her green eyes glistening like the still lake under the sun. She seems determined to get her cloak back into its original state, but the blood is stubborn, clinging to the fabric. It clings like the memories of the last battle, one that had been far more brutal than the rest. It clings like the pit that forms at the bottom of Claude’s stomach; he couldn’t ignore the casualties that had come with his lack of preparation. He can’t ignore the wave of nausea that hits him, the smell of bloodshed leaving him sick all over again.

“You were good in the last battle.” Claude’s eyes leave the bloody garment only to fall back onto Byleth. She doesn’t look away from her work, but he knows she’s addressing him. He knows the words are for him, an attempt at comfort; he knows she had seen him detach himself from his celebrating troops to be sick on his own. “You did what you had to do to win, even if it wasn’t the victory you had wanted.” Green eyes find each other; they’re dusted with sunlight, a flicker of warmth he’s never seen in Byleth. “You’re a good leader. You’re a smart one.”

The blush that heats his face catches him by surprise. Claude’s heard it a million times before, heard the whispers and the praises for how smart he is, how cunning he is, how he plans for everything, but none of those compliments had left him swelling with pride. Every pat on the back he had gotten had felt like a stepping stone leading him to his next scheme, approval for him to keep going, but coming from Byleth, it feels different. From Byleth, he believes it; Claude doesn’t feel the need to be humble or deny his intelligence. With Byleth, he doesn’t need to put up this perfect political leader persona he has perfected for everyone else; Claude can just be himself, this kid that’s just trying his best to survive a worthless war.

“You’re pretty smart yourself, you know. And you’re crazy strong, taking those guys out like it was nothing to you.” Maybe the wink and bumping of shoulders was unnecessary, but Byleth doesn’t seem to mind. She doesn’t back away or leave; she simply shakes her head as she continues scrubbing her cloak. “I mean it, though. You’re an incredible mercenary. And I kinda wish we had met sooner, been on the same team from the start. Kinda wish I had gotten to know you sooner.”

Byleth hums, a sound Claude has grown accustomed to hearing. He still hasn’t figured out the meaning of the sound, but he knows it’s better than silence. He knows that if she’s humming, it means she’s not chasing him away. If she’s humming, it means he gets to stay by her side, even if just for a moment longer.

It’s peaceful by the lake. Everything is still besides the weak ripples of water Byleth produces from plunging her cloak into the water. Everything is calm; birds chirp from the treetops and Claude even spots a pair of ducks diving for fish. Everything is so serene; if it weren’t for the camps set up a little further away, if it weren’t for the bloodshed that stains the soles of their shoes, if it weren’t for the dark circles that stain Claude’s face, it would have been impossible to know they were plunged in the midst of a war. If it weren’t for the weight on his heart, everything would have almost felt normal.

“Here.” Byleth furrows her brows as Claude pulls her cloak out of her hands. “Let help.”

“I’ve never seen a king be so adamant about doing laundry before.”

Laughter bubbles out of Claude as he plunges the fabric into the water. He’s never had to wash anything on his own before, he’s always had someone do it for him, but it’s never too late to learn. And maybe he’s not as methodical as Byleth had been, maybe his fingers are not yet familiar with the weight of wet cottons or the proper way of scrubbing stains out, but it’s not so terrible. It’s almost pleasant, the little mundane tasks Claude never got to do, having been raised in silks and perfumes. He almost feels normal, just a little more like everyone else. Maybe once this wretched war settles down, he’ll take up doing more chores instead of delegating them. Or maybe he’ll content himself with this one time, enjoying the freshness of the water against his skin.

“We’re friends, aren’t we?” He doesn’t wait for an answer; Claude knows waiting is useless. “Friends help each other out.”

It’s so easy to smile around Byleth. Around Byleth, there’s an ease to every one of Claude’s grins, an ease he hadn’t known possible for him. Every smile he’s sported before, be it for his friends or for his troops, they’ve always weighed him down. They’ve always been an obligation to Claude, a duty he owes his people, especially during wartimes. Smiling has always been a tool for Claude, a way to instill confidence in the people he faces, but here, with Byleth, it almost feels like none of that matters. He doesn’t need to convince her of his abilities as a leader. He doesn’t need to convince her of anything, really. With Byleth, it almost feels like everything will simply be alright.

“You’re kind.” Byleth purses her lips as she tilts her head at Claude, her eyes running over his body before settling on his face. “You’re a lot kinder than most nobles I’ve come across.”

The statement begs for questions. It’s right there, an invitation for Claude to pry, but he doesn’t dare. Every question that forms at the tip of his tongue is swallowed back; he knows better than to try to break Byleth open. If she wants to tell him about her days before being hired by Leicester, if she wants to tell him about all her wandering, all the people she has met before him, then she will. She will tell him on her own terms. She’ll open up, little by little, whenever she feels like it. And as much as Claude hates waiting, his impatience and curiosity getting the better of him most of the time, he knows when to back down. He knows he has to content himself with the bits of information that are slowly handed to him.

A smile pulls at the corners of his mouth as he pushes himself up from the grass. Byleth’s eyes flicker between the boy standing before her and the cloak he’s left laying at his feet, left to soak in more stains than what Claude had gotten out. Her eyes flicker, but she doesn’t move. She makes no move to take back what is rightfully hers, nor does she follow Claude’s lead. She simply sits there, her expression unreadable as always.

Maybe Claude should have let her be. Maybe he should have sat back down and gone back to the little task he had imposed upon himself. Maybe he should have been thinking more rationally, but whatever brains he’s known for has since been left at the conference table. Here, under the blazing sun, under that green gaze, he’s letting his heart lead. Here, now, he’s following where fate leads him.

“I don’t know if kind is the best way to describe me, but,” he holds his hand out to Byleth, a hand she contemplates for a moment, “I promise you I’ll never be like any of the nobles of this place. Not Lorenz, not Hilda, not any of them. I’m just not one of them, no matter how hard I try. So please,” finally, fingers curl around the hand that touches his, “think of me as your friend instead of your leader, your king. Please?”

Pretty eyes roll back as Claude pulls Byleth to her feet. It’s the first time he’s ever seen her this relaxed; it’s the first time he doesn’t panic at their proximity, afraid she might take his life. It’s the first time he feels they’re equals; it’s the first time they feel like just people rather than soldiers striving to survive a war.

Byleth’s hand quickly falls away from Claude’s, but not as quickly as her eyes. They fall onto the horizon, onto the sun that’s still high, still plummeting down onto their heads. They shimmer like the lake reflecting the leaves in the trees, they’re captivating as always, always filled with a mystery that draws Claude in, but they’re not alone in holding his gaze. He can’t help but trace the lines of reddening skin, skin he knows is normally so pale. He can’t help but want to touch the splotches of burns that have started to sprinkle Byleth’s skin. And maybe that’s why she always has something to cover herself; maybe she, unlike Claude, burns under the scorching summer sun. Maybe Byleth, unlike Claude, didn’t spend her entire childhood playing under blazing rays.

“Not to pry or anything, but,” green finds green once more, “when’s the last time you just had fun?”

“Fun?”

Claude almost laughs at the way Byleth tilts her head, her eyebrows furrowed. It’s almost as if she’d never heard the word; it’s almost as if it had no meaning to her.

“Let loose, had fun. Didn’t think about the shitty state of the world. Just thought of yourself for a moment, been a little impulsive maybe. Not been all serious all the time.” Claude shrugs, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Y’know, just had fun.”

Byleth furrows her brows once more, concentration staining her delicate features. She’s searching for a time she had done something other than work; by the looks of it, maybe the answer to Claude’s question is “never.” Had the Ashen Demon ever had a moment where she just got to have fun? Or had she been born a fighter, born with a sword weighing down her little hands? Did a mercenary, no matter how young, ever have the opportunity to just kick back and have fun in their life?

Claude doesn’t wait for an answer. If Byleth has never had the chance to let loose before, then it’s become Claude’s personal mission to change that here and now. Now matter how dire their circumstances, they’re allowed a moment of indulgence. No matter how deadly the outside world is, they’re entitled to a moment of peace, a moment of their own. No matter what, they’re allowed to take back a moment of their idle childhood and make the world their own. They’re allowed to reclaim the childhood they lost to war.

Green eyes fall back onto Claude, eyes that follow the lines of his body as he spins on his heel, his arms thrown back behind his head. He knows Byleth can’t look away; ever since she’s been hired to be a part of the Leicester army, her eyes have rarely left him. She’s followed his every movement as if it had become her personal mission to ensure his safety. She’s never been far; she’s always known his exact whereabouts. And it makes sense: the death of her employer would mean the end of her income. It makes sense that she has to ensure her own survival; money is just as vital to life as not being cut down by a sword, not that Byleth would ever be careless enough to be ambushed. It makes sense that her eyes are drawn towards Claude, but this time, she’s not looking at him as if he were this fragile little thing that needed protecting. This time, she’s looking at him, all of him, all of Claude. This time, she doesn’t seem as guarded as she watches him. Perfect.

The sound that breaks from Claude’s lips is far pitchier than he had expected from himself. It’s far from that deep battle cry, that powerful voice he uses as he sends his troops forwards. This scream is one far more natural, a yelp one would expect from a child rather than from a man leading an army. This shriek as he trips back towards the water is one that pulls Byleth’s complete attention to him, her eyes suddenly huge as she reaches out to grab him. And she’s right where Claude wants her; his fingers curl around the hand extended towards him and yank the girl forward, both bodies plunging into the lake.

Cool water surrounds them as Claude pulls Byleth into his chest. It’s almost as if time slows as they sink into the lake, glistening freshness enveloping them like a blanket. Down here, the blazing hot sun can’t reach them. Down here, the world seems to disappear. At least, until Byleth is pushing Claude away and rising to the surface. Or maybe the world vanishes even more as he watches her glide against the water. Everything goes away, everything but Byleth’s elegance as she pierces through the surface, her fanned out hair now clinging to her cheeks. Nothing matters when Byleth’s looking that pretty as she catches her breath, coughing out the water she’s accidentally swallowed. Everything is Byleth, Byleth who has never seemed more human than in this moment.

Laughter bubbles out of Claude as he joins her at the surface. It’s uncontrolled, rolling out in snorts and choked breaths, but it’s by far the most genuine laugh he’s let out in a long time. It’s a laugh he’s forgotten himself capable of, but as Byleth glares at him, her soaked hair a mess, how is he supposed to not laugh? How can he help the fits of laughter as he sees her face twist upon realizing she fell for another of his dirty little tricks? How can he not laugh or sport a grin so wide it hurts his cheeks? It’s not every day he gets to trick the Ashen Demon, the girl who’s always so on guard, so ready to read through every one of his schemes. Claude’s not as predictable as she had made it seem; Byleth hadn’t planned for this outcome.

More laughter spills as a wave slaps Claude across the face. He can’t see the face Byleth is pulling, too busy rubbing the water out of his eyes, but he can imagine it. He can perfectly picture her half-hearted frown, that near pout that perfectly encapsulates her disappointment in herself for falling for something so obvious. She should have known better than to be fooled by Claude’s scream. She should have known that he isn’t one to trip over his own two feet. She should have known that he was as steady as any archer needs to be in order to survive. She should have known so much, expected so much, and yet she had been fooled by his cunning. She had expected the best of him, which had been her biggest mistake.

“You tricked me.”

“Told you I wasn’t kind.”

Another grin breaks across Claude’s face as water washes over him, a wave he gladly returns. He won’t be the only one engulfed by the cool water sent his way; Byleth disappears into the lake, though only for a split second. It’s only a second before she’s bobbing back up, having pushed herself back to the surface. It’s only a second before she’s back on the offensive, blinding Claude through the means of splashes and sunlight.

He shouldn’t have expected any less from the Ashen Demon. Why wouldn’t she be just as competitive as she is fearless? It’s anything but a surprise that she wants nothing more than to win the battles she’s engaged in, even if those battles are silly little games played out in the middle of a lake. She’ll force Claude to surrender if she must, just as she had once tried on the battlefield. She’ll do anything to hear his gasping breaths declaring her the victor. She’ll force him into a corner, trap him just as he had once trapped her, but such a feat doesn’t come as easily as she might have hoped. If she’s stubborn enough to fight until the very end, then Claude is three times stubborner than her. He has to lead her to her demise. He has to lead her to surrender rather than to victory.

“Is that really the best you can do?” War-hardened eyes narrow onto him as he grins, trying his best to not sound winded despite the exhaustion starting to weigh him down. “Guess the rumors about how strong the unbeatable, the unshakable Ashen Demon is are all wrong. Because I swear I’ve fought stronger practice dummies.” Claude shakes his head as he let out another laugh. “And here I was expecting a bit of a challenge. Guess you’re just too predictable.”

Something flashes in Byleth’s eyes. It’s a glint Claude’s only seen a handful of times, a twinkle he had once feared when he opposed the Ashen Demon on the battlefield. It’s a shine that had once shaken him to his core, leaving him sleepless from the paralyzing fear of her power. But here, under the blazing summer sun, fear is left to the shadows; now, as heat flushes Byleth’s cheeks, he knows the shimmer can only mean he’s in for a good time. Who would have guessed that all it took was a little taunt for Byleth to take the bait? Who would have thought that a little taunt would be enough for her to rise to the challenge, ready to display her true strength to Claude, though this time without the worry of his life being taken? He’d finally get an up-close glimpse of the tactics of the fabled Ashen Demon but without the anxiety that had accompanied him the last time he had challenged her on a battlefield.

Byleth’s a lot faster now, disappearing underwater before reappearing behind him. She’s a lot more silent, a lot more unpredictable. The splashes she had once directed at Claude, the waves that had washed over him, they’ve become more precise, as if magic is controlling the bursts that catch him off guard. And every ambush has Claude’s mind racing, trying desperately to predict and counter Byleth’s next move. Every attack pushes him further from his goal; maybe this is the time he finally loses to her.

Another yelp breaks from his lips as he’s dragged down into the lake. Arms wrap around his neck as water engulfs him. The sun seems to be growing farther away as Claude reaches out to the surface. The light seems to disappear as he tries his best to wiggle out of his opponent’s iron grip. Everything seems to fade away when he finally breaks free, finally able to push himself to the surface, which seems so far away.

Everything seems to vanish. Maybe the water had gotten to his head, hazing his mind. Maybe he had sunk too deep. Maybe he had been deprived of oxygen for too long, even if he knows he’s stayed underwater far longer in the past. But what other explanation can there be for his gasps as he reaches the surface, gasps that sound like he hasn’t had a chance to breathe for hours? Why else would his eyes feel so wide, the sunlight blinding him completely? Why else would he think he met his siren at the bottom of the lake?

Everything had happened so fast, from the plunge to the resurfacing. Everything had happened in the blink of an eye, fragments Claude is only now starting to put together as he catches his breath. Everything had felt unreal; maybe none of it happened, or maybe everything really did happen.

Byleth’s arms had been iron-tight around Claude’s neck as she pulled him down into the water with her. She had been a lot stronger than he had anticipated, immobilizing him in a way he hadn’t known possible. She had been a lot swifter as well, her arms falling away from him before she circled him. And she had been stunning in that moment, despite the blur of water. Byleth had appeared before him like one of the paintings that had adorned the walls of the Riegan estate, those paintings of worship he had once spent hours observing, those gorgeous painting which depicted beauty incarnate. Right there, she had seemed almost divine under the filtered sunlight.

Byleth had been the only thing Claude could see despite his burning and blurring eyesight. Byleth, she had been so breathtaking with her hair suspended around her as if forming a halo around her face. Byleth, how could something so deadly be so pretty?

Maybe it’s the loss of oxygen playing tricks on Claude’s hazy mind. Maybe the burning lake water had been the reason he had squeezed his eyes shut. Maybe everything that supposedly happened is nothing more than the replay of a fantasy Claude has dreamt up. Maybe he’s making everything up, convincing himself that his desires are reciprocated. Maybe he’s nothing more than a dreamer; but then again, everything had felt too real to be a figment of his imagination.

He couldn’t have conjured up the feeling of hands on his cheeks. He couldn’t have made up the way he had been pulled closer. He couldn’t have imagined the light touch of lips to his. It couldn’t be a fantasy playing over in his mind; he knows the feeling of Byleth haunting his dreams, always three steps too far for him to catch her. Claude knows the difference between dreams and reality; he knows he didn’t imagine grabbing Byleth’s arm as he tried his best to press a kiss back to her lips. He knows he’s not that delusional; he can’t be that delusional. If this had all been delusion, why had Byleth broken away from him, leaving him with nothing but his gasps, air bubbles rushing from his mouth to the surface?

Everything had happened so fast; everything had felt so real, yet so uncertain as Claude raises a finger to his lips. Who would believe him if he told them the story of what had just happened? No one would; no one had witnessed the scene, not even the sun. And as Claude remains alone at the center of the lake, drenched and heaving, he knows he’d have been called a liar. Byleth is nowhere near him; she didn’t resurface alongside him, coughing out water as she had earlier. No, she’s far from him, already sitting on the shore and ringing out water from her hair. If it weren’t for the fact that she, too, was soaked down to her core, Claude might have even believed he had made up the plunge they had taken together.

But he didn’t make anything up. His sleepless nights had not caught up to him, leaving him with fabricated memories. The sun had not been too much for him. He’s not going crazy from some cold that washed over him from the bit of time he spent in the lake. It’s impossible, even if he knows nature is more unpredictable than he’ll ever be. It’s impossible for the sun to have pounded such delusions into his head, even if he’s been warned that it has the power to daze and confuse those who stayed under it for too long. Claude knows he hasn’t gone crazy. Not yet, at least. He hasn’t yet lost all his senses to the one sitting there, all pretty under the harsh sunlight.

Byleth’s eyes rise towards Claude, but they quickly dart away as she kicks the water her feet are soaking in. And something pulls on Claude’s heartstrings as he watches her fidget with her hair. He’s never seen her like this; he’s only known her to be the fearless Ashen Demon, the girl who had glared daggers at him, the girl who had narrowed her twinkling eyes onto him. He’s never seen Byleth look shy, glancing away as he draws closers to her. He’s never seen a blush stain her cheeks. And she looks so beautiful like that, the color creeping into her face, leaving her looking bashful. She looks beautiful and human; maybe she’s not as untouchable and mysterious as Claude had thought.

“I shouldn’t have…”

Byleth purses her lips. Her eyes flicker all around before falling back to her hands now resting against her lap. The thoughts are racing through her mind; Claude can see them bounce all around. He can easily imagine her trying to grab onto a few of them, trying her best to find the right words, but nothing comes of it. She remains silent, biting the insides of her cheeks.

Claude can’t fault her for her silence. He knows what it’s like trying to explain a decision that has no explanation. He knows what it’s like to act impulsively, act rashly. He knows what it’s like to do something only to realize too later there were other ways. He knows the feeling all too well.

“But you did.”

Green eyes flicker towards Claude as he pushes himself out of the water. He’s heavy from the lake-soaked cottons clinging to his skin, and he feels gross, sinking into the now flooded muddy grass, but neither say anything about it. Neither seem ready to acknowledge what has happened. They don’t mention the plunge they took, nor do they mention the moment they shared. At least, they don’t mention it outright; putting it into words, addressing it, that would make it too real. They know it happened, but talking about it, it’s scarier than the battles they lead. The only thing more terrifying that talking is the prospect of losing the moment to foggy memories.

“I don’t know what I was thinking.” A pause. The longest pause Claude has ever had to endure. “I wasn’t thinking. It was impulsive.”

“Do you often go around disarming your opponents with kisses?”

Something swells inside of Claude as Byleth shakes her head. The smallest sliver of a smile tugs at the corners of her mouth as she lets her head hang forward. The tiniest hint of a laugh drips from her lips as she straightens out, leaving Claude to fall for her smile. It’s the first time he’s ever seen one on her, and it lights up her face. It leaves her glowing, leaves her with a radiance he has never witnessed before.

“No. Only you.”

Claude’s heart flips as slender fingers find his against the grass. They curl over each other, locking together as a perfect fit. It’s almost as if they had been fated for this moment, this exchange of shy smiles and glances. It’s as if Claude had been destined to fall for that smile, that smile that is all for him, caused by him. That smile he had only dreamt of witnessing, what ever had he done to be deserving of such beauty?

“I think—” Byleth purses her lips once more before shaking her head and turning to Claude. She sucks in a breath, her exhale a little shakier than usual. “I’d like to do it again. Without catching you off guard. Not impulsively, but on purpose this time.”

It’s so easy to smile around Byleth. Nothing’s ever been easier than the grin that tugs at the corners of Claude’s mouth. Nothing’s ever felt better than the butterflies that erupt in his stomach as he brushes a strand of hair out of Byleth’s eyes before closing the distance between them. Nothing has ever felt as good as the smile pressed to his, a smile he never even dared dream of tasting. Nothing can compare to this. Absolutely nothing.

Claude knows no one will believe him if he spills the secret behind his pounding heart. He knows no one would believe that the Ashen Demon had smiled at him or that Byleth had let him thread his fingers through her damp hair. He knows he’d be called a liar or a dreamer if he dared insinuate that he has gotten a taste of those soft lips. He knows it all sounds too good to be true, but even so, he knows he didn’t make it up.

No one will believe Claude’s tales, no one but the sun that has borne witness to the tender hearts learning to beat for one another. No one would know if this moment, no one but the ducks that cheer as laughter fills the little space separating the two. No one has witnessed Claude’s compliance as he’s pulled closer once more, no one but the birds that sing of love. No one could imagine the beauty that has bloom under the summer sun, no one but the trees that had swayed as another kiss seals the promise of care and devotion.

#Claudeleth #fe3h #lils writes

[lils-writes]

Claude groaned as Edelgard threw yet another insult his way. Dealing with his and her royal highnesses the Prince of Faerghus and the Princess of Adrestia was a lot more annoying than Claude had once anticipated. They just didn’t know how to have fun! “If it weren’t for you imbeciles, we wouldn’t have gotten separated from the group!” “C’mon, Edelgard, lighten up! When’s the last time you’ve had enough freedom to not be so uptight?” “Claude, Edelgard, please. This is no time to fight.”

Read it here on ao3!

#Claudeleth #Fe3h #lils writes

[lils-writes]

Flayn's Instruction

Read it here on ao3!

A grin spreads across Flayn’s lips as she watches the students file in. They seem tired; midterm season was particularly gruesome this year, leaving even Flayn exhausted to her core. But it’s a new day, and with a new day, it means she can share more stories with the teenagers that take their places, their tired eyes glancing between their professor sitting on her desk and their study material. She watches as the last of them file in, the bell ringing as the doors of other classrooms shut. It’s going to be an interesting period.

Flayn hops down from her desk, bringing her hands together and redirecting the attention on her. Phones are dropped to the bottom of bags and pencil cases; all eyes are on her. She’s ready to put on a show, a fun class that might cheer up the sleepy eyes before her.

“So today we’re going to be talking more about the Great Fódlan War! Who can tell me what it’s about, in broad terms?”

Glances are exchanged amongst the students before a few shy hands come up. Flayn is happy to call upon her students, encouraging them as they give her bits of the right answer.

“Correct! It’s when the Empire lead a rebellion against the Church of Seiros! Anything else?”

A few more bits of information are handed to her: Edelgard von Hresvelg was the leader of the Empire rebellion, the victors were the army lead by Claude von Riegan, the first ruler of Fódlan was Byleth Eisner. The answers come more confidently as Flayn shows her excitement for every raised hand; it’s how she likes to teach, reinforcing her students’ participation. And knowing that they show even the slightest of interest in her class, well, what more could she ask for?

“Alright, so now that we refreshed ourselves on the basic of this war, we’re going to talk a bit more about the victors of the war: King Claude and Quen Byleth. And while I could go on and on about how they gained the high grounds against Empress Edelgard and King Dimitri, I think you’re all a little too tired for that this morning.” A smile pulls at the corners of Flayn’s mouth as she pushes herself back up onto her desk. “Who wants to hear about the relationship that united Claude and Byleth instead? It won’t be on your exam, but it’s a great fun fact if ever you want to tell someone a nice little anecdote from the past.”

There’s little that brings Flayn as much joy as watching the eyes of her students turn to sparkles. She loves watching the heads go up before being put back down on the desks, attentive ears turned to her. What more can a professor ask for?

“In that case, how about I start with the betrothal?” Grins appear like the first spring daisies. “In that case, we go back a thousand years, back to 1187, a few months after the war has ended…”

---

Byleth’s chest heaves as she watches the last of the enemies fall. It’s over. It’s finally over. Or at least, it’s over for now. For now, there will be a semblance of peace. For now, there is no one else that opposes Byleth’s reign. Which means…

Her smile grows as she watches the horizon. He’s right there. He’s so close. Byleth can almost feel him, his touch, his loving embrace. He’s right there, his wyvern flipping in the sky against the pinks and the purples and the oranges of the setting sun. He’s right there, so beautiful. He’s right there, finally back, just as he had promised.

Relief washes over Byleth as the shadow grows larger, the white wyvern making its way straight to her. She never thought she’d be this happy to see the giant beast, though saying her excitement was for it alone would be a lie. What truly has Byleth’s head reeling is the prospect of finally seeing him, the one who had promised to be back all those months ago. Claude, he’s finally back.

He’s gorgeous as he stumbles off of his mount. His smile, it reaches his eyes, something it didn’t use to do. And his eyes, so green, so beautiful, they crease at the corner from the happiness. And his lips, well… They find their way home in a kiss that Byleth is more than happy to return.

She never had envisioned their reunion to go like this. She had always thought he would walk back into the monastery one day, happy to announce that his work was done. It had always been a peaceful reunion in Byleth’s mind; it had never crossed her mind that it would come with more bloodshed. And yet, this feels perfect for them. The cuts and scrapes against her body still ache, and the blood that stains her skin feels crusty, but it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter because Claude is back. It doesn’t matter because Claude is here, kissing her under the sunset. Nothing matters; only Claude matters.

“Took you long enough.”

He smiles into yet another kiss, this one slower and more careful than the last three. This one, it tastes like love and victory. This one, it tastes exactly the way Byleth remembers their kisses to be. This one, it tastes the way every kiss from Claude should; it tastes like forever.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t become the king of Almyra any sooner. I’ll be faster next time it happens.”

A hand flies up to cover the snort that escapes Byleth. Her face falls against Claude’s chest as she openly laughs, something that has never happened before. And as Claude’s arms wrap around her, she feels safer than she ever has. Claude, how she missed his presence.

“Teach?”

Byleth hums, not bothering to lift her head away from Claude. She’s too comfortable there. He’s warm and safe; he’s finally home. And as his fingers cup her cheek, Byleth can’t help lean her weight into him. How is she supposed to leave the here and now? How is she supposed to risk losing him all over again? Though she knows this isn’t a dream, she can’t risk it. She can’t risk opening her eyes and watching him leave once more.

The kiss to her cheek is what it takes for Byleth’s eyes to flutter open. And they open to green; Claude isn’t gone, disappearing with the setting sun. He’s there, for real. He’s there, for her. He’s there, and by the sounds of it, all their friends are there too.

A content smile pulls at the corners of Byleth’s lips as she turns to the crowd that has started to form. First, it’s Hilda and her cheers. She screams louder than Byleth’s ever heard her scream as she jumps up and down. Then there’s Lorenz and his gasps. He seems surprised, but he soon eases himself into a content smile and a congratulatory nod. And then there’s Raphael and Leonie, both cheering, one shouting congratulations, the other screaming near obscenities. Not far off, there’s Lysithea, her mouth agape. She’s pointing at both Claude and Byleth, yet no words manage to leave her lips. And finally, there’s Marianne and Ignatz, both silently smiling at the pair. Everyone is there; the Golden Deer are finally back together.

“Claude! Why didn’t you tell me you and the professor were an item? I thought we were closer than that!”

Hilda grins as she dramatically leans against Lorenz, looking ready to faint. Of course, he catches her, though not without a bit of reticence. Lorenz, he’s never been good with Hilda’s antics. He’s always been too polite to play along with her. And yet, as the years go on, he seems to be more exasperated than uncomfortable with the girl. Perhaps that’s what happens when a group of people spend so much time with one another.

Claude grins at the rest of the group, but not without pressing another kiss to Byleth’s cheek. He wants to drive home that she’s his and that nothing can keep him away from her any longer. Or maybe he likes the attention, from Hilda’s squeals to Lysithea’s gags to Lorenz’s groans. Maybe he likes that everyone is back together, though this time in far less threatening circumstances.  

“You’re so gross, Claude! Literally no one wants to see you doing,” Lysithea gestures in his and Byleth’s direction, “that. Like get a room or whatever.”

“I mean if—”

Byleth couldn’t help the smile that grows at the corners of her mouth as she smooths out her coat sleeve, which seemed to have magically smacked Claude in the face. And he laughs along; he always laughs along, but this time, his laughter is genuine. This time, Byleth knows he’s happy.

“Okay, okay, I guess I should make this official in front of everyone.”

Byleth’s head turns as Claude takes her hand in his. His smile, it’s soft, and it’s gentle. His eyes, they sparkle just as they did all those months ago, though this time, tears don’t well up at the corners of either of their eyes. This time, they’re not placed in a dire situation, one where even the happiest of outcomes left them in tears. This time, it’s real happiness.

She doesn’t resist as Claude turns her towards him. Byleth lets him take the lead on this; she needs a break from being the leader. And by the way he’s looking at her, she knows what comes next.

“Byleth Eisner, my Love who has already said yes to me all those months ago, my Love who has provided us with a new peaceful, happy world, will you do me the honor of being my queen and marrying me?”

Clapping and cheering echoes in Byleth’s ears as she pulls Claude in for a kiss. Of course she accepts; she’s already waited too long for his return. And as Claude lifts her from the ground, she can’t help but grin into the kiss. This, this is what true happiness feels like. It’s being surrounded by friends. It’s getting to live in a peaceful world. It’s being in the arms of the man she loves more than anyone else. This is happiness; Byleth is sure of it.

---

Small smiles pull at the corners of Flayn’s students as she wraps up her story. It did them some good to have spent a class not taking notes, but just listening to a story of Flayn’s choosing. She knows better than to make every class a potential exam question, facts memorized and regurgitated. Sometimes, kids just need a moment to learn without the expectation of repeating the facts exactly as they have been told.

She watches as her students get up from their chairs, stretching a little before filing out of her classroom. And Flayn grins as a few students come to her, prodding her for more details. She happily fills them in, though not without keeping a few of the information to herself.

Where did she get that story? Where can they read it for themselves? Well, Flayn tells them she had come across it during her university days, back when she was a student who had travelled to the ancient capital of Derdriu. The exact source, she can’t recall, but she’ll be sure to tell them if she finds it somewhere.

Why was it she seemed so familiar with people who had lived a thousand years ago? Well, that’s simple. She’s spent so much time on the subject, they almost seem like friends to her. She’s read so much about them, seen so much art about the victors of the Great Fódlan War; she can’t help but talk about them as if she were acquainted with them.

Did Claude and Byleth have children? Did they get to live happily ever after? That, Flayn has no troubling answering. She has no problem smiling as she nods: they did have children of their own, and they did get to live a happy life together, though not without their disagreements. Claude and Byleth, they were both headstrong, though it is said that the King more often than not conceded to his wife out of pure love and devotion. The only thing she could never win against him was the way wyverns were trained, not that she had any intention of correcting him on his way of treating the beasts.

But for more stories about the King of Almyra and the Queen of Fódlan, they would have to wait for another class with Flayn. Until then, she ushered them to their next class, reminding them of their upcoming reading assignment. Until the next time Flayn could tell them stories about Claude and Byleth, or perhaps of their friends, her students would have to get through their other classes.

It wouldn’t be long before Flayn would tell another story of her friends, not that anyone had to know that she had been there, standing behind everyone as horror and beauty filled Fódlan, during its destruction and its rebirth.

#claudeleth #fe3h #lils writes

[lils-writes]

The Way I Loved You

Read it on ao3 here!

Claude never changes. He’s always just as charming, always just as magnetic, always just so… Claude. He’s still the center of attention, entertaining everyone who approaches him. He’s still the man he’s always been, always will be. And Byleth, she will never tire of the sight of him. She can never tire of his smiles, of the way his eyes shimmer under the bright light of the ball room, of the sound of his voice. He is the man she dreams of; he is the man who was supposed to stand next to her.

“Darling, are you alright?”

Byleth smiles as she nods. Claude is the man she dreams of, but Dimitri is the man who fills the spots next to her. Dimitri is the man she married. Dimitri is the man she vowed eternity to. Dimitri, it had to be him. It could never be Claude, no matter how much Byleth wished it could be. It could never be Claude, no matter how hard Byleth tried. It had to be Dimitri. Dimitri, being with him, it is the only way Byleth has found to keep Claude safe.

“I think I just need a few minutes alone in the gardens.”

Always so understanding, that Dimitri. Always so loving as he presses a kiss to Byleth’s cheek before sending her on her way. Dimitri, could Byleth have wished for a better husband? He is perfection, she knows that. Dimitri is everything she should be dreaming of. If only her heart could understand that as well…

The fresh summer breeze feels nice against Byleth’s skin. It’s what she needs after having spent hours being fussed over about the dress she was to wear for yet another political ball or faking smiles for every person who greeted her. The fresh air, it’s what she longs for. The outside, it’s where she belongs. It carries the promise of freedom, a freedom that has slipped through her fingers.

“Fancy meeting you here, Teach.”

The voice is familiar, almost too familiar. It’s the voice that haunts Byleth’s dreams; it’s the only voice she hears whenever she’s left alone with nothing but her thoughts. That voice, it’s the voice of a man who is older now. It’s the voice of a man who only looks better as the years shape his face. His voice, it’s the voice Byleth yearns to hear first thing in the morning; it’s the voice that lulls her to sleep, pulling her to the realm of dreams.

Claude, he’s beautiful under the moonlight. He’s grown older, older than Byleth has ever seen him. His shoulders have filled in; his jaw has also sharpened. He doesn’t have that boyish look anymore, that look that had drawn Byleth in all those lifetimes ago. No, now he smiles a smile that reaches his eyes. Now, anxiety doesn’t crease his forehead or dull his eyes, though perhaps it did gray his hair in parts. And yet, despite it all, he is more beautiful than Byleth’s ever seen him. Now, he’s worthy of statues built in his honor, looking almost god-like under the moonlight.

They move in sync as they walk through the gardens together. He offers Byleth an arm, but she can’t bring herself to accept it. If she starts accepting anything from him, when will it stop? Where will it stop? She can’t trust herself around him. She can’t trust herself with the man that should have been hers. She can’t trust herself, not even her voice. A wrong breath is all it would take for her to immediately regret the words that would fall from her lips.

So Claude just drops his arms, his hands finding their way to his pockets instead of looped with Byleth’s.

“Y’know Teach, you always struck me as someone who took care of things head on rather than through political correspondences. More of a ‘Answer me with your sword!’ type of person. But—” His green eyes glisten under the moonlight. They’re green like idle pastures; they’re green like Byleth’s dreams. “I guess I don’t actually know all that much about you. Everything I thought I knew, everything I had gathered from when we were kids in a monastery, well, I guess I was wrong about that. Or maybe we just grew up.”

“No, you’re right.”

Another smile pulls at the corners of Claude’s lips. He looks good like that. He always looks so good, no matter his mood, but like this, smiling so freely, so openly, it’s both heartwarming and heartbreaking. With Byleth, he never had a chance to smile like that.

“So you do talk! Here I thought I was gonna be talking to a silent phantom all night.”

The quip pulls the slightest of laughs from Byleth, a smile she feels obligated to hide behind her hand. The power he had over he is unbearable, but not more so than being separated from him. It this is all the time she can have with him, then she will take it. If this is the only real conversation she will be able to have with him, then she would not turn away from it. This conversation, maybe it will be what it takes for her to get him out of her head – out of her heart.

The silence of night falls over them once more, but this time, it isn’t tense. It’s peaceful, rather. It’s peaceful and welcomed. It’s what Byleth needs; just for a moment, she can dream that Claude is the man with whom she will get spend the rest of her life. Just for a moment, Byleth can pretend she has what she has always wished form even if she knows it’ll make it just that much more difficult when the end of the night comes around.

The small talk would typically be boring to Byleth, formalities she has had to endure for far too many long years. Another ‘how have you been?’ and a ‘how is the family?’ is exchanged, but with Claude, it doesn’t feel as stale as with every other person Byleth has had these empty conversations with. With Claude, the questions don’t feel barren, just another gesture of politeness between political allies. With Claude, each answer feels sincere, answers that fill the blank spaces of Byleth’s mind.

“You know how it is, ruling a kingdom. The people are unhappy, but no matter what you do, they’ll always be unhappy because you, as the ruler, apparently have limitless power. Except I have very limited power and resources, not that they really care about that. Which, in some way, is why I’m actually here. I need Dimitri’s help with something.”

Byleth nods, drinking in Claude’s every word. She doesn’t particularly care for the politics talk, but as long as she gets to hear Claude’s voice, she’s content. He could go on for days about Almyran policies and she knows she will never bore of his words. If it was Claude talking, Byleth knows everything is right. If Claude is talking, that means he’s alive and well.

“But I also really wanted to talk to you.”

“You know I don’t have much political power here; Dimitri is the one who runs things here. He’s the sole ruler of the Kingdom; all I can do is maybe talk to him about little things.”

“It’s not about politics.”

Claude stops; Byleth follows suit. His eyes are downcast, seeming darker than the night sky, though it only lasts for a fraction of a second. His face seems somber, but it isn’t long before he’s putting on one of his masks, one of the many smiles Byleth know he spent his youth practicing in the mirror. It’s a false smile; it’s the face he puts on when he doesn’t want to disappoint or disrupt.

“Look, I’m gonna go straight to the point. I just want to know why…” Claude takes a deep breath; Byleth’s break chokes her. “Why did you choose him? You know, I…” The mask falters, but Claude is quick to put it back on. “I know it’s none of my business, and that I really shouldn’t be asking you a question like that, but I also know that it wouldn’t be fair to me if I never got this off my chest. And I just want a truthful answer from you. No deflection, no sparing my feelings; there are no feelings to spare anyway. You won’t hurt me with your answers, I promise you that, but it’s just that…” The mask falls; a tear falls. “You do know that, to me, you’ve always been the one, right?”

Byleth could swim in those green eyes. She could get lost in the forests of his eyes. Those eyes, they’re burnt in the back of her mind. She knows their every expression; she knows what they look like at every moment of the day. Those eyes, they haunt her dreams. Those eyes, they’re the ones that make her fall; they’re the very eyes that taught her what love is. Those eyes, that man, he, too, has always been the one to her. He’s the one, but admitting such a thing is unfair.

“Dimitri, he’s perfect. He’s incredible, and everyone loves him. Every time he tells me how much he loves me, I’m reminded how lucky I am to have such a gentle soul as a husband. He’s everything I could ask for in a husband. He always makes a point to remind me that I’m his world or how radiant I look in the morning. He’s… I couldn’t ask for anything better in a husband. Dimitri, he makes me feel… safe.”

This relationship, Byleth knows she feels nothing more than fine in it. And she knows she can be content with fine. She knows that fine is better than miserable. She knows fine is better than the screaming fits she would have gotten into with Claude. She knows fine is better than a messy love, a difficult love. She knows fine is better than feeling insane, cursing her lover’s name. She knows that fine is better than whatever it was that happened every time she loved Claude. Fine, it’s better than feeling alive and free and wild, right?

Byleth jerks back when Claude touches her hand. He’s staring at her with one of his gorgeous concerned looks, that look he gave her a million lifetimes ago. He was going to ask her if she was okay, and if there was anything he could do to help her calm down. He was going to pull her into a hug, into one of his warm embraces before pressing a kiss into her hair. He was going to whisper those sweet nothings she dreamed of, that nonsense that always made her laugh. She knows that’s what’s going to happen. It’s what always happens, but it can’t happen. Not now. Not here. Claude, she can’t have him.

“Dimitri is the perfect husband, and I couldn’t ask for someone better. Especially not you. Dimitri, unlike you, he respects my wishes and he never makes me wait out in the rain—”

“Byleth, what are you—”

“He doesn’t insult Rhea or mock Seteth, and he knows exactly how to treat me and how to comfort me. He’s charming and endearing and he… he makes me feel comfortable.”

Something feels heavy against Byleth’s chest, as if it’s trying to choke her. Maybe it’s yet another twisted trick of Fate with its hands around her throat, ready to make her suffer all over again. Maybe she would have to go through it all again, the losing of the one she loves. Maybe this is all she’s capable of; maybe suffering is her purpose in this world. Suffering, it’s all she has known. Suffering, she’s dealt with the worst a thousand times already. Suffering, hasn’t she already suffered enough like this?

Claude stands there, his eyes flickering between the roses and the woman who stands before him. Byleth knows that he wants to do something about her outburst. She knows that he wants to bring her into his arms, comfort the only way he knows how to. She knows little brings him as much joy as having her in his arms. She knows that, to Claude, if all he had in this world is her, he would content. His world is Byleth, just as her world is him. And yet, he doesn’t move. He does nothing but fiddle with his hands, the only way to keep himself busy enough to not touch her once more.

He smiles once more as his eyes meet Byleth’s, but there’s an edge of sadness to this one. It’s not bright like the first one he had given her at the start of the night. It’s not blinding like the one he had greeted her with. No, this one, it almost makes Byleth want to cry. That is, if he knew how to shed a tear.

“Well, I’m glad he’s such a great husband to you. And, as always, it’s obvious you know what you want. Because,” his mouth twists, his smile turning to something almost bitter, “what’s better than being comfortable in a relationship?”

Claude shrugs, finally turning his eyes away from the woman. Maybe this had been his goal this entire time. Maybe, coming out to the garden to talk to Byleth, that was his way of finding closure for something that never got to happen. Maybe it was his way of snipping the bud before it could ever bloom. And maybe Byleth, too, should take this as her own closure. She and Claude can never be; she has tried time and time again, only to fail whenever hope started to pierce through the darkness of misery.

“You know, I’m not mad at you for picking Dimitri. He’s a fine guy, really. And I don’t expect you to choose me, especially not after all these years. Really. I just… I just needed to know why. And I think I understand now. I mean, there’s little better than being the literal Queen of Fódlan.” Another flash of smile, though this one is unreadable, even to Byleth. “Can’t say there’s much quite as comfortable as living in a castle and all. Better than makeshift tents in an unstable world. I just… I think there was still a part of me that held onto the hope that you’d give me a chance, even if that’s totally childish and impossible. We both have established lives now; we’re not some kids trying to find out place in this world. And I’d never expect you to leave your husband, especially not for someone like me.”

A chance? Byleth had given Claude a chance time and time again. She had given him every chance her could spare. And every time, it would end in disaster. Every time, she would mourn the man she loved. But not this time. This time, she has saved him. Claude is alive and well, but saving him had come with the expense of her own happiness. He, unlike Byleth, could be happy without her. His happiness doesn’t depend on her, or so she thought, hoped.

Happiness, to Byleth, has always been Claude. Happiness has always been the man who stands before her. Happiness has always been the man who, when loved by her, has never seen his 32nd birthday. Happiness, this lifetime should be Byleth’s happiness. She should be happy with Dimitri; she should be happy knowing that Claude would have many more years to celebrate. Everything, this time around, should be making her happy. But when she thinks of happiness, when Byleth closes her eyes and thinks of every little thing that makes her happy, she can’t picture anything other than thousands of kisses she had shared with Claude, how she couldn’t bite back her smiles every time she got to feel his lips on her. Happiness, to Byleth, it has to be Claude.

“Dimitri can’t tell a real smile from a fake one.”

Claude blinks. Byleth can’t tell what is going through his head, but that isn’t what matters. What matters is that he’s currently listening to her. What matters is that she’s being honest with him. What matters is that, maybe, he will understand the sacrifices she has made for him.

“He, unlike you, can’t tell when I’m actually happy. He’s fooled so easily; he trusts too easily. He doesn’t notice when I start to pull away from him, putting distance in what is supposed to be our shared love. He doesn’t notice when I spend hours away from everything and everyone. And every night I spend alone, every night I spend away from my husband, the man I am supposed to love more than anyone in this world, my heart doesn’t ache. I… I don’t feel anything when I am apart from Dimitri.”

It happens so suddenly, hot tears streaming down Byleth’s cheeks, tears she didn’t even know herself capable of shedding. They dampen her face; they make the world go blurry. This, this is what crying feels like. This is what true misery feels like.

“My heart, it only aches when I think of you. It aches knowing that loving you is both the best and the worst thing that can happen to me. Loving you, it’s complicated but it’s free. It’s wild and fiery, but that’s what makes me adore you just that much more. Loving you, it’s chaotic and messy and we can wake a whole village with how loud our shouting matches are, but you make me feel live. Loving you, it’s everything I dream of, but losing you, that is my worst nightmare. It’s a nightmare I have had to live through time and time again, for the hands of Fate are against us. It’s always some mistake that I make. There’s always something that keeps me from you, and no matter how hard I try, I can never fix that mistake. It’s always out of my hands. At least, until now. This time, this time I didn’t lose you. At least this time, you’re—”

It’s messy. It’s complicated. It’s wild. But it makes Byleth feel alive. She finally feels alive as Claude kisses her, kisses her as he has a million times before. He kisses her just how she remembers it, kisses her like his life depends on it. He kisses her exactly the way she likes being kissed, in a way Dimitri can never kiss her. The kiss Claude leaves on her lips, it’s by far the best kiss Byleth has ever received. The kiss Claude leaves on her lips, it’s by far the worst thing that could ever happen to her.

She should have pushed him away sooner. She shouldn’t have let him kiss her; she shouldn’t have returned the kiss. None of this should have happened. It’s wrong. It’s so wrong. It’s the worst mistake Byleth could have ever made, worse than loving Claude from the start. For once, she had finally been doing something right. And now, she had to go and ruin everything she had suffered for.

“Claude, I…”

She can’t. She can’t kiss him. She can’t run away with him like she does in the dream that haunts her every night. She can’t be with him like in every dream she had of him. She can’t risk everything, risk restarting yet another cycle of hell. She can’t be with Claude; she knows this from every time she has tried. She can’t be with Claude; so much has become obvious over every lifetime she had to endure. Claude, he can’t be the one, even if Byleth wishes he were. She knows it has to be Dimitri. It’s the only way she can spare a life and her heart.

“I can’t do this. Not to Dimitri.”

It breaks her heart to walk away. It breaks her heart to leave Claude like this, leave Claude looking so beautiful in the moonlight. It breaks her heart to not have the one thing she wants more than life itself. But she can’t hurt Dimitri. He never asked to be a part of this sick game called Fate. She can’t betray him like this.

It breaks her heart to not look back, but Byleth knows she can’t leave Dimitri, Dimitri who loves her more than life itself. She can’t break his heart because her own can’t open up to him. She can’t hurt him just because she can’t love him the way she loves Claude. So all there is left to do is leave Claude. All Byleth can do is leave her happiness on the lips of the man she loves. All she can do is put on a smile as she returns to her husband, knowing once more that there is more, but that more is not always better.

#fe3h #claudeleth #lils writes

[lils-writes]

Mind and Heart - Heart

First | AO3

Please, Sothis, let this be the right choice.

Calloused fingers curl over the tactician’s hand.

Please, Sothis, let this not be a mistake.

Silence engulfs the conference room as Byleth walks out of it alongside Claude. There is no plausible scenario where she chooses both leaders, no matter how much she wishes she could have. No matter how much she wishes she could have continued watching Claude and Edelgard grow, watch them take their places as the respective leaders of the Alliance and of the Empire, watch them come together over a shared goal, she knows such a fantasy is impossible. They don’t share a goal. At least, not anymore, not in the fine print of their desires. Until now, everything had worked in their favor. Until now, the war had opposed them to a common enemy. This had been a two-sided war. Now, it splits into three camps.

The walk through the monastery halls is eerily quiet. Neither Claude nor Byleth dare say a word; there is no reason to test the monastery ghosts. There is no reason to draw attention to them as they thread the shadows, avoiding the gaze of every passing soldier. A single sound, a single out-of-place movement, that could be enough to send them both tumbling, the floor caving in under their heavy steps.

Please, Sothis, let this not be the end.

“Teach?”

The voice startles Byleth, but the squeeze of her hand brings her back to her senses. Claude is there, right by her side, his fingers still tangled with hers. He’s looking at her with his green eyes, eyes that remind Byleth of pastures and the few idyl days she had had in her youth. She didn’t enjoy them enough; she realizes this too late. She didn’t enjoy the peaceful days until they were taken from her. She didn’t enjoy them enough until she was plunged into the midst of a war with no winner, even once it would finally come to an end. Everything had been ripped from her hands before she could enjoy them, but not this time. She won’t let this bit of joy and comfort be taken from her as well.

The sun shines brightly outside the north court. It blinds her, but Byleth won’t let a little sunshine stop her. She marches forth, marches with conviction, refusing to give in to the gloom that had started to build in the back of her mind. She marches forth to her chambers, her fingers tightening around Claude’s as he follows without questions.

“We need to gather our things and leave before Edelgard sends someone after us.”

Claude gives her a curt nod, but he makes no move to free himself from her grip. He makes no attempt to leave her side, to rush to his own room to gather his stuff. He doesn’t change anything, nothing but his speed as he falls into step with Byleth. He simply follows, follows her lead as he always has. And for this, Byleth is grateful. She isn’t sure what she would have done had she been left to her own devices.

The professor’s room is tidy, as always. The bed looks untouched; the shelves are lined with books and papers. The only place that seems lived in is the desk, a mess of papers covering the wooden surface, notebooks and quills left lying around. It stands out in the small room, as if it belonged in some place else. The mess, Byleth realizes, it’s the only thing that shows that she has spent any time in this room. The rest, it’s as neat as the first time she had stepped into the small room that would soon become her home. Become her hell.

Byleth makes her way to her desk, rummaging through the papers. She doesn’t need the multitude of battle plans – she’d need an army to execute them. She doesn’t need the scribbled notes on everyone’s strengths and weaknesses – she’d memorized what she really needs, anyway. All she needs are a few memories. All she needs are a few things to keep her from forgetting the past. All she needs are the few remains of happy days, days without doom looming overhead.

Letters collect between the professor’s fingers. They come from everyone that has impacted Byleth’s life in some way or another – supply lists from her father, flirtations from Sylvain, invitations to tea from Ferdinand, idle monastery gossip from Hilda. Innocence plagues the letters, an innocence that pangs against Byleth’s chest. Those days, those school days with all the students, those days spent roaming the monastery in ignorant bliss of the future, they seem so far away now. It feels like a lifetime separates her from those days she wishes she had enjoyed just a little more.

A notebook rests against the tactician’s palm, a notebook that once belonged to her father. It’s one of the few things that remains of him. Even the memories feel like they’re fading away. But this notebook, it contains so many memories that haunt Byleth’s dreams. She can still perfectly picture the scene, the way Jeralt would be hunched over the little table in the rooms they would rent, scribbling away in his journal. She remembers the way he would hold his quill, the way he would use his pinky to guide the ink rather than his index. She remembers all the times he had caught her sneaking out of bed, hoping to get a few more minutes to look out the window and up at the stars, counting them until she’d fall asleep on the windowsill. She even remembers the strength of his hands as he would scoop her up, whispering his adoration for his child before gently placing her back into her bed. Now, those memories are all Byleth has left of her family. It’s all she has left of her own innocence.

A ring. It glistens as it rolls across the desk. A ring. The silver against the dark wood of the desk. A ring. Jeralt’s ring. A ring he had gifted Byleth’s mother. A ring he had gifted her. A ring she’s supposed to gift back to the person she loves. 

It’s only ever happened once, the world suddenly going blurry. Byleth can feel the dampness of her cheeks, but she doesn’t dare touch her face. The confirmation of such a reaction is too much for her to bear. Jeralt had been the only person for whom she had ever shed a tear. He is once again the reason she feels the tears streaming down her cheeks.

“Teach?”

Byleth turns as Claude slowly rises from her bed. He must have made himself comfortable there, waiting for her to finish packing what she deemed important for their adventure into the unknown. But now, his usual mischievous grin doesn’t shine across his face. Worry stains every trait of his, from the look in his eyes to the way his hand extends towards her. And under the touch of his fingers to her arm, Byleth crashes. She crashes against his chest as arms wrap around her shoulders, holding her upright. Tears: The Ashen Demon’s greatest weakness.

 Byleth can’t think of a single time she’s ever sobbed like this, clinging onto Claude’s cravat. She can’t remember the last time she’s ever felt so many things at once; perhaps she never has. Legends say that goddesses don’t feel human emotions, that they’re heartless creatures that gaze from above. The world of mortals is their painting, filled with splatters of cries and rage and tenderness, everything a goddess wishes she could feel but has done nothing but create in the other. Goddesses are numb until they become human with a beating heart. They are devoid of all until they’re overflowing with feelings, feelings they’ve never experienced before.

Byleth feels it all: fear, desperation, grief. All those feelings she had watched pain the faces of others, she suddenly feels them surge within her core. She feels the emotions crashing against her chest, beating against her ribs, trying desperately to break through. She feels everything. Everything feels lost. Everything but Claude, Claude who holds her tightly, his nose buried in her hair as he hushes her.

The moment is quiet, peaceful even, if it weren’t for the looming threat outside the chamber door. It could have been so good had it not been for the war raging on outside the window.

“I’m scared.”

It’s barely a whisper, muffled by the many folds and layers of Claude’s attire. The words barely leave Byleth’s lips, but Claude hears them. He hears her silent cry. He hears her; he always does. He hears her and holds her tighter, the only comfort he knows. It’s not the first time Byleth has found solace against Claude’s chest.

“It’ll be okay, Teach. We’ll make it okay.”

There’s no promise, but Byleth believes him. How could he promise everything will turn out the way they dream of? Such a promise is setting oneself up for failure. So he doesn’t promise, but he does promise that he will try. He doesn’t say it, but the kiss at the top of Byleth’s head is enough of a promise for her to believe in their strength. It’s enough to keep her there, pressed against him, searching for a fleeting moment to add to her collection of memories. It’s enough for her to trust his every word, trust his affection, trust that they are strong enough as long as they’re together. He isn’t a liar, or so Byleth hopes.

Claude’s touch lingers, the weight of his nose against Byleth’s hair. His breathing is steady, as are his hands. This, this could have been their every day had it not been for the wretched war. He could have been more than just a general of an army. He could have been more than just one of her most trusted allies. He could have been more than just her Little Fawn, a boy turned a man before her eyes. Her Little Fawn…

Please, Sothis, let this not be the last time.

“Claude?”

Green meets green for the first time in what feels like forever. Green is drawn to green as naturally as deer are drawn to meadows; it’s instinctive. Green finds green, a treasure one searches for their whole life. Green finds green, just as it should.

“What is it, Te—?”

“Don’t.”

Byleth turns away from Claude, making her way back to her desk. This isn’t the time to be sentimental, but she can’t help it. She can’t help the pang in her chest, but this time it’s different. It’s not the feeling of loss that fills her with dread; it’s something completely different. It’s the way he says Teach, a nickname that started a lifetime ago. It’s a name she normally likes, but right now, she can’t bear hearing it. It’s not the name she wants. It’s not the name she wants to hear.

She knows his eyes are still on her, probably trying to figure out her next move. She knows that his green eyes are following her every move, following the curve of her arm as she pushes the papers aside. She knows he’s watching as she curls her fingers around her prize. She knows he’s watching, but when she turns back to him, puzzlement coats the green of his eyes. He hasn’t figured her out, not yet. And yet, he still complies as she outstretches her empty hand towards him. He complies just as she had back in the conference room, placing his hand in hers. They’re alone in this; they only have each other to trust.

Claude doesn’t say a word as Byleth curls his fingers over themselves. He doesn’t say anything, but his eyes have always been the window to his soul. He stares at his closed hand, at the smaller hands enveloping his. And when she pulls her hands back, confusion pulls at every one of Claude’s beautiful traits. Confusion, then something new. Something she’s never seen on him. Confusion followed by the unknown as he opens his hand.

“For when the war is over.”

Emotions play all over Claude’s face: surprise, confusion, and a cast of expressions Byleth is unfamiliar with. Emotions pull at every one of his features, leaving a trail of beauty for Byleth to memorize. This, this is how she wants their future to be. She wants to see every expression cross Claude’s face, and she wants to know them all. She wants to know the names of every little thing he’s feeling. She wants to know everything that makes him, him. She wants that window to his soul to be as clear as day to her, not foggy with lies and schemes.

“Byleth…”

There’s a softness in Claude’s green eyes, a softness Byleth’s never seen before. There’s a softness in his voice, a softness that Byleth’s never heard before. There’s a softness in the moment that envelops them, a softness Byleth wants to cling to. And when Claude takes her hand in his, a pang echoes in her chest once more.

“Byleth, I can’t possibly accept this. Not now.”

“Claude, I—”

“But please,” his eyes find hers once more, eyes filled with beauty and adoration, “please allow me to hold on to it until the end of this war. Allow me to hold on to it until I can ask for your hand in marriage during a time for peace. Allow me to love you in silence until our futures are ensured, one where we can lead a world of tranquillity. Let me love you in silence until I can proudly say that I’m the reigning king of Almyra, when I’ll have proven myself worthy of being remembered as a man of myths. Let me love you then, when all our fears will not coat our proposals. So Byleth, my friend, my love, let me love you in silence until then.”

Silence. Silence had always been one of Byleth’s sharpest skills. Silence, until now, had it not been one of her greatest flaws as well? Had Claude not tried to coax more words out of her over the years, always searching for more information about her? Silence, it had always been one of the Ashen Demon’s deadliest skills, be it for better or for worse. Silence; Byleth could deal with that for now.

Please, Sothis, let this war soon come to an end.

Warmth spreads through Byleth as she lifts herself up just enough to lay a kiss on Claude’s lips. Warmth spreads through her, right through where she must have had a heart. Warmth spreads through her as he returns the kiss, pulling her closer. Warmth spreads through her, leaving a trail of sparks under her skin, under every fleeting touch of Claude’s.

Silence. This would be their silent love. Stolen kisses in the dark as they remain on the run, escaping from Imperial Soldiers. Stolen glances as they fight for a brighter tomorrow. Their love would be silent, but still, the yearning stays. The yearning for peace and for each other. The yearning for sunny days. They yearned for the day when war won’t rage on outside their windows, and they know that day will come. Together, they will end this thing. A new dawn is coming for Fódlan.

“Let’s end this war then, Little Hart.”

“Whenever you’re ready, Teach.”

#fe3h #claudeleth #lils writes

[lils-writes]

Mind and Heart - Mind

First | AO3

“I’m sorry.”

Claude gives the professor a curt nod before walking away, but there is clearly disappointment in those green eyes Byleth has only ever seen laughing. It leaves a pang of pain in the tactician’s chest, but she can’t linger on the feeling. She can’t linger on it as she makes her way next to the emperor, who is looking at her with her hopeful violet eyes.

Please, Sothis, let this not be a mistake.

“My teacher,” Edelgard’s voice is soft, softer than Byleth’s ever heard it. “I was so worried that you were going to walk away from me.”

Byleth shakes her head, a small smile forming at the corners of her mouth. She could never leave Edelgard. She could never do that, even if she had wished she could have kept both Claude and Edelgard at her side. But the split was bound to happen sooner or later, Byleth knew that. She knew it from the very first moment she had walked into the conference room and saw them both leaning over the same map. The peace between the Alliance’s leader and the Adrestian emperor had lasted longer than most had expected it to. The peace had lasted until now, and now, Byleth has had to make a choice.

Please, Sothis, don’t make me regret this.

Silence reigns in the large room and it feels like ghost are circling the ceilings. No one dares say another word, afraid of disturbing the spirits that linger. Who knows what this division will mean. Will Claude leave with those who follow his orders? Will he leave alone, slipping through the monastery gates in the middle of the night? No one knows, and no one will know until it happens. Until then, it’s but a guessing game, a collection of speculations and potential plans that will follow. Until then, Byleth is left there, left with her hand on Edelgard’s shoulder and her smile in sight.

“Professor.” There’s a pause, one that draws in Byleth’s attention. “Professor, you do know that I also don’t enjoy losing our soldiers, right? You don’t… You don’t agree with Claude on that, do you?”

Byleth shakes her head. Of course, she doesn’t agree with Claude on that point. Of course, she knows Edelgard is also sensitive to the loss of troops. Byleth isn’t blind; she’s seen the shaken look on Edelgard’s face every time someone reports the loss of yet another ally, or worse yet, of a general. Byleth knows losing people is more than just losing players on a chest board for Edelgard. She saw the fear in her eyes when Lysithea and Annette had walked in, dried blood staining the palms, dried tears staining their cheeks. Byleth had seen the distress in those violet eyes when Lysithea had opened her mouth, static noise coming out of it. “Hilda, we couldn’t save her. She’s gone, Edelgard. Claude knows already.” Byleth had seen it all: the hard exterior, the calm condolences, the dismissal. She saw everything that was expected from the leader of a revolution, but she had also seen the break, the tears, the loss. Hilda wasn’t just some pawn to Edelgard; she was a new sister, another family member that Edelgard had lost to war.

“You don’t think that I have made a mistake, do you?”

“I do not, no.”

This is enough to reassure Edelgard. A content smile hangs on her lips as she stares ahead, violet eyes fixated on the nothingness before them. She seems lost, possessed almost, by whatever it is that lingers in this room full of ruins.

“I do what I have to do, you know. I know it’s not easy seeing our friends fall in battle, but I have to keep a brave face. I can’t go around pulling my hair out and losing sleep over the fallen. I can’t be like Claude, Claude who is far too sentimental about the troops. I can’t go around with tears in my eyes. If I fall to such sentimentality, then what of the troops? If they see their emperor sniffling in her sleep, or worse yet, crying over the revolution she started, how will they ever believe in me? How will they ever trust that I am strong enough to protect them and offer them a world where there is no disparity based on birth status? There is no way I can convince them to keep following me in this hopeless cause if I succumb to my feelings the way Claude has. I can’t let anger and frustration dictate my mind the way Claude does. Feelings, as much as I want to show them, they hinder my cause and I can’t have that. I can’t, Byleth. I can’t do that to everyone.”

Her eyes betray her words as she turns to Byleth. Eyes that are usually covered in an icy gaze now glimmer from the tears over their piercing color. Disheveled platinum blond locks frame her face, making her seem almost delicate, much like a violet emerging from the snow. And as Byleth’s hand touches her face, pushing a strand of hair behind her ear, the hard exterior falls. It falls as Edelgard lets her body fall into the arms of her professor, of her friend, of the only person who truly understands her. She lets herself be held as she sniffles like a child.

“I can’t keep doing this.” It is barely a whisper, muffled against the thick cotton of Byleth’s coat. “I can’t keep up this façade. I don’t think…” Her knees buckle under the pressure, the weight of Edelgard’s body warm against Byleth’s. “I don’t think I can do it anymore.”

The sobs dampen the emperor’s cheeks as she lifts her head, her eyes finding Byleth’s. She looks helpless in this state. There’s no consoling her; how does one convince someone that all these deaths are not in vain and that the advancement of a cause is more important than the endless losses that come with it? All Byleth can do it hold Edelgard and pray, pray to the goddess that dwells within her.

Please, Sothis, let this war not be in vain.

 “Everything I do—!” A sob chokes the words. Hot tears stream down her cheeks. “That fool, he’s forgotten every lesson I’ve taught him! He thinks that, because I don’t cry with the troops, their deaths don’t keep me up at night! He thinks I don’t see their ghosts circling my head as I send out more ordered, blaming me for their early graves! He, like every other person on the battlefield, thinks that I’m heartless enough to disregard the fact that the blood we spill never dries! He knows nothing of loss! He knows nothing of war!”

The cry pierces through Byleth’s chest, choking her just as the sobs choke Edelgard. Her knees bend under the weight of the emperor, both women finding themselves on the cold, hard ground. Everything seems so much more imposing from this angle. Everything seems so much more intimidating from this angle. Everything seems so much bigger from this angle; or maybe it’s that they, themselves, are smaller, curled up into themselves.

Edelgard’s skirts bunch around her hips as she curls up into herself, tossing her crown aside. The metal clatters against the tiles as her hair finally falls free, leaving her in a state of vulnerability. She looks like a child, sniffling to herself. She looks like a girl haunted by the memories. She looks like a woman who has lost everything that had once been hers.

Tears fall, staining the stone beneath her. Sobs echo against icy walls until they find themselves caught in the warmth of cottons and arms. Byleth never has been the best at comforting and understanding the ocean of emotions that could crash against one’s chest, but she does know that sobs muffled by her shoulder are better than those that haunt the halls. She knows of all the times Edelgard has crashed like this, curled into herself on the floor of her room. She knows of all the tears that have stained the hardwood floors of her dormitory, tears that fall throughout the long, lonely nights. Byleth knows that tears stain Edelgard’s cheeks, that they leave her eyes as red as the banners the Strike Force put up, but she also knows that those tears dry quickly under the harsh sunlight and by the embers of late-night fires. Edelgard’s tears might not water the grass, but they drown her soul, a tear shed for every fallen being she has ever cared for. She has shed her tears behind closed doors, tears for her loved ones, tears for those she failed to protect.

“He doesn’t know what it’s like to see death first thing in the morning of your life. He doesn’t know what it’s like to lose everyone who had ever meant something to you. He doesn’t know what it’s like to be an orphan, a sister to graves. He doesn’t know any of that. All he knows is the comfort of silks, the embrace of a mother waiting for him, and a father proud of his son. All he knows is the life of a promising son, not the life of a disgraced daughter!”

The cry is piercing, a scream for the world to hear. It’s a shout for the entire monastery to hear, the monastery of stone walls that echoes the words back at her. It’s a plea for help, help for the girl who had to grow up too quickly, the child that never got to be just that. She never got what every child deserved. She never for days of leisure and peace. She never got to run through fields of flowers and unkept greens. Edelgard never got what even Byleth had.

Byleth had never been the best at comforting; she was the child of Jeralt, after all. All she had ever known was her father’s laughter whenever she seemed upset, reminding her to cheer up. All she had ever known was the comfort of alcohol, or so that had always been what she had observed amongst the groups of mercenaries she moved in and out of with her father. But here, now, with Edelgard pressed against her shoulder, fingers digging in the thick cottons of her coat, she knew that no shot of alcohol would console the woman. What she needs is something Byleth is unfamiliar with, but willing to try. What she needs is the warmth of a hug as Byleth pulls Edelgard closer, arms wrapping around the shaking shoulders of the Adrestian emperor, nose finding a home against silky platinum locks.

“El…”

The sniffles slowly come to a halt, the emperor lifting her head from the professor’s shoulder. The tears still trickle down her cheeks, but the sadness no longer dulls her eyes. There’s a new dimension to them, a new inquiry the reflects in her pearly tears. There’s something new in her eyes. Surprise? Disbelief? Byleth couldn’t say; she’s never been good at reading the expression off of other’s faces.

“You… you called me El.”

The smile is small, but it is sweet. It’s rare to see Edelgard smile, but it’s a sight Byleth can get used to. She would like to, if Edelgard allowed it of her. And as she wipes the tears away from the delicate porcelain skin of the emperor, Byleth can see herself in the presence of Edelgard’s smile on the daily. There have been little gratifications as rewarding as pulling a smile from the icy leader of an army. There has been little that has left Byleth as breathless as this moment, Edelgard pushing her hair behind her ear and smiling so unguardedly at her.

“You remembered. You remembered from all that time ago.”

How could Byleth forget? The confession that had come with the name had stuck with Byleth, a confession that had allowed the blossom of feelings in the tactician’s chest, in place of a heart. But never did Byleth think that just a name could pull such a smile from Edelgard. Edelgard, much like Byleth, has always been best known for her stoic expression, an emperor looking down at her chess board. Edelgard, much like Byleth, has never been one that can be spotted openly smiling. She isn’t Hubert with his snare.

The confession plays in Byleth’s mind, the confession and the hurried steps that followed. Maybe it wasn’t a confession. Maybe it had been the start of a confession. Maybe it had been a start that had come to a halt because of Byleth’s lack of transparency. Maybe it could have been a confession, a proper one, but fear had struck Edelgard’s heart – El’s heart – from Byleth’s lack of reaction. Maybe she should have smiled like Edelgard was smiling now, soft and shy. Maybe a smile is all it takes to assure a new future.

The smile fades from Edelgard’s lips as Byleth rummages through her pockets. She knows it’s there, somewhere. She never leaves without it; it’s the only remaining memory of her father in her possession. She had made him the silent promise to follow in his footsteps, to love someone as much as he had loved her mother, and to gift that person with her mother’s ring. She had promised him, her last promise to him. She had promised Jeralt, and Byleth is not about to break that promise, not when she’s finally faced with such a certainty.

“My Tea—”

“Wait.”

Greenery meets violets, but only for a split second. It’s a brief meeting, but it’s enough for Edelgard to give Byleth a curt nod, a silent understanding that she is not to interrupt the frantic search. Perhaps she also understands that being a teacher is not what Byleth wants, not at this moment. Or maybe Edelgard doesn’t catch that subtility in Byleth’s interruption. It doesn’t matter; as long as the title doesn’t leave Edelgard’s lips, Byleth doesn’t need to acknowledge it. She isn’t a teacher. She’s not Edelgard’s professor. Not right now, at least.

Byleth can feel the cool of metal against her fingers, a feeling she’s been searching for since the beginning. She’s found her prize, fingers curling around it before it could once more get lost between the layers of her coat. She’s sure now, as she holds her prize and Edelgard’s curious gaze. Byleth is sure of the future, a future she’s ready to carve with the blade of her sword. This is her future, and no one can stop her from grasping it. Nothing can stand between her and her ideals, her future, their future.

“For you, El.”

Edelgard’s eyes sparkle as Byleth presents her open hands. Purples and pinks play against the violet of Edelgard’s eyes, colors that only make her even more beautiful, if that’s even possible. She’s beautiful, her face framed by her loose locks, wide eyes and a hesitant hand hovering over Byleth’s. She’s the most beautiful woman Byleth’s ever seen; no one could rival her, no one in Byleth’s eyes at least. And when Edelgard’s hand finally rests against Byleth’s, her slender fingers curling over the ring that’s been presented to her, Byleth feels it. She feels the pang in her chest, the blooming feelings she had once ignored. She’s sure of this. Nothing could make this wrong.

“Byleth… Do you really mean…?”

A curt nod, that’s all that’s needed for Edelgard to throw herself at Byleth, her arms circling around the professor’s neck. It’s all Edelgard needs to finally let her walls crumble, truly breaking them down, and allowing herself a moment of indulgence. And she’s beautiful. She’s beautiful with her smile and her tears in her eyes, tears that sparkle unlike her earlier sobs. She’s happy, or so Byleth hopes.

“Oh, Byleth, my dearest friend, how happy this makes me.” She sits up, her eyes finding Byleth’s, eyes filled with adoration and determination. “You must know that I feared I had made a mistake when I asked you to call me El. I had almost let slip my growing feelings for you, feelings I had feared would not be appropriate nor reciprocated. I had feared so long that you would leave me, leave me with a shattered heart, but here, now, you show me that my fears were in vain. You have always shown me that together, we can make anything happen. Together, we are at our strongest. And together, that is how I want it to be. Forever. So please, Byleth, allow me to love you. Let me love you as you love me. Let me love you as an equal partner, as the only person I need. For if the entirety of Fódlan burned down, as long as you stand by my side, nothing else matters. I will continue fighting alongside you, your hand on my heart. I will continue fighting until nothing is left of me, because for you, anything is possible.”

Love, a fiery passion Byleth had never known herself capable of. But as Edelgard speaks, as Edelgard vows eternity to her, she knows that this is what Jeralt had spoken about. This, this is love. Nothing but this could be love. And nothing can be as powerful as this love, a love that blossoms like violets in snow, against all odds. This has to be love, a force that will keep Byleth fighting until the end of Edelgard’s revolution.

Love, no wonder everyone sang so favorably of it. What else could compare to this, this moment that has brought Byleth into Edelgard’s arms, her lips against the soft platinum hair? What else could compare to this moment, a moment that can last a lifetime? What else could compare to the words that leave her lips, words that make the world fade away? Nothing. Nothing can compare to this growing feeling. Nothing can compare to love.

“I love you, El. Now and forever.”

#fe3h #edeleth #lils writes

[lils-writes]

Mind and Heart

AO3

The room is silent, almost deadly from its quiet. Three bodies are the only source of heat in the old conference room; the cold of winter is harsh on the walls of the old crumbling monastery. Three bodies heat the room, one on each side of the wooden table, and one to the side, refusing to choose either leader. They’re supposed to be working together, not against each other.

“You’ve grown soft, Claude. So soft that your friends have died. Died from your recklessness and your sentimentality.”

Claude snaps at the woman, his sharp warning reminding her of his place in her, no, their fleet. She needs him, they both know that, but that won’t stop her. It might be their fight, they might rely on each other, but she’s the one with the education, the knowledge, the upbringing. They’re both leaders, but Edelgard is the one who grew up with that expectation; Claude’s leadership is but a happy accident.

“You’re a warrior who’s meant to lead his troupes. Lead them to victory, not to their demise. I taught you to lead with your mind, not your heart, and yet here we are, blood on our hands. Blood that had no business being spilled.”

She’s cold. She’s calculating. She doesn’t want her troupes to die, but not because of the bond she has with her soldiers. She needs them, but she hasn’t brought herself to love them. At least, not the way Claude has. Claude leads with humanity; Edelgard leads with knowledge. They both knew this would end in war between them at some point, but it had worked. They’ve been fighting side-by-side for years now. Their differences caused conflicts in this very conference room, but everything had always been resolved. Every dispute has led to better ideas. Or at least, their differences had never led to significant losses. Not until now.

“You think I wanted this? You think I wanted this bloodshed? You think I wanted to lose my second in command?”

Claude’s fingers dig into the rich wood of the table. Bare nails carve their presence into it, evidence of his frustration that will last forever, evidence that will find itself in the history books that will be written when this war will finally be over.

“Unlike you, I can’t just brush off the feelings when someone dies. Unlike you, I have to not only deal with the pain myself, but I have to cheer the troupes up. Because I’m not the only one who lost someone dear to them. But then again,” his fingers relax, revealing the fresh indentation of the wood, and he cocks his head to the side with a bitter smirk, “what was I expecting from the emperor of the Adrestian Empire? The selfish and prideful and vain emperor. All that matters are your numbers and your advancement.”

Edelgard watches him from a distance, her eyes never leaving his face, not even once. It’s the way she’s been raised to rule: never let your guard down; always show that you’re on top. She doesn’t let anyone see how she’s feeling; her emotions are concealed behind the face of a strong emperor. She almost glows in the dim room, glows against the horrors of war.

But across from her, Claude is tired. He’s frustrated. He’s the opposite of the Adrestian emperor, the leader of the Alliance that wears his heart on his sleeve. He’s a great schemer, everyone knows that, but he’s not the best at putting his feelings aside when it comes to lost lives and war. The dark circles are proof of his sleepless nights spent thinking of ways to avoid death, both for himself and for his troupes. He doesn’t stand as tall as the woman in front of him. If anything, he looks like he’s about to crumble, crumble from sheer exhaustion and exasperation.

“Do you think it does nothing to me when—”

“Hilda is dead!”

Something from that cry strikes Edelgard, but just for a moment. She recomposes herself rather quickly, both hands folded themselves. She speaks once more with that clear and crisp voice of hers, a voice that has left chills in her audiences.

“Claude, this is your sentimentality speaking once more. Please compose yourself. Captain Goneril will be remembered as someone exceptional and you will learn to lead with more of an iron fist next time. You’re still my general and I need you to start being rational. This war won’t be won by matters of the heart, Claude.”

“Captain Goneril…” Claude snorts. He looks even worse than at the beginning of the conversation. He looks like he sees ghosts circling the emperor’s head. “You can’t even say her name, just her rank. But please, please my dearest Emperor,” venom coats the title, the strongest of the Alliance’s leader’s poisons, “tell me, what good is a title given by you if I’m slowly driven to madness from all my sleepless nights? Tell me, what good does a title holds when my friends die in your little game of chess? What good is a damned title when it changes nothing in the way we’re all dropping like flies on the battlefield?”

His words grew louder and harsher, more frantic than ever. Claude was right; he was growing madder as the months of war stretched on and his own nights of sleep became less and less frequent. There was too much going on in that head of his. He had told his friends so much. He had confided in his professor. But with the never-ending war, there was nothing more that he could do except push forth and hope for the end.

Or let himself be consumed by his own delusions and madness.

“That’s right,” another snort, some sort of choked laughter, “you have nothing to say to that, do you? Because you know I’m right. This whole thing is insane and you know that your way of leading isn’t right. You’re too far from your armies; you lead them like they’re pawns on a board. You don’t care for the losses; you just care for an end. Your end.”

“Claude,  please—”

“I saw you as a friend, Edelgard. I thought we could lead Fódlan to a brighter tomorrow, one where the wall would be taken down, one where we could all be united. I thought you were like me on that point; that’s the only reason I agreed to join you. But clearly, I was wrong. I was wrong to think that you cared about my people, about your people, about our friends.”

“Claude, you’re being irrational again.”

She takes a deep breath before she continues. She’s reassessing her words, thinking about them carefully before letting them flutter free for the man to seize. She doesn’t want another outburst from him. She doesn’t want to drive him away more than she already has. More than he’s already driven himself.

“You know as well as I that we’re not here to make friends. This is war. This is bloodshed. This is a massacre. We knew this from the start. We knew there would be blood on our hands, the blood of our enemies and the blood of our allies. We knew we had to lead with an iron fist, not with a heart of gold. Emotions only get in the way of our schemes, of our victory. Just look at you. Look at the condition you’re in.”

There’s a pause in the conversation. Edelgard watches Claude’s chest rise and fall, watching him struggle to breathe. Had he been hit during the previous battle? Is he suffering from something hidden, something he’s disregarded due to his blind fury about Hilda’s passing? Or is it anger choking him?

“I’m not here to make friends, and I don’t think you’re here to learn from me. We misjudged our situations and, perhaps until now, it has worked in our favor, but that time has ended. I mistook you for someone that was ready to be my general, but that was my error.” Violet eyes pierced every heart, sharper than the lances that lined the wall. “Claude von Riegan, I release you from your position as a general of the Adrestian army.”

Silence hangs heavy in the room. Edelgard’s words were clear and precise, as if she had rehearsed them for weeks. There was not a stumble nor a pause, just a flow as smooth as the run of a river. Her heart had no say in what came out of her mouth, a true demonstration of her motto: rule with the mind, not the heart. There is no place for passions in the midst of a war.

“You…”

Claude straightens his back, suddenly looking far taller. He wasn’t the tallest man they had encountered, but in this room, in this old conference room that felt like it was caving in on itself, he seemed taller than even the worst of the demonic beasts they had slain.

“Fine, but hear this before I leave.  You may be releasing me from my position in this army, but that won’t take my convictions away. You won’t take my beliefs away. I will continue to fight for the unification of Fódlan. I will continue to fight for the people. Because at least I know what I’m fighting for. But you, Edelgard, do you know what you’re fighting for?” He cocks his head to the side, that sly smile of his reappearing. “Glory? To be known? To be in the history books? I know what my goal is, but do you?” There’s a taunt in his voice, a dangerously cool taunt that could unleash a brand-new war. “Do you know what you’re fighting for, o wise one? You with all the answers, tell me, what are you fighting for?”

“I’m fighting for the unification of Fódlan as well, and you know that. I want a better place for our people to live.”

“If you’re fighting for the people, then why’s your life spent all alone? Hear me, Edelgard von Hresvelg, you’re—” his hands slam down on the table— “alone!”

The word echoes throughout the room. It rains down like a shower of arrows, sharp and deadly. Alone. Edelgard is alone. She’s alone at the top of her throne, and she knows this. She knows this, she’s always known this, but she’s never let it show. Or at least, she doesn’t let it show that it affects her until now.

There’s a shift in Edelgard’s stance. Her eyes grow wide for a fraction of a second, something that’s rarely ever seen in her. And they drop. Her gaze drops down onto the table, though not for very long. But it’s long enough. It’s long enough for anyone to have noticed the change in the emperor’s posture. She’s just a little bit smaller, just a little bit caught off guard, just a little bit more like a girl. She’s just a little bit more like the girl she had once talked about, ever so briefly, the girl who is deadly afraid of rats and who doesn’t like constrained spaces. It’s a tiny change in her attitude, almost invisible, but as noticeable as the ruins in which Fódlan finds itself.

Eyes meet from across the table, one glare far harder than the other. Emperor versus leader. Mentor versus student. Leicester versus Adrestria. Riegan versus Hresvelg. Claude versus Edelgard. It’s a war with no beginning; it’s a war with no end. It’s a broken pact that never should have happened in the first place.

“One day,” Edelgard’s voice is soft, softer than it’s ever been, “you’ll understand what I’ve been trying to do. One day, you’ll see why I’ve been so hard on you. One day, you’ll finally grasp what comes with being a good leader. But not today. After all,” a smile stretches across her lips, crinkling the corner’s of her eyes, “you’re just another man. Raised so far from the court, so far from war councils, all the way in Almyra, how are you to know what it’s like to rule a country? You’ll never know what I go through!”

Edelgard’s hands on the table don’t echo the way Claude’s did, but the violence is there. It’s there in her eyes. It’s there in her hair that’s slipped out of their neat buns. It’s there in her clenched jaw. Frustration radiates off of her body leaning over the conference table, the only thing keeping her from striking Claude with all her concealed violence. Politics and diplomacy vanish at that moment; her whole façade falls, leaving her baring her true self.  

“I had no childhood! I didn’t get to play with other children! I didn’t get to live as a big happy family! I had to flee my country, flee my family, flee everything I knew! I had to watch my siblings die or go mad from horrific experiments! I was the sole survivor! I was the only one who made it! And my country depended on me to guide it correctly after all of that!

“I was thought to put my emotions aside. I was taught that the ends justify the means. I was taught everything you reproach of me, von Riegan, and I don’t plan on changing the way I view the world. If you decide to go against me, I will not hesitate to take you down. But I promise you this: when I’m done with Fódlan, it will be united like you so want it. I just won’t bring it together with your sentimentality. I won’t let myself lose it because I put my emotions where rationality should have been.

“Now,” Edelgard straightens, taking her air of an emperor once more despite her dishevelled state, “get out. Get out before I kick you out myself!”

“You don’t have to tell me twice.”

Claude scoffs, finally turning away from the emperor. He looks a little less blinded by his frustrations, but he still holds his head high. Perhaps watching the stoic woman turn into something so emotional made him understand where she was coming from, but his pride won’t let him admit to such a thing. So he just turns away from her, not letting his eyes linger on her any longer. Instead, green finds green, a spark of hope glistening in Claude’s eyes.

“Well, Teach?” He extends his hand to the one who silently stood to the side, his smile looking soft on his lips. “You coming with?”

“Professor.” Edelgard’s voice is sharp with a warning from her corner of the room. “You’re not going to leave me, are you?”

» "Claude, I'm coming."

» "Edelgard, I will not leave."

#fe3h #lils writes

[lils-writes]

Through the Seasons

Read it here on ao3!

Spring | Summer | Autumn

2 - SUMMER

Reki takes a deep breath as he stares at himself in the mirror. It’s today. Today is the day he’s dreamed of his entire life, as cheesy as that sounds. It’s cheesy, but, despite denying it for so, so long, it’s nothing but the truth. Today really is the day he’s been waiting for since he was a little kid. Today is the day; his moment is only minutes away. New adventures are merely minutes away, long minutes that pass in a flash. A new chapter of his life begins as soon as he steps through the door.

“You’re gonna be late if you keep staring at yourself in the mirror like that.”

Reki whips around to face his little sister and her never-changing annoyed look. Her eyes narrow onto him as she crosses her arms over her chest and raises an eyebrow. And he knows he looks like a deer in headlights, but he can’t help the distressed look. He can’t help the pounding of his heart or the buzzing in his ears. He can’t help the stress that’s weighing down in the pit of his stomach. No matter how hard he tries, Reki is incapable of wiping away the visible panic on his face.

“I have to look perfect!”

Koyomi sighs as she pushes herself off the wall and makes her way to her brother. A smile creeps itself onto the corners of her mouth as she reaches out for him, fingers surprisingly gentle against his neck as she fixes his red bowtie.

“Breathe, Reki.” Reki takes a deep breath which has Koyomi smiling even more. “You know, you could walk down the aisle in your underwear and Langa would still think you’re the most perfect, most good-looking bastard in the world.”

Reki lightly shoves his sister, who lets out a snort as she stumbles back. Still, her smile eases Reki’s nerves a little, leaving him with a matching expression. She’s right, of course she is, and Reki knows it, but still, he can’t help but be in shambles over this. This is his wedding with Langa. Dreamy Langa. Perfect Langa. His best friend first. The love of his life, for crying out loud! Reki’s actually marrying the guy! Reki is marrying Langa, and everything starts in only a few minutes! Reki has minutes before everything turns on its head and changes. Everything is changing!

“Reki!” Koyomi gives a tug on his bowtie, the shock of the jolt just enough to pull him from his spiraling thoughts. “I said: breathe. You’re gonna give yourself a panic attack at this rate, and it is not the time for that.”

“I’m fine!”

Amber eyes narrow onto Reki, and he feels himself shrink under the intensity of the gaze. While she may be smaller than him, he knows she can very well take him in a fight, and she is not above hitting him on his wedding day. Call it sibling love, if you will. But Koyomi is the definition of compact strength, and Reki doesn’t want today to be the day he learns what she’s capable of while in a dress and heels. If there’s one thing he’s learned growing up, it’s that for some weird twisted reason, the more impractical the outfit, the more Koyomi is capable of kicking ass.

“What have we been telling you for basically the entirety of your existence? About the whole ‘I’m fine’ thing?”

“That whenever I say that I’m fine, I’m actually not fine?”

“Exactly. So just—” Koyomi takes a step back, assessing her work— “take a deep breath and remind yourself that soon enough, you’ll get to see Langa. You’ll get to be all stupidly smiley and all your worries – useless worries at that! – will simply vanish. And just so you know, he’s also nervous as hell.”

“You saw him?”

Reki feels his head spin once more. This is getting more and more real as the minutes go by. What had once been nothing but a fantasy, something his 17-year-old self used to think about in bed instead of sleeping, is now his reality. To think that this had once been but a silly fantasy, a dumb princess story that was totally impossible. But as always, the universe has a way of turning the impossible into a reality, and here stands Reki, Reki who is so terribly excited and nervous at the idea of finally getting to tie the knot with his forever. He’s marrying Langa. He’s marrying his best friend. He’s finally going to be able to vow infinity to Langa, for real this time. And of course, the stress he’s been trying so hard to brush away these past few months crashes against his fickle brain, reminding him of all the ways a perfect fantasy can be burned to the ground. But also, for some strange reason, the idea of Langa also being stressed, it calms him ever so slightly.

“You should’ve seen his mom; the poor woman was trying to calm him as he kept digging through his stuff. I didn’t catch everything she was saying to him since they were doing that thing where they flip between English and Japanese, but I can assure you that he wants this to be as perfect as you do. He wants it to be perfect for you, Reki.” Koyomi’s hands are warm against Reki’s cheeks. And it’s calming, the way she holds him. It’s the same calming touch their mother has. “Your husband-to-be is also going crazy, terrified that he’s somehow not perfect enough for you.” And her smile, it has to be one of the brightest ones Reki’s ever seen. “You two dimwits are literally soulmates! You’re both idiots that need to be reminded that you’re already perfect for each other. You’re so perfect for each other that I might actually vomit from how cute you are. You’ve been perfect since the very beginning, and a wedding isn’t going to change that. So just… It’s just gonna be perfect!” Koyomi’s amber eyes shine as she squishes her brother’s cheeks, pulling a squeak out of him. “Reki! Reki, you’re getting married! You’re getting married to Langa, and he’s gonna be your husband for real! You’re actually getting married and you’re gonna have a husband!”

Reki takes a shaky breath that turns to a giggle as Koyomi practically chants the word husband over and over again. It’s like they’re little kids again, playing make-believe in the yard together. It’s like they’re children all over again, but they aren’t. They’re both fully grown adults, both with lives that are finally taking off. They’re both set for life, Koyomi graduating from university real soon and starting a job she’s been dreaming of for years, and Reki with his ever-growing brand name and a husband only minutes away. They feel like little kids as they jump and dance around the room, but they’re so much more now that they’re grown. This is so much more exciting because they’re grown.

It’s nice having Koyomi in his arms. When was the last time they had hugged? Forever ago, probably. It’s been so long since they’ve been this close; life got in the way and they forgot what it feels like to be in the same room, spending time with one another. It’s been forever since the last time it was just the two of them, even longer since the last time they didn’t bicker. Today, right now, it’s a nice reminder of how things can be. It’s nice knowing that deep down, under that annoyed exterior, Koyomi really is just Reki’s caring little sister that gets just as excited as him with things like this. She’s still his Komi, his little sister that will dance around the room. She’s still his Komi, his favorite hypewoman.

“And then there’s gonna be music and everyone is gonna enjoy themselves and mom is—”

“Where’s mom?” Reki feels himself suddenly tense, all the worst-case scenarios flooding in. “She’s not bailing on me, is she? She promised she’d walk with me, and I don’t think I can do it without her.”

Koyomi scoffs as she gives Reki one last squeeze before wiggling out of his embrace. “As if she would miss the first wedding of the family.” Warmth and serenity fills Reki at the sight of the sunshine shimmering in his sister’s amber eyes. “Mom would literally fight a zombie apocalypse to be here if she had to.”

“You…” Reki sighs, light laughter on his lips, as he pokes the girl’s cheek. “You’re probably right. But really? A zombie apocalypse?”

“What?”

“You’ve been spending way too much time with Miya.”

A smile eases its way onto Reki’s lips as Koyomi scoffs again, arms crossed over her chest. He isn’t sure if that’s a blush that’s starting to blossom under her skin or if it’s the makeup that’s now really popping under the burning summer sun, but regardless, she doesn’t seem too interested in addressing his accusation. She seems far keener on getting his last-minute touches down, one last straightening of his bowtie, a tug on his vest, and a quick and futile attempt at taming his tangles.

“There. If Langa wasn’t already so disgustingly madly in love with you – which he is, don’t try to convince me otherwise – he would fall head-over-heels in love with you right here and now.” Her eyes lock with his, a sudden look of seriousness overshadowing the glee that shimmered just moments ago. “You look good, Reki. Amazing even.” A grin illuminates the girl’s face. “My brother is the hottest groom, and Langa is one lucky man to spend forever with you.”

“Your boyfriend dared you to say that, didn’t he?”

“Oh my god, Miya’s not my boyfriend!”

“Who said anything about Miya?”

Koyomi inhales sharply before shoving Reki aside. Her heels click against the hardwood floor as she fetches the purse she had tossed onto the bed a little earlier. This time, there’s no mistaking the blush that takes over her face, embarrassment now impossible to conceal as Reki laughs. She doesn’t look very happy, but also, he knows he’s safe for the day. She wouldn’t hurt him on his wedding day, right? No, she’s not that mean. Hopefully.

“Mom’s gonna be here in like two minutes, so have fun being alone during those two long, insufferable minutes.” She grumbles something under her breath, something that weirdly sounds like needing a drink, which pulls yet another string of giggles from Reki. “I come here in peace, trying to calm you and help you get ready, and you have the audacity to blatantly attack me. The absolute disrespect!”

“I love you, Komi.”

Seeing her turn around, a slight smile pulling at the corners of her mouth, Reki can’t help the tears that start to well up at the corner of his eyes. Sure, it’s probably just because he’s an emotional mess right now, but it’s nice seeing Koyomi smile so unguardedly. It’s nice seeing her without some façade. It’s nice just seeing her, his little sister, the girl he grew up with. And when she says it back, returning to his arms and hugging him like when they were kids and needed a safe space, he melts. Reki melts, silent tears streaming down his cheeks as he hugs his little sister back.

“I love you too, Reki. And today’s gonna be perfect, just how you dreamed it would be. And,” Koyomi tightens her embrace, “I mean it when I say Langa’s super lucky to be getting married to you. No one’s better than my big brother.”

“My babies are actually getting along!”

Masae’s face glows with pride as Reki and Koyomi slowly step away from each other. Her hands are clasped over her heart, and Reki swears he sees tears forming at the corner of his mother’s eyes. He knows she’s proud of him, of Koyomi, of all her children, but seeing her like this, seeing that fond expression decorate her face, Reki can’t help but rush to his mother’s arms, melting into her. And as she wraps her arms around him, everything is right. There’s nothing quite like a mother’s embrace. There’s nothing like a mother’s love to make everything better, better than they already are.

Her hands are warm against Reki’s cheeks as she lifts his head from her shoulder. Her smile, it means everything to Reki. His mother means everything to him, and he hopes she never forgets it, not that he’ll ever let her.

“Are you ready, honey?”

Reki gives her a curt nod as he links his arms with hers. It’s now or never. It’s now and he knows it. It’s now as he turns to Koyomi, extending his hand to her as he grins from ear to ear.

“Let’s get this wedding started!”

#sk8 #renga #lils writes

[lils-writes]

Through the Seasons

Read it here on ao3!

1 - Spring

Reki chews on the inside of his cheek as he watches Langa. His head is resting against Reki’s shoulder, blue hair tickling Reki’s cheek with every slight movement of his. And with every tickle, Reki finds himself staring, staring longer than what must be considered bro-appropriate. Until now, he’s never stared at one of his friends the way he was staring at Langa. Until now, he had never felt the urge to just stare, take in everything that is Langa, Langa who is prettier than any boy he’s ever seen. Prettier than girls too! Langa who is just… the prettiest.

Reki tears his eyes away, forcing himself to concentrate on the phone that’s propped up in front of him. He forces himself to look at the screen, but he can’t help the flickering of his eyes to the side, the quick glances at this best friend quite literally pressed to his side. Just quick glances; they don’t linger. And it’s only when Langa moves, snuggling closer. It’s only when Langa seems to be demanding his attention. Because there’s no way this isn’t on purpose. There’s no way Langa doesn’t know his every little movement has Reki staring. Or maybe it’s just a Canadian thing, the snuggling. Reki’s heard that they’re very friendly and affectionate there. He’s heard that cuddling is a great way to keep warm during the long and cold Canadian winters.

If someone were to ask Reki what was playing on Langa’s phone, he wouldn’t know what to answer. He’d probably just laugh nervously and answer “skateboarding,” more of a question than an answer. It wouldn’t be that farfetched of an answer, but he hasn’t been paying attention. Even when he forces his eyes away from the boy cuddled up against him in bed, thoughts of him fill Reki. Thoughts that make his heart race, face flushing. Thoughts that are not things one should associate with their best friend. Thoughts he didn’t exactly think were appropriate to share with the world.

Slowly, carefully, Reki lets his body soften against Langa’s. It’s a step-by-step process, the careful melting against Langa. It’s slow and deliberate, the straightness of his back slowly melting into a slouch. It’s careful and planned out, the pressing of his own head against Langa’s. Everything is calculated as if he’s testing the waters. That’s what he’s doing after all; he’s making sure that he’s not being weird and that he’s allowed to be as comfortable as Langa seems to be.

Muffled, indiscernible sounds leak out of Langa’s phone, but Reki can’t bring himself to focus on them. Even the screen itself seems blurry and distant. It’s not his fault; his eyes just can’t help going back to Langa. How is he supposed to focus on anything other than the prettiest boy he’s ever seen who’s now definitely cuddled up against him? How is he supposed to focus on anything other than the hand that’s innocently resting against his knee? How is he supposed to look at anything other than that silky blue hair that tickles his cheek, and those ocean eyes that seem filled with a sleepy haze? How is he supposed to pay attention to anything other than Langa?

The mattress shifts under the weight of the two boys, Langa burying himself even deeper into Reki’s side. And as his nose digs itself into Reki’s shoulder, Reki can’t help the hitch in his breath. He’s never had someone this close, not even the twins as they snuggle and fall asleep on him. He’s never had someone this vulnerable against him, someone who trusts him as wholeheartedly as Langa does. And the soft touch of the tip of Langa’s cold nose, it sends a shiver down Reki’s spine.

“Reki?”

His voice is faint, muffled against the thin cotton of Reki’s t-shirt. It’s smaller than it’s ever been, barely above a soft whisper. But it’s there and it’s heavy as Langa slowly lifts his head. Reki wishes Langa had stayed in the crook of his neck, but seeing the blue of Langa’s eyes sparkle under the dim light of the room, Reki can’t help the smile that blossoms across his lips. He can’t help smiling when Langa is there, looking at him. Who wouldn’t want to be looked at by Langa? A crazy person, for sure.

“Reki, I…”

His nose dives back into Reki’s shoulder. Maybe Reki hallucinated, but he could’ve sworn he saw a pink tint bloom across Langa’s cheeks. What could possibly have him that embarrassed? What could—?

The touch leaves sparks under Reki’s skin; the arms wrapping around his waist create an eruption of butterflies in his stomach. And the tilt of Langa’s head, the feeling of his nose, of his lips against the soft skin of his neck, lightness hazes Reki’s mind. Everything is wrong, everything is right. Nothing makes sense, everything is crystal clear. The world moves slowly, the moment goes fast. One shift and nothing can ever be the same again.

Reki isn’t sure in which order everything happened. He knows it started with one of Langa’s whispers, his small voice ever so slightly coated with an English accent. Then there were the touches, the hug that was so different from their typical hugs. Reki wouldn’t be able to name the difference now, but it was there. There was something more tender in the embrace, something filled with wanting. It wasn’t just one of those excited, impulsive hugs they would spring on one another. This was a deliberate touch, one filled with need, with want. Langa wanted to be there. Langa wants to be there, in the small of Reki’s neck, pressed against his side, almost falling over him. Langa wants to be this close and Reki doesn’t want him to go. He wants Langa there. He wants Langa there for as long as he can have him.

Then there was the lift of Langa’s head. Or maybe first there had been the turn of Reki’s. He isn’t sure which came first. He isn’t sure of much after that first shift, actually. But what he is sure of is the color of Langa’s eyes, the way they seemed to twinkle. All he knows is that this is Langa, his best friend, the prettiest boy he’s ever seen. All he knows is that everything is on autopilot. All he knows is that his eyes fall shut as soon as he feels Langa’s breath on his lips. All he knows is that whatever happens next, he wants it. He wants it all. He wants Langa. He wants Langa and nothing can ruin this for him.

It's hesitant at first, the soft touch of Langa’s lips against his own. It feels like more like a question than anything, but it isn’t long before the question finds its answer. It isn’t long before the soft touch turns into something more. It isn’t long before they find their rhythm, Langa’s fingers digging into Reki’s hips, holding on for dear life. It isn’t long that what could’ve been an innocent peck turns into something more desperate. It isn’t long before the whole world has been forgotten, or maybe it’s just that Reki and Langa have become each other’s worlds in a matter of seconds. Nothing else matters at the moment, nothing but warm breaths and rushed kisses. Nothing but the fading taste of the sweets they had had early in the day. Nothing but silky hair slipping through Reki’s fingers. Nothing matters, nothing except Langa. Nothing except Langa’s kisses. Nothing but the desperation that comes with the thought of losing Langa’s kisses. Nothing but the thought that this is the only time he’ll get to know what it feels like to be kissing Langa. Langa, the prettiest boy Reki’s ever laid eyes on.

Reki’s lost count of the number of kisses he’s laid on Langa. He’s lost his string of thoughts, his initially detailed plan of how things would go the day he would get to press his first kiss to someone. None of this is following the way he thought it would go, starting with the fact that he just kissed Langa and not some girl like he thought he would. But now with the entirety of his weight pressed into Langa’s lap, his hands tangled in the softest hair he’s ever had the privilege of touching, Reki couldn’t care less of his initial plan. This, this reality, it’s so much better than any of those fantasies he had come up with over the years. Kissing Langa is so much better than anything he could have dreamt up.

“Reki?”

It’s the softest Reki’s ever hear his name be said. A breathless whisper against his lips, a whisper he’ll be dreaming about for far too long. A whisper filled with adoration. A whisper he may never hear again. A whisper that may be Langa’s way of telling him that this was all a mistake. A whisper that might be the end of everything. A whisper that may as well be—

“Reki, I—”

“I’m sorry!” The words tumble out of Reki’s mouth before he can even process what he’s saying. “I wasn’t thinking and I just— I don’t know what I was thinking or maybe I wasn’t even thinking at all? I just… I shouldn’t have… I didn’t actually… It’s probably like… weird? Like,” nervous laughter falls from his lips as his heart races in his chest. “It’s totally weird, right? Bros don’t… bros don’t like… do what just happened, right? We can’t…”

“I like kissing you, Reki.”

Silence crashes down, an invisible weight pressing on Reki’s chest. Langa… Langa, he likes the kisses. He liked whatever just happened between them. He enjoyed the moment that just passed, one that Reki also enjoyed, if he ignores the wave of panic that overwhelmed him. He doesn’t hate Reki for the stolen kisses, the kisses that probably had no business being stolen in the first place. The smart thing probably would have been to ignore the pounding of his heart and the pull Langa’s lips had on him, but it’s too late to regret everything. Not that Reki regrets any of it! Absolutely not! Not when it’s Langa over and over again.

“Y’know, Reki…” This time, Reki can’t miss the blush that blossoms under Langa’s skin. He can’t miss the boy’s averting eyes and the pinkness that sticks out from under his hair. This time, Reki is certain that Langa is blushing and he can’t help but feel the heat in his own face as he stares at Langa, waiting for the rest of his thoughts. “You don’t have to… stop or anything? If you want, we can…”

“I think I like you.”

Reki’s hands couldn’t have flown to his face any faster than they do right then and there, clasping them right over the words that he hadn’t meant to blurt out. While they weren’t a lie, was now the best time to say it? Really, did this have to be all so confusing? Why does everything have to be so freaking confusing!

“I like you too!”

I like you too; truer words had never been uttered. Or at least, Reki sure hopes they hold some truth since they have his heart racing and they have him grinning like an absolute fool. Because if Langa likes him, like likes him, then what is there to be afraid? The scariest part of falling for his best friend was that it might have come with the price of their friendship, but now that Langa is here, smiling that sweet and soft smile, eyes crinkling at the corner, Reki isn’t afraid anymore. He isn’t scared as he lets his body crash against Langa’s, arms wrapping around his neck in the tightest hug he’s ever given his best friend. And as Langa’s arms loops around his waist, everything clicks. This is right. This moment, it couldn’t get any better. Nothing could take Reki’s happiness away. Nothing could take Langa away from him. Because this is right. Because this is Reki and Langa, best of friends, best of everything. Two halves of a whole.

“I like you too, man. I like you so much, Langa. And you mean everything to me.”  

#sk8 #renga #lils writes

[lils-writes]

Mind and Heart

AO3

The room is silent, almost deadly from its quiet. Three bodies are the only source of heat in the old conference room; the cold of winter is harsh on the walls of the old crumbling monastery. Three bodies heat the room, one on each side of the wooden table, and one to the side, refusing to choose either leader. They’re supposed to be working together, not against each other.

“You’ve grown soft, Claude. So soft that your friends have died. Died from your recklessness and your sentimentality.”

Claude snaps at the woman, his sharp warning reminding her of his place in her, no, their fleet. She needs him, they both know that, but that won’t stop her. It might be their fight, they might rely on each other, but she’s the one with the education, the knowledge, the upbringing. They’re both leaders, but Edelgard is the one who grew up with that expectation; Claude’s leadership is but a happy accident.

“You’re a warrior who’s meant to lead his troupes. Lead them to victory, not to their demise. I taught you to lead with your mind, not your heart, and yet here we are, blood on our hands. Blood that had no business being spilled.”

She’s cold. She’s calculating. She doesn’t want her troupes to die, but not because of the bond she has with her soldiers. She needs them, but she hasn’t brought herself to love them. At least, not the way Claude has. Claude leads with humanity; Edelgard leads with knowledge. They both knew this would end in war between them at some point, but it had worked. They’ve been fighting side-by-side for years now. Their differences caused conflicts in this very conference room, but everything had always been resolved. Every dispute has led to better ideas. Or at least, their differences had never led to significant losses. Not until now.

“You think I wanted this? You think I wanted this bloodshed? You think I wanted to lose my second in command?”

Claude’s fingers dig into the rich wood of the table. Bare nails carve their presence into it, evidence of his frustration that will last forever, evidence that will find itself in the history books that will be written when this war will finally be over.

“Unlike you, I can’t just brush off the feelings when someone dies. Unlike you, I have to not only deal with the pain myself, but I have to cheer the troupes up. Because I’m not the only one who lost someone dear to them. But then again,” his fingers relax, revealing the fresh indentation of the wood, and he cocks his head to the side with a bitter smirk, “what was I expecting from the emperor of the Adrestian Empire? The selfish and prideful and vain emperor. All that matters are your numbers and your advancement.”

Edelgard watches him from a distance, her eyes never leaving his face, not even once. It’s the way she’s been raised to rule: never let your guard down; always show that you’re on top. She doesn’t let anyone see how she’s feeling; her emotions are concealed behind the face of a strong emperor. She almost glows in the dim room, glows against the horrors of war.

But across from her, Claude is tired. He’s frustrated. He’s the opposite of the Adrestian emperor, the leader of the Alliance that wears his heart on his sleeve. He’s a great schemer, everyone knows that, but he’s not the best at putting his feelings aside when it comes to lost lives and war. The dark circles are proof of his sleepless nights spent thinking of ways to avoid death, both for himself and for his troupes. He doesn’t stand as tall as the woman in front of him. If anything, he looks like he’s about to crumble, crumble from sheer exhaustion and exasperation.

“Do you think it does nothing to me when—”

“Hilda is dead!”

Something from that cry strikes Edelgard, but just for a moment. She recomposes herself rather quickly, both hands folded themselves. She speaks once more with that clear and crisp voice of hers, a voice that has left chills in her audiences.

“Claude, this is your sentimentality speaking once more. Please compose yourself. Captain Goneril will be remembered as someone exceptional and you will learn to lead with more of an iron fist next time. You’re still my general and I need you to start being rational. This war won’t be won by matters of the heart, Claude.”

“Captain Goneril…” Claude snorts. He looks even worse than at the beginning of the conversation. He looks like he sees ghosts circling the emperor’s head. “You can’t even say her name, just her rank. But please, please my dearest Emperor,” venom coats the title, the strongest of the Alliance’s leader’s poisons, “tell me, what good is a title given by you if I’m slowly driven to madness from all my sleepless nights? Tell me, what good does a title holds when my friends die in your little game of chess? What good is a damned title when it changes nothing in the way we’re all dropping like flies on the battlefield?”

His words grew louder and harsher, more frantic than ever. Claude was right; he was growing madder as the months of war stretched on and his own nights of sleep became less and less frequent. There was too much going on in that head of his. He had told his friends so much. He had confided in his professor. But with the never-ending war, there was nothing more that he could do except push forth and hope for the end.

Or let himself be consumed by his own delusions and madness.

“That’s right,” another snort, some sort of choked laughter, “you have nothing to say to that, do you? Because you know I’m right. This whole thing is insane and you know that your way of leading isn’t right. You’re too far from your armies; you lead them like they’re pawns on a board. You don’t care for the losses; you just care for an end. Your end.”

“Claude,  please—”

“I saw you as a friend, Edelgard. I thought we could lead Fódlan to a brighter tomorrow, one where the wall would be taken down, one where we could all be united. I thought you were like me on that point; that’s the only reason I agreed to join you. But clearly, I was wrong. I was wrong to think that you cared about my people, about your people, about our friends.”

“Claude, you’re being irrational again.”

She takes a deep breath before she continues. She’s reassessing her words, thinking about them carefully before letting them flutter free for the man to seize. She doesn’t want another outburst from him. She doesn’t want to drive him away more than she already has. More than he’s already driven himself.

“You know as well as I that we’re not here to make friends. This is war. This is bloodshed. This is a massacre. We knew this from the start. We knew there would be blood on our hands, the blood of our enemies and the blood of our allies. We knew we had to lead with an iron fist, not with a heart of gold. Emotions only get in the way of our schemes, of our victory. Just look at you. Look at the condition you’re in.”

There’s a pause in the conversation. Edelgard watches Claude’s chest rise and fall, watching him struggle to breathe. Had he been hit during the previous battle? Is he suffering from something hidden, something he’s disregarded due to his blind fury about Hilda’s passing? Or is it anger choking him?

“I’m not here to make friends, and I don’t think you’re here to learn from me. We misjudged our situations and, perhaps until now, it has worked in our favor, but that time has ended. I mistook you for someone that was ready to be my general, but that was my error.” Violet eyes pierced every heart, sharper than the lances that lined the wall. “Claude von Riegan, I release you from your position as a general of the Adrestian army.”

Silence hangs heavy in the room. Edelgard’s words were clear and precise, as if she had rehearsed them for weeks. There was not a stumble nor a pause, just a flow as smooth as the run of a river. Her heart had no say in what came out of her mouth, a true demonstration of her motto: rule with the mind, not the heart. There is no place for passions in the midst of a war.

“You…”

Claude straightens his back, suddenly looking far taller. He wasn’t the tallest man they had encountered, but in this room, in this old conference room that felt like it was caving in on itself, he seemed taller than even the worst of the demonic beasts they had slain.

“Fine, but hear this before I leave.  You may be releasing me from my position in this army, but that won’t take my convictions away. You won’t take my beliefs away. I will continue to fight for the unification of Fódlan. I will continue to fight for the people. Because at least I know what I’m fighting for. But you, Edelgard, do you know what you’re fighting for?” He cocks his head to the side, that sly smile of his reappearing. “Glory? To be known? To be in the history books? I know what my goal is, but do you?” There’s a taunt in his voice, a dangerously cool taunt that could unleash a brand-new war. “Do you know what you’re fighting for, o wise one? You with all the answers, tell me, what are you fighting for?”

“I’m fighting for the unification of Fódlan as well, and you know that. I want a better place for our people to live.”

“If you’re fighting for the people, then why’s your life spent all alone? Hear me, Edelgard von Hresvelg, you’re—” his hands slam down on the table— “alone!”

The word echoes throughout the room. It rains down like a shower of arrows, sharp and deadly. Alone. Edelgard is alone. She’s alone at the top of her throne, and she knows this. She knows this, she’s always known this, but she’s never let it show. Or at least, she doesn’t let it show that it affects her until now.

There’s a shift in Edelgard’s stance. Her eyes grow wide for a fraction of a second, something that’s rarely ever seen in her. And they drop. Her gaze drops down onto the table, though not for very long. But it’s long enough. It’s long enough for anyone to have noticed the change in the emperor’s posture. She’s just a little bit smaller, just a little bit caught off guard, just a little bit more like a girl. She’s just a little bit more like the girl she had once talked about, ever so briefly, the girl who is deadly afraid of rats and who doesn’t like constrained spaces. It’s a tiny change in her attitude, almost invisible, but as noticeable as the ruins in which Fódlan finds itself.

Eyes meet from across the table, one glare far harder than the other. Emperor versus leader. Mentor versus student. Leicester versus Adrestria. Riegan versus Hresvelg. Claude versus Edelgard. It’s a war with no beginning; it’s a war with no end. It’s a broken pact that never should have happened in the first place.

“One day,” Edelgard’s voice is soft, softer than it’s ever been, “you’ll understand what I’ve been trying to do. One day, you’ll see why I’ve been so hard on you. One day, you’ll finally grasp what comes with being a good leader. But not today. After all,” a smile stretches across her lips, crinkling the corner’s of her eyes, “you’re just another man. Raised so far from the court, so far from war councils, all the way in Almyra, how are you to know what it’s like to rule a country? You’ll never know what I go through!”

Edelgard’s hands on the table don’t echo the way Claude’s did, but the violence is there. It’s there in her eyes. It’s there in her hair that’s slipped out of their neat buns. It’s there in her clenched jaw. Frustration radiates off of her body leaning over the conference table, the only thing keeping her from striking Claude with all her concealed violence. Politics and diplomacy vanish at that moment; her whole façade falls, leaving her baring her true self.  

“I had no childhood! I didn’t get to play with other children! I didn’t get to live as a big happy family! I had to flee my country, flee my family, flee everything I knew! I had to watch my siblings die or go mad from horrific experiments! I was the sole survivor! I was the only one who made it! And my country depended on me to guide it correctly after all of that!

“I was thought to put my emotions aside. I was taught that the ends justify the means. I was taught everything you reproach of me, von Riegan, and I don’t plan on changing the way I view the world. If you decide to go against me, I will not hesitate to take you down. But I promise you this: when I’m done with Fódlan, it will be united like you so want it. I just won’t bring it together with your sentimentality. I won’t let myself lose it because I put my emotions where rationality should have been.

“Now,” Edelgard straightens, taking her air of an emperor once more despite her dishevelled state, “get out. Get out before I kick you out myself!”

“You don’t have to tell me twice.”

Claude scoffs, finally turning away from the emperor. He looks a little less blinded by his frustrations, but he still holds his head high. Perhaps watching the stoic woman turn into something so emotional made him understand where she was coming from, but his pride won’t let him admit to such a thing. So he just turns away from her, not letting his eyes linger on her any longer. Instead, green finds green, a spark of hope glistening in Claude’s eyes.

“Well, Teach?” He extends his hand to the one who silently stood to the side, his smile looking soft on his lips. “You coming with?”

“Professor.” Edelgard’s voice is sharp with a warning from her corner of the room. “You’re not going to leave me, are you?”

#fire emblem #fire emblem three houses #lils writes

[lils-writes]

Summer Sunsets

There are a few things that often preoccupied Langa: skateboarding, pronouncing things right, work, Reki. Reki. Always Reki. The pretty boy that somehow had wormed his way into Langa’s mind. And such a thing wasn’t new to Langa; any boy that gave him as much attention as Reki did was bound to do things to his little heart, but the way Reki flooded his sense, now that was new. It was so new, the way that his smile made Langa’s heart flip or the way the sound of his voice became the center of Langa’s world. Reki had become Langa’s everything, and what had he done to find himself there? What had he done for Langa to know nothing but how to fall for him a little more with each passing day?

With a hand over his heart, Langa could feel the irregular beating deep in his chest. He could feel the echo of Reki’s name inside of him, feel it pounding in his bones. When was the last time a crush had driven him this crazy? When was the last time a crush had left him feeling this alive? Never. The answer was probably never. Langa would have remembered if there had been another Reki in his life. Langa would have remembered the boy, but no one compared to the brightness that was Reki’s smile, his voice, his presence, his heart. Nothing could compare to the beauty that was the boy that stood before him.

A smile pointed in his direction, Langa couldn’t help but get closer. How could he resist such an invitation, a hand extended towards him? How could he resist letting his hand rest in Reki’s, letting calloused palms scratch against of skin? It was impossible to refuse such an opportunity. For all Langa knew, it was the only time it would happen.

“C’mon man!” Fingers curled around Langa’s, Reki’s grip tightening and tugging him along. “If we take any longer, we’re gonna miss it!”

“Where are you even bringing me?”

Amber eyes shone under the darkening summer sunlight. Beautiful amber eyes that had Langa’s heart flipping in his chest. Gorgeous amber eye that had Langa tripping over his own feet. And the smile. There were no words to describe the smile.

“Already told ya, it’s a surprise! Now stop asking questions and c’mon!”

And with that, the eyes, the smile, the look, it was all gone. Or at least, it was out of Langa’s view as Reki sped up, now running rather than his previous light jog. But his hand was still in Langa’s, his grip just as firm. He wasn’t letting go of Langa’s hand any time soon, not that Langa was complaining about that.

“It’s gonna be awesome, dude! You’re gonna be so—”

A smile. Reki’s smile. And the motion of an explosion with his free hand. And laughter. A light, almost shy kind of laughter falling from Langa’s lips, the type of laughter that made his cheeks burn red because of how ridiculous he felt whenever it came out. He hated the way it sounded, pitchy and uneven, but when Reki grinned at him, that crooked, toothy grin, Langa just couldn’t help it. He couldn’t help the sounds that escaped him, sounds that just made Reki grin even wider.

“It’s gonna be so freakin’ awesome, you won’t know what hit you! Like! Like!”

It was almost as if he were vibrating with excitement. Shining even. Reki easily got excited, but never like this. His excitement never coated him with a shine, something so special and so fitting. Passionate. He had always been so passionate. He had always been so determined. He had always been so beautiful.

“It’s right…” A tug, pulling Langa closer as he pointed ahead. “Here.”

“Reki, this is…”

Pinks and purples and oranges swirled around the sky. Gold as well, outlining the clouds that floated by. Beauty coated the world, but nothing compared to the sunset that colored Reki’s eyes. Pinks and purples and oranges, all gorgeous in the vast beyond, but even prettier over the amber of the boy’s eyes. The world had nothing on Langa’s world.

“Reki, I…”

Sunsets on oceans knew nothing of Langa and Reki. Sunsets sinking into the ocean knew nothing of the heartbeat that pounded as Reki stepped closer, his shoulder bumping against Langa’s.

“It’s pretty, right?”

Another toothy grin as the boy turned his head towards Langa. Another shine in his eyes, a shine brighter than the sun could ever shine.  What could ever compare to the beauty that was Reki?

“Yeah, it’s really pretty.”

It was a difficult task peeling his eyes off Reki, but he had to follow the boy’s gaze. He had to look at the sky. He couldn’t keep staring at him. He couldn’t risk being caught staring, his heart wouldn’t survive the embarrassment that would entail.

“Yeah, yeah, it’s so pretty. Kinda like—”

Quiet fell, Reki’s caught between those crooked teeth that had been smiling just a moment ago. Uncertainty clouded those amber eyes, dulling their natural shine. Something had gone wrong. Something had stopped Reki from being himself. Something that Langa didn’t understand. What could have happened for Reki to stop smiling? What happened for his voice to choke the way it had?

“I… I thought maybe if I showed you something beautiful, you’d… If you… Ugh!”

Langa’s breath hitched as Reki dropped his head in his hands, his fingers tugging at loose locks of his red hair. Panic flooded through Langa, crashing against his ribs as he felt helpless watching Reki.

“I’m so stupid! Of course this ain’t gonna work! I’m so dumb!”

“No!” Amber eyes peeked through loosening fingers. “No.” Softer this time. Less panicked this time. “No, Reki. You’re not stupid or dumb. You’re never stupid.”

“You don’t even know what I’m talking about, man. How can you say I’m not stupid when you don’t know?”

“Because you’ve never been stupid. You’re so smart, smarter than anyone I know. Smarter than even Cherry and… and nothing can change that.”

“No, no, I’m… But I… Because I…”

Heat flared in Langa’s cheeks as Reki’s eyes fell for a split second. Both must have matched in burning color, but that stayed a guess as the amber eyes could no longer be used as a mirror. But if Langa knew himself, he knew that his blush wasn’t concealed, brightening his face just as Reki’s did.  

“I— I’m sorry! I…” Amber, shadow, amber. Reki’s eyes flicked all around, unable to pick a spot. “I, I didn’t mean to…”

It was stronger than him. The urge to slip his fingers through Reki’s, stopping the boy’s fidgeting, it was stronger than any impulse Langa’s ever had. And perhaps he shouldn’t have. Perhaps he should have dropped the subject, but it was too late now. It was too late, his fingers already tight around Reki’s, his eyes fixated on the amber that had become his world long ago. It was too late to back out now.

“You didn’t mean to what, Reki?”

“I didn’t mean to…” Rise and fall, his breath hitched with every choked word. “I didn’t mean to do… Langa…”

“Reki.”

Smile. What more could Langa do than smile as he lifted Reki’s chin? And while he had never been the best at reading the room, this time, he was pretty sure he knew what was happening. And if he was wrong, then he was ready to jump onto the next flight back to Canada, change his identity, and leave his life behind.

“You can do it, Reki. Please.”

“Langa, I…” Another deep, shaky breath. “You won’t hate me if I told you that I like you? Like… Like you? Please don’t hate me… I…”

“Like you too. I like you too, Reki. So, so much.”

The words tumbled out of his mouth faster than his brain was processing them. Was he rambling at this point? Maybe, but he couldn’t tell. Everything was buzzing in his ear, especially the noise that sounded far too much like a distorted version of his own voice. Everything was loud but the quiet was worse. Everything was happening, everything Langa had dreamt of for weeks, months even, but everything was happening differently from the way he had planned. For one, he wasn’t the one initiating the confession.

“And you’re so great and smart and how could I not like you? You’re just so—”

“Langa! Dude!” Langa felt the heat flare up once more as calloused palms touched his lips, but there was no way he was redder than Reki. Amber eyes had grown wide but slowly relaxed as they were cast aside. “Man, who woulda thought that a confession is all it took to get you to talk so much. Always so quiet until…” A smile tugged at the corners of Reki’s lips as he glanced at Langa. “Would’ve done this months ago if I had known.”

“What?” Langa furrowed his brows as he lowered Reki’s hands from his face. “Wait, do you mean… You don’t…”

“No! Yes! No! I didn’t—I like you! I like you! I, I’ve liked you for months! Just…” Reki ducked his head, his eyes glancing up to meet Langa’s. “I just didn’t know how you’d react so I… I didn’t say anything for a while.”  

The sincerity in Reki’s hesitant smile left Langa melting. It left him grinning. It left him falling for Reki like he’s never fallen before. Falling into his arms, a hug tighter than he’s ever hugged the boy. Sincerity, that was all it took.

Silence enveloped the two as they stood there, melted into each other. Silence fell, a silence more comforting than it had ever been. Silence, it was better than the endless rambling that had left Langa earlier. But it was also dangerous. Silence, the perfect place for Langa’s thoughts to overwhelm him.

“Langa?”

He’d fallen too deep. He’d fallen too fast. He hadn’t thought about what could happen after this. None of his scenarios had gotten this far. They had always stopped before Imaginary/Hypothetical Reki would say anything to him. Langa had always focused on what he would say, never on what would be said to him. And now, how was he supposed to act? What was to become of them? Did they just continue being how they were before? Were they changed forever?

“Dude, you okay there?”

Feelings had always been such a messy thing. Feeling things always made living so difficult. But feeling things also made it easier to keep living. Every time a butterfly would flutter in the pit of his stomach, Langa would be reminded why he was there. Every involuntary smile would take a weight off his conscious. And some days, those butterflies were what would make him completely forget what had gone wrong in the past. Those butterflies, they felt like a new life blossoming from within.  

“Langa!”

The jolt snapped Langa out of his spiral, the world greeting him with summer sunset eyes. Soft looks that had never felt as comforting as they did now. Soft calloused skin traced circles against his cheek, a light touch that matched the feeling of the eyes. Feelings, no matter how messy they could be, feelings were good. Langa liked feeling things. He liked feeling this.

“You good?”

Langa nodded, a small smile forming on his lips. “Yeah. Couldn’t be better.”

He hadn’t meant it, he hadn’t meant the glance down, but it was too late. He hadn’t meant to get caught on the curve of Reki’s lips, but there he was, wondering about one last feeling. And as the sun set, eyes fluttering shut, there was no helping what had already been done.

“Can…”

“Please.”

It felt so natural, the slight lean down. It was as if he had done it a thousand times before, the light contact of soft lips. It was as if there was nothing else he was meant to do, but as Reki pressed a kiss back, everything felt right. A world of color exploded as Langa squeezed his eyes shut, basking in the warmth of the remains of sunlight and of the kiss. Butterflies burst throughout his body he held Reki close, savoring the taste of the kiss. Feelings. Feelings flooded right through Langa and nothing had ever felt better than the feeling of Reki’s lips against his.

There were so many things that preoccupied Langa, skateboarding, pronouncing things right, work, but none of those things compared to Reki. Reki. It would always be Reki, Reki that drove him crazy. It would be Reki for the rest of his life, Reki for the rest of forever. If there was one thing Langa was sure of, it was that he would be loving Reki infinitely.

#sk8 #renga #lils writes

[lils-writes]

First Steps

AO3

“What even am I supposed to do? Talk to him?”

 Reki slumped against the railing, the summer breeze cool against his nape. He wasn’t used to being all dressed up, dressed the way the rich were, but still, he caved. He let himself be pampered and dolled up. He let himself be a toy for all the ladies of the place, ladies that came and went with giggles on their lips and smiles in their eyes. It was like dressing a doll or a puppy, a little thing that didn’t protest, just let himself be held and fiddled with. He was the toy every lady wished to have because he was the one that protested the least, or so he had overheard. So he let himself be dressed the way he was now, dressed to fit into the crowd that is nothing like him. He could never be like any man in that room.

“Talk to him and stop being a coward about it.”

There was annoyance in the girl’s voice, that sting of judgment Reki was so used to. There was no escaping it, even when he was trying desperately to escape every person in the room.  No matter where he went, his sister would follow and his eyes would find her, a sight always so comforting to him.

Auburn locks caught in the wind, amber eyes riveted on the landscape ahead of her, Koyomi might as well have been the heroine from one of those manuscripts that circulated around the higher class. Pretty, poised, made for this life that had been offered to her by some miracle of the stars, it was no wonder she had had so much success. It was no wonder she had every man wrapped around her finger. She, unlike her brother, had grown far more accustomed to the life that had been offered to them. She, unlike him, found no difficulty in leaving their old life behind. She, unlike Reki, had had no trouble becoming the beautiful and wise woman who was standing in front of him today, a woman with so much potential.

“if you stopped being so terrified of being on the streets again, you’d stop being a coward and go talk to him.”

Koyomi didn’t even grace him with a look as she spoke so coldly. What had Reki even expected from the girl who was known for breaking hearts for fun? Well, maybe knowing that it wasn’t fun for her to reject anyone that got too close, he had thought she’d show him a little bit of compassion and gentleness. Maybe being her brother would have gotten her off of the script she had memorized, the harsh words she always used. Or maybe it was that he was her brother that made her harshness even more necessary. She had always been harsh but sincere with him. There had never been a sugarcoating between the two of them. Hard truths had always been said as they were, and Reki couldn’t deny the truth in the girl’s words.

The town spread wide beneath him, his eyes unable to reach the end of it. Everything blurred before he could distinguish town from wild, street from house. The lines were blurred and so were Reki’s thoughts as he leaned over the balcony a little more in an attempt to be closer to the landscape before him.

“Easy for you to say, you have every man at your feet. Every woman as well.” A pause lingered in the chilly night air. “Everyone wants favors from the daughter of the marquis. So many want her hand in marriage as well. So many adore you, but I can’t say the same about me.”

“Only because you don’t want to be his son.”

A chill ran down Reki’s back as he glanced at his sister. She was right, she always was, but it didn’t mean it didn’t hurt less. And it didn’t mean that he didn’t wish that his fate was different from the one that was given to him.

Anyone would have been overjoyed to have been taken in the way Reki and Koyomi had been. Anyone would have done anything for the social advancement they had gone through with no great effort. It was a miracle of the stars, Reki knew that, he was constantly reminded of his luck, but it didn’t make his life easier. This miracle, was he worthy of it? Someone else deserved his place more than he did. Did he deserve to have been taken in by one of the richest men around? Did he deserve this life of leisure? Wasn’t he supposed to be on his hands and knees, working every hour the way he vaguely remembered his parents worked?

This life, he wasn’t sure he deserved it. He wasn’t sure he deserved the time he got to dedicate to the arts. He wasn’t sure he deserved the stability he had. All he knew was that his sister deserved it and he wasn’t going to ruin it for her. That was why he was still here, dressed in a costume that wasn’t him, leaning over a balcony, living a life of leisure where he didn’t feel like he belonged. Where he felt like he would never belong.

“And you know,” Koyomi huffed, turning to rest her back against the railing and crossing her arms over her chest, “I don’t have everyone’s attention. There are people who won’t even give me the time of day, so ha! Your argument is invalid!”

“The son of Duke Chinen doesn’t count. He doesn’t talk to anyone.”

Pink spread across the girl’s cheeks as she huffed once again. Sure, she hadn’t actually named the man, but Reki wasn’t clueless. She hadn’t needed to pronounce his name for her brother to know whom she was referring to. Miya, the only son of the Duke, had been nothing but a bother to poor Koyomi. He was the only one who hadn’t been immediately charmed by the girl, which was a first for her. Even as children, they hadn’t gotten along very well. Everything had always been a competition between the two, but as age caught up to them, Miya had truly turned his back on the girl, no longer indulging in their little bits of bickering. Just like that, they had gone from childhood rivals to strangers, except Koyomi hadn’t yet accepted it. And if Reki knew but one thing, it was that his sister would never let the distance go. She would do anything in her power to get the attention of the boy-turned-man and demand an apology and an admission to cheating in one of their childish games that happened nearly a decade prior.

“Whatever.” The girl pushed herself off the railing of the balcony before rearranging her skirts and readjusting the shawl covering her shoulders. “Just, you should go talk to him.” Amber eyes mirrored each other. “You really should. And who knows, maybe you’ll be the one that finally makes him smile.” She took a step forward, a step closer to the people beyond the closed door. “And maybe you two will be able to bond over the fact that you’ve been brought into a world that doesn’t feel right to you.”

And with that, Koyomi opened the doors and disappeared among the people of her circle, leaving Reki with no one but himself and the cool breeze. Perhaps she was right. Perhaps Koyomi was right and he and the prince were meant to talk. Perhaps they were destined to bond over their unexpected fates. Perhaps they could be friends, best of friends, but first, Reki had to approach him. First, Reki had to gather his courage and get close to the boy. First, Reki had to step out of the outside world, and enter Prince Langa’s world.  

#sk8 #renga #lils writes

[lils-writes]

Red Hair and Freckles

“He’s so handsome.”

“And cute!”

“He could be a model with a face like that.”

The three girls giggled over their phones as they waited for class to begin. They always came a little earlier, though the reason had always been unknown. At least until now. Now that he was sitting a few desks away from them, Reki finally understood why they were always huddled up together at a desk, giggling together, eyes shooting up every time someone walked through the door.

“Imagine how cute our babies would be!”

“Imagine if they got his eyes and your hair!” She – Kotone if Reki wasn’t mistaken – pulled on her pigtails as she squealed, sounding a thousand times more ridiculous than those girls in those K-dramas Koyomi insisted he watched with her did. 

“Deep blue eyes just like him.” A sigh from Minako this time. “Our babies will be on the covers of every magazine, because obviously,” she flipped her hair, “I’m gonna be a famous idol.”

“Maybe when you stop letting mommy dress you, you might get a chance at being my backup dancer.” Yuka grinned smugly at the offended-looking Minako. “Oh, and lose the baby face. You gotta look like a real woman to impress him, which is why I’m gonna marry him, and not you.”

The bickering began between the two girls, but it quickly died down with Kotone’s voice piercing through.

“How about we ask Reki who he would prefer out of the three of us?”

The sound of his name echoed through the classroom, causing him to drop his pen. Oh no, they were not going to involve him in their little girly games of fantasy marriages.  He was not going to help them set each other up with some poor guy who probably wanted nothing to do with them – not that they were bad girls or anything.

“Reki.” She was there, leaning over his desk, batting her eyelashes at him. “You’re close with Langa, right?”

Langa. They were talking about Langa. They were talking about which one would have a shot at getting Langa to themselves and Reki felt his cheeks burn. They were trying to get with his best friend and he knew for a fact that Langa had no idea of their plans and that he wouldn’t be interested in either one of them – again, not being they were bad girls or anything.

Reki nodded hesitantly which might have been a mistake, but denying his friendship with Langa would have been too obvious a lie. Everyone knew he and Langa were close; everyone knew they hung out constantly at school and after school. But given the way the girls were squealing, now crowding his desk, Reki wished he wasn’t as close to Langa as he was. Or rather, he wished people ignored it, the same way they had ignored him for years.

“So, what kind of girls does he like? Pretty and poised like Yuka, a future idol? Or cooler and more mysterious, but also pretty like Minako?” At this point, Kotone was in Reki’s face, her deep brown eyes wider than he’d ever seen them. “Well? Who has a shot with Langa?”

“Uh,” Reki rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly as he cast his eyes down onto his notebook. “I don’t know? You’re all pretty awesome, so…” He glanced between the girls. “I think you won’t have problems getting nice boyfriends if you talked to the ones you like.”

“That’s not an answer, Reki!”

“Yeah, you’re just dodging the question.” Yuka rolled her eyes as she turned away from him. “I knew it was a waste of time asking him. Not like he ever knows anything. But clearly, he’s just too scared of offending you girls because we all know that Langa likes me.”

“Sporty.” The three girls snapped their gazes back onto Reki, Reki with his voice that had never been so sharp. “He likes the sporty type. Someone who isn’t afraid of getting dirty outside.”

The three girls looked among themselves. From the look in their eyes, that was not the right answer. Or at least, not the answer Reki was supposed to give them.

A darkness cast over Yuka’s eyes, a darkness that almost made Reki recoil. She had expected him to say something along the lines of “Langa wants a girl who’s just so pretty and whose hair is always perfect” but that wasn’t the truth. Langa liked being outside. Langa liked being reckless. Langa liked not having to wait for anything, out the door whenever he deems the right time.

“I told you,” the girl’s voice was sharp as she grabbed her friends’ arms, tugging them away, “he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

“But Yuka, I think—”

“Shut up, Kotone! You’re just as bad as him!”

The girl recoiled, shrinking down as she let herself be pulled away. Something glistened at the corners of her eyes, a shine that pulled on Reki’s heartstrings. It was like watching a child having her favorite plushie ripped out of her hands. It was watching the most pathetic scene, but for once, Reki wasn’t going to sit back and watch it happen. Not when he knew the feeling so well.

“You’re the bad one, Yuka.” The girl whipped around at the sound of her name, glaring daggers at the boy who was standing up to her. “I know what Langa likes in a person and I even know who he likes, not that it’s any of your business. But it’s not you. No one likes you. You’re mean and bossy and everyone is just scared of you. So if you think you can guilt or intimidate my best friend into dating you, then you’re wrong. Also, bullying your own friends? Really?”

“Who do you think—”

“He’s right, Yuka.” Minako’s voice a sharp knife cutting Yuka off. “You’re always bullying Kotone. And everyone else that disagrees with you or says anything that you don’t like. Not everything will be how you want it, so you might as well let Reki finish if you don’t want to make a fool out of yourself in front of Langa.”

Yuka’s face burnt a bright red as she huffed, crossing her arms over her chest and walking away.

“Not even a response.” A sigh from Minako. “I’m gonna go catch up with her before she throws a tantrum. You coming, Koto?”

Pigtails whirl in the air as the girl shook her head. “I’ll catch up with you in a few minutes.” A nod from Minako before she disappeared after Yuka, leaving Kotone with Reki. “I’m sorry about Yuka. She’s… something.”

“Don’t worry about it. Used to it anyway.”

A stifled laugh escaped from the girl as she pulled a chair to Reki’s desk, now sitting across from him. “We should form a club.” More laughter, bitter sounding, but it quickly died down as her eyes met Reki’s. “Sorry, not funny. I just… Can I know who Langa likes? I promise to not tell anyone. Pinkie promise!”

The girl held up her pinkie which Reki gladly linked his with. He had always liked her, after all. “But this is our secret.”

There was a pause, one which let their hands fall apart. It gave Reki just enough time to think about what he was going to say.

“Well, he likes someone sporty. Someone who will go out skating with him. And someone who will laugh with him and who will let him just be himself. He doesn’t want a princess or someone that’s just…”

“High maintenance like Yuka?”

Reki muffled his snort as he nodded. “Langa likes the opposite of Yuka.”

“What she like? What does she look like?”

“She… Well…” Reki hummed a little, contemplating if he should reveal such information. But given the way Kotone was looking at him, he couldn’t resist spilling just a little. “Red hair and freckles, but you really, absolutely cannot tell anyone.”

The girl nodded as she looked around the empty classroom. “Red hair and freckles. Red hair and freckles. I don’t know a girl who fits—” Her eyes widened as they fell on Reki’s face. “Red hair and freckles! Red hair and freckles! Langa likes—!”

Reki quickly shushed her, eyes widened with panic. “Our secret! You can’t tell anyone!”

“You’re—”

“Sh!”

The girl grinned at him as she held a finger to her lips. “Your secret is safe with me! But you’re just! You’re so lucky! Langa! Of all people! And—” She snapped her mouth shut, thinking for a brief moment before whispering once again. “Are you two dating? Are your parents okay with it? How is it—”

“Yes, and everything is fine. Just. I don’t want anyone else to know, okay?”

“I promise to tell no one. Not even Minako. I pinkie promised, after all!”

And with that, people started filing into the classroom, voices filling the air. Langa wasn’t far behind, his blue eyes smiling at Reki. And as he took his place next to Reki, Kotone jumped up, grinning at the two before skipping off to the desk, but not without shooting Reki a wink which pulled a laugh out of the boy. Who knew if his secret was truly safe with the girl, but it was still nice telling someone who wasn’t his closest friends.

#It's very late but I'm reblogging stuff here again #sk8 #renga #lils writes

[lils-writes]

Summer Time (Family) Madness

It's been a hot minute, hasn't it? And it's not even new content rip. But still, have these 5k words that will replace the poorly written original chapter 2 of this trainwreck that holds a special place in my heart.

First | Chapter 2 | Next >

AO3 | Original Chapter 1 | Original Chapter

“Langa…”

Reki rolled onto his back, dropping his book on his face and groaning. Langa watched as the boy spread out like a starfish on his bedroom floor, not moving the book away and seeming overly dejected. He was still wrapped up in his usual yellow hoodie, sleeves rolled up to his elbows. Always that yellow hoodie, always wearing that thick sweater despite it being the end of July. He was still in that sweater, the bright yellow one that had started to fade from the overexposure to sunlight, the one that never failed to draw Langa’s eyes towards the boy. Or so that’s what he told himself as he wrapped his arms around his knees, physically holding his leg back from swinging and landing a kick to Reki’s side in an attempt to jolt the boy back to life.

Despite the summer having finally rolled around, schoolwork never stopped, which kind of sucked. There were no more of those summers where Langa would just lounge around the house, watching cable television while his parents worked. There were no more summers spent at his grandparents, summers he would spend playing in their yard. There were no more summers free of school work; Japan hadn’t caught on that the hot months of the year were supposed to be spent not thinking about school. Or maybe it was that there was so little summer heat in Canada – unlike in Japan where it was just constantly hot – that the people in charge of the education system decided to enjoy their summers not working. Langa never really got why summer meant vacation, but that wasn’t his problem. Not anymore at least, now that he had to spend his summer doing homework.

Thankfully, he had Reki to share his homework with. That was if the boy had any intentions of working on their assignments before the last day of break. Knowing Reki, he was most likely going to repeat last summer and rush through everything, resulting in a week’s worth of detention due to the poor quality of his work. And as much as Langa hated the idea of working on assignments, he wasn’t ready to miss out on a week worth of fun just because Reki hated schoolwork even more than he did.

“An hour a day. We agreed on an hour a day to get your grades up.”

“Not like yours are that much better than mine.”

Reki’s voice had been muffled by the textbook still resting on his face. If he stayed like that any longer, Langa would have expected the ink from the pages to have imprinted itself onto the boy’s face, but before he could even entertain the idea of studying off of Reki’s cheeks, he flipped onto his stomach with yet another groan. It looked almost painful for him to do, but once he was comfortable again on his floor, the textbook neatly tucked under his folded arms and chin, Reki let his eyes skirt over the words. He was back to work.

For five minutes. Reki had lasted five minutes before falling asleep, snoring softly into the gutter of his math book. The hums that usually filled the air as they studied together had been replaced by a steady breath, a sound Langa had grown far too accustomed to over the course of the year of impromptu sleepovers. It was just easier to crash in the same room after a night spent at S. It saved Reki the detour of dropping Langa off. It allowed them to catch a few extra minutes of sleep before the morning alarm started to blare in their ears. Or at least that was what Langa told himself.

With a sigh, Langa set his own book aside to poke Reki in the side. The boy yelped as he jumped, grabbing his waist in an attempt to avoid being poked again.

“Dude! What the hell? Don’t just… Don’t do that!”

“You fell asleep.”

“Yeah well, I… Maybe I need the rest! We’re supposed to be on break, after all.” A smile curled onto Langa’s lips as Reki flopped to the side, still whining. “Can’t we go out and skate instead? This is so boring.”

Langa sighed, slumping his back against Reki’s bedframe. His eyes didn’t shift away from the body on the floor, his eyes trailing across the sun-kissed skin, his gaze forming constellations with the pale freckles that ornated Reki’s face. Or at least, he did so until he noticed what he was doing. Quickly, he shook his head, the words he had meant to say finally tumbling out.

“I can’t today. My mom is going to kill me if I don’t show Emmy around like I promised.”

Reki shifted on the floor, slumping his back against his closet door to face Langa. The short-lived nap must have gotten to the boy, his eyes a little duller than usual as he stared at Langa. They lacked their usual shine of excitement, instead seeming a little foggy.

“Your girlfriend?”

“Cousin, Reki. She’s my cousin.” Langa shook his head at the boy. “I don’t know how many times I have to tell you that she’s my cousin and not my girlfriend.”

 Had he lacked the self-control, Langa would have muttered something about being too gay to have a girlfriend, but instead, Langa bit his tongue and simply watched Reki squirm across from him. Maybe he should have said something. Maybe if he had said it, Reki would stop assuming every girl in his life was his girlfriend. It was always “How is it possible that you, Prince Langa, haven’t at least had a girlfriend back in Canada?” and never why he didn’t have a boyfriend. Then again, it may have been rude to assume someone was gay.

 Langa huffed, thinking back to the time he had managed to render Reki speechless. It didn’t often happen, but with just enough confidence, he was capable of anything, even rendering Reki speechless. It was a surprising moment, really; he hadn’t done much besides lean closer to Reki with a smirk, asking him if he was jealous of the girl who had just asked him out. He hadn’t expected such a strong reaction from Reki, flames taking over his face as his eyes grew wide, his voice cracking over fragments of words and stammering worse than usual before stuffing his hands in the pockets of his hoodie and kicking his skateboard into motion. He had rarely raced off so quickly and Langa swore he heard Reki mutter something resembling a yes, but that must have been wishful thinking. If Reki were to be jealous, it wasn’t of the girl; he, too, deserved to be asked out and gifted chocolates and love confessions every other week, even if the thought of it made Langa’s stomach twist.

“Can I come with?” Langa blinked at the boy who was once again sprawled across the floor. “I’m just so bored at home!”

Langa shrugged, closing his textbook. Thinking he’d get any extra work done was purely hopeful and naïve thinking. “Sure, but Emmy’s not exactly… fluent in Japanese.”

“Neither are you.” There was a beat of silence. Then Reki sat up again. “Wait, no. You’re pretty fluent, just…” Reki reached out, his fingers curling around one of Langa’s notebooks and flipping through the pages. “You write like shit, dude. How do you even revise with these notes?”

Heat formed under Langa’s cheeks as he snatched his notebook back. “I’m not that bad!”

 “Pretty sure the twins have better handwriting than you and they’re not even in school yet!”

“You know what?” Langa got up, half-glaring at Reki as he messily stuffed his homework back into his bag. “No, no you can’t come. You’re going to have to deal with your boredom all on your own.”

“No!” Arms wrapped around the boy’s ankles, not letting him move away from the body on the floor. “C’mon! Don��t be like that! I’m sorry! I’m just teasing!”

Sometimes, Langa’s cold exterior came in handy. It took a lot for him to crack, no matter how badly he wanted to smile or laugh. He was more than aware that Reki was just teasing him – not that he was wrong; Langa’s handwriting really was shit – but part of him wanted him to feel at least a little bit bad. Nothing major, not for too long – he wasn’t evil after all – but just for a bit. Or maybe he was evil. Was it evil to purposefully make your best friend feel bad after he just insulted your handwriting? Langa didn’t know; he had never had friends who would tease him the way Reki did.

“C’mon dude, please? Please let me come?”

“Fine.” A smile finally blossomed across Langa’s face as Reki let go of his ankles. “But I’m not translating your endless rambles about boards. You go way too fast and the words are just gonna…”

The softness of Reki’s smile as he got up to be eye level with Langa almost made him melt. “I know, man. I know you have a hard time switching between languages.”

Reki was always so understanding. While his brain was constantly buzzing, ideas bouncing around at the speed of light, Langa’s seemed to shut down at the most unfortunate times. Whenever he needed it to work for him, such as when he was put on the spot and was expected to give an answer, it just decided to go on vacation, leaving him a silent, panicking mess. Or at least, he felt like a panicking mess; others, more often than not, either assumed he was too cool to be answering questions or that he was a total airhead, which he guessed was fair. Maybe he was a little bit of an airhead at times, but most of the time, it was just his brain refusing to cooperate with him. Most of the time, it was the anxiety, or maybe it was just all those high expectations. Regardless of what it was, all he knew was that when someone asked him for an answer, he froze up.

A few people had asked how it was that he was so bad at everything except skateboarding, but he hadn’t given them an answer. Except for Reki. He had answered Reki, but that was probably because Reki had been gentler when asking how it was possible for Langa to know all the answers when it came to skateboarding. And he had answered honestly: he didn’t think then he was skating. He was good at it because he didn’t think; everything went so fast, he didn’t have time to think. He just acted, all his answers for himself and himself alone. He didn’t need to be in someone else’s head when finding answers. He just had to do what felt right to him. Nobody expected anything of him, nothing except what he normally did which was what he wanted.

Skateboarding was easy. People… not so much.

“Quit overthinking this. I’m sure we’ll manage something. And if not, we’ll just mime stuff at each other until we get each other.”

A light chuckle escaped Langa as Reki mimed miming, his arms waving through the air. He had no idea what the boy was trying to communicate with his charade, but neither one lingered too much on that. Instead, he calmed, his focus suddenly lingering on the small point of contact between the two boys, the warmth of Reki’s body against his.

“You know,” his voice was back to its usual coolness, though he could feel a stutter on the tip of his tongue, “there is this thing called a translator app. Not perfect, but better than me.”

“Aw, man, don’t be so hard on yourself!” Reki leaned even more into Langa, his head on the boy’s shoulder. “I’m sure you’re gonna be a great translator!”

As Reki peeled himself off of Langa, the warmth dissipated almost immediately, leaving Langa cold once more. Despite the sun beaming down on all of Okinawa, Langa still felt cold when Reki wasn’t next to him, touching him, cuddling him. It wasn’t weird for best friends to cuddle, was it? People could cuddle platonically, right? It had to be a thing. Girls did it all the time at school, all huddled together, some on each other's laps, arms linked as they giggled together. So it wasn’t weird to have Reki cuddled into his side while they watched skateboarding videos, buried under blankets, in the dead of the night.

“C’mon, man! You’re zoning out on me again! Race you to your place?”

Langa blinked a few times before giving him a curt nod, dropping his skateboard and pushing off after Reki. He wasn’t going to think about cuddling Reki. Nope. No way. Not happening.

Once again, it wasn’t hard to spot the girl sitting on the curb of the road. Her blond hair shone under the hot summer sun, bright against the dull color of the apartment building. Her phone screen also helped with the shine, rays of sunlight reflecting off of it as she continued scrolling mindlessly. If Langa had to describe the girl, phone-addict was one of the first things he’d say; she didn’t do much other than scroll through the countless apps she had. Really, all she did was pull her knees to her chest and stare at a screen all day, which was probably why Langa’s mother had asked for him to take her out for the day.

At the sound of the screeching wheels of two skateboards coming to a halt, Emily lifted her head, seeming a little disoriented. She blinked at them, as if not recognizing the boy in front of her, but as soon as the connections were made in her brain, a grin broke across her face as she bounced up.

“About time you got here! I’ve been–!”

Brown eyes flickered towards Reki, a color breaking across her cheeks as she bit her lower lip. Her fingers picked and pulled at her phone case, a nervousness so uncharacteristic from the girl Langa remembered from his childhood, and yet, it made him bite back a smile.

“Hello, I mean,” she fumbled with her words and her phone, worse than Langa had on his arrival in Japan. “Hello,” she repeated in highly English-accented Japanese.

A cold sweat swept over Langa. As much as he wanted to laugh at the girl and her struggles, he was suddenly more concerned and aware of his own presence. Was he to play translator or was he supposed to let her try and communicate on her own? Was it rude to let her struggle or would it be ruder to cut her off and just tell her that he’d translate whatever she said? Had it been a mistake to let Reki join him today? Should he have told him that he was busy and couldn’t come with him?

“Hello, I… I hope I not…” Reki leaned closer, whispering to Langa in his native Japanese. “How do you say ‘intruding’ in English?”

“Bother.” The English rolled off of his tongue far more naturally than the Japanese ever did despite having spent years speaking it and having lived in Japan for the past year. “I hope I’m not bothering.”

“Bot–! Bot… I…” Reki grinned, pointing at Langa. The clunky attempt at English was quickly replaced by a smooth Japanese. “That! Whatever Langa said, that.”

It would have been easy to have ignored the situation, make nothing of it. Nothing spectacular had happened, after all; Reki had tried to speak English just as Emily had attempted to speak Japanese. Except everything had happened and Langa felt like he could just die. And not just because he would have to play interpreter between Reki and Emily.

It was ridiculous, really. It had no business making his heart skip a beat in his chest the way it did. It wasn’t even like it was the first time he was hearing Reki try to speak English! And yet, here Langa was, the corners of his eyes prickling with potential tears, the urge to curl up in a ball on the ground, knees pressed to his chest, stopped by the mere fact that he was not dramatic by nature.

Reki was cute. Reki was absolutely adorable and it was going to kill Langa. His accent was everything, an accent Langa had never really noticed since Reki never spoke English aside from the couple of words he had to utter during English classes. And Langa had never really thought about speaking English with Reki; the most that would happen would be him turning a word over in his mouth until he found the Japanese translation. He had never seen Reki try so hard to communicate in a langue that wasn’t his own, the concentration so visible on his face as he tried to repeat the words Langa had given him. And when the sheepish grin spread across his face as he gave up? That was it. Langa was gone. Langa was lost to the brightness of the boy, to his ridiculously adorable ways. How was it possible that he had somehow gotten even cuter than he already was?

“Hey, Langa?” Emily’s voice drew Langa back to reality, her fingers curled around his forearm. “You good there? You look like you’re about to have a panic attack.”

“Cute attack actually.”

The words were already out by the time Langa was clasping his hands over his mouth, eyes widened with shame. It was too late; there was no taking them back now. They were out for the world to hear rather than in the safe space in the corner of his mind. His deepest, most embarrassing thoughts had been verbalized, and there was no doubt about that given the way Emily was biting her lip, failing to conceal her laughter.

“You…” A snort escaped the girl, her laughter falling like a waterfall now. “You have it so bad! How have you not slipped up yet?”

“This is your fault!” Heat rose to Langa’s cheeks as he hissed at the girl. “This is all your fault! You—!"

The corner of Langa’s eyes caught on a wisp of red, red that drew him in as always. Amber eyes had been cast down, staring at his fingers picking at the fraying hem of his sleeve. There was a shadow over Reki’s usual brightness, a shadow Langa had learned to quickly notice. It came with the tugging of sleeves, something Reki only did when he was uncomfortable. Something he only did when he felt unwanted. Something he only did when he felt out of place, the last thing Langa wanted him to ever feel; Reki should never feel out of place next to Langa.

“Reki?”

“It’s okay, Langa. I… I’ll just go home. I’m sure I can do something for my mom and you, well, it’ll be easier for you.” He forced a smile as his eyes met Langa’s. The grin looked as fragile as Langa’s heart. “You’ll come around later? Or like, you’ll text me tonight?”

“No.” A pause. Downcast eyes and slender fingers grabbing for the soft yellow fabric. “Yes. No, Reki. Please.” The eyes rose like sunshine in the morning, pulling a grateful smile from Langa. “Please don’t go. I… I want you here.”

“And,” the voice was shaky but held a lot more confidence than what Langa had mustered up all those months ago when he first arrived in the new country, “I understand. Just… Just go slow please?”

The Japanese words were slow and slightly butchered by an English accent, but still, they left a pool of relief in Langa’s chest. He wouldn’t have to translate everything, all the back and forth between Emily and Reki. He wouldn’t have to play interpreter, a job he knew he was terrible at. He’d just get to sit back and listen, something he enjoyed quite a bit; talking was such a tiring thing.

“When’d you…”

The question wasn’t fully out by the time Emily was looking at him, her eyebrow arched, some sort of invitation for Langa to finish his sentence. She often did that, looking at him in a way that meant “go on, I dare you.” But Langa knew better. He knew she knew the rest of the question without needing him to spell it out for her. She was good at predicting what would come next; or maybe Langa was predictable when it came to his questions.

“I’ve been practicing a bit.”

The girl shrugged as she turned on her heel, turning her attention to Reki. So that was why she was using a lot more words than he remembered her knowing. And sure, they weren’t perfect, far from Reki’s native Japanese, but it was nonetheless impressive to Langa. After all, out of the two, he was by far the more “Japanese” one.

Back in Canada, he was the one that people went to when looking for a “foreign” kid, despite his light hair and blue eyes. He was the one people heard speak Japanese with his parents. He was the one that had weird things in his lunches, which now that he thought about it, weren’t even that weird. He was the one that looked the most Asian when he stood next to Emily, Emily with her big brown eyes and her glistening blond hair. Out of the two, he was the one that had embraced the Asian heritage a lot more. Or maybe, he just grew up in an environment where being Asian didn’t mean being a freak. Or maybe he was just used to being alone while Emily hated it. Who really knew.

None of that really mattered anyway. They weren’t grade-school kids back in North America anymore. They weren’t the strange kids that didn’t look like the others anymore. Well, yes, they still were, but they were older and it didn’t really matter anymore. What mattered right now was that Emily had her arm looped with Reki’s, her shoulder pressed to his as they walked ahead, chatting like old friends. Fragments of Japanese and English words filled the air, both stumbling over the language they still struggled with. Reki still mostly answered in Japanese, his flow simply slowed down quite a bit in hopes of Emily grasping at least a part of the meaning of his words, while she simply repeated English words over and over again until the Japanese equivalent made its way on her tongue. They both made such efforts to understand each other, eyes bright as they went back and forth. Both seemed so happy in each other’s company that now, it was Langa’s turn to feel out of place. It was his turn to stand back, kicking rocks as he followed them like a sad puppy.

“So, any lucky girls in your life?”

If he hadn’t been grasping the words thrown around before, this series of words didn’t fly high over his head. These ones struck a chord within him. These words had been unmissable and unmistakably Emily’s attempt at getting fresh gossip. She was going to badger Reki until someone snapped, though it was unclear in Langa’s mind who would snap first.

“Emily…”

His voice was low and warning, a tone he hadn’t heard out of himself in ages, and yet, it didn’t chill the girl the way it had chilled him. If anything, she looked amused at his tone, grinning over her shoulder as her eyes twinkled. As always, there was that mischief, mischief that scared Langa more than he could ever scare her.

“Cool it, Twig Boy.” Slick English filled the air, her words like a song unlike the clunkiness of her Japanese. “I ain’t tryin’ to steal your man. Just trying to figure him out, y’know?”

She shot him a wink which made his stomach turn. She knew what she was doing to him, no doubt about it. She knew he hated every moment of this. She knew the power she had over him, the power to drive him to insanity. And yet, she didn’t make any sign of stopping. If anything, she did the opposite, turning to Reki with a grin.

The boy glanced awkwardly between the two. Confusion glazed his eyes, a look which normally would have worried Langa but left him with unnatural relief. By his look, there was no way he had understood the English. He was left in the dark. He was left at Emily’s mercy.

“Well?” She leaned into him, her blonde locks nearly mingling with the wild red wisps. “Girls? Pretty ones? Interesting ones?”

Reki’s eyes grew wide before softening again and falling to the ground in front of him, vanishing from Langa’s view.

“Ah, well…”

Langa had seen that movement a thousand times already, but never did he get used to it. His eyes always followed the freckled skin, the calloused fingers as they reached for Reki’s neck, rubbing the spot sheepishly. Who knew what the boy’s face looked like; was he blushing? Was he thinking about some of the pretty girls from around town, from school, from S? Langa would have loved to know what Reki was thinking, who he was thinking of, but Reki’s mind was a forbidden place. No one but Reki was allowed into his thoughts.

“No, not really. I… I don’t know? I mean, I, I haven’t really had time to think about girls? With skating and school and all that? My mom’s not super happy about my grades, so I can’t go ‘round thinking ‘bout girls all the time, y’know?”

A nervous chuckle fell from Reki’s lips as he glanced back at Langa. Big amber eyes shot a shiver down Langa’s spine as a relieved sigh left his lips. No girls. Reki wasn’t thinking about girls, not that Langa wasn’t aware of this. Or rather, Reki had never brought one up to him and Langa, perhaps naively, believed it meant that none had caught his eye.

There only ever had been boards for Reki; it was all he would gush about. It was always “Look at the shape of this one!” or “The colors look freaking awesome when you flip this one!” and never… whatever it was that straight boys said about girls. Girls had never been an issue, and Langa couldn’t have been more thankful. He had no idea what he would have done if Reki had confided in him about a crush on some girl in their class. Or one of the older girls that S. Was Reki maybe into older girls? He talked to a lot of girls their age but never mentioned any, but he rarely talked to the older ones under the harsh midnight lights at S. Maybe he was too shy around them because he found them pretty. Or maybe he—

“What about boys?”

“Emily!”

The name tumbled out of Langa’s mouth quicker than his mind was going. Reki wasn’t into any girls, he had just confirmed that despite Langa’s racing thoughts. Reki was still just Reki, his Reki, his best friend. But such a confirmation didn’t mean that he had any interest in guys! Emily was just being annoyingly nosy, asking inappropriate questions to someone she essentially just met.

“What?”

She had that shit-eating grin on her face again, the one Langa knew too well, the one that more often than not made his cheeks burn bright. There was no blaming the sun for this one; the blush was there, probably a deep crimson, and it was definitely that she-devil’s fault. It was her fault and… and… It was her fault because she couldn’t ask Reki questions like that! They were uncalled for and inappropriate! And Reki absolutely did not need to answer or—

“No? I mean, I don’t know? I…” Reki rubbed his nose with the sleeve of his hoodie, the yellow bright like the sun, the yellow giving his pretty face a glow like the setting sun. “I haven’t thought about it?”

The hesitation in Reki’s voice made Langa’s heart skip a beat. What was it doing there? Reki didn’t have to seem bashful or anything about it; he could have easily just said no and moved on with his life. But it was there, clear as day, clear as the blush that Langa tried desperately to make disappear. Perhaps he had just misunderstood the question. Maybe that hesitation stemmed from him trying to decipher what Emily was trying to say to him rather than a consideration of what she was saying, since he didn’t like boys. It was just obvious: Reki did not like boys, at least not the same way Langa did. Reki liked girls and that was that.

“Do you—”

“How about,” Langa squeezed between the two, pushing Emily away a little forcefully. She stumbled next to him, snapping her mouth shut as her words vanished from existence. She shot him a look that Langa ignored, simply grabbing both Reki and Emily by the wrists and dragging them along. “How about we go grab something to eat? Since I’m supposed to be a tour guide, we might as well—”

“Explore what you know best?”

Emily burst out laughing at Reki’s proud grin. And Langa couldn’t even bring himself to be mad at the boy; he was right after all. All he really knew was where he could fill his stomach. All he really knew were the places where he and Reki fit in best, sunken deep into an old booth, two best friends sharing a carton of fries and occasionally some sickly-sweet drink at the crack of dawn.

 “Let’s just go.”

The words were accompanied by a sigh, but the smile didn’t even try to cover itself. How could Langa try to seem frustrated when Reki was smiling like that? How could he even dare try to seem annoyed when Reki was there? It was impossible to try and act like he would have rather be alone.

And Reki, he didn’t seem like he was less excited at the prospect of getting food with his best friend. Or with Emily. Who knew who Reki was more excited about, not that Langa would try to pull the answer out of the boy. Emily, on the hand, still seemed ready to go fishing for more information, yet another thing Langa wouldn’t allow to happen.

Today just wasn’t the day Langa would try to open the can of worms called sexuality. Today wasn’t the day he’d try to learn if Reki exclusively liked girls or not. Today wasn’t the day he would be finding out if all his terrible attempts at flirting had been in vain or not. No, today was going to be the day where he got himself a burger and just spent a nice day out, not getting his life turned inside out by some nosy cousin he hadn’t seen in forever. Today was not the day he was going to be dealing with yet another emotional crisis.

#renga #sk8 #lils write #self reblog

[lils-writes]

"It's been another year, huh."

Reki chuckled as he set down his paintbrush to pick up his phone. A notification flashed across his screen, Langa's Birthday surrounded by far too many emojis reminding him of the date. The reminder was set to reappear every year, even if it had been so long since the last time he'd seen the guy. And Reki knew he could have deleted the reminder — he didn't need it after all — but he couldn't bring himself to do such a thing. This felt like the last piece of his youth, one that he couldn't just delete, as easy as it seemed.

Out of habit, his fingers slid across the screen, unlocking the phone. It took a bit of scrolling before finding the conversation with Langa, the picture of a 17-year-old boy biting into a sandwich making him chuckle a bit more. A picture from a lifetime ago; a picture of when time seemed to have stopped for them. And clicking on the conversation, it made Reki realize how long ago it truly was.

It had been deserted for years. He could still see the last words Langa had sent him almost half a decade ago: "Maybe next weekend? I have too much to do this week." The rest had just been Reki. It had just been Reki answering. And then it was a few months later, Reki wishing him a merry Christmas. And then more months later, wishing him a happy birthday. Then it was the yearly text, the happy birthday text which never got a reply.

He didn't have to keep doing it. Langa never answered anyway. For all Reki knew, Langa had changed numbers over the years! But still, his fingers tapped at the screen, an over-excited "happy 24th birthday man!!!!" being sent off. And just like every year, Reki watched the screen, hoping, praying for something to come his way.

He knew it was wishful thinking. He knew Langa wasn't going to answer. Langa probably didn't even see his messages. And yet, he still waited, watching the screen, hoping for something to come up. Maybe if he were patient enough, someone would reply. Probably not, but still.

A few minutes had ticked by the time Reki set his phone down. A few painfully slow minutes had gone by, nothing but the stillness of the world reminding him of his own existence. That was it. There wasn't going to be anything, just like the year before and the one before that. And yet, Reki knew he'd be at it again next year, this time for the big 25. Maybe for 25 Langa would reach out.

It had been a while since the last time Reki's heart had jumped the way it just did. It had been a while since the last time he had jumped on his phone, grabbing it as it chimed against his workbench. It had been a while since he had been this excited, grinning from ear to ear as he unlocked his phone, checking his texts. But just as quickly as it had appeared, the grin faded.

"Error — The number you are trying to reach is out of service."

So that was it. They didn't make it to 25. They hadn't made it. What Reki thought would be forever really wasn't. Forever never existed, did it?

He set his phone down, pushing it away alongside the lump that had formed in his throat. There was no reason for this to hurt so much; he hadn't heard of Langa in years, so why was this time different? Friendships aren't always forever, he knew that, but with Langa? He had hoped it would be different. But it hasn't, had it? Everyone leaves eventually.

#renga #sk8 #lils writes

[lils-writes]

Tussled Red Hair

“Mom! Mom! Mom! Mom! Mommy!”

“What is it, Reki?”

The child beamed as Masae turned her attention away from the stove. Laughter bubbled out of the woman as she watched her eldest bounce around the kitchen, babbling as usual. Childish laughter and excitement mixed; the happiness that filled the room was contagious. Smiles mirrored each other in the small kitchen, the small body clinging to Masae in a tight hug.

“And then Kimi said she had to go home, so it was just me at the park and that’s really boring. Mai said it was because I was weird and I should just stay home and that’s why no one wanted to play with me except Kimi but that’s not true. She also said that I have no friends and that Kimi is only nice to me because I give her cookies, but that’s also not true! I have lots of friends, like Komi! Komi will always be my friend, right mom?”

Bright amber eyes stared up at Masae and a pang of sadness hit the woman. Everything had been said in such a happy tone as if this was normal. It had been told as if Reki didn’t realize the implications of the other child’s words. It had been told as if child naivety sheltered the child from everything, an innocence that was both a blessing and a curse. Or maybe Reki consciously chose to ignore the implications, and Masae couldn’t decide whether that was better or worse. But before anything could be said, the one-sided conversation changed once more, Reki bouncing to the fridge and asking for snacks.

“Can I have cookies? Or do we have strawberries? Mom, I want strawberries.”

Masae sighed as she motioned Reki closer. Confusion filled the bright eyes, not quite dulling them, but playing with their color somehow. Still, the child complied, coming into her arms as she hugged Reki tightly and planted a kiss on the tussled red hair.

“Of course, sweetheart. You can even get a slice of cake with that if you want.”

A squeak escaped the child as the hug tightened before being released, but the smile didn’t falter for a moment. At least, not until fingers tangled into the knotted locks of hair, a frown spreading across Masae’s face as she inspected her eldest.

“Reki, what happened to your hair?”

Red flared across the child’s face, hands and long strands of hair trying to cover the color. Amber peaked through the spread-out fingers, bashfulness clear on the chubby little face. And as the hands were pulled down, small against Masae’s palm, cheeks were sucked in, Reki refusing to answer the question.

A sigh escaped the woman’s lips as she led them to the living room, pulling out a chair for Reki. Instinctively, the little body dropped itself onto the seat, waiting for Masae to return, a handy hairbrush in hand. It had become a routine for her to brush out the tangles from Reki’s hair, but still, she made a point to ask how it happened despite already knowing the answer. Reki wasn’t known to be the most careful on the playground, more busy playing tag with whoever wanted to play or picking flowers along the road to bring home.

“You know, Reki—” the child hummed, half-listening— “you have to be more careful. One day, I won’t be able to comb out all these tangles. There’s a reason I tie your hair up into a ponytail, and it’s not for you to lose your elastic for the thousandth time.”

 “But it’s heavy! And it hurts my head! And—”

Reki squeaked, grabbing onto the strand of hair that was being brushed out. Tears began to form at the corner of the amber eyes, a frown pulling at the corner of the mouth that had been smiling so brightly not too long ago. Pain, both in Reki’s eyes and in Masae’s chest. Pain.

“I’m trying my best, sweetie. I really don’t mean to hurt you.” It felt like she was pleading with the child, something deeper than just a bit of hair pulling. “It’s just that your hair is a mess and—”

“Then just cut it!” The cry felt louder than a thousand sirens going off at once. “Make it short like the boys! Boy hair doesn’t hurt and they don’t have to brush it or tie it and no one pulls their hair or calls them weird! They have short fluffy hair and I—” A sob choked the child, tears rolling down the child’s warm cheeks. “I don’t wanna have long hair anymore, mommy. I don’t wanna wear dresses and skirts to school anymore. Mommy, I… I…”

Masae pulled her eldest close, hushing the sobs. Promises she didn’t know if she could keep left her lips, promises she would fight to make come true. She didn’t know what Reki was saying to her exactly, but she knew something was being said. Something important was being said, something she didn’t even know if the 9-year-old understood, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t ready to listen. Whatever Reki said to her, she believed. Whatever it was that Reki was trying to communicate, she would listen. She would listen until it made sense. And once it made sense, she would not only listen; once it made sense, she would understand what her child was saying to her. But until then, she hushed her baby, whispering promises into the child’s hair, sweet words that seemed to calm the sobs.

“It’s okay, sweetheart. Mommy is here. Mommy will always be here, I promise. Whatever you want, mommy will do it for you. I promise you, Reki, whatever you want, I’ll be sure you have it. Whatever you need, mommy will be here to give it to you. I love you. I love you so much. So, I promise. I promise, Reki. I promise. I promise I’ll always be here for you.”

💛💛💛

“I’m going out with Langa! I’ll be back tomorrow!”

Masae sighed as a flash of red hair ran past the kitchen, the shouts echoing against the aging walls of the house. A smile curled on her lips as she shook her head, dusting off her apron and washing her hands. Boys, always so restless. Boys, always in a hurry. Or so she assumed, given how her own son was always everywhere at once. Everywhere except at his desk, doing homework as he should be.

“Reki.” Quiet filled the house. Quiet until a head poked into the kitchen, tussled red hair coming into view. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”

Reki pulled his eyebrows together, glancing around the kitchen. “I already did the dishes?”

Masae shook her head. “Try again.”

“I cleaned my room? Sorta?”

The woman chuckled as she opened her arms. “One more time, sweetheart.”

Laughter filled the air, the boy snorting as he got closer. His chin dropped onto his mother’s shoulder, his arms circling around her waist and holding her tight. It wasn’t every day she got a real hug from her son, but whenever it happened, Masae basked in the warmth.

He had grown so tall. He was so much bigger than she ever imagined her first baby could be. He was so tall and so brave. And no matter what anyone said, she had raised a good son. She had raised a strong young man, that she was sure of. She had raised her son the only way she knew: she had raised him with unconditional love, despite the many bumps along the road. She had raised this beautiful boy that still gave her the tightest hugs. She had raised his beautiful boy who pressed the most loving kisses to her cheek as he reminded her that he loved her and that he would call her later that night. She had raised the most beautiful boy she could imagine, a boy with fluffy short hair and who didn’t have to wear skirts and dresses anymore. She had raised her Reki, her sweet little Reki who was no longer so little.

“I promise to not do anything too stupid.”

“I love you, sweetheart. And I’m so proud of you.”

Reki peeled himself from his mother, raising an eyebrow. Perhaps he had grown big and tall, but the child he had once been was still there. He still had that sparkle in his eyes and he still had confusion playing with the color of his eyes. He was so different yet exactly the same. He was her Reki, her beautiful son.

“Go have fun with Langa. And say hi for me, alright?”

Bright amber eyes sparkled as a smile took over the boy’s face. “Yeah, of course!” And with a last quick kiss to her cheek, he ran off, noisily slipping his shoes on and grabbing his skateboard before half-slamming the door behind him.

“I’m so proud of you, Reki.” The words filled the empty kitchen. “I’m so proud of you for never giving up. And maybe I wasn’t always there for you, maybe I did break that promise a few times, but you still came through. You pushed even when I didn’t understand. And I still don’t always understand what goes through that crazy mind of yours, but you still never give up. And I’m proud of you. I’m proud of you for being you.”

#sk8 #trans!reki #lils writes

[lils-writes]

“Hey, Langa, sorry it took so long for me to—”

The room was plunged into darkness, but no shadows were cast across the walls despite the lamp that was still on. Midnight had fallen over the world, but to Reki, it still felt like midday. Or perhaps it felt like the sunset; a beautiful golden hour that left him feeling warm and looking over something beautiful.

A blue head of hair was sunken deep into his pillow. Langa’s breath was slowed and steady, his eyes shut and his face seeming so peaceful. Who knew how long he had been asleep, but that didn’t change anything. All Reki knew was that he was beautiful like that, more beautiful than anything he had ever seen in the past, and that the sight filled his chest with warmth. And when he found himself slowly approaching the boy and leaning over him, he knew the steadiness of his heart was nothing other than love. He loved Langa. He truly did.

Langa stirred as Reki pressed a kiss to his temple. He shifted on the mattress, his eyes still small with sleepiness. He seemed a little disoriented, most likely from being woken up unexpectedly in the middle of the night, but he didn’t stay awake much not longer. Not when Reki was whispering sweet nothings into his skin, pressing stray kisses here and there.

“Go back to sleep.”

“Reki?”

“Sleep, Langa. We can finish that project in the morning.”

“Please don’t go.”

Light laughter fell from Reki’s lips as he pressed another kiss to Langa’s cheek. Go? Where would he go? Not only would he never leave Langa, but the boy was also very conveniently half-asleep in Reki’s bed.

“I’m not going anywhere. Just gonna clean up a little and I’ll be back.”

“Love you, Reki.”

Another smile, even easier than the last.  So much easier as Langa pulled him closer, lips meeting in a kiss.

“I love you too.”

#I almost didn't reblog this one because I still dont like it but people seem to enjoy it so. #have it for now #renga #sk8 #lils writes