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trashlie · 1 month

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ILY FP 258

I can't believe we're actually passed episode 250 lmao I Love Yoo is truly the never ending story (affectionate). I appreciate how much of the story we really get to dig into at this pace and while I know a lot of people have long-since dropped it, I imagine the rest of us (those reading this post because why else are you here?) also appreciate it. And that's what is even more refreshing about this episode - if refreshing is even a word we can use to describe it. Getting the extra scenes from other characters, a look at their lives and from these glimpses, what we can glean in the unsaid between the lines.

Can you believe I used to prey on Kousuke's downfall? There's so many posts of me talking about him from a different view, believing that the only way he could grow and develop and make the changes necessary to make him a better person was for him to crash and burn, to fail so significantly that he would be forced to pen his eyes to reality. But here we are, me, fervently swaddling him up like a baby and shoving him into my pocket because GOD he needs to be protected.

I don't even remember when it was, that my view on him began to shift, when I went from "he's interesting but awful" to "GOD THIS IS MY SON AND I WILL FIGHT EVERYONE YOU HAVE TO GO THROUGH ME" but.... lol there's no going back!

That's enough rambling, let's jump in.

There is something so painfully devastating about every time ILY confirms to us something we have long-since known or suspected through nuance, foreshadowing, reading between the lines, etc: That Kousuke isn't Rand's biological son, that Shinae was at the formal for Gun Kim, that Kousuke has been manipulated his whole life. Nothing in this episode regarding Kousuke is actually new to us. We have known, and talked about, for months and months long before the confirmation reveal that Yui drugs Kousuke - that he has been manipulated by her his entire life, that she orchestrated his life to manipulate him into situations she could take advantage of. It's the way she spoke about Rand's affair around Kousuke, the way she commodified Rand's love so Kousuke became convinced he'd never earned his father's love, the way she spoke of their family vs others and convinced him from such a young age that everyone was out to get them, to destroy them, and that he couldn't let them get close, couldn't let them near - and how Nol was very much a target planted in his mind.

But it's the fact that he is speaking of this and acknowledging it! Until now, Kousuke has heavily lived in denial. Again, we know this. We talk a lot about the chasm between reality and the reality he believes in. We talk a lot about how Kousuke couldn't face reality, even though on some level he knew everything he believed and was told was not quite true not quite real, but that he was so afraid of the truth, he couldn't do it. Kousuke admitting that he's been driven by fear and envy explains everything about him, and why he could not accept the only unwavering unconditional love he was offered.

A few weeks ago I saw a video on instagram of this father talking about a conversation he had with his daughter, who was feeling a little uncomfortable with her friend group. A new girl started to play with her and her best friend and she said she wasn't exactly jealous, but that maybe it was that she was afraid that there wasn't enough love to go around. Her dad had to explain to her that love is not like a pizza - it's not finite, a limited amount that could be taken and hogged by someone else. But Kousuke never learned this. His father's love was commodified and he was made to fear this other kid who he mistakenly believed knew a version of his father he'd never been privy to. He never learned that love is finite, that Rand could have enough love for the both of them, and feared that Nol would hog it all - that he WAS hogging it all because whether or not it was good or bad, Nol received more attention that Kousuke did. And that speaks VOLUMES about how Kousuke sees Rand, what he thinks of their relationship. In his mind, he is still unworthy, that he's not noteworthy enough.

This part gets to me so badly. We, as omniscient readers, know that Rand has tried his best, but that Yui runs a spectacular interference with which he can't compete, largely because of the roles their family have placed them in - Rand the busy businessman, Yui the mommy homemaker. But no matter how hard he tries, it isn't good enough. Rand tries to reach Kousuke, but the manipulation and paranoia are so far gone that the times Rand does have the chance to convey his feelings, Kousuke can't even believe it, because he thinks he's not good enough to deserve that love, that he hasn't fully qualified for it yet. And despite that, Nol, who Kousuke feels hasn't done half of what he has to deserve Rand's love, gets the attention. It doesn't matter that it's negative attention, that Rand barks at Nol, that Nol feels Rand hates and regrets him, because ultimately, it's still more than Kousuke receives. And worse, to him, every time Rand is busy reprimanding Nol, he turns away from Kousuke to do it.

I want to make it clear that this is a deep trauma point of Kousuke's. He's never learned healthy love and the only person who gave him healthy love was someone he was set to fear and fight. Something I think about a lot is the flashback to Kousuke, in the bushes, watching Nessa and Nol's display of warm affection, before Yui appears literally looming before him. In that moment, he witnesses something he's been deprived of. "We're not like other families"'. He's told from a young age he shouldn't compare himself to those healthy families, to warm and affectionate relationships that he will not cultivate in this household. From such a young age it is normalized, that they aren't like others, that they are cold and distant. From a young age, he's made to stuff down his feelings, his tender wants and desires, in order to earn them. To be a good little boy who makes his parents proud. To make his father look his way.

There's also something about the way he says "I've been a good boy" that echoes Shinae learning she's been manipulated by Yui, devastated and angry and yelling about how she's been a good girl so why do these things keep happening to her, all she wanted to do was help her dad. Two people who, from a young age, felt they had to be so obedient, so good, to not be a burden, and despite following the rules, despite doing as they were told, despite trying to be whatever version of "good" they believed in, the world still beat them up and mistreated them. The world still punished them.

As Rin in our discord server pointed out, though, to some degree, Kousuke is very much a person who can - and does - act out, when he's emotionally high-strung. He's a volatile man, and it's largely to do with the fact that he's been drugged to placate him for so long. He never learned emotional regulation, he never learned how to deal with high-stress situations or to face conflict or to own up to things. This is something that some readers who hate Kousuke and expect him to act a certain way because of his age are missing. You don't just learn these things with age. You learn them with experience and Kousuke was deprived of the opportunity TO have those experiences. He never had to learn these behaviors, and now as an adult he cannot function when overwhelmed.

Idk this whole episode is just heartbreaking. It's devastating. I remember when I was someone praying on Kousuke's downfall and now I want to take it all back ;___; I always believed he had to crash and burn to be able to see the world for what it really was and to face his fears, but this is somehow so much worse.

And even though he's drunk, I don't think he's going to forget all of this in the morning. Rather, I think what he's voicing are things that have been plaguing him since waking up in the hospital. From that moment, we saw him wary and distrustful of his mother, we saw his concern for Nol rising above everything else, but grappling with the understanding that he doesn't deserve to stand in front of Nol anymore. These aren't epiphanies coming to him just because he's drunk; it's more like he's only voicing them because he's drunk. But even when he sobers up, he will probably still be haunted by these fears, these agonies, these truths, this understanding.

How does he face his mother after this? How does he face anyone? He may not even feel like he can trust Jayce - who while very kind to him, is still employed by his family. He may not even feel like he can trust Hansuke (though I really hope that's not the case).

He's so miserable and it genuinely hurts to have him lay it all out for us - everything we've known and suspected, like how it was so painfully clear he WANTED Nol's friendship, their brotherhood, but feared it, didn't believe that there was enough love to go around, that there could only be one of them and that even if it was for good or bad reasons, Nol cast him in the shadow. And all these years, watching as Nol, as Yeonggi, grew into this person who sounded so very much like this unknown version of their father, someone funny who makes others laugh, someone goofy, someone so boyish in the ways Kousuke was never allowed to be. Watching as he gathers friends, while Kousuke, so unlikeable, is wanted only for his money, for his status, for the clout.

He doesn't even know WHO HE IS! Questioning his own traits he's believed of himself, wondering if this is even him, if these parts of him are real or does he just act it, say it, pretend it, while trying to fulfill a role he was shoved into. That makes me feel SO deeply sad, because it's something I've been anticipating for so long: Kousuke wondering WHO he really is, how much of him is real and how much of it is the result of manipulation.

And that moment that he catches himself and says no no that's offensive and rude you can't be like that. ;AAA;

For him to admit how much he envies others, how much he craves the kind of connection others have, the kind of family others have, to feel that love and warmth that he's been deprived of, forced to endure this solitude because, as he believes, he didn't get the good parts of Rand. And what will happen when he learns that Rand isn't his father? That he never stood a chance to inherit any of those traits. Kousuke has operated on this belief that, if he tries hard enough, he can earn the things he craves, but I fear learning about his parenthood will make him think that no matter how hard he tried, he would never earn that, because none of it was ever him, could have gone to him.

I think this is where Shinae, in the future, will come in. I feel so very strongly that she will be someone who helps Kousuke to see that this isn't true, that these kinds of personality traits aren't something inherited, but rather something learned. For him to one day realize it's the paralyzing fear that holds him back, not his genetics. Of course, I acknowledge this will still take a lot of therapy but...

Something else very remarkable to me is the way Kousuke recognizes Shinae in Shinhye, because their eyes "feel the same" and he opens up to her - on some level, whether or not he is consciously aware of it, Kousuke knows, or maybe just wants to, that he can trust Shinae. That she is someone who is safe. He even knows how she feels about his mother. I don't think we'll see a lot of Kousuke and Shinae's friendship until we're passed our timeskips, but it makes me feel a little hopeful about it, that she'll be able to reach him, because she feels like someone who is safe. It's the way he sees Nol in her and wants to try to have that do over, a relationship with someone who has unconditional love for him. It's the way he knows he mistreated Nol, that it was wrong, that he took it all out on this kid he was so afraid of because he had no other outlet, and he wants to do better but knows that there's nothing to salvage anymore.

But also, it just makes me hope more and more that in the future we WILL see a reconciliation between the brothers. As I say every time, it doesn't mean they have to become brothers or friends, but I just want them to see each other fully. Kousuke knows what he did to Nol. He doesn't deny it, even if he might not say it out loud unless he's drunk. But Nol is still so in the dark. Yujing is trying to tip him off and make him aware of it, but I hope one day when Nol realizes it, when he finds out that Kousuke, too, was Yui's victim, that he wasn't the only one, that Kousuke was made to fear Nol's love, he might.... understand. I'm saying understand here loosely because I don't want people to get the idea that I mean Nol will forgive him and Kousuke will be justified, but rather that Nol would be able to understand why Kousuke felt that way, and move on. But I can't help but hope that it will lead to an understanding, a reconciliation, where maybe they can try to be in each other's lives.

I think it's also interesting that Shinhye was somewhat honest, even if she wasn't very forthcoming, with Kousuke about her own family. It sounds like her mother has been gone for a long time, that she's been on her own the whole while, and I think it reinforces the idea that she believes both that Simhan is her father and that he rejected her, that he didn't want anything to do with her. It lines up, too, with how she feels that he wouldn't react well if he saw her (although I think she credited that to looking like their mother). In the same way that Shinae has felt abandoned and cast aside by their mother, Shinhye probably thinks their father never tried reach out, to find them, to maintain a relationship with her. Or perhaps it's that her mother fed her lies about him, made her believe him a different type of man, made her believe there would never be anything of their relationship to salvage. And given that she's the one who Kousuke opened to, it makes me think that there must be some kind of parallel there; the way she mentioned her own mother feels like maybe her mother, too, was a manipulative - or at the very least, dishonest - person.

I don't speculate a lot on Shinhye because frankly I don't think I know enough about her to really try to talk about her, but I do think that it's very likely there's some kind of connection between Shinhye and the Hirahras or Gun. To be clear, I don't believe she's working with Yui at all. I think it's more like... Alyssa isn't the only girl who has been trafficked by Gun. What's the likelihood that Shinae and Shinhye's mother was? Given her history, the gambling addiction that was so egregious her reputation haunted Shinae and chased her to a new neighborhood and school, was she seeking money somewhere else, somewhere more dangerous? Is that part of why they had to change their name? There's so many questions left about them, and I look forward to learning more about her, but, much like with Alyssa, I think it will take time and be dropped in little tidbits like this - things to read into and try to glean something from.

And maybe we'll see more of this duo in the future? It would feel a little weird to give them this one single run in, but I'm not entirely sure. Quimchee likes to keep us on our toes. After all, Minhyuk and Shinhye have also had only the one run in. Still, I think it would be interesting to watch, if Shinhye ever felt.... I want to say maybe compelled? to dig in more to Kousuke, ever feel a kind of kinship. I don't think she'll open up to him at all, but rather, maybe she'd keep going back because a. he's wealthy and there's more she can nick from him (assuming he doesn't realize she stole anything while in his apartment, if he even remembers any of this) and b. wanting to gather more intel.

Like I said though, she's hard to read so I don't want to cling too hard to any ideas and, instead, sit back and enjoy the show.

#ILY Brainrot #ILY FP #ILY Spoilers #I Love Yoo #Kousuke Hirahara #Shinhye #idk what to tag her as because we know she isn't known as Shinhye anymore #and because Simhan and their mother never married AND she was from a previous relationship Yoo isn't even her family name #so I can't really use Shinhye Yoo lol #alas #anyway this episode was DEVASTATING and quimchee said it's the beginning of the sad episodes meant to happen in March #literally said 'It's all downhill from here'#which I take to mean til the timeskip #BUCKLE UP BABIES WE'RE GOING FOR A BIG CRY SESH ;______;#i gotta say tho this episode didn't even make me cry - i guess because none of this is new and I've been bracing myself for it #Kousuke is so fucking wet cat it agonizes me ;_____;#I could write a whole essay on how Yui destroyed him and Nol in one fell swoop #i think a lot about precocious little Kousuke who tried so hard to be a good little boy and rushed through school because he wanted so badl #to hurry up and catch up to his father and join him in the workplace #all the opportunities he lost #the way he tried to fit himself into a personality a person he never picked out but just believed would get him what he wanted #he lost himself in the process #or maybe he never even got to know himself #i think too a lot about Kousuke who played piano and gave it up when he came to believe it wasn't important to his dad #that it didn't garner the attention and praise he seeked #so he dropped it to better mold himself into someone he thought Rand WOULD be proud of #FUCKING DEVASTATED #I'M GOING TO JUMP OFF THE ROOF SOBS

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sesamestreep · 10 months

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Jyn/Cassian, 14

14. All my days, I’ll know your face. (from this prompt list) cross-posted to ao3 here, with content warnings and tags galore, since this one gets a little heavy... It's a Cloak & Dagger AU, it's for Zainab's birthday, it's almost a year since she sent me this prompt, just go with it! If you want to know what you're getting into beforehand, read it on AO3, please! Much love and happy belated birth to you, @firstelevens, you are theeeee best!

xvii. the moon

Jyn wakes up from the dream again. The one where she’s drowning. She’s ten years old, still wearing her clothes from ballet class, sitting in the back of her father’s car, which hass just gone off the side of the bridge into the water and it’s starting to sink. Her father is already dead in the driver’s seat and she’s never been able to tell if that’s a mercy or not, that the dream doesn’t even allow her the fictional opportunity to save him. It always starts with them already in the water. And then it ends with the same fade to darkness as a hand reaches out and pulls her to safety.

It’s a dream, of course, but it’s also a memory. One largely influenced by her childhood imagination and fears and flights of fancy and therefore pretty untrustworthy, as far as she’s concerned, but a memory nonetheless. She and her father did get in a car accident, one where he died and she survived. The rest probably doesn’t matter much, she tells herself as the gurgling waters of her dream melt into the sounds of her alarm and she finally, fully wakes.

She nearly smacks her phone off the crate she’s using as a makeshift nightstand in her hurry to get rid of the noise. She would never have set the damn thing to “relaxing” babbling brook sounds knowingly. She’s not fond of water and doesn’t find its noises soothing, for obvious reasons. She’d rather wake up to the most obnoxious beeping known to man than this shit. No wonder she’s having nightmares.

She grumbles as she rolls herself over in the sleeping bag she’s using in lieu of an actual bed while she stays here. According to the signage posted out front, this building is technically condemned, but it suits her purposes just fine. She is always welcome at her mother’s house, or so her mother says, but being welcome somewhere isn’t the same as being at home, she’s realized. Staying with her mother means supporting her mother’s bullshit, and dealing with her disappointment, and putting up with her questions. It’s better for everyone if Jyn lives on her own, even if it’s in a condemned shithole like this place. What little of its original architecture that remains suggests it used to be a church, which is pretty bleak, but the price (free of charge) is right, so she pretends not to care.

She might start giving up these afternoon naps, if she’s just going to have bad dreams all the time. They’re supposed to help her so she can stay up late and work and make more money—maybe even enough to afford a real apartment with an actual shower—but lately they’ve been leaving her more drained than if she hadn’t even slept. She’s got to get ready now—the idiot rich kids going out on the town tonight aren’t going to rob themselves, after all—but she can’t bring herself to move. It’s only when she realizes that going back to sleep might put her back in that sinking car that she manages to convince herself to get up.

vii. the chariot

Cassian stares at the ceiling of his childhood (and current) bedroom and thinks, not for the first time, of how they missed a few glow-in-the-dark stars when he decided such things were for babies and told Maarva they could take them down. She’d hidden her expression of disappointment under something more bright-eyed and understanding quickly but not fast enough that a twelve year old Cassian hadn’t seen it. Before he could take it back, she was already moving briskly to get the step ladder. That’s how Maarva handled everything after his father’s death: briskly and head on. Even when she hated what she was doing. Every challenge in life was like getting a shot at the doctor’s office: just a quick pinch and then it’s over.

It’s that kind of attitude, he knows, that’s made her so successful and transformed her into a sort of pillar of the community. She started as a member of a variety of citizen’s action groups and a leader for the local chapter of NOW and then moved her way up up to a seat on the city council. Cassian admires her for that, the way she’s turned grief into purpose, but he’s always felt less adept at it than she is. Sometimes he’s consumed with guilt that his grief has mostly just stayed as grief. He knows he could be doing more, and he knows she wishes he was too. It’s a lot to bear. It’s a lot of emotion for a couple of glow-in-the-dark stars.

He decides to get out of bed and do something with his day rather than sit here and contemplate any of this further. Downstairs in the kitchen, he 's alone just long enough to pour himself a glass of orange juice before Maarva appears with her phone pressed to her ear. She kisses him on the cheek as she goes by and Cassian hears hold music on the other end of her call, which means he's in for it.

"Did you sleep well?" she asks pleasantly as she moves to pour herself some coffee.

"Well enough," he replies, because anything else will be met with a deluge of concern that he doesn't want right now. He leaves out the part where he dreamed about the night Clem died—the one where Cassian himself almost drowned—again. He'd gone years without having that dream, to the point that he'd thought himself past it, only to have them come back with a vengeance when he moved home again after graduation. The superstitious part of him wants to blame New Orleans, with all of its supposed mystical powers, but rationally he knows it's just being back at home with reminders of his father everywhere. He didn't have this problem at school in New York, but he'd made the choice to come back and this is the cost of that decision.

Maarva nods approvingly and takes a sip of her coffee. "I assume that means you'll be working on internship applications today."

Cassian sighs. He has only been done with his summer internship at the state house in Baton Rouge for a few weeks and his mother has been on his case about what's next since the moment he got home from his last day. "I'm trying, Ma, honestly, but nagging isn't going to make an opportunity instantly materialize. You know that."

"Neither will loafing around the house," she counters. "When you decided to take a year off between college and law school, you promised it wasn't an excuse to sit around and do nothing. I just want to be sure you're keeping up your end of the bargain."

Cassian knows a lot of parents who would have been thrilled to have their kids choose to come home right after college, but ever since he was young, the plan for him was that he'd get into a good college—Ivy League, preferably, which he'd managed—and then he'd go straight to law school and follow in his mother's footsteps to a career in politics. She'd always instilled in him that it was his responsibility to help make the world a better place. And after everything that had happened with Clem, it was the only path that made any sense. But his senior year at Columbia, after spending months studying for the LSAT, he'd found himself unable to go through with the exam. The idea of law school started to fill him with dread and he'd begun to miss deadlines. Eventually, he'd been forced to tell Maarva the truth—or, at least, part of it. He said that he wanted to take a gap year to volunteer and do internships to gain practical experience and figure out what kind of law he was most interested in. She'd taken the news better than he expected, but still with the vague attitude that he was only delaying the inevitable, which, in Maarva's world, always meant agreeing with her. She still fully anticipated he'd come to his senses and follow her into politics at the end of all this. And maybe he would, but he'd like to decide something—anything—for himself, for once. He told himself over and over that this was the point of the gap year, but in his heart, he wasn't truly convinced and clearly neither was Maarva.

"Yes, I promise," Cassian says, wearily. "I'll get some applications submitted before I go out tonight."

"What's tonight?"

He hesitates before answering but he doesn't love lying to his mother, so he prepares himself for an argument. "Bix invited me to a party that some friend of hers is throwing and I promised I'd go."

Maarva looks displeased, as expected. "Is that really the best use of your time?"

"If I get my work done today then, yes," he replies. "It's a Friday night. No one's going to be reading my applications after business hours anyway."

"You're not taking up with that crowd again, are you?"

"If by 'that crowd', you mean my friends from high school, then yes," Cassian says. "They've been giving me grief for being home all summer and working only an hour away and still never seeing them. They're going to be insulted if I don't go."

"That girl's a bad influence," Maarva says, shaking her head.

"And yet she's the only person you trust when your car starts making that weird noise," Cassian points out, rolling his eyes.

"She's a wonderful mechanic, I will give her that. But I never liked you dating her."

"We've been broken up for four years now! You don't have to worry about that anymore."

His mother raises an eyebrow at him. "You're sure about that?"

He groans in frustration. "Yes, I'm sure. Bix and I are just friends these days. And if I want to keep her—as a friend—I can't keep bailing on plans with her. Besides, didn't you raise me to be a man who honors his promises?"

Maarva smiles, reluctantly. "That is an ambitious argument for going to drink cheap beer in someone's basement ."

"You're the one who wants me to become a lawyer," he says. "Arguing is a pretty important part of the job, as I understand it. Besides, I think the party is in someone's backyard, not their basement."

"Good to see that Pre-Law program wasn't for nothing, " Maarva remarks, amused.

"You could also try to remember that I'm a responsible adult and you trust me," Cassian says, crossing his arms over his chest.

"That is true," she says, reaching out to squeeze his hand. "But it is my job to worry about you, as your mother."

"I understand that, but we've talked about reining in your expectations for me a little."

Maarva looks like she wants to argue with that, but a soft, tinny voice comes through the speaker of her phone, demanding her attention once more. "Yes, I'm still here," she says, to the person on the other end of the call. "Actually, give me one moment," she adds, putting her hand over the speaker. "Whatever you end up doing, don't drive home if you drink."

Cassian suppresses another eye roll. "Obviously not. Give me some credit, please!"

"Fine, then. Oh, and be sure to reply to your mother's email sometime today. She sent us that nice picture of Kerri at the state championships, remember?"

"I replied last night," he replies, exasperated. "Go back to your call."

Maarva nods, then, and gives him another kiss on the head before wandering off. Before she's even out of the room, she is already deep in some important conversation with the person on the other end of the phone, like nothing had interrupted her in the first place, and Cassian is left to finish his orange juice in relative peace.

i. the magician

The crowd at the club tonight is decidedly lackluster in Jyn's professional opinion. There's not enough trust fund kids partying alone for her usual grift and for whatever reason, any viable targets are looking right past her. She might as well be invisible. If she wasn't already planning on returning this dress (the tags are still on and tucked away so no one will notice them), she'd definitely be considering it now. It's clearly not doing her any favors.

Maybe she's just not in the right mood for this tonight. Her mark from last night had been a piece of work and said several vile things to her before the sedative she'd slipped into his drink took effect. Then again, she had turned around and robbed him of most of his valuables after that, so maybe they were even. If she didn’t need the money, she’d already be on her way home, but most of the things she fenced from last night didn’t net her much profit, so she’s got to find a way to turn this around.

At the exact moment she’s beginning to despair of her prospects, her phone lights up with a text from Bodhi.

wyd?

Bodhi works security at one of her usual nightclubs and she’d much rather be there tonight, except it’s his night off so there’s no one to get her on the list without paying the cover charge. This place is her second choice—one of the bouncers accepts the adderall that she liberates from her marks as payment—so she’s happy to hear from Bodhi instead.

at the second best club in NOLA rn, hbu?

Bodhi responds with a pinned location. It’s in the middle of the woods on the other side of town. Friend of a friend of a friend is throwing a party out here. Take a night off playing Artful Dodger and come hang...

can’t take a night off, but I’ll come steal where you are, if it’s all the same

just don’t get caught, okay? I can’t keep hooking you up if people catch on

be there soon

Jyn’s phone dings with a thumbs up from Bodhi as she finishes her drink and heads for the exit. At the coat check, she makes a fuss that her number wasn’t put on the correct hanger and leaves with a more expensive jacket than she came in wearing.

x. the wheel of fortune

Cassian takes a sip of his beer and surveys the scene in front of him. The party turned out to be less of a backyard affair than a middle of the woods rager, which is a piece of information he's absolutely not going to volunteer to Maarva later. There's a large bonfire in the middle of the area the hosts (whom he still hasn't met) cleared for the party and then a spot not far off where someone's pickup truck is parked with a keg in the bed. Cassian is probably done after this drink because four years of college parties didn't cure him of his anxiety about getting caught drinking by his mother, even if it is entirely legal for him to do now, but most of the people here do not have his qualms. The guy manning the keg is keeping very busy and, since they're charging for drinks, he's also flush with cash.

On the other side of the bonfire, he can see Bix animatedly telling a story to their friend Xan and a guy from the body shop Cassian's never been formally introduced to. He's glad he came out tonight, even if all it accomplishes is getting his friends off his case. Still, he can't help feeling like he shouldn't be here. Maarva is right that he needs to stay focused on his future. Meanwhile, his friends that stayed in New Orleans together while he was away at school have bonded and put down roots in a way that makes him feel like an intruder.

It's while he's having these morose thoughts that a drunk girl collides with him and drenches him in beer, which is probably what he deserves for being so somber at a fucking party.

"Woah, sorry," she says, stumbling to a stop. "Shit, I really soaked your jacket, didn't I?"

"It's fine," Cassian says, wiping at his jacket with his hands rather ineffectually.

"No, that was super uncool," she replies and even standing completely still, she looks unsteady on her feet. She reaches out to swat at the stained fabric with her hand uselessly before she seems to catch on that it won't accomplish anything and pulls off her knit beanie instead. "This...isn't actually helping, is it?"

He laughs, unexpectedly. "Not really, no. But it's fine."

"I'm so sorry," she says, miserably, as she continues to try to soak up the beer with her hat. "I'm really not this much of a klutz normally."

"Not your first stop of the night, I'm guessing?"

She groans. "I don't look that wasted, do I?"

Cassian tips his head to the side, trying to equivocate, but it's a hard thing to walk back now. "Well, it's partially that and also you're a little overdressed for this party."

The girl looks down at herself like she forgot what she was wearing: a simple but tight black dress and heels that would do better on a dance floor than in the woods and a trendy, expensive looking jacket. He realizes, a little belatedly, that she's pretty, which is something he's going to have to ignore considering how over-served she is. Still, even in the half light of the bonfire, her eyes capture his attention.

"You got me there," she says, rolling her beautiful eyes like they're in on the same joke. “I had to put in appearance at my stupid cousin's twenty-first, which she just had to have at some bougie club with loud, shitty music and expensive drinks. But this was where I really wanted to be all along."

That last part was said flirtatiously enough that Cassian's entire train of thought slams to a halt. The effort of getting through college in one piece and with a GPA that could get him into a good law school had clearly done a number on his social skills, because high school Cassian would have been able to knock a serve that easy back over the net with little trouble and now he was just staring blankly at this beautiful woman. He tells himself that it's her state of inebriation that gives him pause and not an utter lack of game on his part.

"Uh…I'm not one of the hosts," he says, weakly, "so, you don't need to flatter me.”

"I guess not," she says, with a smirk that tells him his deflection was obvious but that she also didn't take it too personally. She holds up the beanie with grim amusement. "And this is clearly not doing anything. I'm going to see if I can find…napkins? Paper towels? Something useful for absorption at least?"

Cassian snorts. "Don't hold your breath," he says, trying and failing to imagine the hosts of this kegger having something practical like that on hand.

"Yeah, well," she says, with a rueful shrug, "a girl can dream, right?"

''I suppose so."

She nods and starts to wander away. "I'll be back. Don't move," she says and then offers him an ironic little salute.

Cassian laughs to himself as she goes and then pivots his attention to survey the damage to his jacket. The thing is made of wool, which means it's absorbing the beer quite admirably, against his wishes. He probably should have told her not to bother with the napkin hunt since he'll most likely have to get it dry cleaned anyway just to get the beer smell out, but she'd seemed determined to help somehow.

A few minutes after his mysterious friend departs, Bix materializes at his elbow. "Man," she says, stepping back immediately to cover her nose, "You smell like a bar floor. I thought you promised Maarva you'd go easy tonight!"

"I did," Cassian says, scowling at her. “This is someone else's beer, unfortunately."

"Tough break," Bix replies, casting a sympathetic eye over him.

"Probably a sign to call it a night, though."

"Boo," she yells, not entirely sober herself. "You can’t go now! You said you'd buy me a drink!"

"I can do that before I leave," he says. "I just don't want to pay for a cab home and I will definitely need to if I have another drink."

"You used to be fun, Cass," she says, morosely, and he ignores how much it hurts to have his fears about himself voiced by another person.

"Do you want your beer or not?" he grumbles instead, because he knows it's not something she would have said sober and that's enough to soothe him for now.

"Of course," she says, rolling her eyes, and loops their arms together.

Before they can get very far, Cassian pats his jacket pocket to find his wallet and comes up empty. He stops himself and Bix in their tracks and searches the pockets of his jeans too, finding his car keys and his phone but nothing else. He turns around to see if his wallet is on the ground somewhere, like maybe he dropped it, and pats his jacket one more time for good measure. His hand comes away wet and he remembers, suddenly, that someone else recently did the same thing. His head whips around as he searches for her in the crowd.

"Cassian," Bix says, plainly worried. "What is it?"

"My wallet. Beer girl...she must have taken it..."

"Wait, what? Who the fuck would do that?"

"A thief," Cassian says, as he spots her on the other side of the clearing. "Hey, thief!" he calls.

Her head lifts at the raised voice, and she looks around, bewildered, before her eyes—the ones he'd been admiring not that long ago—land on him and go wide with surprise. Before he can formulate something clever to say, her face clears of its confused expression and turns ice cold before she takes off at a run.

"Son of a—!" he mutters and follows. He doesn't even think twice about it, like he probably should. For whatever reason, this stranger stealing from him tonight feels like a very personal betrayal and chasing her down doesn't register as the ludicrous idea it obviously is. He vaguely recognizes Bix calling after him in alarm but he ignores it. The world narrows to just him and his pickpocket.

xvi. the tower

Jyn has got to be more discerning about only stealing from people who can't keep up with her on foot. If nothing else, she should have given this guy a kick in the shin when she had the chance because he is fast. She's not doing her best work in these heels either, but she hadn't planned to run through mud and wet leaves when she got dressed this evening. She was supposed to be at a nightclub. Bodhi is in for it when she gets a hold of him. She hadn't even seen him at this party he invited her to before this dude caught her lifting wallets. What sort of Sherlock Holmes wannabe was she even dealing with here, anyway?

A lucky break presents itself in the form of an entrance to an old graveyard at the edge of the woods. There will be more places to hide there, she reasons, and most people are irrationally superstitious about graveyards, especially after dark. She's willing to bet Wallet Guy is no exception. She ducks through the barely open gate and sprints down a row of tall headstones, feeling the gazes of granite angels on her the whole way.

She eventually hides herself in the shadow of an ostentatiously large gravestone (or maybe it's a very tiny mausoleum) and holds her breath when she hears footsteps approach. Sherlock Jr. clearly isn't afraid of graveyards like she’d hoped. With her luck, he'll probably camp out here all night, waiting for her, completely unbothered.

"Listen," his voice rings out, echoing in the stone aisles, "Beer girl, I'm not going to call the cops or anything. That's the last thing I want, okay? Just give me the wallet back now and we're even. I'll forget your face. You have my word."

Jyn is almost tempted to snort at that but her muscles are tensed up so thoroughly, she couldn't do anything involuntarily at the moment. Still, the audacity that she should trust this guy to be cool, to bet her actual life on it; he must be joking. This is the moment she decides she's going to have to sacrifice the heels in order to get out of there, which she does not want to do because it means spending money she doesn't have to replace them. She can't think of a better plan right now, though, and she's absolutely willing to ditch them if it means giving this guy the slip. Jyn slowly and quietly toes them off so she's ready to run, while he is distracted trying to reason with her.

"I'm serious," Wallet Guy announces, like that wasn't obvious from literally everything about him. It's part of why she'd zeroed in on him in the first place. He seemed so serious that she was sure a little mishap and some light flirting would completely throw him off and make her grab for his wallet virtually undetectable. She'd only been a little wrong, to be fair. "I don't want trouble any more than you do!"

But that had always been Jyn's problem: she's never minded trouble. She can get herself out of it just as easily as she can get herself into it. Some rich kid from the right side of the tracks is no match for her in the trouble department, she thinks, and so she ducks out from behind the headstone and tries to make her escape. In doing so, however, she accientally kicks some gravel loose as she takes off running, which gives away her location. It also turns out Wallet Guy was much closer than she'd originally thought and his reflexes are better than anticipated too, because it only takes a quick heel turn and a few strides before he's caught up with her and reaching for her wrist.

"Please," he says, before there's a bright flash and a lurch like a train picking up speed too quickly and then she's being wrenched away from him with enough force that it launches her across the graveyard.

iv. the emperor

When Cassian was eight, he'd watched his father die. He'd watched him get shot by a police officer, while his hands were up in surrender, because the officer had been startled by an explosion nearby. Cassian always forgets this part—the Imperial Gulf oil rig explosion happening the same night as his father's murder—but one of those things actually materially changed his life and the other was just a thing from the news grownups were worried about. If he hadn't been right there when it happened, he might have forgotten about it entirely, for all people in New Orleans still talk about it all the time. People don't forget here, he's found. The city has a good, long memory.

There is a chance that if not for the explosion, his father might not have been shot, but even as a kid, Cassian knew the odds were bad. Clem was a Black man caught holding a stolen sound system, the one Cassian had stolen on a dare from some older boys at school that he was desperate to impress. He was ten years old and the only thing that ever seemed to matter to him in those days was seeming grown up. Clem had come looking for him when he was late getting home from school and found the stolen stereo in his hands. He'd insisted they bring it back and try to make things right with the owner.

It didn't matter to the police that Clem hadn't stolen it, that he was just trying to teach his son a lesson. Cassian's adoption had only been finalized the year before and he was still acting out sometimes, pushing the limits of his parents' patience in what a counselor would later explain to him were attempts to see what it would take to be sent away again. There was no easy way to explain to a little kid that his birth parents hadn't "sent him away" for being bad, but because they couldn't keep him, or that his adoptive parents wouldn’t do the same thing someday for some minor infraction. He just didn’t understand that back then. Still, Clem was trying to teach him right and wrong without triggering his fears. It was even starting to work. If only he'd never stolen that car stereo, everything would have been different.

But he did. And the police found him and his father trying to return it. And while Clem tried to surrender, the explosion had happened and one of the officers panicked and fired his gun. They'd been down by the docks when the police found them and, when Clem was shot, he'd fallen into the water. Without hesitation, without any thought at all, Cassian had jumped in after him. Maybe it was from a misguided place of hope, believing that something could still be done to save his father. Maybe it was out of fear, knowing that he wasn't safe with those cops after what he'd seen. Or maybe it was a death wish. Maybe in that moment, losing the man who'd been so kind to him even when he hardly deserved it, he just didn't see any reason to try to survive so he followed his father into the water because he wanted to follow him into death.

Under the water, though, he'd seen that there was no helping his father and the oil rig's collapse was only getting worse. He tried to make his way to the surface but it was impossible to see anything more than a few feet away. Everything was dark. He'd been so consumed with fear when he dove into the water that he had no clue by then how far he'd swam from the docks. He was never going to find his way back now. Just when he was truly starting to despair, there had been a sound from the direction of the rig and a pulse went through the water that hit him like a slap across the back of his head. When he opened his eyes again, there was something glowing in the water ahead of him, a pure white light he reached for instinctively. He'd felt sure in that moment, despite everything, that the light would save him somehow. He'd never felt faith or hope that certainly in his life before, and he sure as hell hasn't felt it that way since. Then again, he hadn't seen that bright light again since that night either. Until he reaches for the girl in the graveyard, that is.

xi. justice

Jyn's shoulder throbs in pain. It's the part of her that had made contact with the headstone that broke her fall, so it makes sense that it hurts, but it's going to be a problem if this guy decides to fight her. Then again, judging by the look of him right now, he's not in any condition to fight either. Whatever force just threw her back did the same thing to him. He's still conscious, though, which is only good because she doesn't feel like dealing with a dead body right now. There's something wrong with him, though. He's looking down at his body in alarm—inspecting himself for injuries, she suspects—but he freezes in horror when he sees his hands. It takes Jyn a moment to realize why but when she does, her heart nearly stops.

There's smoke coming off his hands in tendrils, but nothing's on fire as far as she can tell. It's like the smoke that comes off of dry ice except it's pitch black. From any further away, Jyn's not sure she could convince herself it wasn't the shadows moving of their accord. Based on the expression on the guy's face, he's never seen this before, but she has. On the night of the car accident, after her father died, she'd seen it.

She'd been trying desperately to get out of the sinking car, but the water was coming in too fast and the windows were all sealed shut. Then there had been an explosion underneath the water and a ripple went across the bay, knocking her backwards into the seat. When she opened her eyes, there was black smoke pouring through the windshield. It looked like someone had dumped ink into the water, the way it moved and spread its way into the car. She'd reached for it, more afraid of staying still there than whatever the black smoke could do to her. She had expected her palm to find the window when she did, but there was no glass there anymore. The smoke had dissolved it or replaced it somehow and Jyn didn't stop to rationalize how or why that happened. She swam towards the shadows and felt a hand clasp around her own and pull her to safety. And now that same smoke was pouring from the hands of the boy who'd chased her down in the graveyard.

"What the hell was that?" she calls out, shaking (she tells herself) with anger and not with fear. "What did you just do to me?"

"Me?" he fires back. "I didn't do anything! That—that wasn't you?"

"No! I couldn't—how could I do that?"

"Your hands," he says, voice shaking. "They're glowing."

Jyn looks down, then, to find he's telling the truth. Her palms are glowing with a bright white light. This is...definitely a sign of concussion. There's no way any of this is really happening.

Before she can get too far with that denial, the guy is gingerly standing up and brushing off his clothes with shadowy hands. “I've seen it before," he says, carefully. "Once."

Jyn shakes her head, still hoping to write all of this off as a side effect of a head injury. "You've…what?"

"I've seen something glow like that before," he repeats, patiently. "It was you, wasn't it? You're the girl from the beach, the night of the oil rig collapse. You saved me."

Jyn swallows hard, so that she doesn't say the first thing that comes to mind, which is that he's got it all backwards. As she remembers it, he was the one who saved her that night. She knows it's been twelve years but she can't believe she didn't recognize him immediately. His face has been haunting her dreams her entire life. She should have known him.

"That was you?" she asks, uselessly. Who else could it be? Who else would even know about that?

He holds up his hands tentatively but they're answer enough. That night was the one and only time she'd ever seen smoke like that.

"We must have—something happened to us," he starts to say, far too reasonable and certain for her taste. "Back then, or ...just now, I don't know."

Panic rises in Jyn's throat, threatening to choke her. She starts shaking her head before the actual thought has even articulated itself in her mind and she picks herself up off the ground feeling like her body is made of lead.

"I can't do this," she says, still looking at her glowing hands and beginning to back away.

"Please," he says, starting to come closer, "don't leave. I just want some answers."

The light grows brighter as her panic sharpens. "I don't have any," she shouts, over the roaring in her ears, “I’m sorry.” And then she runs.

The boy from the beach calls after her but she doesn't stop running until the light coming from her hands fades completely and she has to pick her way through the woods by the light of the moon. She puts a healthy distance between herself and him, between herself and the party and anyone who could recognize her, and gets back to a main road somehow. She decides to literally go for broke and hails a cab. Once she's given the driver a respectable residential address near enough to where she's illegally squatting, she settles back in the seat and tries to close her eyes. Something pokes at her side from her jacket pocket, though, and she remembers that she still has the wallet.

Tentatively, like she's handling something unstable and potentially explosive, she pulls the wallet out and opens it. She finds a handful of small bills, a debit card as well as a credit card, a library card and a membership card to a local grocery chain. Boring stuff, mostly, but there's also a student ID and a driver's license, which tell her what she really wants to know: Cassian Andor. She'd always been curious about the name of the boy who saved her life all those years ago and now she has it. Her hands shake with the possibility that this knowledge offers. She even has his address, if his license is up to date. She could find him again, if she really wanted to. The problem is that she has no idea what she actually wants.

xvii. the star

Cassian doesn't bother going back to the party. He skirts around the clearing and finds where he parked his car without saying goodbye to anyone. He's not even sure what he would offer as an explanation for his disappearing act if people asked. Instead, he avoids everyone and their potential questions and just goes home. It’s late enough when he gets there that his mother is already asleep, which is just as well, because he doesn’t want to deal with her questions either.

There’s so many things he doesn’t understand right now and so many questions he wants answered and the only person who could even begin to help him ran as fast as she could in the other direction. He didn’t even get her name, which is somehow the most disappointing part of all. He’s spent more than half of his life dreaming of that night and remembering her; it’s only right that he should have a name to go with that memory. Cassian sighs and wills himself to forget about it, even though he knows that’s a lost cause. He takes off his stained jacket and his muddy shoes and heads upstairs, where he doesn’t bother undressing any further before slumping down onto his bed. He tells himself he’ll actually get ready for bed in a minute, but he knows this is also a lie. After a few aborted attempts to get back up, he commits to sleeping in his clothes and pulls a blanket over his head to block out any remaining light. It feels like only a few moments later that the sound of birds chirping and singing wakes him. He wouldn’t normally notice such a thing, but these birds are loud. They must be right outside of his window, he thinks, as he throws the sheet back to welcome in the morning sunlight. He gets the surprise of his life when, above him, all he sees is the faded pink skies of dawn. He lurches up to a sitting position and looks around and finds himself on a rooftop downtown.

It must be a dream. He’s still asleep and that’s the only explanation there is. He hadn’t dreamed of Clem or the oil rig explosion or the girl from the graveyard and he’d thought it was a mercy, but this is…weirder. And it feels real. He can feel his heart beating wildly in his chest and the humid, dewy air of early morning on his face. If it’s a dream, it’s a completely new kind for him. He’s even wearing the same clothes he went to sleep in, and he can feel the bruise on his shoulder from when he fell in the graveyard. And his hands, where they’re still clutching the blanket, have the black mist curling around them again.

He might not be dreaming after all, he realizes, watching the shadowy tendrils twist delicately around his wrist and into the open air. Maybe this is his reality now. Maybe he can—what? Teleport? Travel places in his dreams? What exactly did he do to get here of all places? Where is here, anyway?

A glance over his shoulder reveals the answer to many of those questions. Behind him on the roof, he recognizes a downtown landmark: the old Imperial Gulf Oil sign. The building below had housed the first offices for the later-rebranded Imperial Energy back in the day. Years ago, they’d built a huge, expensive facility across the water where their employee offices were now located and sold this building to a developer, who wasted no time turning it into expensive condos no one here could afford. They’d kept the enormous neon sign on the roof as a nod to the neighborhood’s history and probably because it’s exactly the sort of aesthetic nonsense their ideal buyers would shell out extra for. If there was any chance Cassian still believed his appearance here was pure coincidence, it was gone now. He had said he wanted answers and the universe sent him a literal neon sign. Imperial Gulf is where all of this started and it’s where he’ll get his answers.

He just has to find her first—the girl from the beach, the girl from the graveyard, the girl from his dreams.

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