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slapegg · 3 months

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Some thoughts about… Like A Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name

Some thoughts about… Like A Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name LaDGTMWEHN! Yakuza 6.5? Or just how about… That New Yakuza Game

It's back to the brawly Yakuza type games! LaD1 had its RPG fun and I absolutely hated the Judgment games, so it's good to be back in Kiryu's shoes! …Because I've totally forgotten all the bad and frustrating parts of the brawler games and Gaiden is very happy to reintroduce me to them.

The game's beginning has a good sense of mystery for who the new characters are, but before the end of the first chapter, you'll find out where in the franchise story this game is taking place and you'll immediately know where it's all heading and everything kind of falls apart. Just about everything could have been avoided if Kiryu and Bad Guy 1 just stopped trying to out-aggressive each other. There's a scene where they sit down and talk to each other and you as a Like A Dragon player know what both sides want, but they're both acting like jerks so everything falls apart. Kiryu's being aggressive and not listening to the bad guy and the bad guy is being super aggressive and not explaining his plan. And that's a large chunk of this game's story. Characters being cryptic, not listening to each other, or testing each other for kind of no reason outside of generating fake drama for end of chapter cliffhangers. The ending of 6 was pointless. Everybody immediately knows who Kiryu is and that the story of his death was bunk. And I mean just about everybody. Kiryu doesn't use a disguise, change his hair, anything. He's hilariously bad at playing dead. The only person that doesn't know Kiryu is still alive? Daigo. Because Daigo remains the absolute dumbest and most useless mob boss ever. With Kiryu gone, how has somebody not just walked up to Daigo's HQ, laid out a trail of candy leading to a box, and trapped Daigo in said box?! Our new tale start off in Yokohama, parallel to Ichiban's story in Like a Dragon. They straight up put Kiryu next to Nanba and Ichiban's tent with them inside but prevent you from interacting. They have a cheesy reason why the owner of the Survive bar isn't around that day so Kiryu can't recognize him. But none of it feels natural or adds anything to Kiryu or Ichiban's stories. Outside of getting Kiryu to LaD's big reveal moment, which was covered sufficiently in LaD, nothing here expands on LaD's story, provides new revelations, or reframes what you've already seen. You now know where Watase got his suit he was wearing during the big speech. Exciting? Gaiden also has probably the least interesting "main" villain the series has ever had. He has no personality other than "he's evil", he barely has any connection to Kiryu and what connection he does have is a pointless reference, and he's barely involved with any of the game until a flourish of action at the end and even then he's mostly sitting back and sending minions after you. This series is usually so good about making its antagonists interesting. You have people with deep connections to Kiryu in Yakuza 1, people that are dark mirrors of Kiryu in Yakuza 2, or just world class jerks that you love to hate in Yakuza 0. Then there's this guy and… I kind of forgot he existed for half the game. The second "main" bad guy at least has some personality and an attempt at a motivation, but I likewise felt very little about having to face off against him or his reveals. But I will hand it to the game, "Continue the Debauchery" is probably one of the greatest missions prompts I've ever been given. The series is always at its funniest when it takes these yakuza bad asses and makes them the most lovable losers, like weeping over being given a halfway decent meal. Complaints about the story, yes, but The Ending! We'll talk about that later in a non-spoilery way, but man… The Ending…

Despite being a shorter game, Gaiden really delays the exploration. Every time you think you'll be able to explore, they lock the streets down and take you to a new place automatically. You think you're ready to start engaging with the main secondary gameplay loops, well too bad! Go back to the main location because we said so.

There are lots more enemies in combat this time around. It's pretty danged impressive they got so many active characters on screen for a PS4 game without any performance issues. I had resigned myself to expecting that this was really just a PS5 game that would chug along on my base level PS4, but this thing runs great. But gameplay-wise, the extra enemies ares bad. The prior gameplay was already bad about trying to get Kiryu to focus on a single enemy and now there are more of them. Good luck trying to pick up weapons on the ground or focus on a particular high threat target because Kiryu will zip around the field to grapple with an enemy you can't grapple instead of picking up something at his feet or fly past everybody to attack nothing rather than the enemy in front of him or you'll burn a Heat move on a mook enemy instead of the guy aiming a gun at you. The camera is in really close so you wind up getting hit from behind a lot, and you'll have to spend a lot of time in fights fiddling with the camera trying to keep everybody on screen. There are really twitchy physics in fights now. It doesn't really affect gameplay, but expect a lot of terrible ragdolling, enemies stuck in objects, trying to pick up a big weapon (like a potted plant) and that sending Kiryu spinning around, or just Kiryu popping up into the air a bit because he touched something on the ground. Kiryu can't block for nuthin' any more. Every other enemy attack breaks his block and enemy attacks seem to magnetize to you, so even if you dodge them, they still hit. This led to me ignoring a lot of features with new moves and equipment to focus on the few things I knew usually worked. In Yakuza fighting style, just use the charged light punch; it gives you a bit of super armor and breaks enemy blocks. In Agent style, just use the grappling wire and punch people on the ground or use the running punch. Use Heat moves on bosses. That solves the vast, vast majority of fights in this game. Gadgets in Agent style should have been the big change to combat but they're kind of useless for the majority of the game. With how long it takes to activate the gadgets, their limited use versus just punching a dude makes them a waste of time. Sometimes they just don't activate. Am I not holding the button down long enough or are they not working? They only seem to work if you're standing totally still. You know standing still, the thing you're usually doing in a fight, right? You can't string them together or do fun combos with them because of that. In cutscenes, Kiryu does all kinds of fun things with the grappling wire, but in combat it can only toss grunt enemies or grab items (when the game feels like it and probably not the item you intended to grab; sure I was aiming at that sword on the ground but grab that traffic cone instead, thanks).

Your inventory changed again too. You can't carry weapons around anymore. It's purely down to whatever is on the ground or an enemy drops. Instead of having a total item count limit, you're limited on how many of each specific item you can hold. No more stocking up on an inventory full of the best energy drink, but now you can have dozens of lesser energy drinks and food. It doesn't seem to matter in the end from a balance perspective because there are so many different kinds of food items that you can still just gluttony your way to victory, so it's a weird change. I steadfastly refuse to accept the idea that Kiryu would drink Mountain Dew. Product placement has gone too far!

The Cabaret is back, but it's not the fun one from Yakuza 0 where you're running the business as the manager, it's the lame one where you go on fake dates as a customer. Only now they're live action scenes with bad audio so it's extra creepy. The only draw to the mode seems to be that they hired a famous Vtuber as one of the models, but other than her mentioning she does streaming on the side and her slipping into the voice a few times, I'd have never known that was Coco as the actress. But I don't follow any Vtubers so I'm guessing I'm not the target demographic here? And again, I steadfastly refuse to accept the idea that Kiryu understands what streaming is. Product placement has gone too far!

Being a small game, Gaiden pads out its run time by forcing you to do side stuff to progress in the story. The Coliseum is mandatory and you have to do side stories to raise your Akame Network rank in the main city. It just features pointless padding to artificially extend the length of the game. The grind is on the slow side and not particularly fun because the things you have to do to raise your rank are mostly fetch quests with lousy rewards. Money and Network points are real slow to gain and upgrades are expensive so you stay weak for a long time. Getting enough Network points to buy enough stat and gadget upgrades takes longer than the game's actual storyline. If the whole point of this is to be a small side story to link 6 and 7, why force the grind by padding your numbers out? You'll be stuck doing the same Coliseum battle over and over just to make money if you want to see all the fighters you can hire, try the different costumes, upgrade all your gadgets, or upgrade all your stats. Some example numbers. The highest paying short and repeatable Coliseum fight pays out 3 million yen. The highest tier of health upgrades totals 30 million yen. The highest tier of attack upgrades totals another 30 million yen. It costs 30-40 million to hire all the fighters you don't get from substories. The best piece of equipment costs around 50 million yen. You're required to spend a million yen each just to complete some of the basic quests. And that's ignoring all the other dozens of upgrades you can buy, dozens of other pieces of gear or cosmetics, and dozens of lower tier fighters. So yeah, not a great grind. For the activity log, the numbers are super padded out. Take 100 photos, but you only need to actually do maybe 10 for the story and quests, so you have to waste another 90 pictures. Win 30 Tournament class fights in the Coliseum, but there are only 12 different fights so you're going to repeat them multiple times.

Substories are super verbose and not really funny. There are a few fun ones, but they mainly just go on for too long for too little payoff. Kiryu does finally have a bit of genre awareness about his quests now. He's been through this enough times that when a lady invites him up to a hotel room, he now knows it's a scam from the start. Still hasn't learned to chase down a villain slowly hobbling away from the scene, but Kiryu's getting there. Stroll N Patrol tasks for your basic missions are very fetch quest-y. Usually, you have to run to a point, take a picture, and then run back to the person that gave you a quest. Or, the person wants a specific kind of food so you have to go to shops until you find it and then run back to the person. A person wants to see you wear a specific outfit, so you run to a taxi, load into the second city, run to the Boutique, change your clothes, run back to the helicopter, load to the first city, run back to the mission giver, collect your paltry payout, run back to the taxi, load back to second city, run to the Boutique, change out of the awful oufit and back to your normal one, run back to the helicopter, and load back to the first city (there are multiple quests that require this process and the Boutique in the second city is the only place you can change Kiryu's outfit despite having two bases in the first city). The sort of filler thing that pads out the game but doesn't do anything meaningful. The payouts are usually bad too. You'll do a task for somebody and get paid less for the quest than what you earned from winning one of the four street fights you got into along the way. Or you get paid less than it cost to complete the quest. A person wanted to see a particular outfit, that outfit costs 1 million yen, and your reward for completing the quest… 75K yen. You can get requests before you're actually able to finish them. Some of them are kind of vague so you don't know if you're not figuring out the request properly or if that thing just isn't available yet or you're locked out of because the story has restricted you to a specific time of day/location.

Karaoke is weirdly hard in this one. I was getting 95s and 99s in Like a Dragon and here I'm struggling to hit 90 for the quests. The controls for Pool are still garbage. Trying to identify pieces in Shogi still requires digging through menus. The casino games still beg the question of why you're playing casino games in a non-casino game game. Pocket Circuit's back though. The core gameplay is the same but the shop is a pain now. Instead of buying parts with money, everything costs a unique currency you can only get by winning races. So if you buy the wrong parts and need to respec your car, you might not be able to even afford the parts you need to win the next race to get points. You can't sort the shop and all the parts are jumbled together, so it's frustrating to try to compare similar parts because they're spread out in the store. You can't check what you own in the parts store or buy parts from the car customization screen, so you need to walk back and forth between the race lady and the parts guy to check things out. It was so much easier when parts just cost money because you came back at the end of the game, bought everything in one purchase, and then the customization menu is grouped by part type. You knew you owned everything and like parts were grouped so they were easy to compare. Is your car falling off the track because your build is bad or just because RNG is screwing with you, well now it's hard to experiment so it's going to be that much worse.

LaDGTMWEHN isn't a bad game, it's just feels… unnecessary? Unfulfilling? If you're just a fan of the RPG style of LaD and you're thinking of trying this one because it ties into Ichiban's story, I'd probably say to ignore it. This is for people that played Yakuza 0-6 and just want one more brawler out of Kiryu. It's not Yakuza 5 levels of bad, but I'd place it around the "worse than Yakuza 2/around the level of Yakuza 3" level on my grand scale of things. Middling main story, middling substories, and worse combat, plus slow progression from padded upgrade/inventory costs. If you wait for a deep sale and go into it expecting nothing more than nostalgia/fan service for the franchise, you're in the right headspace for it. If you go in expecting more, you're going to be disappointed.

But the ending! The writing, the animation. Just absolutely knocked it out of the park. Between this ending and LaD's, they are nailing these dramatic endings full of the best animated ugly crying you have seen. To put Kiryu in a situation that is both so kind and so emotionally devastating and to see that man just break down. You are a monster if you don't tear up at the end.

Some bonus thoughts on… Infinite Wealth demo The story hook is okay but not particularly exciting. Ichi is looking for his mom, who we were already told was dead in the first game, but now she's not. Kind of retroactively makes her story from the first game less interesting. And seeing that Kiryu is stuck just doing another mission hurts the ending of Gaiden. The voice acting is really bad! Ichi is awesome again, but holy cow, who approved that new voice for Kiryu!? It's terrible! I know it's some Youtuber I'd never heard of before, but c'mon. The villain in the demo is really bad too. You hear Ichi speak and it's "ah yes, that's a voice actor" and then Kiryu or the bad guy speak and the gap in quality is through the roof. LaD1 had an absolutely stellar cast, what happened? Here's to hoping I can assemble the old crew and ignore the new ones? Or maybe a mixed audio where I can make the old cast use English voices and the new cast use Japanese? This is seriously dampening my desire to play the game. Who wants to play an RPG that's dozens of hours long if you don't want to listen to the characters speak? They seemed to have made the combat system more complicated but not necessarily better. Lots more buttons to press. So many features seem dependent on character positioning and what you're near but within a few seconds, everybody has moved around so it seems like a bonus thing that's neat when it happens but would be too much of a hassle to plan around. I already found scavenging items on the map tedious by the end of the demo. Briefcases, stuff under cars, stuff in dumpsters, shaking trees, items on the ground. The city looks huge too. A big thing I loved about the Yakuza games was how compact the city was. They took an open world map and squished it down to a few city blocks so everything was super dense and exciting. But this just seems like a regular open world map now. The new Crazy Delivery mini game isn't fun. The trick system is annoying. I thought it would be more Crazy Taxi but it's mainly picking up items and doing tricks with a lot of starting and stopping. All in all, nothing really sold me on needing to play the game. I 100%'d LaD1 and played through the story mode twice, but this demo left me feeling pretty uninterested. I'm sure I'll play it eventually, but it kind of seems like a wait a year for a deep sale deal rather than a must play.

#yakuza #ryu ga gotoku #like a dragon #the man who erased his name #kiryu

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frogsandfries · 6 months

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It only took me actually all freaking day

But I finally got merely most of this body of work organized across several documents.

Thousands. And. Thousands.

No. Literally. Thousands. Of (okay, admittedly horribly formatted) pages. Just for this one collection of work. Whhhyyyyyyyyyyyy

I somehow missed a chunk? Deleted it? I'm not really positive. So I do have to go back through and locate those items.

Anyway, so I get to have tomorrow off, and luckily my boss stopped in and reminded me that my schedule change came through or I would've missed work Sunday. They changed my schedule finally; it's fine. It'll honestly be nice to have Mondays and Tuesdays off. It can be hard to get shit done when I'm on the phones 9-5 M-F. Plus, there's this all-you-can-eat sushi place that I've been dying to give a second chance, and the best day to do that is Tuesday. Oddly enough, yes.

I get to chill out tomorrow, work Sunday, and then have my first Monday and Tuesday off. So......bleh. Could be worse. One time, in another job, long, long ago, on third shift, I had to work something like eight days in a row. That. Was awful. Awful, awful.

I'm absolutely dying of exhaustion. I actually want to go back through the chapters I haven't yet and get the tables of contents set up in each of the documents, just to be absolutely positive that I got everything saved. Blehhhh I should go back through the fics off AO3 and set up their tables of contentses, but.......it's honestly kind of a nightmare and I'd honestly rather save it for a) the really, really long fics, and b) later. Like, absolutely the last minute. Admittedly though, I do not know what I would do without the table of contents for Debt of Time. Probably split each of the books into their own, multiple documents so I don't have to spend ages and ages scrolling and scrolling and scrolling.

I wish I had something to do tomorrow, somewhere to go. I could go to the cafe up the hill. Or the other....is that one a cafe? Meh, I'll probably go to that one the next time I'm over at the post office. Now that I get Mondays and Tuesdays off, I could save the almost hour walk when I finally go over to take my sister's gift to ship, but....where's the fun in that? I could go over that way and check this place out that I think I've walked past several times. I want something more social, though, than just sitting at a cafe and prodding at fanfic.

Ugh, I guess I have enough paper presently to print some more textblocks, which I'll get to the first press and then neglect. Again, even if I bought one book cloth each paycheck, with the number of books that I have to cover at this point, it's going to take a long time to cover each of them, even if I don't do any kind of embroidery or embellishment (I keep thinking about a) 15/0 seed beads and b) that bead place in town). Even longer if the stack keeps growing. Oh, and don't forget that I haven't been able to squeeze more cover boards out of my budget, so there's a bit of a bottleneck there too.

What's the real hurry though? It's not like I have a bookshelf--still, yet.

But hey, I could and should be kinder to myself. I'm finally getting a vacuum, and also, I rather need my vices. Mine are not the most dangerous vices that were ever had by a socially isolated human. Also, I should finally be able to devote the necessary energy to trimming and punching the other half of my fic catalogue; that'll be......fun? Pleasant to fill up. I'm still struggling to think up an expandable enough spine. Maybe I should just not even worry about it and set up either a basic long-stitch or criss-cross spine. Well, actually, the long-stitch style spine might be a bit of a......poor match for what I have going on with the stab-type spine. An adapted criss-cross type spine could be good. If I break the initial volume into two parts and use two or three spines per volume, initially, that should give plenty of breathing room.

Honestly, now that I'm elbows deep into this random ramble, my mind keeps returning to a criss-cross binding as really the best option for a sturdy, expandable spine. Think about it: You could undo the spine, and either replace it, weave in another, or attach another spine and/or cover on the 'outside'. All you need is for the threads to pass through the signatures in some fashion.

Although, even a long-stitch isn't necessarily a bad idea. You'd have to set it up a little more like a travel journal, and even the only thing wrong with something like a travel journal is the poor way elastic ages. If it weren't for the matter of covering them, I think I'd be leaning more toward just weaving the booklets together by their spine stitching.

Maybe a softer, wrap-around style cover, to make up for any expansion? Maybe I'm too worried about expansion that I know will happen. I'm not just going to be like "well, section 'b' is full up; no more fics with titles that start with 'b'".

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nyx-b-log · 11 months

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buckle in, it's a long one! on top of finishing what i was reading last week, i also got through a few manga volumes, so there's plenty to talk about!

i'll put it under a cut, but the books discussed are:

all the living and the dead by hayley campbell (finished, favourite)

take it back by kia abdullah (finished)

truth be told by kia abdullah (brief)

hikaru ga shinda natsu vol 2 (finished)

my brother's husband vol 1 (finished, favourite)

i hear the sunspot (started)

mitsuboushi colours (started)

skulduggery pleasant by derek landy (started)

children of time by adrian tchaikovsky (started, brief)

semantic error (manhwa)

i actually finished all the living and the dead on the sunday i posted last week, but it was late so i decided to do the write up this week.

i honestly got a lot out of it, i think it's a very valuable book to read if you're even remotely concerned about or interested in death, even if parts of it are emotionally difficult to read. what starts off as a more journalistic 'here's these people and here's what they do' kind of book takes something of a turn about halfway through after one of the things the author experiences sticks with her more than she expected, so there's that to be aware of. i liked it, though, and it made it easier to read in longer chunks after that.

well-written, well-researched, and features a lengthy index and 'further reading' section divided into topics so you can explore whatever you're interested in in more detail. very much recommend.

it took me a few more days to finish take it back, but i did it! well within deadline too. have very, very mixed feelings on the ending; it felt like the author just added some extra twists in purely as gotcha moments without really considering whether they made sense or the wider ramifications, which is odd for a book which is normally pays more attention to that kind of thing. but, everything up to that was tense and enjoyable in all the ways a legal thriller should be. the discussions of class and race were also appreciated.

after that i actually started book two in that series, truth be told, but my next audiobook loan came in so i've shelved it for now. i got about an hour in and found it less immediately gripping but i am looking forward to going back to it. that audiobook also only has one performer, rather than three.

cos i've had two of the later books in the series sat on my tbr pile for about 4 years now (maybe longer), i thought i'd do a reread of the skulduggery pleasant series via audiobook this time. rupert degas, the guy reading them, is really good, and i'm having a fun time with them. good cleanser after take it back. really wish the music that plays in between each chapter wasn't so long though, even if it's pleasantly jazzy.

i also started children of time tho admittedly i only got about 50 pages in and haven't picked it up since, but i liked those 50 pages! it's long, tho, this'll take a while to get through.

i would have read more of it but i got a bit distracted by the semantic error manhwa? was feeling a bit miserable and devoured the drama (which was great) in like two days to make myself feel better, and then immediately went to read the manhwa. everyone is noticeably more of a dick (and more horny) but i don't mind. very sad yu-na isn't in it as much tho, she was probably my favourite character in the drama.

right, manga!

finished vol 2 of hikaru ga shinda natsu which i think i enjoyed less than the first one, but was still very good. had some better individual moments plus some big reveals!! makes me want to reread it and pull out what i missed. vol 3 came out this week too!! but i don't have it yet :( i'm looking to collect the series in physical, so it might be a few months yet before i keep going. a bit more of the vol 1 voice comic was also released in tandem with vol 3, so i watched that too (it seems to have a slightly bigger budget? good for them).

after that i read vol 1 of otouto no otto (aka my brother's husband) which was excellent, i really really liked it. it's follows yaichi as he gets a sudden visit from his (dead) younger brother's canadian husband, and how the two of them interact. worth noting that yaichi is homophobic (even if he doesn't realise) so there's some slurs used, but the story itself challenges that homophobia. there's also some queer history lessons in between some of the chapters; in this volume it was on the legality of same-sex marriage (as of april 2015) and the history of the pink triangle.

the art is fantastic, and i'm really looking forward to reading more and following how yaichi comes to understand where and he and his brother went wrong, and how he grows as a person. also kana!! is the sweetest thing!! read it for her, honestly.

more briefly, i've started both mitsuboushi colours and hidamari ga kikoeru (aka i hear the sunspot), but am not even halfway through either.

mitusboushi colours is a sort of palette cleanser for me? cute girls doing cute things kind of manga, very simple. i'm dipping into it when i feel like it.

hidamari ga kikoeru is a BL manga set at a university about a loudmouth in need of a job becoming the notetaker for a boy in his class with hearing difficulties. enjoying it so far, taichi has great energy.

oh god is that everything? i think so. anyway congrats for reading this far, i'll update again next week! (hopefully with less 😭)

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s-brant · 3 years

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Cherry Bowl (3/8)

(gif: @kiekiecarrera) (PART TWO) (PART FOUR) (SERIES MASTERLIST)

Summary: When Kie cancels their plans together, Y/N asks JJ on a date to the Cherry Bowl Drive-In. Unsure of how to navigate his first ever date, JJ seeks out advice. Unfortunately, the night doesn’t go as planned, and both parties are left shaken by miscommunication.

Word Count: 10.6k

Warnings: Smut, public sex/exhibitionism, sexual choking, angst, depictions of mental illness, post-traumatic stress disorder, and implied/referenced abuse.

A/N: Welcome back to Tokens! Slight trouble in paradise is brewing for these two lovers, so buckle up and read because it’s gonna be a rollercoster for a little while after what happens in this chapter. I hope you all like it, and if you did, feedback is very appreciated. Have fun!

"I'm just saying that oatmeal raisin is superior to chocolate chip, why is that such an egregious crime, Kie?"

The lunch room is filled to the brim with students going to town on questionably cooked frozen foods, soggy tater tots, and sugary drinks from the vending machines despite the Obama-era posters on the walls advocating for healthier school lunches that never seemed to make their way to Kildare County High. The extent of their healthy lunches extended to a serving of overcooked canned green beans served with the worst slice of doughy pizza known to human kind, so it was sort of contradictory.

Y/N sits across the table from Pope and JJ, the latter of which being the one who launched into a full-fledged debate with Kiara about which type of cookie was better.

The clear cling wrap sits, unfolded, on the table with one of her stickers neatly placed on the back of it. As consolation for his epic loss yesterday at the beach, she paid an extra .75 cents to get him it when she arrived first to their shared lunch period—one of only two class periods they have together, the other being gym. He was still in line when she peeled a surfboard sticker off of her sheet and placed it at the center of the wrapped up cookie as if to remind him of her triumph over him in the waves.

"Thanks, hot stuff," he said, voice somewhat quieter despite the fact that hardly anyone was in the cafeteria with them. Then his smile dropped into an deadpan expression as soon as he saw her choice of sticker and looked back up at her. "You're never gonna let me live that one down, are you?"

"Never in a million years. I'll be gloating about it until I'm elderly."

"That's my girl."

The sound of the constant chatter surrounding them from at least two hundred other people drowns out the memories of yesterday that threaten to haunt her when she watches him debate with Kie. The mere recollection of their night in the back of the van has her reaching to pull the collar of her cropped tee up to assure that the hickeys remain hidden on instinct, and he catches the action out of the corner of his eye. It has him fighting a smile.

Kie quips, "Maybe on another planet, but, here, I think we can all agree chocolate chip is better, right Y/N?"

Y/N's eyes widen around a forkful of mushy "green beans" at the sound of her name being said bringing her from the depths of her memories.

Usually, she's quick to jump in and give her two cents on whatever stupid back and forth they're all having, but her mind was elsewhere. Unbeknownst to Kie and Pope, she was mentally reliving every second of getting fucked in the van last night, so her attention to detail when it comes to the Chocolate Chip vs Oatmeal Raisin case isn't all too sharp.

"Uhhh," she stops for a second, looking at the half eaten chocolate chip cookie in Kie's hand, "If I say chocolate chip is better, can I get a piece of it?"

Kie's face lights up at her words, and she's already pulling off a generous chunk of the baked good to hand off to her. The sound of a certain someone whose lap Y/N's legs are outstretched onto from beneath the table scoffing distracts her from the first bite.

"I know you prefer oatmeal raisin, you traitor," JJ says.

Their brunette friend's brows scrunch.

"Why is she a traitor?"

They try to keep from making any faces or giving anything away, but Y/N has to stifle the sound of her choking on her mouthful of cookie at the question. You'd think one of them came out and asked if they were dating or something with how she reacts, and she feels JJ squeeze her ankle in a non-verbal way of telling her to hold it together. It was her idea in the first place, yet he's a lot smoother with keeping it under the radar.

Under it all, the aspect of keeping it a secret does unnerve him to a degree. He doesn't think he'd be brave enough to communicate it, especially not when their relationship remains undefined, but the darker side of his mind wonders...

He shrugs, saying, "Cause we were friends first. Duh. Other than John B, I've known her the longest."

None of them stop to acknowledge the identical aches in their hearts at the mentioning of his name. They skip right over it like it never happened. After the funeral a few days ago, they've filled their quota on mushy-gushy sad talk for the next week and a half.

The real reason is something far more complicated than him having a claim staked on her loyalty through having the longest friendship. It's something tied up in days of slowly getting pulled into one another's worlds like the tug of gravity itself, in how he has to refrain from slipping his arm around her waist in the hallway or kissing her goodbye after a sleepover at the Chateau. But until she gives him the go-ahead, he won't let it slip to anyone.

Pope speaks up from beside him, "You literally met her twenty minutes before we did."

"Still counts. Technically, I did meet her first, so her betraying Team Oatmeal Raisin is enough to be tried for treason in Pogue Court."

"Pogue Court isn't a thing."

He crosses his arms after he pops the rest of the cookie into his mouth.

"It is now. You can be tried for treason for breaking the rules. Rule number one is that all Pogues have to admit oatmeal raisin is superior."

He's about to ball up the cling wrap to throw away later when the surfboard sticker catches his attention again. It's the same color as his board, which he'd like to think is a result of her being an evil mastermind that went out to get this sticker sheet for the sole purpose of teasing him, but he's the one who got her the sheet as a gift for her birthday, so he knows it was pure coincidence.

Last second, he peels the sticker away from the cling wrap and looks down to place it over the top of her yellow converse that were once a vibrant, paler color when Big John got them for her, but have since turned into an ugly mustard/dirt-dusted color they heckle her over.

"What are the other rules?" Y/N asks.

One of the hands holding onto where her feet are casually planted in his lap, something that they've done long enough that their friends won't see it as anything odd, slides down to caress the stretch of skin beneath the frayed hem of her dark jeans. Something she didn't know about him before whatever it is they have together started was that he constantly needs to be touching her. She can't say she doesn't love it though.

Pope answers, "The oatmeal raisin rule is not official"—a pointed glance at JJ—"But I'd assume the rest of the rules of Pogue Court would be no lying and no macking."

"So, basically you two break almost every rule except the oatmeal raisin one, and I lie," JJ says and turns to look at her, "How does it feel to be better than everyone, Y/N?"

"Pretty good, not gonna lie."

He keeps caressing little circles and tracing up and down her skin beneath the flared out pant leg of her jeans while he swipes his phone off of the table top without attracting the attention of their friends, who continue on to a new topic. She isn't too focused on what it is. She only picks up that it has something to do with a class they're in that's more advanced that hers, so she promptly checks out of the conversation.

Ever since John B died, she hasn't been performing too well in school. She tries, truly tries, but her mind outright refuses to absorb any of the information. When she reads her assigned reading, she hovers over the same paragraphs over and over until she shuts the book in a huff and hides it in her backpack again. Losing someone you love has a surprising amount of side effects.

Her phone buzzing in her hand brings her away from the impending cloud of doom that often accompanies any thoughts of John B, and when she taps in her passcode, her brother's birthday, a message bubble appears with a banner displaying JJ's contact name.

JJ (Derogatory) ur a good liar. prob could've fooled me if i weren't the one macking on u

Their eyes meet for a second across the table, then he watches her thumbs move to type a response.

Kief Princess Little do they know I break every rule now that I've switched sides on the cookie debate. Kinda impressive ngl.

JJ (Derogatory) triple threat, baby

JJ (Derogatory) thanks for the cookie btw

She smiles to herself, so wrapped up in their own world that she doesn't notice everyone in the room starting to pack up their stuff in anticipation of the bell that is due to ring any second now.

Kief Princess Had to repay you for last night somehow ;)

When she glances up to see his reaction, she watches his chest rise with a particularly large inhale, and he chews on the inside of his lip in thought.

JJ (Derogatory) strategically bringing up last night so i'm turned on in physics? ur an evil mastermind

Kief Princess I try.

Kief Princess Apparently whooping your sorry ass at surfing isn't the only thing I'm good at.

She hears him scoff.

JJ (Derogatory) first of all, ouch. second, u barely beat me

Kief Princess I'm happy to challenge you to a rematch. I have plans with Kie tonight, so I can't till this weekend. All it'll prove is that I am the rightful winner, but we knew that already.

JJ (Derogatory) what r the stakes this time

Kief Princess No sexual favors. If you beat me (fat chance) I'll formally rejoin team oatmeal raisin.

JJ (Derogatory) :( sex makes it more fun but i still accept those conditions

JJ (Derogatory) team oatmeal raisin needs u, even if ur a traitor

Kief Princess Why bet sexual favors if you're just gonna fuck me after anyway?

JJ (Derogatory) good point

The sound of the bell ringing echoes through the cafeteria, and they both pop their heads up from their phone screens to see everyone, including Pope and Kie, already packed up and raising from their seats to scurry off in the direction of their next classes. Meanwhile, their stuff is all bestrewn across the table, particularly JJ's belongings.

The sight of Kie walking away makes Y/N ask after her, "We're still on for tonight, right?

She stops with Pope's hand interwoven in hers. The look on her face when she turns would make you think she got caught doing something she wasn't meant to. Something like forgetting about the plans they made last week to watch Fear Street together. The Cherry Bowl Drive-In is premiering the first two movies as a double feature for the horror movie buffs of Kildare, so they decided to get tickets. Kiara shares a fondness of horror movies with her. Since gory movies make the boys squirm, though JJ pretends they don't, it's their own thing.

"Actually, Pope and I were gonna go to the beach. I'm sorry."

JJ knows she's more upset about it than she lets on, but Y/N simply gives the pair a smile that doesn't reach the eyes.

The sound of JJ behind her makes them laugh on their way out, diffusing the minor tension lingering in the air from the awkward encounter, "Use protection!"

After their friends offer them a goodbye, they gather their stuff quite leisurely, not really caring about being late.

It's something they've talked about before here or there: her feelings surrounding Kiara and Pope's sudden relationship. It's not as if she harbors any ill feelings for them, she doesn't, but the ripple effects of their pairing on the group, and more importantly the girls' own friendship, couldn't be clearer from her perspective. Between the missed hangouts, forgotten plans, and the convenient way she never seems to have time to hang out with her and JJ unless Pope is there too, it's been building up for a month now.

What makes it sting the most is how close her and Kie used to be. They didn't hit it off immediately the way she and JJ did as children until her thirteenth birthday when no one she invited showed up to the party Big John helped her set up in the yard of the Chateau.

She was the one who rallied the boys together to walk to ask their school friends from the year above to come hang out for an hour or two, promising a slice of the wonky-looking but delicious strawberry cake her and John B spent the morning crafting together. She can remember the sound of their high-pitched laughs and the cloud of flour that hung in the kitchen when they high-fived over the finished product like it was yesterday. In her heart, it was yesterday.

That night was when she fell in love with her friends, and that was when she first knew Kiara was her best friend. They wove friendship bracelets on each other that night and wore them for years until they withered away. No one had ever done something like that for her before. Not even JJ.

"You okay?"

Feeling his hand on her arm, slipping down to take her hand for a moment in the seclusion of the empty cafeteria, makes her glance up at him with a distinct sorrow washed over her features.

You know what? Screw this. Why should she be torn up over Kie and let it ruin her excitement for the double feature tonight? There's no way in hell she's letting her best friend ditching her for her boyfriend get in the way of her plans.

"Do you wanna go on a date tonight?" she asks him abruptly, then adds, "To the Cherry Bowl with me instead of Kie?"

The question sparks a pause in his mind, a halt of hesitation in which he worries about her avoiding having to answer what he asked, but he attempts to play it cool and not fuss over her outwardly. There have been times where being treated like that has made her feel suffocated, so he doesn't want to risk it. When she's ready, she'll talk about it, and if she takes too long and buries her feelings, then he'll intervene. For now, he tries to keep his face neutral despite the frown tempting his lips at her disappointment.

JJ looks around once more before throwing his arm around her shoulder to walk her out.

"You bet your ass I do."

What is a person supposed to act like on their first date that's not actually a date cause everything between them is the same, but kinda is a date because they called it one? If you ever find out, please find JJ and tell him because he has no clue.

Pope wasn't too much help in the Instagram group chat he made for it seeing as his and Kie's relationship is too fresh, John B isn't even alive, so he's out of service for advice unless there's Ouija Board he can borrow, and, thankfully, Kiara was his savior.

Their phones began blowing up as soon as he reached his class after lunch period ended. He couldn't under any circumstances let it be known that this mystery girl he had a date with was their friend, but thankfully Y/N already had the alibi of going to the Drive-In alone. All he had to do was make up a fake date scenario and get basic advice.

danknugstickiestickies added kiara-c and popeheyward to the groupchat

danknugstickiestickies named the group HELP ME

danknugstickiestickies i have a date with this chick i met on the beach when i was out with y/n last week. i need ur advice

His phone screen lit up with the notification that both of his friends were typing, signified with the three dot symbol bouncing in the bottom left corner as he thought it through. They couldn't possibly figure it out, right? They'd been careful, he'd been respectful of her wishes, and they'd been too busy together to notice anything new with them. He figured it would work. It was a risk, sure, but it was worth it to him. He didn't want to fuck this up with her.

Knowing her, she probably wouldn’t even treat it differently than any of their other hang outs. It's not like they haven't been romantic or sexual with each other. They've done everything but go out on an actual date, so why was he nervous?

kiara-c ummmm

popeheyward Yeah, I'm gonna need you to ELABORATE!!

kiara-c did hell freeze over? since when does jj maybank go out on dates??

danknugstickiestickies renamed the group hell froze over

kiara-c very funny, I'm laughing so hard 😐

popeheyward Do we know her?

danknugstickiestickies don't think u do. she moved here last week and hasn't enrolled in school yet. her name's steph

popeheyward What about Y/N though?

kiara-c ^^

JJ's chest muscles tightened with the question prompting a rush of anxiety that made his breathing feel slightly harder. He glanced up at his Physics teacher, who was essentially dozing off behind his desk with his hand in a bag of chips and an educational video on the projector as an excuse to not teach, and looked back down at his phone without the added stress of possibly getting his phone confiscated.

Pope's message might as well have been a sucker punch. Forget butterflies, he set a wasp’s nest loose inside of his stomach to tie it into knots and flip it every which way. His neglected textbook served as a prop for his phone to lean on as he set it down to think.

Did they know? As far as he was aware, they were getting away with it. No evidence, concrete or circumstantial, was there to prove it. At least the stress of the situation killed any chance of him being turned on by her reminder of last night in their messages. This shit was boner repellant of the highest degree.

He played stupid. Better to let them volunteer whatever information they had before he went in saying anything incriminating that they didn't already know. If anything would sour the experience of their first date, it would be him accidentally making their strange in-between relationship public behind her back.

danknugstickiestickies ?? what do u mean

Three dots bounced in the bottom left corner of his slightly cracked phone screen.

popeheyward ...

kiara-c I mean, you don't see it?

danknugstickiestickies see what

popeheyward I guess we were wrong, but all of us always thought you two had some feelings going on.

"You don't say?" JJ murmured sarcastically to himself under his breath. "Never crossed my mind, Pope."

danknugstickiestickies bro that's jb's little sister

kiara-c so?

danknugstickiestickies forbidden fruit? making john b roll over in his grave? do those ring a bell or am i speaking in tongues

He was already a proficient liar in real life, but, fuck, it was easy in text messages. There's no chance at deciphering facial expression or tone, just a plain message with no room to budge. Thank God he didn't do this in person with them. He could've survived, but it wouldn't have been as quick and painless as the group chat was.

kiara-c jeez, sorry

Pope didn't voice it, but he noticed something.

He looked up from his phone and stared off at the wall in thought in his AP European History class. It piqued his interest that JJ simply said she was off limits, forbidden fruit as he put it, but did not outright deny having feelings for her. In fact, he didn't even address the question. He made excuses for why he shouldn't have feelings for her, but he never said he didn't have feelings for her.

Kie did not notice. Not because she wasn't smart enough to either, but because she was too busy hiding her phone behind her backpack to think too deeply about it. Her teacher was one of those teachers that would flip shit if they saw a cell phone turned off and faced down on the desk, let alone being used by a student during a lesson.

In his classroom across the hallway, JJ bounced his leg up and down beneath his desk in an absentminded urge to release the built up energy the anxiety produced in an over abundance.

popeheyward Our bad then. Even John B thought y'all were sus lmao.

Since when was that a known fact? Could he tell? Did he talk to Pope about him and Y/N before he died? Either way, it wasn't the time to pry about it.

kiara-c yeah you guys honestly could've fooled me if you wanted to

danknugstickiestickies well thank u, glad ur invested in our friendship but

danknugstickiestickies please help, i have no fucking clue how to act on a date and this girl is too cool for me to screw this up

That was when they finally dropped the interrogation session and started offering up tips. The best ones came from Kie, which made sense to him since women are more likely to know what other women like than two dudes who share one collective brain cell and never had real relationships.

Rule One: Be ready to pick her up five minutes early.

He wasn't ready to pick her up five minutes early. His bike broke down by the time he made it halfway down his street, so he had to push it back up the road and into the yard before setting off on foot to reach the Chateau quickly enough. And by quickly enough, it means he got there five minutes late, not early.

Rule Two: Compliment her after you get in the car.

She tossed him the keys to the Twinkie from across the hood, not giving him the chance to open the door for her, and it wasn't until they were setting off down the road that he remembered the next piece of advice he was given.

Side-eyeing her in his peripheral vision, he tried to find something to compliment her on specifically rather than the general compliments about her being pretty that she never fully believes when he says them. He was intending to say something about the skirt she had on, but when he chanced a glance over at her, she caught him and asked—

"What is it?"

Sent into panic mode, JJ blurted out instead, "I like your shoes."

He could've bashed his face against the steering wheel twenty times right then and there at the utter absence of reaction on her part for the next few uncomfortable seconds. It wasn't that it was a bad compliment. She appreciates any compliments at all...but her shoes were hidden from his view. Not to mention, they were the dirty, mustard yellow converse that the Pogues bash on a daily basis.

She laughed, lifting her leg to expose the sneaker on her right foot, and asked, "These? Dude, you roast me for these all the time. You and John B said they look like Big Bird shit on them."

The skin on the apples of his cheeks scorched hot with embarrassment, and he was never so glad that the overhead lights in the van were burnt out until that moment. He would've died on the spot if she saw him blush like that, face flushed pinker than sunburn. All he could do to save himself was murmur something about the color growing on him and keep driving in the direction of the theater with his hands white-knuckling the steering wheel he fantasized about banging his face into.

Rule Three: Insist on picking up the check.

In this case, it meant insist on buying the popcorn and drinks, and he miraculously managed to drop his wallet somewhere along the way when he ran over to the Chateau, so when he stepped up to the makeshift concession stand with her standing at his side, he felt around for his wallet in his jeans to no avail.

His thoughts echoed back to him, You gotta be fucking kidding me. Seriously? Is this actually happening right now?

"JJ, it's honestly fine," she said softly as he leaned over to search back of the Twinkie for the wallet. "We can look for it on your street right now if you want. It has your ID and stuff, you don't want a stranger to have that. We don't need to stay—"

It took all of his control to not shout it in reaction when he said, "No way. You've been waiting for this, and Kie ditched you, so I ain't ditching you too. We're staying."

His wallet could go kick rocks.

He came too far to be dragged down by the old leathery piece of shit anyway. Would he go out and search for it tirelessly the second the date ended? Hell yeah, that fucker had twenty dollars and his debit card in it, but he couldn't bear the thought of abandoning her or ruining her anticipated movie night by taking her out to search the streets with their phone flashlights for a wallet they might not find. He'd wait till the movies ended, take her home, then haul ass around the Cut searching for it after.

Thankfully, he found a couple bucks crumbled up in his front pocket while she scavenged for coins in the glove compartment, and they came up with enough to buy a water bottle and small popcorn to share together.

Rule Four: Don't have sex on the first date.

And it may sound easy enough to not act like a complete Neanderthal for the length of two movies, but the girl makes it pretty damn difficult if he's to say so himself.

That's what led him here, laying in the back of the sideways-parked Twinkie in the farthest corner of the outdoor theater with her practically on top of him. In any other instance, he wouldn't be opposed in the slightest, but with the cursed fourth rule in mind, he isn't too thrilled with the feeling of her hand rubbing up and down his thigh.

It isn't even meant to be sexual. They're constantly touching one another this way. She'll even slip her hands up under his shirt just to feel the warmth of his skin or when he asks her if she can get an itch on a part of his back he can't reach, but for some reason his brain is short circuiting right now.

The thing is, when Kie and Pope said he shouldn't do it on the first date, they meant it for his and Steph's made up circumstances, not his and Y/N's full-blown relationship without labels. When you've had sex with someone as many times as they have with each other, the hesitancy on the "first date" is nonexistent. It doesn't matter. But JJ, trying to follow the advice given to him to the letter for the sake of being the date she deserves, doesn't think about it that way.

It shouldn't be this nerve-wracking. They've been best friends since they were children, they've been flirting since they found out what basic attraction was in the first place, and they've been forming this relationship ever since John B died. Why can't he relax? Why is this so different compared to how easy it felt between them yesterday on the beach or today at lunch?

Rule Five: Be yourself.

It takes him another few moments of laying here with her before he realizes quite abruptly what went wrong in a quick flash of a thought that brings the fifth rule back to him. The problem wasn't the bike, or the weird compliment about her Big Bird sneakers, or the lost wallet.

The problem is him. The problem is that he's trying way too hard to make this something it isn't. The part about them that he adores so dearly is how they never have to try when they're together. With any other girl or guy, they'd have to fake something or act a certain way, yet when they're together, they can simply exist and everything is runs smoothly. That's not to say they don't disagree or bump heads, they do, but short of those outlier moments, it's easier than anything else they do in life.

His eyes flicker away from the screen for the first time since the movie began, which, by the way, is gruesome enough at times that he had to divert his eyes to prevent himself from seeing it happen. They land on where she lays, completely content with the night in spite of its mishaps, with her head propped up on the pillows they brought from the Chateau.

He wonders if she can tell he's acting differently. Surely she must notice. She's the type of person that typically never misses a thing, perfect for the gold hunt they went on in the summer with picking up the clues and helping her brother unravel the mystery, so maybe she noticed how flustered this date has him. Does it bother her? Does he bother her?

With a confirming glance back up at the movie to see nothing important happening, he can't fight the urge to speak anymore.

"Can I tell you something?"

His voice appearing through the darkness of the shut off van after spending the past half hour in complete silence makes her jolt at first before realizing who it was. Though she loves horror movies, she can't claim to not be affected by them. The night she falls asleep after watching one, she often finds herself compelled to turn a light on and keep her feet from dangling off the edge of the bed. It's worth the fear, though.

When she turns to look at JJ, there's a warm smile on her face. She's cuddled into his side with a hand placed casually atop his thigh, caressing with no purpose or intent, and her movement halts when the light from the movie on the projector allows her to see the expression on his face.

Anxiety has become an increasingly significant presence in his life with the recent events in mind; John B and Sarah, the four-hundred million dollars they lost out on, and dodging his father whenever he sneaks home to switch out the backpack of clothes and personal belongings he keeps at the Routledge house.

It manifests itself in jittery nerves, stomach pains, shortness of breath, and, at worst, panic attacks striking either at random or in response to a specific trigger. It's one of the few things he still tries to hide from her, and she tries not to push him too hard with opening up about it.

She abandons the movie for the time being and rolls onto her side to face him, upper body propped up on her elbow as she examines his face with downturned features.

"Of course," she says.

The words left unsaid are, "You can tell me anything. Whenever you need someone to listen, or to talk to about shit, you can tell me." He's heard her say it enough that he doesn't need to hear it now to know it's true.

There's a pause, then—

"I feel like I fucked this entire date up," he starts to ramble and cuts her off before she can think about saying what she wants to, "and I know it's okay to you. You have way too high of a tolerance for my bullshit, and I've been trying so hard to make this perfect, but all that did was screw it up."

She's left quiet for a second, taking it all in.

Maybe if he hadn't been so anxious about it, he would've realized what was wrong with his bike when he rode it home from school, or he would've noticed his wallet fall out of his pocket. The point is, he wishes he hadn't let the label attached to this freak him out so much. He isn't sure why it does, but it does.

But she doesn't do what he expects. She isn't drowning him in reassurances and, "It's okay's" because she knows he doesn't care for them much. When he, the most stubborn person she knows, apologizes for something he did, he doesn't want it to turn into the person accepting the apology coddling him.

Y/N sighs.

"Is that why you've been acting so different all night? I scared you with the whole ‘date’ thing, didn't I? It doesn't have to be a date if you don't want it to be."

What she doesn't know is that he wants it to be a date. He wants it to be a date so badly, he risked Pope and Kie finding them out for the sake of getting some proper advice on it, and now he's caught up in the same game of tug and war in his mind that always occurs when he wants to tell her the truth about his feelings for her.

Part of him doesn't understand why he doesn't outright say it. With every other girl he once showed interest in, he had no issues in letting them know he wanted them, but this is different. This isn't simply wanting someone, he thinks he's fallen for her. But whenever he says he's gonna grow a pair and tell her after all this time, he chokes. Involuntarily, he's reminded of his parents. Other than his friends saying it platonically, the only people to tell him they loved him were them, and with how they treated him, he sure as hell doesn't think that is love.

From his dad's brutal physical abuse to his mom's abandonment, he's too timid to tell her he loves her because of what could happen if she loves him back. Everyone else that has said that to him has either hurt him, died like John B did, or abandoned him.

He won't let that happen with him and Y/N. What they have, albeit undefined and codependent, is safe. It's the only thing he has left. Maybe it isn't right, and maybe he should open up about it to communicate the correct way, but somewhere in the misshapen logic of his mind, he correlates love to abandonment. And he doesn't want that to happen with her.

There are two sides of him at battle inside his mind. One side, the side that wants to do right by their relationship and actually communicate his feelings for once in his life, wants him to tell her everything. The other side, the side that responds based on the history of his past, wants him to hide it all.

"Will you be mad at me if we don't call it a date?" he asks.

She shakes her head.

The heavy sensation inside of JJ's chest nears a point of vitriolic violence against him as he starts to realize what he's doing to her, clearly letting her down, but he can't stop himself. Like a passive witness watching himself from outside of his body, the instantaneous trauma response to the sudden confrontation of his true feelings for her guides his actions without his permission. It shuts down any protest he has.

The sound of the movie fills the gap of silence between them the entire time. It’s a variety of bloodcurdling screams and disgusting sounds that would've made him gag if he weren't as distracted.

They can make out each other's faces through the darkness, but barely. It takes a flash of bright color from the film or a nearby car's lights turning on for them to fully see one another. Without the other knowing, they both put masks of calm and collected coolness on their faces despite the feelings raging beneath the surface—more so on his part than hers.

"Maybe," he says, pausing, "we should just keep things the way they've been."

As soon as the words leave his mouth, a soul-crushing amount of disappointment weighs her down. She said it was fine if he doesn't want it to be a date—and it is, she would never hold it against him—but that doesn't mean it can't hurt her. Things have been going so well, she almost thought...If tonight went well, she was thinking about no longer keeping it a secret, but if he said he wants things to stay the same, then maybe he isn't as ready for it as she is?

Meanwhile, JJ is on another page entirely.

She's embarrassed of being with you, a familiar voice in the back of his head croons. She's gonna leave just like everyone else does. If she doesn't even wanna tell your friends, why should you pretend you're dating?

The internal comments are the type that cause him to physically grimace when he's alone. Intrusive thoughts are just that: intrusive.

Sneaking into the guarded sanctuary of a person's mind, they set out to convince them the opposite of their reality. The only thing is, where most people's minds are guarded sanctuaries with walls of impregnable defense, his mind is the equivalent of a fortress blown to smithereens. The castle walls lay in rubble, the guards no where to be seen, and the path for these thoughts to slip past and straight to the vulnerability of his mind is left wide open.

In the privacy of his room, these thoughts attack him the most at night when he tries to fall asleep—when things get too quiet. With nobody around, when they get this bad there's nothing he can do except break down. It builds from the mere anxiety of attempting to force the thoughts away to full-blown panic attack mode. The more he resists them, the more aggressive they become. He'll gasp for air with tears streaming down his face, hitting his head with the heel of his hand as if that'd do something to stop his relentless mind.

But he can't afford to react in front of her, so the extent of his reaction is a subtle twitch of his face that she cannot see in the momentary darkness before the movie switches to another scene a second later. In a way, it does make the thoughts go away to have her here preventing him from spiraling alone. Having to focus on her keeps his mind away for moments at a time until the thoughts ease their grip on him.

When she hasn't answered for a while, he asks, terrified that he did something bad, "Are we good?"

The question seems to wake her up, snapping her out of the lonely direction her thoughts went into when he "rejected" her. It takes every bit of common sense she has left to force herself to understand that this doesn't mean he doesn't want her. He does, and not calling this a date doesn't mean they won't be together in the way they have been since John B's death, but she isn't perfect. She gets as unsure and insecure as he does.

As if the cloud of doom was lifted off of her, she makes her face lighten where she lays on her side next to him. Seeing this expression makes his chest feel less heavy, and he could let out a sigh of relief at the realization that he didn't break her heart and stomp on it. He should've known. Y/N is the sweetest person he knows, so she never would've flipped shit over him not wanting to label this as a date. That's not how she is.

And he's partly right. It isn't how she is. She would never hold it against him if he didn't want something further with her since she got herself into this position by pursuing him with his reputation with girls in mind, but she can't ignore it. Whether she wants it to or not, it had its affect on her as soon as he said it.

She leans in to kiss him, their lips meeting in the middle with the faint taste of popcorn salt mingling at the soft peck.

When she pulls away, she brushes the hair back from his face and says, "Don't worry. Nothing can change how I feel about you."

She has no clue what it feels like to hear that from her.

Despite the turmoil they unknowingly share beneath the surface due to this conversation, he could cry hearing her say it. It doesn't feel real to him that she feels the same way he does about her, because nothing could change how he feels about her either. That’s why he manages to work up the courage to repeat it back to her, and, for now, this is the closest he's physically capable of coming to telling her the truth.

"Ditto," he says.

It isn't what she wanted, but it's close enough, and if she dwells on this any longer, she might start getting too emotional and let the urge to tear up become too strong. Why does she have to be this sensitive? It's no secret that it's remarkably easy to make her cry, but this is insane to her. When all of this began with him, she didn't give a shit about him not wanting a label. She understood him, and she understood that he doesn't do this kind of thing, so why has it changed? Why doesn't she want to keep it a secret anymore? Why does she want this to be a date when she knows he doesn't want it to be?

Pulled by an invisible string back to him to silence her mind, she leans in to kiss him again with a hand cupping the back of his neck to guide him the rest of the way to her.

It shouldn't be laced with any sexual intention. She should be kissing him simply because she wants to, and, in a way, she is. Their kisses and touches are never lacking the motivation that is their underlying connection and mutual feelings for one another, but this is not the same. As he kisses her back with as much confidence and passion as always, she is reeling from the conversation that reminded her too much of a breakup.

It takes another minute of this for the kiss to heat up, their breathing becoming shallower in the moments they part to inhale, and she is undeniably the one instigating when she officially crosses the line between casual and sexual by crawling onto his lap. It's not hard for him to pick up on when their innocent moments take a turn. She's easy to read in that regard, and this has happened a multitude of times with them, so the shift of a mini make out session turning into something more is nothing out of the ordinary for them.

If he knew how shaken she is on the inside, he'd never want this. And the same would go for her if she knew what he was thinking before this. Neither of them wants to admit what they're feeling.

With her legs seated on either side of his hips, she kisses him like it's the last time she'll ever get the opportunity to. Her hands wander wherever they can, pulling at his shirt and feeling him up as his hands guide her hips to move against his in a steady grinding that she has no issue partaking in. It's an eagerness he hasn't seen from her in weeks. She's never un-excited when it comes to being physical with him either, but this is another level. The last time a girl was all over him like this, it was desperate touron at a party a few months ago.

In the span of time it takes her to glance over her shoulder to see if anyone could see them and reach to pull her skirt up until it bunches around her hips—no one can see them, by the way, since they got here late and were forced to cram the van into the back corner of the lot with no street lights illuminating the path—his brows raise at her presumptuous behavior. Not that he's one to complain, however, seeing as he's typically the one doing what she is.

Their next kiss clashes their teeth hard enough to make them wince, but he loves it. It makes him smirk into her parted mouth, alive with both the feeling her reassurance provided and the fuzzy-headed high that often finds him when they're together in this way. Incomparable to past flings or the high related to any drugs, she is the peak of everything to him. It's no contest.

His chest stutters against hers with a bout of amused laughter, asking within a brief pause in what feels like the most JJ thing he's said this awkward night, "Two for two in the Twinkie. What's gotten into you?"

Y/N's hand dips between where their bodies move together to unclasp the closed buckle of his belt in one smooth motion that has it falling apart with a clinking noise.

Her features are set with a look that tells him she means business. Whatever it is that sparked this, he wonders how the fuck to make it happen again another time. She's begged for it before, but never taken control so dominantly, and he can't deny what the role reversal does to him. The evidence is obvious in the distinct hardness she feels pressing up against the hand undoing his jeans.

"I was hoping it'd be you," she says, voice breathless and airy from the constant contact in a way that makes it ten times hotter for him.

If there were any chance of him not being in the mood prior to this, which wasn't the case anyway, it's gone now. He never wants to hear her say she doesn't deliberately try to tease him ever again.

He doesn't need to be told twice.

JJ surges forward to capture her mouth with his, this time with no intention of pulling away to breathe or speak again. No, he'll let himself get lightheaded and dizzy if it means he can stay with her for as long as possible.

With the circumstances of it all, them being visible to someone if they happened to pass by the open door of the van, they move at a pace quicker than usual. She's immediately helping him shimmy his jeans and underwear far enough down his hips to free his dick from the confines of his clothes, making him sigh out a breath of relief when her hand brushes against him in the process.

There's no opportunity to slow down, it has exploded into a full-throttle speed race that neither of them can halt.

His hand blindly flies out beside him to grope the floor of the van for the set of keys he tossed carelessly to the side once the movie started, eyes shut in the midst of the hot, messy kiss they share. His fingers find the fabric of one of the blankets they brought in case they got cold, then drifts again and lands on her Big Bird sneakers until he feels the sharp metal of her keys meet his calloused palm.

After the events of last summer, she bought a switch blade to keep on her key ring alongside the keys to the van, HMS Pogue, and Chateau. She may not like violence or weapons, seeing as she was a skeptic of JJ keeping the gun alongside her friends, but she saw it necessary. Between Rafe, Topper, and Kelce, how could she leave the safety of her and her friends up to chance knowing what some of the kooks did to them not long ago? What happened to Pope on the golf course alone was enough to make her skin crawl.

Right now, though, the knife flips out from the pressure of his thumb pushing the button to release it. He holds it out away from her at first to assure it doesn't nick her in the process, then uses his other hand to tug the side of her panties that hugs her hip far out enough to press the sharp side of the blade onto the inside of it.

She can hardly believe what she's watching as JJ cuts the delicate maroon underthings from her body as if he were doing something so normal, like it's something he's done before. Her forehead is pressed against his, her mouth parted both in shock and in a need to pant for oxygen, and she watches the knife ruin her favorite panties. The stitches come apart with a satisfying ripping noise that can hardly be heard over the sound of people reacting to the movie in the background.

Other customers of the Cherry Bowl Drive-In are too glued to the screen as a beloved character is chased down, reacting in shouts when she's seized by the killer and shoved onto the table of an industrial bread slicer, so they remain wholly unnoticed.

The lace, now ripped in half, dangles on the tip of the knife when he lifts it away from her, tosses it aside, and presses the button once more to retract the blade. It clatters to the floor, but is in no way forgotten with them resuming in a desperation to keep going until they both satisfy the need clawing at them from the inside. But her sense of need is different from his, and even with the fresh memory of him with the switch blade in mind, she's still somewhere else the whole time.

Her mind is faraway, muted through layers of sadness, anger, and disappointment as he reaches between them to line himself up to her entrance. The sensation of him running his cock, hard and messy with a few drops of precome, through her dripping pussy to coat it in her slick arousal is enough to make her moan pathetically. Yet when he's about to guide himself inside of her, she stops him.

"Wait, wait, wait," she breathes out rapidly, heart pounding so hard she can feel herself pulsating between her thighs, "Condom."

They were so antsy to get to it, they almost forgot.

"Fuck," he curses under his breath, and his eyes flicker from where they were trained between their bodies to glance back and forth around the van before it hits him. "I lost my wallet..."

But right when he thinks their public rendezvous in the back of the Drive-In is over due to his unfortunate mistake, she shakes her head and slips away from her perch astride his lap to crawl over to her bag.

She fumbles with the old tote bag and plunges her arm in to sift through the hodge podge of things that are purely Y/N in nature—stickers, glitter pens, a half-eaten bag of candy, etc—for the square foil package she decided to toss in before she left just in case. She usually doesn't keep them on her because he never fails to have one, but, thankfully, she had the random instinct to bring it tonight.

The only thing to bring her out of her cloudy, malevolent storm of feelings when she settles back onto his lap with the condom wrapper ripped open for him is him saying, "So you planned this, huh?" with his mouth tipped in a familiar self-satisfied grin.

She didn't plan it. In fact, she threw herself at him the second she sensed him withdrawing from her and can't stop herself despite the fact that she constantly feels two seconds away from letting a tear slip down her cheek. If that counts as "planning it", then sure.

"Maybe so," she answers, cool, calm, and collected—the antithesis of the truth.

They usually don't lie to each other.

They're thrown right back into it without any other hiccups once he rolls the condom on, and he takes in a shaky breath at her hand wrapping around him to align their bodies up. Before she can do anything, though, he takes chance to swipe the blanket he found a moment ago and wrap it around her back to keep her covered in case they get caught.

Y/N sinks down onto his cock with her lip caught between her teeth to stifle the sound that threatens to escape. JJ, on the other hand, doesn't bother concealing the sound of the groan he makes at the sensation of having her wrapped around him like this. The tension in her entire body from the anticipation and the looming threat of being seen by someone has her squeezing him so tightly, he can't help but be a little louder than he should.

Her soft palm slaps over his mouth with enough pressure to force his groan to quiet itself, and she watches his pretty blue eyes widen in reaction to the dominant action. Who is this girl and what has she done with his sweet, submissive Y/N? Don't get him wrong, he is very turned on by it, but it's unlike her to take the lead this way. He can't figure it out.

"What's wrong, angel?" she asks in a whisper into his ear, her hand over his mouth and her hips starting to slowly rock against him, "Watch the movie."

Once the words leave her mouth, she drops her hand, just in case he wants to stop and can't say anything because she had his mouth covered, and JJ is pretty sure he's died and gone to heaven.

He doesn't watch the movie, not at all, because he's too busy watching her. For someone losing their mind internally, she does not let it show, nor does she let it distract her from what's happening. If anything, the distraction in this situation is the sex, not what's going on inside of her head.

There's a moment of adjustment and going as slowly and gently as possible while waiting for the dull pressure of feeling him inside of her to fade away, but, for the most part, she doesn't waste any time. As soon as she feels comfortable enough with the ache between her thighs giving way to a spark of pleasure when she grinds her clit down on his pubic bone, she starts to ride him at a better pace than the initial slow movements of her hips.

She raises herself up and takes him again inch by inch, enjoying the sense of fullness she gets from having to fit him in spite of the slight discomfort at first, and she could swear that he'll leave bruises in the shape of his handprints with how tightly he clutches her hips. It's all he can do to prevent himself from moaning or saying something, ever the vocal lover she's come to know.

Unless his mouth is preoccupied like it was on the beach yesterday afternoon, JJ is usually impossible to shut up, especially in this context. With him always whispering dirty things to her, whether it be praises, pet names, or plans on what he wants to do to her, she has come to find it breathtakingly hot. He could likely get away with saying something if he wanted to, but he isn't sure he wants to risk it. If he opens his mouth to spew something filthy to her, he won't trust himself not to make a louder, different kind of noise that won't fit in the with background audio the other moviegoers are listening to.

The wet sound of their bodies colliding that fills the space of the van is drowned out by the loud and violent sequence occurring on the screen far ahead of them, and hearing it makes her bounce herself on him a little harder. She's fueled on by it all, and, strangely, what happened before she practically pounced on him is the main contributor.

Similarly to the nature of his intrusive thoughts, the harder she resists the memory of how it felt when he told her he didn't want this to be a date, the more forceful it is in its return. Her eyes trail down to watch where they connect with her forehead pressed to his, then she's thrown back into the feeling of helpless disappointment and insecurity. His head tips back against the window with his bottom lip dropped open and his brows furrowed just enough to create a crease on his forehead, and she's bombarded with the look of relief on his face when he realized he didn't have to be tied down to her with a label.

It makes her want to get rougher, harder, and she doesn't even care if it'll make her sore later on. She presses herself down so far every time she slides down on his cock, her teeth draw blood on her lip with how hard she must bite it to remain quiet. The pain of her hipbones rubbing against his doesn't even matter to either of them at this point. They're both too lost in the pleasure that has begun to take control of them to care about something as minuscule as that, or the burn in her thighs from the repetitive physical strain.

She grabs his wrist and brings his hand between them, flattening hers overtop of it and pressing down on the base of her abdomen in the midst of the increasingly feverish thrusts.

"Feel you here," she murmurs to him through a quiet moan, hoping he can hear it over the movie, and pushes down on his hand for emphasis. And if the way he reacts by cursing under his breath tells her anything, it's that he picked up on it. "JJ..."

He reaches out to grab her by the throat with his free hand and tug her forward to kiss him, as if something inside of him snapped in response to her doing that. The motions of her jolting up and down throws the already messy and uncoordinated kiss off-kilter, but they don't mind. It has them separating every time she lifts up, producing this heady little head rush from from them breathing in each other's air without actually letting their mouths meet in the middle.

Though they're trying their hardest not to alert anyone outside of what's happening, it didn't occur to him until now, when his eyes catch John B's old bandana swinging back and forth where it's secured around the rear view mirror.

They're worried about moaning while the entire fucking Twinkie is rocking with their movements. Well, at least it makes good use of the corny sticker he gifted John B last year as a gag gift. He tried to peel it off after JJ snuck it onto the side window to no avail. So, now Y/N is stuck with a sticker on her car reading, "If the van's a-rockin', come on in, we like orgies," rather than the more common phrase.

It almost makes him start laughing, and he prays no one takes that shit seriously, 'cause he is never intent on sharing this breathtaking girl. Ever.

Y/N isn't anywhere near laughing like he is, in fact, she's finding it difficult to keep herself together. She feels her eyes sting with the promise of tears, and she's never felt so pathetic before. Is she seriously about to cry during sex? Is she really that girl that is so ill-equipped to handle rejection, she can't get through it without tears?

She won't cry. Perhaps if he sees how glossy her eyes have become in a rare moment of good lighting, she can blame it on the hand around her throat putting pressure on the sides of her neck.

The worst part about her being near to crying is the timing of it.

The emotion of what she feels mentally mixes with the swirling, building sensation she feels in the pit of her stomach that tells her she's close to going over the edge, and it's so overwhelming. Was she imagining that their friendship had changed? More importantly, is this all she'll ever be to him? Sex is the only thing she's sure of with him, it's the only thing that doesn't require deeper emotions, and when the ground beneath their fragile relationship felt shaky...

He can feel her starting to unravel, and he knows that he'll come before she does if he doesn't do anything now, so he decides to take control.

JJ pulls the hand he had resting on her abdomen away as though he were burned by it, wrapping his arm around her waist to steady her body against his and using the hand around her neck for leverage to thrust up into her, effectively reducing her to a teary-eyed, moaning mess atop him. They both stopped caring about making noise the second he began to fuck her like this.

She cries out in ecstasy at the sudden change in pace and depth that has him hitting all the right places. Every time he thrusts up into her, just as rough as she wished for, the tip of his cock nudges into that perfect spot inside of her that makes her incapable of silencing her moans. This time, it's JJ that puts his hand over her mouth, letting the one he had around her neck move away to keep her from alerting everyone around them of what's happening.

There's nothing she can do to stop her climax as it barrels through her in its initial sweeping wave of bliss to contrast the venomous doubts in her mind. She's never felt such conflicting, yet powerful feelings before—the intensity of the physical pleasure that makes her whine into the palm of his hand, then the part of her mind replaying every word he said in their conversation before this.

Her body is rigid and tense through it all, squeezing down around his cock with the involuntary spasms of her orgasm, and he can't help himself anymore. All it takes are a few more frantic thrusts for him to bury himself inside of her one last time and spill into the condom, uncovering her mouth so he can drown out his own groans into a kiss.

Their skin sticks to their clothes on the inside with sweat from the exertion of their actions, and he can feel her stomach tremble where it presses up against his with each undulation of her hips that meet his as he rides it out.

But even with the added distraction of the sex, she can't rid herself of the feeling that started plaguing her as soon as things went awry. That was why he was acting weird all night. He must have been so worried about her thinking this was anything more than their typical hangouts that he couldn't bring himself to act normally.

She forces herself to look happy when they pull away from the kiss, panting, and JJ, unaware of what she's been thinking, doesn't notice the small deception.

Tag list: @gabiatthedisco

#jj maybank #jj maybank smut #jj maybank x reader #outer banks #obx #fanfiction #obx s2 #uh oh trouble in paradise #anyway that smut #kinda wanna get railed by JJ in the back of the van #don’t we all?

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sylphid187 · 3 years

Text

Epilogue:Another One

Sunlight hits his face as it streams through his bedroom window. Kenma groans and tries to roll over from his current position on the bed, but finds that he has difficulty moving. He blinks his eyes open and then looks down, only to see a pair of arms draped around his waist, holding him tight. His thoughts begin to drift and he sighs fondly, remembering that he is no longer sleeping alone again, because after long weeks alone in a large house, Kuro is finally home.

Kuro had to go on regular trips away for the JVA, that was just part of the job description. Of course, this means Kenma is usually alone at their, yes it's officially theirs now, home. Getting Apple Pie, Pie for short, has been helpful to ease the loneliness. The calico kitten has been nothing but a rumble of energy and adorable, always there to keep Kenma company. But it didn't erase the loneliness completely, and there was just no feeling that could compare to having Kuro around.

But current events have allowed them more time together in the following months. With the V-League officially back in season, Kuro has been put in charge of attending those specific events. With most of the games being held in nearby stadiums, Kenma could actually spare some time to go watch them live with him. This was especially true when Shouyou was playing. The Jackals games were either watched live or in the comfort of their living room, at real time, while cuddled together. Kenma has never missed any of Shouyou's games.

It's been around six months since their messy confession, give or take. Six months since they came out to the public as a couple, and the start of their rollercoaster of a relationship. They didn't have the perfect relationship, Kenma thinks. They still had misunderstandings, and sometimes they argued about the silliest things. But they never went to bed angry at one another, never slept without trying their best to settle things, in a way that won't leave either of them struggling to pick up the pieces of the fight the next day. Overall, Kenma was content and happy, and he hoped that Kuro was too.

"Thinking about something?" Being stirred away from his thoughts, he feels Kuro mutter. The other's face buried on the top of his head, voice still groggy.

"Hm. Nothing important." Kenma replies with another sigh.

"Care to share then?" Kenma feels Kuro shift his position a bit, allowing the smaller male to turn around and having them face to face, before once again feeling Kuro's arms around his waist. "I'm a very good listener you know."

"I was thinking of replacing you." Kenma states in a deadpan voice.

Kuro gasps "Kenma! I'm offended! Only six months and you're tired of me already? Woe is me." Kuro tightens his hold and touches their noses together. "So tell me then, what do I have to do to regain your favor?"

"You can get up and make breakfast." Kenma states. "And maybe I'll reconsider."

Kuro immediately grins. "I knew my cooking was good for something. Here's an idea, you stay here and get some more shut eye. I'll make sure you have something to fill your empty stomach in a bit, yeah?" Kuroo starts to get up, slowly untangling himself between the mess of limbs the two of them are in. But Kenma immediately stops Kuroo and keeps him in place. "Kenma?"

Kenma buries himself between the blanket and Kuro and snuggles closer. "Ten more minutes. Please." He just isn't ready to leave this warmth just yet.

He feels Kuro place a kiss on the crown of his head, and hears the other give out a small chuckle of amusement. "Of course kitten, whatever you want." Kuro slowly settles back into his previous position. And it doesn't take long for sleep to overtake him again, filled with complete contentment and bliss.

When Kenma wakes, it's to his stomach rumbling and the wafting smell of buttered toast and sizzling bacon. He slightly sniffs the air before opening his eyes and sighs in disappointment that he can no longer feel Kuro’s warmth beside him. Kenma allows himself to yawn and stretch before he rubs his eyes to force himself awake. He puts on slippers and pads out of the room, straight to their connected dining area and living room.

He stops mid-step and blinks when he sees Kuro standing there, cup of coffee in one hand, and cat food on the other.

"There you go buddy, must be tasty huh?" Kuro crouches down to place a generous amount of cat food into Pie's bowl. The kitten gives a pleased meow. "Yeah, yeah. I don't want you ever complaining to Kenma that I starve you, you hear me?"

"Meow" Pie continues to stare at Kuro with wide eyes.

"No! You are not getting any more this morning. We want you well fed, not extremely chunky!"

"Meow" came with marching padding at Kuro's feet.

"I know there's nothing wrong with being a chunky cat! But you're young and we have to make sure you eat healthy first, then maybe we can get you a nice piece of fish for dinner, how's that sound?"

"Meow!"

"I knew you'd see it my way. Now, go get your breakfast!" And Pie saunters off to her bowl and just about devours her meal.

Kenma smiles at the domesticity of the entire scene. Kuro having an entire conversation with their cat, completely unaware, with all his barriers down. It reminds Kenma how easy it is to just fall into normalcy with Kuro, even with their new relationship. It's as if nothing and yet everything has changed all at once.

"You know, I can't believe you lost an argument with a cat."

Kuro immediately turns to face him and grins. "Excuse me, I did not lose. We just happen to reach a healthy compromise." He places his coffee mug down on the table, and starts to pour Kenma a cup of his own. He motions for Kenma to come over, and the gamer complies, ready to get his dose of morning coffee.

"She got her way. You're giving her fish for dinner, it'll be your fault if she turns into a spoiled cat."

"Oh come on, don't pretend that you don't sneak her pieces of your dinner from under the table." Kuro grins at him as he slides Kenma's plate of a healthy breakfast.

He doesn't have a retort to that. because yes, he does shove Pie bits of his dinner from under the table, but Kenma would never just admit that and let Kuro win that easily.

"I'll take your silence as an admittance of guilt." Kuro tells him. "But don't worry, at least you know she's got both of us wrapped around her finger...or is it her paw? That just doesn't sound right."

Kenma smiles again as he shoves a piece of bacon in his mouth. He's too focused on his breakfast; that when he looks back up a while later, he sees Kuro staring from across him. The taller male's resting his chin on one hand, finished coffee mug on the other, and looking at Kenma with a look that seemed like he hung the stars.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" Kenma asks.

"Like what?"

"Like that. Like....I don't know, like I'm some kind of mythical creature. Or like I'm the best thing you've seen all day." Kenma clarifies with a raised eyebrow.

"You are though." Kuro says with a smile so soft, Kenma kinda wants to slap that look off his face.

"I'm what?" he asks again.

"Best thing I've seen all day. Best thing in my life actually." Kuro says with the smile never leaving his face.

Kenma's face burns, he looks down and aggressively stabs the next chunk on his plate and shoves it into his mouth. He hears Kuro guffaw at this, and feels his face get even hotter. "You know kitten, any more and you'd put our old Nekoma jackets to shame with that shade of red."

"Shut up Kuro." Kenma mutters while he throws a glare at the other's direction. Kuro just continues to smile, already knowing that there isn't any animosity in that look.

The remainder of breakfast passes in comfortable silence, moments with Pie inserted in between. Once they're done, they do their part to clean up, and then start their other routines for the day. Kenma goes back to his room and begins to focus on paperwork with Bouncing Ball and his upcoming stream, and Kuro goes to his own room to have a meeting with people from the JVA.

It's pretty much routine at this point. Their jobs often being the reason why they can't always spend time together 24/7. But Kenma likes to think it contributes to why he loves Kuro so much, loves being with Kuro so much. His relationship with Kuro was never something that followed a certain set of standards or locked in a set of rules. They didn't have to always see each other to be happy, they didn't have to always physically be around one another all the time to be together , and they didn't require a regular update on each other's business every time. They also never deemed it necessary to be overly public about how they felt, at least not by their standards, which probably contributed to why they took so long to acknowledge their feelings in the first place.

Theirs is more a quiet, straightforward kind of love. One filled with silent affirmation, affection, comfort and just being there when the other needs it the most. Kenma was never loud to begin with, always just observant and aware, but he never had to be for Kuro to know how he felt. Years of knowing each other has ultimately made Kenma realize that it's always, ever, been Kuro. And it always will be.

Later that night, as the day ends and they snuggle together on Kenma’s large bed, Kenma’s thoughts drift to how lucky and content he is. Pie has chosen to sleep in between them on the bed tonight, positioning himself slightly, just on Kenma’s stomach. He thinks of his little family that they have built together and wonders about the future they have.

"Hey." Kuro whispers, the man's hand stroking Pie's back, coaxing the kitten into a deeper sleep.

"Hm?" Kenma tries his best not to squish their furbaby while snuggling just a little closer to Kuro.

"We should get Pie a companion, don't you think?" Kuro asks him.

Kenma raises an eyebrow questioningly. "You want to get us another cat? Why?"

Kuro shrugs "I think it'd be nice to get the little guy a friend that's all. And don't you want Pie to have a friend?"

"We aren't getting another cat." he tells the other. Kenma is trying to dispel this impulsive decision, and it has nothing to do with the fact that he would absolutely adore another cat. Kuro simply grins and their debate that night ends at that.

Three days later though, Kuro enters their home with more cat toys, another bag of cat food, and a small burmese cat following behind him.

"Kuro. What's that?" Kenma stares, and gives the other a look .

"... Not another cat?" The taller male says sheepishly, as he slowly sets the purchases down.

The black burmese cat then pads over to Kenma and goes in between his legs. It's only then that Kenma notices the wet fur and shivering body. He bends down to pet the small creature and unknowingly smiles as he does. It then pads over to Pie who is observing at the corner of the room, and begins to nuze the other kitten. Kenma sighs in defeat before looking up to see a triumphant grin on Kuro's face.

"Hey in my defense, I went to the store to get more cat food. This little guy just followed me home." He raises his hands in resignation after he puts down all his remaining purchases. "And it was raining Kenma! I couldn't just leave him there!"

"Good on you for saving the cat. But we can't keep him Kuro. We're busy enough as it is and we already have Pie to take care of. We'll get him cleaned up and take him to the vet then find him a good home. Maybe Bokuto and Akaashi will want to take him." Kenma stands up and gives his pants a pat down. He desperately tries not to look at the new cat too long, or he's sure to cave into the request.

When he looks up, Kuro is right in front of him. "Aww can't we keep him?" Kuro loops an arm around Kenma's waist and touches their noses together.

Kenma glares. "I know what you're doing. And it's not gonna work Kuro."

"I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about." Kuro says with a smirk.

"We aren't keeping him." And again, Kenma tells himself that this isn't exactly because he doesn't want to, but that he's trying really hard not to give into temptation, and be the responsible adult in this relationship.

"We can afford to get another cat though right?"

"Well, yes we can."

"And we love cats"

"We do." He bites his lip at this. Damnnit Kuro.

"So we should definitely keep this one."

"No we won't"

Kenma realizes at this moment that he's a liar. Because he never really could deny Kuro, just like Kuro couldn't very well deny him. And when it's all said and done, and they wake up the next day and watch as their cats are also cuddled together, Kenma can't really complain.

Their newest addition to the family fits in with them perfectly. Like two pieces of a puzzle and two halves of a whole.

Just like Kenma and Kuro.

Always together, no longer alone.

So yes, Of course they keep the cat.

I added a second chapter to my previous KuroKen fic. This one is just pure fluff 🥰

#haikyuu fanfiction #haikyū!!#kuro tetsuro #kozume kenma #kuroken #kuroken fanfic #fanfic #haikyuu fluff #fluff #ao3 fanfic #sylphid writes

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aritany · 4 years

Note

hi!!! i just had a quick q :) anyways, i've just noticed that it seems that you can write really fast and can finish novels at a surprisingly fast rate (like first drafts anyways), and i was wondering if you've always been good at dedicating yourself to a story or if it was something you kind of taught yourself to do? and if you have any tips?

hi!! i do actually have some thoughts about this. i would say i’ve always been good at dedicating myself to a story, but i haven’t always been good at finishing them.

there’s a misconception that good writers finish stories. that’s not always true. i know a lot of very talented writers who have unfinished wips out the wazoo (and that’s not always a bad thing, but more on that later), so that proves that theory wrong.

good project managers finish stories.

the good news about that is that yes, you absolutely can teach yourself to be a project manager!

the keys to finishing your wips:

have a good idea

be obsessed with it

decide you’re going to finish it

have a plan

stick (more or less) to it

expect to get bored (and have a plan for that, too)

1. have a good idea

this is the part people are good at! this is an insanely creative community, so i won’t elaborate too much on this, but i wanted to highlight that it doesn’t even have to be a spectacular idea, just a good one. when you’re learning to finish wips, not all of them will be the most original and brilliant idea. you’re still learning how to handle your ideas and what to do with them, and that’s awesome!

2. be obsessed with it

i’ve got a bit of a headstart in that i tend to hyperfixate on stuff. that means when i get a new idea, it is all i think about. and that’s good!! let your obsession fuel your daydreams. make moodboards, make wip playlists. get really excited!

3. decide you’re going to finish it

this one is mostly about attitude. make the choice: is this the book you want to be able to read from start to finish? decide you’re going to finish it. decide that you ARE the sort of writer that finishes their projects.

4. have a plan

this doesn’t mean you have to outline your whole book chapter-by-chapter. lots of people don’t like outlining, and that’s okay. in this case i mean more that it’s good to make a game plan about finishing your book. stop thinking of it as a book, and start thinking of it as a project. that means dividing it into manageable chunks. that’s going to look different for everyone.

my strategy (as a non-linear outliner) is usually: outline, write out the scenes that are hanging around in my head, go through and write out details of what happens in each scene, make notes as i go, get more ideas, write those down, keep going until i have little bits for each scene i’ve planned, then go through and write all the transitional bits to turn it into a smooth narrative/complete story.

i’m only including my strategy to show what works for me, but i can’t tell you what will work for you. you’ll learn as you go about how you like to write best, and what point you get bored.

give yourself loose deadlines. (i.e. i’m going to finish part one of this book by the end of the month, or i’m going to finish the outline by the end of next week)

5. stick (more or less) to it

do your best to hit your deadlines. but if you don’t hit them, remember that you’re the one that set them. push the date back, don’t just say ‘well then i guess i can’t’ (even though it sucks to have to say you didn’t do what you wanted to do). it’s better to finish a book later than you meant rather than not finish it at all.

6. expect to get bored (and have a plan for that, too)

this is the part that stops most people from finishing their wips. if you expect the lustre of the first idea to last the whole time, you’re going to be disappointed. expect that your WIP is going to get less exciting for you all of a sudden. meet that moment and say ‘hey, i anticipated this’ and keep writing. the nice thing is that after you get used to the idea being less exciting, you can still find the initial excitement in it (and usually the last third of the process is just as much fun as the first part!).

i could probably go on and on but this is getting long enough, so i’ll leave you with some other advice:

don’t let people bully you into thinking that you think about writing too much. if you’re a writer, that’s what you do. it’s okay if people don’t like it

don’t listen to the voice that says ‘hey wait a second this sucks’ about 30-40k into a draft. that’s stupid. it doesn’t suck, and you might just be looking for a reason to give up.

be diligent. finishing wips doesn’t just happen. you have to do it on purpose.

thanks for asking, anon! if anyone has other specific questions about this, feel free to ask :)

#asks #advice #writing advice #advice with abby #WIP advice

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drshojo · 4 years

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The World, My Childhood And My Hero Academia: Vigilantes

Hello friends!

Its Dr. Shojo coming at you with a post that will be divided into three parts!

Part One: The world as we know it!

The world has changed a lot since we last connected. For starters, TOILET BOUND HANAKO KUN HAS NOT ONLY A PHYSICAL RELEASE BUT A GORGEOUS ANIME! And not only that, but MY NEXT LIFE AS A VILLAINESS: ALL ROUTES LEAD TO DOOM! IS GETTING AN ANIME AS WELL! The last time I wrote about Katerina there wasn’t even an official English translation of that long-ass light-novel-title. And now?

A WHOLE ANIME. A BISEXUAL HAREM AWAITS! I am JAZZED!

Do you think it’s my fault? No matter, I’ll take all the credit. All the manga I talk about are getting anime adaptations. I’LL DO MY DUTY AND TALK ABOUT SOME MORE!

But first. Let us address the Covid-19 shaped elephant in the room

I deeply regret that it took a whole-ass pandemic to get me back to writing. In my defense, I bought an iPad and started drawing like 900 kokichi oumas. I was really busy with that. And then I started reading fanfiction. Then that got me thinking about how fanfiction such an interesting look into how people interpret fandom, use it for wish fulfillment and escapism, and good god is everyone OK cause that bulimia fan fic was super detailed....and I am officially on a tangent. Off track. Ahem.

We are all staying inside a whole lot more which means y’all probably need some reading material and Dr. Shojo has your back! Go read “Horimiya”! It’s amazing! Ahhhh, my work here is done! I'm serious, if you’re here for a Shojo rec, that’s it! There's also like 8 million more Otome Isekais to check out now. It’s like they’re multiplying like rabbits..............

As a Doctor, I must advise you to stay inside and read some manga and practice social distancing. Embrace your inner hikikomori.

Allright? All good? Okay now one final disclaimer:

This post is going to be talking about something a little different than usual and I want to start by giving you some context about who Dr. Shojo is in real life.

Part Two: Dr. Shojo Exposed

You see, when I was little I was obsessed with Japanese media. This doesn't surprise you at all I can tell. Probably because I walk around calling myself Dr. Shojo and shout about manga that you should read.

Anyways, the reason why I was obsessed wasn’t because of the big eyes or the spikey hair or the interesting new culture. It was because it tended to have more character development and overarching plotlines than the media I was used to in Canada. Dexter’s Lab, Magic School Bus, pretty much everything I saw on TV was episodic in nature, so imagine how much my mind was blown when I saw Naruto and Card Captor Sakura, heck, even Pokémon had the Indigo Plateau! Here were kids that were learning more and more each day and got to see enemies become friends and vice versa. They lived and grew older just like me. Except they were cooler than me. And had more interesting lives than me. I gotta tell you, I was so sad when I was 12 and Kero didn’t tell me I had latent magical powers. But there was magic in my life and it was the magic of a complex narrative story. And not only that, it had a sense of movement and had cool costumes. I was hooked immediately.

Also, fun fact, at that age I happened to be a complete and utter tomboy! I loved pretending to fight my friends in the playground and was really worried that puberty would ruin my life because being a girl sounded so CUMBERSOME.

Which leads me up to my confession. Before I became Dr. Shojo, I was in fact......Dr. Shonen.

Bleach? Naruto? One Piece? I've read every single chapter there is.

Hundreds of hours of watching fight sequences. Another fun fact, I only got into shojo because my aunt bought me volume 7 and 8 of Fruits Basket thinking “all mangas like the same right? Kids love comics?” It’s a tribute to how episodic western media was back then that she thought buying volume SEVEN and EIGHT was a REASONABLE PLACE TO START READING.

Now you might also say, Hey! Dr Shojo! Cardcaptors was a shojo! And you are right! but back then the anime was marketed to boys over here in the west and they actualy like, edited out episodes that they thought wouldn't interest boys?! Second fun fact, Once when I was in Grade 3 I was told I was not allowed to join a club under the stairs cause I was a girl and it was BOYS ONLY. The point of the club? To talk about how great Cardcaptors was! I Kid you not!

So anyways, your pall Dr. Shojo loves Shonen manga to this day!

The only reason I made this Dr. Shojo blog specifically about shojo is because, being a tomboy with no female friends, reading shojo manga was the first time I really thought about what it meant to be a girl and fall in love. And y i k e s. Shojo manga, like most media, fails miserably most of the time in displaying real world relationships. Or at least, it doesn't prepare you for how disappointing everything can be. When I had my first kiss, I was thinking about how it didn’t feel at all like how I felt reading Zen and Shirayukis kiss in Akagame No Shirayuki Hime. Those were formative years, and shojo was one of the only places I saw romance being talked about for younger audiences. I liked reading romances where no one had any sexual experiences and were figuring out what love meant to them. But let’s shelve this topic for now.

The point is that gender roles are dumb and if you have an open mind there's a world of stories out there for you. Take this time inside to read something you wouldn’t normally. Critically think about the ways that the worlds you see in stories and how you experience the world differ. What are the messages a story is trying to tell you? And why do you like the stories you do? Reflect on how the stories you tell yourself color your view of the world. Even mindless entertainment leaves an impression on us. Anyways.

Whilst you're doing that, I'm going to absolutely lose my hecking mind over the Shonen Jump series MY HERO ACADEMIA: Vigilantes!

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD!

Part Three: I downloaded the one month free trial of the Shonen Jump app and made you read all that, so I can tell you that today Dr. Shojo is going to rant about a spin-off of a shonen manga

THAT’S RIGHT, OF COURSE I READ HERO ACA AND YES I DID PICK UP THE SPIN OFF SERIES. SHONEN JUMP LETS YOU READ ALL THE NEW CHAPTERS FOR FREE ON THEIR APP. KIDS, IF YOU LIKE SHONEN AND YOU’RE PIRATING ON A SCANLATION SITE STILL GET OUT BECAUSE YOU DON’T NEED TO SEE THOSE WEIRD PLASTIC SURGERY AND DENTISTRY ADDS ANY MORE.

SHONEN IS HERE AND ITS LEGAL AND ITS FREE FOR YOU. GET OFF MANGA FOX OR MANGA ROCK OR WHATEVER THE KIDS ARE USING THESE DAYS.

OK, so by this point in the article you have learned two very important things about me: 1) I love Shonen manga and 2) I read a lot of fanfiction.

Specifically, I read an absolutely biblical amount of My Hero Academia fan fiction and let me tell you, A solid chunk of it is vigilante/ Deadpool / criminal with a heart of gold themed.

So when I saw Hero Aca had a spin off, and it was about vigilantes, I was NOT SURPRISED IN THE SLIGHTEST. Ao3 sure is powerful.

Now, if you will permit me a tangent in a post full of tangents—HOLY CRAP, THERE ARE TOO MANY VIGILANTE AUS. I CAN'T KEEP TRACK OF EM. IT’S THE ISEKAI PROBLEM ALL OVER AGAIN. I GET AN EMAIL A FIC HAS UPDATED AND I’M LIKE IS THIS THE FIC WHERE DEKU HAS AN ABUSIVE MOM OR THE ONE WHERE HE HAS SPLIT PERSONALITY DISORDER OR THE ONE WHERE HE’S VIGILANTES WITH HITOSHI. OH WAIT, nvm, it’s the one where deku has a healing quirk.

OH WAIT WHICH OF THE 6 DEKU WITH HEALING QUIRK VIGILATE AU FICS IS THIS ONE?! ARGH WHY DIDN’T I WRITE A DESCRIPTION IN THE BOOKMARK FOR THIS!

My gripes aside, there's a reason why there's such an abundance of vigilante story telling—

Deadpool made like an absolute buttload of money and people love sass and memes.

People have a desire for a story in which they see themselves. Or, how they think of themselves.They like a story about someone who maybe came from nothing. Someone who has less money, maybe someone who is unlucky and had some bad breaks. Someone who never learned they had magic, never got their Hogwarts letter, never saw Kero, someone who never got that God-level quirk from All Might. And if your on Ao3 They want someone who also has seen a lot of memes and kind of wants taco bell and is also questioning their sexuality a bit?

Enter our new hero VIGILANTE DEKU.

But the cannon can't do this, cause hey, Deku is the chosen one. Albeit, chosen by All Might, He’s got his own thing to do. But how can we still cash in on a vigilante story?

And thus enter our New-New hero KOICHI HAIMAWARI—code name Nice Guy and then later The Crawler. True to his relatable roots. He’s just a dude in an hoodie who can go about as fast as a bike.

First off, I love Koichi. He wants to be a hero and fight crime, but most of the time he has to run away because at the end of the day he's just a dude.

He’s cute but not wildly good-looking, A bit of a nerd but not like an extreme okaku. He’s got a part time job and hates violence.

And this is where Koichi really shines—in every day stuff. He helps out wherever he can. Often, that just means listening to people complain and maybe helping his friends out with whatever they’re going through. He’s the kind of guy who smiles, not because he's especially brave, but because he just takes things one at a time and doesn't sweat the past. I think it’s really telling that he missed getting into hero high-school because he skipped the entrance exam to help someone. He’s the kind of person who lets us experience the superpower of human decency and empathy. And you know what? That’s something the world need desperately.

This theme of human decency is really the driving force of Vigilantes—it’s a manga about how the laws are there for a reason but sometimes they unfairly impact the poor and vulnerable. It's about how a lot of criminals are just people who fell into bad social circles or on bad times. People have the capacity for cruelty and violence but that’s never all they are.

Now, speaking of crime, the entirety of Hero Aca falls into some murky water when it comes to its evil doers. Much of the fandom has a huuuuuge problem with how much the franchise is willing to sweep under the rug in the name of redeeming their baddies. RE: people getting mad about forgiving Endeavor’s child abuse, or Bakugo’s suicide baiting. Or Mineta’s blatant sexual harassment.

But this theme is in Vigilantes even more than it ever was in the main series. To start off with, there’s this guy who tries to rape Pop Step early on, and the later he later winds up befriending everybody. It becomes a running gag that each new villain winds up befriending the other villain guys and then they all open a cat café together.

Using jobs as a way to lift people out of lives of crime is great and all but in the story there is no nuance or consequences for past wrong and well.....it feels very weird. It's like Vigilantes plays at having an opinion about moral ambiguity and the complexity of human existence and then just.......lets everyone get along because who has time to get into all that. Make of that what you will but it sits weird for me personally.

Anyway, let's move on and talk about POP STEP our main girl!

I love pop stars and I love vigilantes and a guerrilla performer is defiantly a character I could get behind. And I think they do a good job with Pop. She is actually kind of shy, but has this secret edgy persona she puts on when she performs. She is every girl on tumbler in the early 2000s. I also looooove that they make her not that great a singer. SHE’S GOT PASSION AND CHARISMA and maybe not born talent but like why should that stop you! Talent can be earned through practice and this is a great lesson to show people.

Unfortunately, Pop is also a great example of everything wrong with romance in Shonen.

It’s established early on that Pop loves Koichi because she is the girl he rescued all those years ago and yada yada yikes we’ve heard this one before. Many times before.

Sure, it's fine that they’ve met before, but gosh am I sick of damsels in distress. It's like she can't love him just because she respects what a great guy he is in her life and in the community at large, no no, she just needs to be rescued on top of that. And LOLOLOL isn't it funny he never noticed she was a girl because she was a child with short hair?! Once he realizes she has boobs now they will for sure fall in love! That’s how love works!

She's just with him all the time—nothing romantic ever happens she just gets a little tsundere.

I am never ever going to believe Koichi likes Pop because he spends like sooooo much time with her and they never have like, a moment. The first time he considers her is when Makoto is like, ‘hey I would love to get together with you, but have you thought about if you are crushing on Pop’. (Also this entire plot point is suspect—she's arbitrarily falling for Koichi cause he.......is the protagonist?)

Say what you will about shojo, they give you the emotional conversations, the moments where you think.....ahhh I can see why she is falling for him. They give you context! Shonen likes to just say HERE’S A GIRL YOUR AGE. YOU CAN DATE LATER WHEN THE ADVENTURE IS DONE.

Just when they might get together, Pop suddenly turns evilllllll. The evilllll beeeees made her eeeevilllll (and more sexy).

*Siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiighhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh*

Because why on earth would they get together if Koichi didn’t get to rescue Pop one more time?

I’m tired. These troupes are tired. I’m sure you are too. HOWEVER! If your still with me, Let’s move into why I'm really writing this post. Let’s get to the part that got me screaming to my friends, who by the way, don’t even care bout Hero Aca….but listened anyways. May you all find nakama like these my friends.

Anyways,

HOLY FUCK ERASERHEAD’S ENTIRE BACK STORY IS IN THIS AROUND CHAPTER 60 AND IT IS WONDERFUL AND ABSOLUTLY HEARTBREAKING AND IS ONE OF THE BEST CHARACTER BACKSTORIES I HAVE EVER SEEN AND IS THE REASON WHY THIS SERIES IS A MUST-READ FOR MAIN SERIES FANS.

AND BY ALMIGHT.

WHY. IS. IT HERE.

I present to you my late night text messages to my friends

ALSO, AIZAWAS TEACHER IS PRINCE?!?!?!

AHEM, so as you can see, I kinda lost my shit.

And now, I would like to formally defend my claim that DESPITE HOW AMAZING IT WAS, ERASERHEAD’S BACKSTORY HAD NO BUISSNESS BEING IN THE VIGILANTES SPIN-OFF MANGA.

Eraserhead, aka Aizawa Shouta, is a side character who is working with the police on some crime stuff. He is not a main cast member in this spin off. He’s a guest character that fans of the main series will be like OH COOL. GRUMPY CAT MAN LIKES CATS ON HIS OFF HOURS TOO. LOVE THAT FOR HIM.

So, my imagine my absolute surprise when Aizawa runs into Koichi and the following happens:

It starts to rain, so, like in any good manga, this means some great FORCED BONDING TIME

Except no. It doesn't because rather than start talking, Aizawa JUST STARTS REMEMBERING—ABSOLUTLY SILENTLY TO HIS OWN PRIVETE SELF—HIS ENTIRE TRAGIC BACKSTORY.

AND THIS GOES ON FOR CHAPTERS.

THIS GOES ON LONGER THEN ARC ONE IT FEELS LIKE.

I LOVE IT, BUT KOICHI IS ABOUT TO JOIN ATSUSHI NAKAJIMA IN THE DUBIOUS CATEGORY OF “PROTAGONISTS THE SERIES FORGOT ABOUT IN LIEU OF COOLER SIDE CHARACTERS”.

AND LO IT HAS NO BEARING ON THE REST OF THE PLOT, CHARACTERS, OR STORY

What the ever-loving-just WHY?

WHY?

WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY?

SURE, IT’S A COOL TIE-IN.

YES, OF COURSE I LOVED IT. I SHIP ERASER MIC, I DREW THIS FOR HECK’S SAKE:

AND YET I AM ANGRY.

I AM ANGRY BECAUSE MY FRIDAY WAS RUINED BECAUSE VIGILATES SUCKER PUNCHED ME WITH AN AMAZING STORY THAT REALLY WASN’T PLOT RELEVANT AND PROBABLY SHOULDN’T HAVE BEEN THERE.

IS THIS WHY THEY TOOK LIKE NEXT-TO-NO CARE WITH POPS ARC?!?

I mean its ongoing, so it’s too early to say but—

In conclusion—

Excuse me one more,

AIZAWA WAS TAUGHT BY PRINCE!?!??!?!?!?!? PURPLE RAIN PRINCE!?!??!?!?!? WHAT!??!?!?!

It’s so ABSURD that I HAD TO WRITE SOMETHING ABOUT IT. I HAD TO WRITE PARAGRAPHS TO JUSTIFY YELLING ABOUT THIS ONE THING. WHAT THE ABSOLUTE—

Ahem,

Anyways, I hope you liked this weird rant/personal-story/random-diatribe in three parts.

If you’re reading this, thank you, stay safe, and I’ll be back with more shojo manga next time.

Ciao!

Dr. Shojo

(aka Dr. Shonen)

#my hero academia vigilantes #koichi haimawari #pop step #my hero academia #erasermic #Cardcaptors #Shojo manga #Shonen Manga #Dr Shojo #read Horimiya

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z-iridest · 3 years

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Yu-Gi-Oh!: Renegade

Chapter 3- Dragon vs. Phoenix Part 2:

Previously on Yu-Gi-Oh!: Renegade:

"I summon Amazoness Chain Master to the field, which increases my Amazoness Sage's attack points to 3800 due to the effect of United We Stand. Now, I attack you directly with Amazoness Sage! Amazoness Sage, time to end this!"

"I activate the Trap Card: Mirror Cylinder! This handy little trap takes your attack and directs it back at you, destroying all your monsters along the way and inflicting damage equal to the combined attack points! Say goodbye to 6800 of your Life Points, Yuko!" Yuko cried out as she was thrown backward by the force of the attack, hitting the ground hard with a groan.

"Yuko!" Her friends cried simultaneously.

"She's only got 1000 Life Points left!" Jacob yelled with wide eyes.

"I can't watch this!" Isaac added, covering his eyes.

"Have more faith in her. She may have lost a good chunk of her Life Points, but this isn't over." Pops told them. "All she has to do is believe in her deck."

Yuko Adonis: 1000 Cornelius Yang: 2600

“How does it feel, Yuko? How does it feel to be on the brink of losing?” Yang taunted.

“This duel isn’t over yet. You still have 1000 of my Life Points to knock out, and I don’t plan on letting you do it... You're just lucky I can't do anything more right now. I end my turn.” Yuko replied. With a smirk, Yang drew.

“Either way, it's my turn now! I summon Protector With Eyes of Blue. I may not have the Blue Eyes White Dragon in my deck, but with 800 attack points, that's not gonna stop me from bringing you to my mercy! Protector With Eyes of Blue, attack Yuko directly!" Yuko grunted in pain as she was attacked, taking 800 points of damage. Yang laughed.

"You have 200 Life Points left, Yuko! Use your next turn wisely! If you don't draw a monster now, this duel is over on my next turn! I end my turn for now." Yang smirked as he ended his turn.

Yuko Adonis: 200 Cornelius Yang: 2600

"Don't count me out just yet, Yang! My turn!" Yuko shouted, grabbing the top card of her deck with her eyes closed. 'It all comes down to this one last draw.... Heart of the Cards, don't fail me now!' Yuko thought. "I draw!" She drew the card and opened her eyes, flipping the card so it's face was toward her. She cracked a smile.

"Uh-oh, she smiled!" One of Yang's friends shouted.

"What's she plannin'?!" A second one asked, sounding a little panicked.

"You're about to find out... I summon Blazing Phoenix in attack mode!" Yuko summoned the card currently in her hand, hearing her friends cheer. It wasn't that strong of a monster, only having 1500 attack points, but it was still a good card. "And because I was able to summon it, I now get to special summon a level 4 monster from my deck, and the card I choose is my Phoenix Warrior!"

"Yang, this ain't looking too good!" The third one shouted.

"Shut up, I can see that!" Yang shouted back in reply.

"Yeah, well I bet you never saw this coming! My Phoenix Warrior has a special ability that allows me to Special Summon one more monster from my deck to the field as long as the monster I choose has 1500 defense points or less, so say hello to Flame Champion! But sadly, my Phoenix Warrior and Blazing Phoenix won't be around for long, because now I'm tuning my Phoenix Warrior with my Blazing Phoenix..."

"OH, NO!" Yang yelled in fear.

"Here it comes!" Jacob exclaimed in excitement.

"I Synchro Summon... Phoenix Mage!" Yuko shouted as her ace appeared on the field, spinning her staff and striking a battle pose, a smirk on her face. "But, I'm far from done... See, due to my Blazing Phoenix's special ability, my Phoenix Mage gets a 500 attack bonus this turn only. Not only that, but due to my Phoenix Mage's ability, all Fire Type monsters I have on my side of the field gain an additional 500 attack points. Which means my Flame Champion now has 2400 attack points while my Phoenix Mage has..."

"3500 attack points?!" Yang shrieked.

"That's right!" Yuko exclaimed. "Flame Champion, take out his Protector With Eyes of Blue first with Flame Strike!" Flame Champion obeyed Yuko's order, attacking Yang's only monster left. Yang's face went pale, realizing he had only 1000 Life Points left, and a 3500 attack point monster was staring right at him. "Let this be a lesson, Yang, next time you wanna push around little kids on my turf, you're gonna pay the price! Phoenix Mage, finish him off with Phoenix Scepter Blast!" Phoenix Mage smirked before attacking Yang directly, knocking him backwards with a strong blow, his Life Points hitting zero as he landed.

Yuko Adonis: 200 Cornelius Yang: 0

"Yuko won! She won!" Her friends cheered, whooping and hollering as Yuko walked toward Yang, who was in a state of shock.

"I lost.... How could I lose?" Yang trailed off.

"Good game. You had me on the ropes for a while there, but I hope you learned your lesson... Don't ever mess with anyone around here ever again." Yuko told him sternly. "Now get off my turf before I kick your butt again." The boys went running, all except Yang.

"Hang on a second, you may have won by the skin of your teeth, but a deal's a deal. You get to keep my rarest card." Yang told her, taking out a Synchro Monster from his deck, handing it to Yuko. Yuko's eyes widened a bit when she saw it before looking at Yang.

"How did you get this?" Yuko asked.

"My grandfather was one of the original Chasers... He was the one who got Akiza. Black Rose was passed down to my Dad and then it was passed down to me when I joined the Chasers..."

"So, hunting down duelists runs in the family?" Yuko asked, bitterness in the edge of her tone.

"Hey, it's not like that, Chasers have no choice but to listen to him now... Ever since one of the Chasers spared the sister of a duelist from the Underground around 11 years ago, he's been making death threats to any Chaser that shows mercy to a duelist... Especially their family." Yang told her. "See you next time, Yuko... I'll be waiting for our rematch." Yang told her before walking off, leaving the teenager standing still, in shock of what she had been informed of.

"You won, Yuko!" Jacob exclaimed.

"Congratulations, Yuko." Pops smiled.

"Yeah, but look what he had." Yuko showed them the card Yang had given her... Black Rose Dragon. Everyone's jaws dropped in shock except Pops, who's eyes widened in a shocked recognition.

"That's Akiza Izinski's ace!" Adom exclaimed, voicing Pops' thoughts.

"Holy crud..." Isaac trailed off.

"They got her too..." Jacob breathed, running a hand through his hair.

"Were you really expecting her to get away?" Adom asked.

"No, I wasn't, I just... I'd hoped that there was a possible way that she could have gotten away." Jacob answered, shifting a bit sheepishly as he spoke.

"That accounts for every Signer being caught... Except Leo and Luna." Yuko realized.

"No, Luna was caught... Wasn't she?" Jacob asked.

"No... It couldn't be... Luna had to have escaped..." Pops trailed off, though he didn't look too convinced of it himself.

"We'll figure that out later, right now, we have that little kid to worry about." Yuko answered before leading the way back into the shop and down the stairs, Adom being the one to help Pops down the stairs. "Holden, it's safe now, you guys can come out." Yuko called for the young boy. Holden peeked out from a well hidden area of the garage, the little girl waddling right behind him as he ran up to Yuko.

"Are they gone? Did you kick their butts?" Holden asked as Jacob leaned against the wall and Pops, Adom and Isaac all sat down in a chair. Yuko nodded.

"They're gone, kiddo. I beat their leader in a duel, and look what I won." Yuko showed him the Black Rose Dragon, the boy's eyes lighting up in wonder as Yuko noticed the little girl come out slightly to look at the dragon card, seeming just as amazed as Holden.

"Wow, it's so beautiful... I hope we can see her in action someday." Holden told her. Yuko smiled.

"One day, you will, I promise...." Yuko told the little boy before putting Black Rose Dragon in her deck and ruffling Holden's hair. "Now, how about this one? Do we know her name?" She asked, kneeling down to the little one's height, only for the little girl to hide behind Holden again. Holdeen shook his head, his hair swaying back and forth with the quick motion.

"I've tried asking her, and she hasn't answered me.... She just keeps making these weird hand motions and tapping her lips." Holden answered, his little shoulders going up and then back down again in a hopeless shrug, though Jacob straightened when he heard Holden's answer.

"Hand motions?" Jacob asked.

"JSL?" Adom guessed.

"That's possible." Yuko replied before looking at the little girl, who was busy trying to hide behind Holden. Yuko smiled. "Can you hear my voice?" Yuko asked as she signed her words in JSL, thankful of the times her foster mother had made her perfect the sign language. Everyone watched as the little girl peeked out from behind Holden, staying hidden while her big brown eyes stayed trained on Yuko. Yuko smiled a little. The little girl was coming out of her shell a little. "You don't have to be afraid of me, I won't hurt you, I promise." Yuko signed each word she said. "My name's Yuko. Is it okay if I know your name?" The little girl came out just enough to show her hands.

'"My name is Alita."' The little one signed. Yuko smiled.

"That's a very pretty name, Alita. Can you hear my voice at all?" Yuko signed as she asked, her compliment making the little girl blush. In response, the little one nodded.

' "My voice just doesn't work, so I can't talk." ' Alita signed in response.

"That explains why she was using sign language." Adom replied, having known enough JSL to know what Alita had just said. "Her vocal chords must have been damaged when she was a baby."

"Poor thing." Pops commented before everybody froze when Alita winced, grabbing her arm. Yuko gently touched the little one's shoulder.

"Are you okay?" Yuko signed as she talked again. Alita's eyes were filled with tears of pain and she shook her head, pointing to her arm. Yuko noticed that it was a prosthetic arm... But it was extremely damaged to the point where it was giving off electric currents every few minutes and hurting the little girl. "Is it okay if I take a look at it?" Yuko asked, watching as Alita's eyes widened in fear as she hid behind Holden again, shaking. Holden looked up at Yuko worriedly, his little brow furrowed. He looked as worried about Alita as Yuko was currently feeling. Yuko placed a comforting hand on Holden's head before taking her glove off her left arm.

"Yuko, what're you doing?" Isaac asked, but found himself ignored by the young woman, watching as the little girl peeked out to look at Yuko. Her eyes stayed wide, however, the fear that had previously been in them was long gone. Amazement shone through as Alita reached her flesh hand toward Yuko's robotic one before she hesitated, looking at Yuko for permission as her little eyebrows furrowed. Yuko nodded.

"It's okay, Alita. You can touch it if you want." She told her. Alita's little hand soon touched Yuko's robotic one, following each gear and crevice as she seemed to be memorizing the pattern on Yuko's prosthetic hand. Yuko smiled, knowing that this had been what the little girl needed to be at ease... To know someone was just like her... "Alita." Yuko directed the little girl's attention to her after a moment. "Is it okay if I look at your prosthetic arm now? I can fix it if you want me to." She asked. The little girl froze for a second before shaking off her fear and nodding, a brave look on the little one's face. Yuko smiled before she looked at Holden. "Can you go get my tools for me?" Yuko asked. Holden nodded and raced upstairs with Isaac and Jacob following him to help him get the toolbox down. Meanwhile, Yuko got Alita comfortable, using her robotic arm to scan Alita's prosthetic to see what the problem was.

"What's going on with her arm?" Adom asked her, Pops keeping the little one entertained.

"Well, you remember that network Dracnus connected the DracTech prosthetics to in order to keep tabs on everyone in Cypher City? There's a part in each of them that allows an electric current to kick in everytime Dracnus wants to deal that person punishment." Yuko told him.

"I thought Dracnus couldn't do that to our prosthetics from down here, the signal can't reach Underground City." Adom replied.

"You're right, it can't... But for some reason, that part in Alita's is broken so that the electric current goes off every few minutes. It's not a strong enough charge to stop her heart, mind you, but it is strong enough to hurt her." Yuko responded as Holden came back with her tools. "I'm going to fix it so it stops hurting her altogether." Holden put her tools next to her.

"Here you go." Holden told her.

"Thanks, little man. You're the best." Yuko smiled, ruffling his hair again.

"Holden, where the heck are Isaac and Jacob?" Adom asked.

"After they helped me get Yuko's toolbox down, they went into the shop to "hold the fort down".... Whatever that means." Adom answered, using air quotes and causing Yuko to have to hold back her giggles. There was something about the look on the six-year-old's face as he used air quotes that struck Yuko as absolutely hilarious. After a deep breath to still her laughter, Yuko focused on fixing the part on Alita's arm that was bothering her, speaking to Alita to keep her distracted from what was going on.

"Alita, how old are you?" Yuko asked. The little girl held up her flesh hand, showing four fingers. "Four?" Alita nodded in confirmation. "That's super cool."

"Yeah, you're like... One year away from being old enough to learn how to ride a bike without training wheels for the first time. It's super scary at first, but I promise it's a ton of fun once you get the hang of it." Holden excitedly told Alita, a smile crossing the girl's face. Yuko chuckled a bit and let Holden tell Alita all the perks of being 5 years old while Yuko fixed Alita's robotic arm.

A few hours later, Yuko was looking over the blueprints of the Phoenix Whirlwind's original designs as she waited for the diagnostics to finish. 'How can I rebuild this so it's my own?' She thought, her arms crossed over her chest. She tapped her foot a couple times before glancing over at the pullout bed. Fast asleep, with her robotic arm fixed and her tummy full of good food, was Alita. A small smile crossed Yuko's face before a soft beeping indicated that the diagnostics were finished. Her brow furrowed and her smile dropped when she saw just how much damage had been done. 'I was afraid this was gonna happen, those stupid Chasers made sure Jack could never duel again on this thing.... Hell, would Yusei even know how to fix this?' She thought with an eyebrow raised before setting to work. After a while, her vision got blurry from looking at the blueprints too long, causing a frustrated sigh to leave Yuko's lips as she closed down the screen and pinched the bridge of her nose. "Pops was right, I really oughta get more sleep..." Yuko trailed off under her breath, though it pained her a bit to admit it. She slipped off her boots, sliding into bed as an exhausted sigh left her lips. Her emerald flecked sapphire eyes drooped, her hair falling in her face like a curtain as her eyes finally closed. 'I'll jump on repairs early tomorrow... For now, though, Pops is right. I need rest....'

While she slept, Yuko was unaware of the chaos that was about to unfold... Unaware of the growing threat on the surface...

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