#in that position but told them to go by the strike system in the employee handbook and to follow policy that ex friend knew perfectly. that | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

minshookie · 3 years

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CEO!BTS Reaction to:

You flinching during an argument.

| !warning! | violence, unhealthy relationships, abusive relationship, yandere Bts, choking and sexual topics 18+, dubcon, oral [fem receiving & giving], strong language [Jimin has a potty mouth!!!] rough play.

| this is not in anyway shape or form a true depiction or representation of BTS, this is a work of fiction and is not to be taken seriously. For entertainment purposes only.|(this is my work, please don’t repost or steal)

| Requested [requests open]

A/N | the amount of time I’m taking to get these request done correctly is embarrassing i apologize. I hope you don’t mind that I turned this into a whole reaction and that it’s not fluffy...lmk if you’d like me to change it I certainly will.

Forgive me for mistakes, though this is edited.

Kim Seokjin...

“Ok well what was that out there?” He spoke ominously back turned to you. “I- we-.” Laughing at your lack of response, he cut you off. “You fucked up that’s what it was hun.”

“Come sit on the desk, I want to see you apologize for making me look like an idiot.” He spat the last part like it was disgusting on his tongue. Already in deep trouble you decided to follow directions for once.

Turing smoothly in his office chair, you could see the resentment in his eyes. “Go on.” You swallowed thickly, his angered glare drying your throat. “I’m sorry for....correcting you during today’s meeting.” He scoffed, “there was nothing to correct!”

“Jin you can’t always be right, if you took that agreement, you’d never hit anything close to pro-” “who’s the boss? Hm? Who’s name is on this desk you have your tight ass planted on?” Mistakingly you let your eyes roll out of pure annoyance.

“Well excuse me?!” He leans forward quickly out of his chair, causing you to fall opposite of him. Pens poke at your back, his name plaque digging into your arm. Evilly he grins in enjoyment. “Found your place yet?, you seem afraid...afraid I’d hit you?” Wide eyed you nod, trapped like a mouse under its predator. Every inch of confidence stripped as he glared deeply into you. “Good.” Before you could even process his statement, you were harshly distracted by his rough hand landing across your cheek. Your head turns the other way as your right cheek tingles and burns. Chuckling he grips your chin forcing you to look at him.

“Find your place, and if you’ve forgotten it, I can help you find it...just like that,anytime.”

Min Yoongi...

Watching in envy, you pushed miscellaneous papers into the shredder. What a bitch! You saw her watching Yoongi all day just waiting for him to go to his office. So she could prance in there, thong up her ass, low cut shirt...the works.

“Yah! Y/N, what the hell are you doing?” Jumping in fear , peeking down you found out what you’ve been shredding. He shoved you to the side turning off the shredder. “All those papers we needed for next week’s evaluation and review meeting...” you looked from the shredder back to him shrugging nonchalantly. Already having Somebody in your boyfriends office flirting him into hard on, the last thing you need is more work. “We’ll go fucking print some more of them.” He demanded his face stiff. Jin never liked you, maybe you’ll have Yoongi fire him.

You walked holding the last remaining sheet fully intact for reference, did Jin really think you were going to the copy room? What a dunce. Ignoring the meeting in progress light you pushed the heavy door open. “Hey y/n I’m sorry we’re in the middle of something.” You could tell he was just laughing at something a tint of red on his cheeks. Him kicking you out...this should be the other way. This hurt. “Me?” You gasped. She turned her silky hair fanning. “Y/n when we’re done I’ll come find you Alright?” She spoke a little above a whisper.“Don’t speak to me.” You glared at her walking further into the office. Obviously she’s confused about her rightful place, and Yoongi is too.

“You, get out.” She stretched her eyes looking back and forth from you to Yoongi. “Now.” “Min you can’t let her kick me out.” She scoffed, “I’ll speak to you later alright.” He smiled warmly,She got up storming from his room. “Yoongi what exactly was that?” He sat back in his chair. “A meeting.” “A meeting with what her left tit?” He closed his eyes harshly at your vulgarity. “No a meeting with your colleague about her position.” He offers the seat in front of him, gladly you take said offer.

“But what you did was uncalled for.” Laughing he leaned forward onto the table. He beacons you to follow, leaning forward you fall right into his trap upset he gripped your face making your cheeks squish. “Don’t ever come back in my office acting this way again, understood?” Nodding the best you could. “Huh? Understood?” “Yeah!” He let go leaving a ache in his wake. Before going back he reached for you again instinctively you pull back as if he was going to strike you. “Hm, I don’t treat you that harsh but I will...keep testing me.” He finished, only coming close to fix your hair.

Kim Namjoon...

Another day held the same daily routine, wake up Joon, cook breakfast, clean get dressed and head to work, work, eat lunch in Joon’s office, work,go home, and restart.

Today Joon had lunch delivered, practically throwing his money like confetti paper, much to the delight of his employees. Both of you sat on the floor of his office, enjoying the home style take out in silence. Without noticing all your attention was being absorbed by your phone. “What’s so intriguing kitten?” Your fingers stopped in their place “just texting a friend.” You looked at him through your lashes before going back to typing. He closed his take out container, he finished his meal and sneakily proceeded onto yours. Surprised by your lack of protests he spoke again.

“Oh yeah? And whose this friend?” He mumbled still chewing. “Someone I might know?” You nodded in response, unsatisfied he got up going to wash his hands in his office restroom. “Their name would be helpful y/n.” Just from his tone alone you could tell he was nearing impatience. “He works here, I’m just helping him...explaining how the log in system works he’s locked out at the moment.”

Joon no longer cared for their name and you knew it. “Oh ‘he’?” You nodded, he came drying his hands with his initialed towels. “New guy...Choi?” You looked up fully for the first time in a while. “Yeah, Soobin.” He nodded,Sitting in his desk turning to some papers. Nothing left to say you looked back down at your massages. “I’d like you to eat though, I don’t want you going hungry.” He ordered you around like a father and you obeyed.

Chewing, you almost choked as Soobin sent a joke that you weren’t ready for. Joon raised a brow, “a funny one huh? Let me see.” He looked down at you hand out flat. Your eyes went doe, there is no way your letting Joon read this vulgar joke. Soobin would be out of a job just as quick as he got one. “C’mon let me see, don’t make me take it.” Maybe he’ll laugh about it too, you gave up the device.

At first he squinted before his eyes grew wide. “ ‘This copy machine looks like the one from those cheesy office pornos....let’s make one?’ Y/N this is who you’re waisting your time on?” Rolling your eyes you went back to your meal, annoyed he didn’t find the harmless joke amusing. “Joon he was joking, it’s not like he knows I’m dating someone.”

You felt wind brush past you and a crashing sound occurred from behind, startled you made eye contact. “I had half the mind to throw that piece of shit at your head.” His angered expression taking you aback, you must’ve forgotten Joon is the extremely jealous type. “Go get it, bring it back to me.” Slowly turning trying not to take your eye off of him, you retrieved the shattered phone. Harshly he took it from your hands. Tapping before turning it to you, “block him.” You flinched at his sudden hand movement. “Don’t flinch away from me, block the bastard, before I’m the one bending you over the copy machine.”

Jung Hoseok...

Slouching in the pool chair you observed as the other women splashed and paddled around like children. You don’t usually go to these types of things, and neither does Hoseok. But this time it was important, he was here solely to kiss butt with his new business partners.

He practically forced you to put on your swimsuit, fully planning on walking you around like a show dog for the evening. Crossing your legs you brought your straw to your lips. You’d planned on getting in the pool, but apparently you weren’t good enough for the other wives...or affairs in the pool at the moment.So to spare the embarrassment you decided to watch.

“Enjoying yourself?” Hoseok came behind you patting your head softly. “Hm I guess.” You placed your drink away. “Hobi I’m ready to go. home.” You pouted, his hand still on the chair he came to your side. “Home? We’ve just got here an hour ago.” Nodding at his true statement you turned to look at him. “Yeah...and now I’m ready to go home.” Rolling his eyes he squatted to your level. “C’mon baby, go make a friend in the pool, splash around yeah?”

“No, I’m tired.” He groaned putting his head on your shoulder. “Y/n, boo don’t be a brat, you wanna go inside, wanna find a bed for you?” “Hm will you stay with me?” He looked over his shoulder, “ah Bruce wants to talk cuts and coverage a bit more, I can show you to a ro-” “nooo hobi!”

Panicking he pinched you to lower your volume. The party in the pool ceased and all eyes were on you. You’d learned how to cheat the system,It usually didn’t take much pouting from you to get your way. “c’mon get up.” He pulled me roughly by my forearm almost making you trip over your feet. He pulled you into the spacious home, up the stairs and into a hall. “Here let’s go in this room hobi.” You could tell by the look on his face hobi didn’t come to rest.

“Do you get off on making me look like an idiot?” He spoke close to your face. “Hey, I told you i wanted-” he covered your mouth with his large hand. “I don’t give a fuck what you want, now shut up and get in that fucking room.” Meekly you followed his order. “I’m sorry hobi.” “Ah I said shut up!” You stood in the middle of the decretive room, “down.” Down on your knees before him he looked down disgusted.

“Now make my cock hard so I can teach you how to use your loud ass mouth correctly.” Hesitantly you leaned forward, he groaned loudly reaching for you making you backwards in response. “Quickly, and don’t you dare run away.” He grabbed your hair, now under his full control.

Kim Taehyung...

“Mm how does it feel being my right hand lady?”

“Well seems like I’m on top of you right now.”

“I love how smart you are baby.”

Taehyung had recently promoted you to his secretary, now you can’t help but be in his office all day. Dreamily he looked up into your eyes as you straddled him. “Round 2 huh?” He huffed making you giggle, “let’s not indulge Taetae.” You nipped at the shell of his ear, he gripped your ass tightly. “What else do you have to do, I distributed your work along all the employees you’re here to have fun!”

“Well the phone has been ringing like crazy let me answer at least one call!” You climbed off, your skirt still scrunched around your waist your panties to the side. “Ahhh the baby wants to feel like a big woman go on answer.” Smiling with accomplishment, you picked up the phone. “Hello this is y/n y/l/n, answering for Kim Taehyung.” It was actually another secretary on the line you took notes as he spoke. You felt so responsible you knew Taehyung would be proud, you looked over to see his approval only to find him not there.

Confused you held conversation, until you felt something warm glide along your thigh making you Yelp. “Ah I’m sorry, Mr Lee, repeat that?” In fear you looked under your desk, mischievously Taehyung winked at you. You went back to the conversation, as he lapped your heat. You were already so sensitive you wouldn’t last a minute more of this. “Stop it please Tae.” You hissed pressing the phone to your chest. He did the opposite, penetrating you with his longest digit. Curling his finger and assaulting your clit, if the lewd sound of slurping could be heard by you you knew it could be heard over the phone. Quickly you hung up, very upset you squeezed his head between your thighs.

“Cumming baby?” “No, quitting.” He pulled back confused “what?” You fixed you panties, pulling your skirt back over yourself. “I asked you to let me do one thing, and still you couldn’t keep off of me.” He crawled from under your desk. “Who was on the phone?” He asked dryly, you looked over your notes. “Mr Lee.” “Oh, he calls everyday for his boss they have nothing to offer so we have nothing to give.” You nodded making a note to avoid his calls. “Anything else?” He shook his head going back to his desk with a deep sigh.

Oh good grief, you huffed falling back into your chair, you’ve gotten upset with him and now he’s going to mope around. “TaeTae, please understand I do actually want to work, we’ve talked about this.” You spun your chair to look at him, he looked at you inquisitively. “Maybe you should go back downstairs, I don’t want to distract you.” You could feel your eyes stretching. “Tae! No it’s not that serious.” “No no, your cubicle is still empty, the largest one.” You crossed your arms. “You’ll get the raise you just won’t be here honey...maybe I’ll offer the position to Sana.” He turned from you to go in his computer. “No, I’m not going.” “Bye Y/n see you tonight.” He mumbled nonchalantly.

“No Taehyung.” He gave a grim chuckle. “Stop being hard headed, go fetch Sana for me will you....love you.” “No kim Taehyung, this is MY job!” The phone rung and you picked it up, “hello this is-” He came pulling the phone from you slamming it to hang it up you flinched harshly. “Y/L/N, I won’t ask you agin, get out or do what I promoted you here to do.” He looked into your eyes devilishly. You complied removing your skirt, playtime was over, you sadly knew your place. “Perfect girl.”

Park Jimin...

“I’ll beat your ass come here. Now.” You stood in his office doorway, fear quaking over you. “Y/n...now.” he leaned on his desk looking you up and down. You walked in to what seemed to be your demise. “The door, close it, lock it.” “Mr Park please.” He got up walking behind you and slamming the door before walking in front of you again. “Where the fuck! Were you.” You looked at him, head fogged unsure of an answer. “I-I Mr Park...I’ve been here at work since 3 AM actually...before you got here.” He laughed lightly.

“I didn’t want your schedule, I know your damn schedule, the meeting today’s meeting.” You toyed with your fingers, “OH...oh Mr Park I forgot you needed me I’m sorry h-how did it go?” “We fucking lost the deal, the information you dug up is what we needed and you were somewhere in LaLa land.” He dug his hands into his hair. “C‘mere.” He sat on the leather couch that decorated his office. “Please Mr Park, I’ll stay late and I’ll beg for another meeting date.” He shook his head “no, c’mere.” You stood still pleading with your eyes. “I’ll drag you by your cheap blow out, bring your ass here.” You shuffled to him, he pulled your dress bending you over his knee.

He pulled your dress up, “Mr Park what will your wife say?” You began to tear up, why would he choose you to give his violent love to. “Ha, she’ll say “fuck me harder” later tonight why?” You shook your head refusing to respond. “Look into the mirror.” You obliged. He pulled his hand up just stoping before it hit you causing you to shudder a jerk violently. “ Do you fear me y/n?” You nodded almost sobbing. “I’ve trained you well...head up...be a big girl.”

Jeon Jungkook...

The whole building was draped in a gloomy mood as Jungkook stalked about looking for something to nitpick. Earlier today you and Jungkook had a falling out on the way to work about how close you were getting with one of your male coworkers. And said coworker that just happened to be your cubicle neighbor. He rounded your area multiple times, chastising said coworker, sending him on errands and putting him down again and again.

Seeing how it was affecting the newbie, you finally turned to Jungkook. “Mr Jeon, can I speak to you.” “No.” He turned quickly before going back to chastise the frightened employee. “Slip up again, and I’ll make sure you’re looking at a deep fryer for the rest of your life Kang.” He whispered just loud enough for you to catch it.

“Mr Jeon please, for a minute.” He clears his throat leaving your area. Your face grew hotter by the minute, you got up going to talk to your distraught friend. “Hey, listen he’s all bark and no bite what do you need help with?” You smiled warmly remembering how it felt to be new in a place like this.

“Well every time I answer the phone and start the question pro-” a heavy hand lands on his and your shoulder “who said this was a social hour y/l/n” a sigh came from deep inside of you. “ Damn it Kookie-” “who? Excuse me?” His eyes widening. “Jungkook- Jeon- I’m sorry...I’m sorry Mr Jeon.” He eyed the two of you “hm...kang get to work, y/l/n you too.” He began to walk away. “Y/n I’ll send you an email, I really need help on this.”

“Email her I dare you.” You spun in your chair “Mr jeon please! He’ll never get better if I don’t.” He rolled his eyes taking off his glasses, “what was he trained for if he can’t use the damn computer?” Everyone in the office was watching the dispute. “Pft I was trained on any of this! I had you holding my hand the whole way why can’t he?” He started waking the other way, his face glowing crimson. “Get in my office, now y/n.” You sat turning to your work. “No Jeon. I won’t.” “Y/n you can come to my office, or clock out and go home for the rest of the damn month.” All eyes on you like this was some cheesy tv drama, you got up following him.

Once in the safety of his four walls you stood hands on your hips “why kookie, why you being a Jackass?” He turned to face you, anger evident. Swiftly he pulled you by your shirt “talk to me like that outside of this office space the way you did today one more time, and you’ll be begging me to fire you. Yeah?” You nodded earning a open palm slap to your cheek, “yeah? Open your slutty mouth like you did for Kang, am I understood?” “Yeah kookie.” Another slap, your cheek began to burn. “Yes Mr Jeon.” He lifted his hand making you flinch in his grip. “Lovely girl, now get out there, and leave Kang alone or else.”

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female-buckets · 2 years

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When was Griner taken into custody?

In an interview with ESPN, U.S. Congressman Colin Allred (D-Texas) said Griner was detained by Russian officials on Feb. 17. Allred said the House Foreign Affairs Committee, of which he is a member, has been in contact with U.S. personnel at the nation's embassy in Russia, though he said none of those employees has been able to see Griner.

The New York Times was first to report on Griner's detention on Saturday.

What charges is Griner facing?

According to Firestone, Griner has been charged under Russian Article 229.1, illegal crossing of a customs border with illegal narcotics, which can carry a sentence of up to 10 years in prison. If it's determined she has a "significant" amount, more than 2.5 grams, she could face 10 to 20 years.

What is the road ahead for her?

Experts say there are essentially two paths to a resolution: the Russian criminal justice system, and the political world. And they say it's to Griner's benefit to stay out of the political world. But Russia also has a strong anti-drug culture, so either path could be perilous.

"Her calculus should be to get the best Russian lawyer that she can, scrutinize the evidence, see what legal challenges she may have to the evidence, and try to get it through the system that way," Firestone told ESPN this week. "I don't think she's going to find much help from the political sphere at this point."

The Russian judicial system is currently bogged down by COVID-19 restrictions and overwhelmed with thousands of people arrested in anti-war protests, so it could take months for her case to be heard. That could also work in Griner's favor, Firestone said; prosecutors might want to dispose of her case quickly to deal with the domestic upheaval.

If Griner's case does become political, she's at the mercy of Russian President Vladimir Putin. If he wants to keep her as a chit for negotiations, as he did with an Israeli woman arrested for possession of cannabis in 2019, he will. In the 2019 case, high-level officials from the two countries worked out a deal that gave Russia control of an area in Jerusalem. Putin then pardoned the woman (although Russia denied there was any connection between the events). In that case, there was something specific Putin wanted from Israel. As Firestone and others point out, it's not clear what he would want from the United States as the Ukrainian invasion continues, and the U.S. government has essentially no leverage against Russia.

"Sometimes cases like this are better off handled in a low-key approach through the criminal justice system," Firestone said. "I think the concern is, if it becomes too high-profile, if it becomes political, then the Russian government may dig into their position. It may make it difficult for her to get a good resolution of the case, and she could become a pawn in a bigger political battle."

Can she get a fair trial in Russia?

According to Firestone and other experts, she can, with the aforementioned caveat that her case doesn't enter the political realm. If it's treated as a typical criminal case, she'll have her own Russian attorney who will try to strike a deal with the prosecutor. Odds are she'll have to make some sort of confession, one that is likely to embarrass her. "They'll want their pound of flesh," one attorney experienced with such cases said.

Do we know where Griner is being held?

It is unclear where Griner is being detained.

The WNBA and players around the league have stayed relatively quiet. Why?

The players are aware how perilous Griner's position could be, and they realize the people closest to her had been trying to work out the situation before it became public. The WNBA players are a close-knit group, and most have a lot of experience with international travel and living abroad. But this is a frightening situation for all of them. No one wants to publicly say anything they think could jeopardize efforts to help her. That's also true for the league's coaches, agents and the WNBA itself.

How does the Russian invasion of Ukraine impact American help inside Russia?

Russia's invasion of Ukraine has basically severed any remaining geopolitical ties between Russia and the U.S. President Joe Biden has announced a swath of sanctions aimed at squeezing Putin, his allies and the Russian economy, the latest being a U.S. ban on Russian oil imports. And at the end of February, the United States allowed non-emergency employees and family members to leave its embassy in Moscow.

So not only has the U.S.-Russia relationship broken down, there are many fewer U.S. diplomats in Moscow who might be able to assist Griner with her case. And those who are left have other pressing matters demanding their attention as the Russian military continues to bomb and kill Ukrainian civilians.

How is the U.S. Department of State involved?

When asked about Griner on Sunday, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said that the United States will "provide every possible assistance" to citizens being held in foreign countries. He said the State Department has an embassy team working on the cases of Americans who are detained in Russia and that "we're doing everything we can to see to it that their rights are upheld and respected." He did not mention Griner by name when he made his comments at a joint news conference with Moldova President Maia Sandu, adding he couldn't say much due to privacy considerations.

The State Department issued a "do not travel'' advisory for Russia on Jan. 23 that warned Americans against traveling to Russia because of "the potential for harassment against U.S. citizens, the embassy's limited ability to assist U.S. citizens in Russia, COVID-19 and related entry restrictions, terrorism, harassment by Russian government security officials, and the arbitrary enforcement of local law." Another "do not travel" advisory was issued Saturday, nine days after Russia began its military invasion of Ukraine.

Is Griner in any more danger as a member of the LGBTQ community?

The Russian government has enacted laws aimed at scaling back rights and fomenting societal intolerance for LGBTQ people, in defense of supposed "traditional values."

Griner has been open about her sexuality since she started playing in the WNBA. Players who go to Russia have said they're aware of the climate but felt they wouldn't be targeted because they were high-profile "guests" in the country and would be protected by their teams.

But generally speaking, the Russian government is not friendly toward LGBTQ people, and the fear is that Griner's sexuality will hurt her case.

How does Griner being a U.S. Olympian impact the situation?

Griner won gold medals in the 2016 and 2020 Olympics, along with the 2014 and 2018 FIBA World Cup, and she was expected to be a key part of the 2022 U.S. World Cup team that will compete this fall in Australia. She is a long-established U.S. representative in international basketball.

USA Basketball, the sport's governing body in this country, issued a statement Saturday in support of Griner when the news of her detention broke: "Brittney has always handled herself with the utmost professionalism during her long tenure with USA Basketball, and her safety and well-being are our primary concerns."

Why was Griner in Russia?

Simply put, Griner was there to supplement her WNBA income. She has played in Russia since 2016. Women's basketball players from the United States have competed professionally overseas since at least the 1970s, long before the WNBA began in 1997. Teams in Europe and Asia are generally funded by large corporations or the government, and in the case of many Russian teams since the break-up of the Soviet Union, by oligarchs. Some of them have viewed owning those teams as personal vanity statements.

UMMC Ekaterinburg, the team Griner plays for, is owned by the Ural Mining and Metallurgical Company, a multibillion-dollar corporation that produces nickel, copper, coal and lead. The team is positive publicity for the company and an entertainment perk for its workers, and UMMC has brought in many of the best American players for several years.

Corporate and oligarch backing is how overseas teams can afford to pay top Americans much more -- sometimes over $1 million per season -- than the WNBA, for which salaries are collectively bargained. The current top WNBA salary is $228,094, and each team has a hard salary cap of $1,379,200. The WNBA is set up to try to earn a profit for owners and keep the whole league sustainable and competitively equitable for its 12 teams, whereas in many overseas leagues, team costs are written off as a business expense.

There are typically limits to how many American players each overseas team can have on its roster. But there's an end-around with that: Many Americans obtain dual citizenship so they don't "count" as an American on the roster. Former American WNBA player Becky Hammon received dual citizenship and played for Russia in the 2008 and 2012 Olympics. Griner, however, does not have dual Russian citizenship.

Griner, who has played for UMMC Ekaterinburg since the 2015-16 WNBA offseason, and other WNBA players likely had a relative comfort level spending months in Russia. They have spoken about getting bored and feeling lonely and isolated, but they considered themselves safe. Agents have told ESPN that even in early February, they thought their players would be safe in Russia this year, and they were having discussions with the WNBPA throughout the month about player welfare. That changed after the invasion of Ukraine, and agents began working to get clients out of Russia and Ukraine. At that point, Griner already had been detained.

What about other WNBA players who play abroad during the offseason?

The WNBA said Saturday that all of its players besides Griner have left Russia and Ukraine.

Can UMMC Ekaterinburg owners/management play a role in Griner's release?

As mentioned, oligarchs have played a major role in Russian basketball ownership, and UMMC is a huge corporation in the country under the control of owner Iskander Makhmudov and CEO Andrei Kozitsyn. Under normal circumstances, UMMC officials would have an interest in Griner's safety and protection.

However, during a war and under sanctions, Russian oligarchs are dealing with a lot both financially and politically. Whether UMMC would get involved now with an American's legal case in the Russian court system, even though Griner is essentially its employee, remains to be seen. Plus, to the degree that Griner might be seen as a political pawn, the oligarchs' potential involvement might not make any difference.

#wospo #brittney griner #wnba #phoenix mercury

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kareofbears · 3 years

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plainly in truth, chapter 4/5

“Without you around, it’s sorta like stuff is just kinda…bleh.”

—

Or: hiding, confiding, and misguiding.

read on ao3 or below the cut

Niijima Makoto doesn’t know what she’s doing.

It’s rare, but it happens. Sometimes she doesn’t understand the material in university. Sometimes the trains close down before she can catch the last one. Sometimes she has a breakdown because what does it mean that the system that got her father killed is the same one that she’s working so hard to get into.

But there’s always a way to find a solution—ask the professor after lecture. Call Sae and, as humiliating as it was, ask for a ride home. Convince herself that maybe she’s what the system needed in order to get real change. (She’s not quite there yet.)

She doesn’t know what she’s doing with Ryuji, and the internal tug-of-war is almost getting too much for her.

Makoto can help him; how many students has she worked with to help get them back on their feet? But each of those students she had tutored wanted help—she didn’t need to convince them to focus on school. How do you convince someone to get academic help? Duct tape them to a chair and show them a PowerPoint about how their life can fall apart if they don’t take this seriously? Then she’d be blatantly ignoring his mental struggle, and be no better than the adults who want to push kids through a meat grinder that’s the education system and turn them into mindless workers, existing solely to earn them profit.

Then she can leave him alone. That’s what he wants, anyway, and it’s by far the simplest option.

However, if she leaves him alone, would that mean that she’s still the same person who let Shujin students sell themselves to Kaneshiro? Convinced that they can handle it on their own, but only letting their debts pile higher and higher on themselves until they get crushed?

Sudden laughter and shouting from behind pulls Makoto back to reality. They were all in a heated game of Tycoon, and it sounds like Akira’s been on a winning streak for the past half hour.

She grips the steering wheel tighter, forcing herself to focus on the road and not the whirlwind of thoughts. The highway is nearly empty, despite the sun being high in the sky, not a single cloud blocking its rays. They’re on their way to Okinawa, and it’s her turn to drive.

Makoto may not know what she’s doing, but she can at least do this.

—

Okumura Haru has always had a bit of a guilt complex.

It started with refusing to give her hand to an abusive man for her also abusive father’s business, and it had only escalated even further once she realized that it’s technically her fault that her father had been killed; that one in particular had been crippling. Not only because he died due to her poor decision making, but it was another reason why the Thieves had fallen for Shido’s trap last year.

She respects herself enough now to understand that most of it is misplaced, but it doesn’t erase any of the guilt she still carries today. Far from it—that guilt has only grown to be bigger, looming over her as if it were ready to consume every inch of her body and spit out a bag of bones.

This situation, though, she can’t help but feel that her guilt isn’t quite as misplaced as she likes to convince herself it is.

They were all having lunch at the ferry’s restaurant; it’s small, given how little people want to go all the way out to Okinawa, but it’s still selling ludicrously overpriced coffee and pastries. Nobody seems to mind, though. All of them were sharing one cheese omelette, each with a plastic fork in hand, tapping them against each other to get the best piece and assert dominance like animals at a watering hole.

A way to soothe guilt is to somehow find a way to remedy the situation. Employees of Big Bang Burger have been unionized, her father is now remembered for the man he was rather than the man he became, Sugimura has long since been a problem (how he stopped being a problem, she legally cannot speak about), and Shido isn’t even in the public’s conscious anymore.

But for Ryuji, there is no way to soothe that guilt. Not in a way that matters.

It’s not just because Haru had essentially been the reason why too many people know his secret, but because the secret should have never happened in the first place. She’s his senpai, she was supposed to be the one looking out for him. Ryuji was struggling, mentally and academically, and she hadn’t realized it until it was far too late. He had been there for her, ready to knock Sugimura’s teeth into his throat, but she couldn’t have done the same for him when it truly mattered.

How do you soothe that guilt? Buy out the entire school? Forge his grades? More cram books? That’s ridiculous.

There’s no way to soothe that guilt, she realizes, because the only real way to do that was to turn back time.

—

Kitagawa Yusuke understands pride better than most people.

Without a cent to his name for most of his life, pride was all he had. Pride of being the pupil of someone great, pride of turning money away in the name of art. Being able to withstand enormous pressure and stick to his guns has always been one of his strongest abilities.

They’re in the Okinawa jail, tearing through Shadows and screaming Sophia’s name, over and over again until all of their throats are torn raw. He calls for Goemon, and ice crawls over the narrow corridors of the facility like ants covering every inch of a buffet. They’re all strong, because they have to be, but the Shadows here are cunning; fast and magic-infused, drunk on the strange, thick air that’s bled into every inch of cement in this building.

But pride can be an unforgiving catalyst that can change you from the inside out, like a parasite hijacking your brain stem and compels you to bow down to it. He had refused to see the truth, turned a blind eye to the evils of his sensei, and it made him into a lesser version of himself. It had made him weaker.

A crack of lightning strikes, emanating light so bright that he instinctively raises a hand to block it out. When it dims, any smell of the cold, dry air is gone—in its place is the distinct scent of ozone wafting around him, and a light buzz that settles atop his skin like a second layer. The hair on his nape stands, but Yusuke’s positive it didn’t come from the electricity still buzzing from the ashes of the Shadows.

Ryuji had obliterated all of their foes with one, clean strike.

—

Takamaki Ann can tell that something’s off.

Her toes are buried deep in hot sand, taking refuge under their big umbrella. The sun is just about setting over the horizon, casting an orange glow on her skin, and she idly hopes that she had put on enough sunscreen. They’ve tired themselves out for the most part; some were taking naps on beach towels, some had retired back to the RV where air conditioning awaits them.

Only Akira and Ryuji were left, standing where the sand meets the tide, water lapping at their ankles. She couldn’t hear what they were talking about, but she recognized the look on Akira’s face—with his glasses hanging from his button up, his eyes sparkled brighter than the ocean does, not quite smiling but his lips are curled up as if unable to completely restrain itself. It’s the look he reserves for Ryuji.

She digs her feet deeper into the sand, enjoying the way it tickles her calves. Ann’s been thinking about this whole thing in her head ever since she found out the truth, and something just isn’t adding up.

As absolutely insane as it all is, if she closes one eye, tilts her head, and slams her head against a wall, she can sort of, kind of, maybe understand where he’s coming from. She’s known him too long not to. The whole actively lying to his friends thing is still unforgivable, but the need to hide it? Understandable. She barely scraped by second-year herself with a prayer and English-speaking parents, and even then her grades are nothing to write home about.

Ann could barely believe that Ryuji really thought that Akira would leave him over something as stupid as flunking school, but even that she can understand, too. Everyday, she wants to be a better person for Shiho, and everyday, she goes to bed thinking that she didn’t try hard enough. Ann gets it. Love screws with your brain, swirls it up until you can barely stand up straight, and definitely messes with your perception of yourself. Ridiculous, crazy, but still somewhat coherent.

There’s still one piece in this whole puzzle that hasn’t clicked yet, and it’s been bugging her ever since that night in the cafe.

As perceptive as he is, as smart and observant and unstoppable as he is, as kind and knowledgeable as he is, as much as he adores Ryuji to the moon and back—

Why hasn’t Akira said anything yet?

—

Sakura Futaba knows that something’s off.

As the navigator, she sees everything she needs to make sure her team makes it out of every battle alive and victorious. Necronomicon can see stuff that no one else can, can predict two, three, four moves before it can happen. She eats stats for breakfast and spits out results by second breakfast. She knows her team’s moveset like the back of her hand and then some. Futaba takes this seriously, because if she doesn’t, someone’s not walking out alive.

The best part is that she’s good at this. So good that the eternal worrywart, Joker himself, can still walk out of the Metaverse with a head of thick, black hair.

But something’s been off. She felt it in her bones and that feeling only gets more prominent with every passing Jail—no, not even Jail. With every battle, that feeling only gets stronger in her gut.

When it started is still a mystery to her, but she started picking up on it in Sapporo. Sapporo. Her mom told her never to pray, but by god she’s hoping that it started in Sapporo, because this—this thing, is too big to have missed.

Futaba isn’t sure what it is yet, but she has no idea what’s happening with Ryuji.

To be more specific, she has no idea what’s happening with Captain Kidd, but that’s basically the same thing; Personas are the extension of the user, I am thou, et cetera. The weirdest part is, she knows something’s off, but she doesn’t know if it’s necessarily a problem.

It’s as if Ryuji’s been hitting the gym while they weren’t looking, or giving Kidd a stern talking to. His attacks, which used to be around the same baseline as the rest of the team, is nearly outputting double the amount of damage than the rest of them. His hits are buffed to the wazoo on a level she’s never seen before in any other Persona user, even Akira.

She’s considered bringing it up with him dozens of times. The two of them have to be honest with each other, not because they love and respect each other or any of that bullcrap—it’s because it’s the only way anything can ever function in the team. Between the navigator and the leader, if they ever hide anything from the other, no matter how small, things would never run smoothly. Or worse: it’ll crash and burn.

And then Ryuji comes along and makes them all take a blood oath to never, ever tell Akira a really big secret.

Technically, she doesn’t see an issue with it. It’s more of an unspoken rule than any kind of signed contract, and it’s mostly about Metaverse stuff instead of real world problems. She’s not eagerly telling Akira about her private Pixiv account or anything. But it’s not impossible to think that Ryuji being strong enough to be wearing ten Gilded Vests stacked on top of each other is somehow connected to his very real, very heart-affecting situation. If she really thought it was a problem, she’d tell Akira right away. It’s better to have Ryuji hate her than to have him dead.

But when she sees Akira’s face flash with relief in Akane’s Jail when Ryuji all but annihilates a mega-super-high level Shadow, one that Akira’s been stressing about the entire time since they’ve been here despite him trying his best to act cool about it because he has to be, it’s kinda hard to consider this to be a problem at all.

—

Between Konoe’s attacks and relentless bolts of ions getting shot up every few seconds, the static is so thick in the air that their hairs are all frayed and heading skywards.

The blast from Konoe’s mech, once a symbol of their triumph and had pulled no small amount of whoops and cheers from their throats, is only the first stage of their fated battle. They hadn’t planned for an extra phase, and the only reason they were able to escape was that steam from the busted metal and machinery had given them a few seconds of cover.

All of them are huddled behind a wall, outlined with neon blue that only served to blend them in with the futuristic technicholar that is the Osaka Jail.

“We’re clear,” Makoto announces, voice low as she returns from peeking around the corner. “No chance he knows our location.”

“Thank you Queen,” Akira says, mask pushed far up his head, clear eyes rapidly checking over each of his teammates, nodding. “Good work out there with the mech, now let’s figure this one out. What do we know?”

“Not a lot,” Futaba’s goggles reflect data as her fingers dance over the screen. “If we assumed that his weaknesses would be the same as his mech, then it would be lightning and nuclear.”

“Only if we assume that his physical form reflects his robotic form,” Yusuke points out. “What are the odds that that’s the case?”

Morgana taps his paw on the ground, deep in thought. “High, I’d say. Remember, he didn’t even think anyone could actually get into his Jail. He was worried enough to give himself two forms, but I doubt he’d go much deeper than that in terms of protection.”

“Look, my math might be a little off,” Ryuji starts. “But it’s literally a ten-on-one, right? I vote we kick his ass from the get go.”

Akira grips his arm. “Don’t. It might be a ten-on-one, but I don’t want to be walking out of here with only nine or less. We take this slow, like we always do.”

“...Fine.”

“What I’m worried about is that big sword of his,” Ann says grimly. “It looks like one hit from that thing I can kiss my entire torso goodbye.”

“That’s what I was thinking.” Eyes flickering to Futaba, Akira asks, “Possible defenses?”

“I’m not seeing anything special from it other than it’s huge and sharp and could kill us if he really wanted to, which, he does. So it looks like it’s physical, unless he has something up his sleeve.”

“Which he probably does, because that’s just how things usually go for us,” Ann sighs.

“We’ll go with what we know.” Akira gets on his feet, taking another peek, black coattails swishing around his ankles. With blood-red hands he pulls his mask back down, and they all straighten up. His voice is barely above a mutter, but they all catch every word he says. “Panther, how’s your energy?”

“Nearly full,” she answers.

“Use Concentrate on Queen and Skull on their call, double their magical attack whenever you can. I know it takes awhile to reuse when you’re using it for anyone but yourself, but try your best. Ryuji, how you holding up?”

“Like everything’s zero gravity, leader.”

“Then I want you to do the same with Charge for Fox, Noir, and yourself. Don’t overdo it though—only do it on my call.”

“Got it.”

“Sophie, Morgana: healing duty. Especially for those of you who drain your health like an open tap. Noir, try to get a vantage point and use Milady’s arsenal. Catching Konoe off guard can be what we need. Oracle, watch our backs. Everyone else, on standby. Are we all clear?”

With a nod, Akira takes a deep breath. “Then let’s get this show on the road.”

He takes the first step, knowing full well that ten more are right behind him.

The minute Konoe spots where they were hiding, he takes a slow pace towards them, confident in his own abilities. He swings his lightsaber around him with ease, footsteps heavy and sure.

They take his lethargy to their advantage. “Split!” Akira calls, and immediately they head to where they need to be. “Let’s take this nice and—”

In a split second, the unhurried pace that Konoe was taking dissipates and he dashes forward, a blur to their eyes, heading straight for Ann, who just barely dodges out of the way.

“What the hell?!”

“He’s fucking fast now!”

“This guy’s speed just cranked up!” Futaba yells. “If he could do that without me even realizing it, then who knows—”

“Stay sharp, we know what we’re doing.”

“How on earth are you still so calm, Joker?!”

“Because I believe in all of you.” Dashing left, he brushes his mask. “Neko Shogun, help me out.” A black cat with eyes bigger than his hand materializes from the monochrome mask, and they all suddenly feel lighter on their feet, ready to dodge anything that comes their way. “Queen, Skull.”

“Roger that!”

Makoto scales one of the neon walls, grip strength insurmountable, and runs across the wires that are tied from each platform, boots barely touching the cord, before jumping down. “Johanna!”

An explosion, or something more akin to a nuclear bomb getting set off mere meters in front of them, occurs where Makoto lands, hitting Konoe head-on.

He staggers back, obviously shaken but he recovers quickly. Lightsaber buzzing red, he’s about to strike at her when she hops on the back of Johanna, engine revving. “Lucky us, he’s weak to nuclear.”

Ryuji hops on his feet, hyping himself up. “Not all of us have cars for a quick getaway,” he snarks, before he’s gone, sprinting so fast that he’s nearly a blur to anyone looking his way. Racing behind a wall, he gets the jump on Konoe. “Come on out, Captain!”

A storm brews even without a single cloud over them as ozone reeks and lightning strikes, the deafening sound of thunder makes their ears ring.

“Holy crap,” Futaba breathes.

“Is he weak?” he asks.

“Uh,” Ann says. Konoe uses his lightsaber as a makeshift cane to get himself on his feet, shaking his head aggressively. “Yeah, I’d say he’s weak to it.”

“Comms are set,” Futaba announces. “Noir, can you hear me?”

“Loud and clear, Oracle,” a bright voice chirps in their ears. “Joker, it’s an easy shot.”

“Take it.”

“With your help, Milady.”

The unmistakable sound of a gunshot rings out, and their heads swivel to see if it hit, but there’s no one there.

“What the...?” Ann wildly spins around, eyes widening. “Sophie—!”

Without turning her head back, Sophia instinctively ducks sideways, bits of red locks falling to the ground as Konoe’s lightsaber slices through the edges of her hair, and again when it grazes past her head, and another when it slices through the metal flooring like it was butter.

Panic grips her. “Pithos!” Sophia shrieks, voice high with fear. Blinding light shines from her hands, but Konoe walks into it like it was nothing.

Yusuke grips his katana, and silent as a gust of wind on a winter’s night, cuts through the air in front of him to deliver a myriad of slashes over Konoe. It does little to him, but it’s jarring enough that Sophia can escape where she was cornered.

“He’s very speedy,” Sophia says shakily. “Thank you, Fox.”

He nods, touching his mask in preparation. “That speed is nothing to jest about.”

“And we can’t do anything about it by just standing here! Makoto, back me up here.” Ann throws her mask in the air. “Carmen!”

“Find me an opening, and I’ll handle the rest,” Haru’s voice crackles.

“She’s right.” Akira touches his mask as it burns bright with the strength of dozens, maybe even hundreds of Personas. “She needs cover, and we need the element of surprise. Fox, Morgana.”

“Not a word more.”

“You got it!”

Ann takes a leaf from Makoto’s book, using her whip to grapple herself onto a ledge, running to take the high point behind Konoe, grazing Haru’s shoulder on the way there.

Konoe turns, but before he can take a counter measure, Akira calls out: “King Frost.”

At the same time, Yusuke says, voice loud and clear: “Goemon!”

Together, pillars of ice, meters and meters high surround Konoe, high enough that he can’t see anything past a few feet. But that height comes with a price; they can only make it so thick, and the lightsaber didn’t hesitate to crush it into bits.

“Panther, we don’t have too much time.” Already, sweat begins to pool and roll down Akira’s skin, using up his magic rapidly. “Are you in position?”

“Just—” she hops, heels clicking rapidly against the floor. “—About! Ten seconds!”

“We can hold it. Sophia, stay close on standby.”

“Understood!”

Motorcycle wheels screech next to Ryuji, and he doesn’t hesitate to hop on the back before they’re off again, leaving tire marks where they skirted off. “I swear to god, you play the racing games in the arcade. How the hell else would you get so good at this?”

“Would you shut up?” Makoto snaps.

“Roger that.”

“I’m in position!” Ann announces. She’s almost directly on top of the ice pillar. “On your signal.”

Gritting his teeth, Akira wipes the sweat away. “Hold.”

Yusuke swivels his head to him, knees shaking. “I can hold for as long as you need me to, but I might not be as much use afterwards.”

“It’s fine.” His eyes narrow at Konoe, still tearing through their ice blockade as the pile of shards only gets higher and higher. “Just a little bit longer. Sophia, use the biggest, most pinpoint bless move you have on my word.”

“Yes,” she responds, before hesitating. “He’s immune to it, I’m afraid.”

“I know.” Even Akira sounds breathless, his footing becoming unsteady.

“Joker, you don’t have much left,” Futaba warns. “You better hope this ends things, or we’re gonna have a real big problem on our hands.”

Once the shards of ice have piled high enough that it would surpass Konoe’s height twice over, and despite his hands beginning to turn blue, Akira's grin is wide. “Three—”

Yusuke’s vision begins to blur, but he refuses to relinquish Goemon.

“Two—”

Haru rearranges her finger on the trigger, palms drenched in sweat but they don’t shake. Not anymore.

“One—”

Ann takes a few steps back, sucking in a breath before sprinting forward, jumping straight over the open-chasm of ice and death beneath her.

“Now!”

Carmen releases a blaze of flame intense enough to encompass an entire neighborhood and then some, taking the shards and bits of ice that was piled high on top of each other and turning it into a cloud of fog and hot mist, shooting straight up and turning the visibility of the whole area to zero.

Yusuke crumbles to his knees as Ann tucks and rolls onto the floor, hissing as she feels her ankle twist into something nasty. “Shit!”

Akira staggers back, gripping his head like it hurts for him to stand, but that doesn’t stop him from yelling out: “Sophia!”

“Makougan!”

Like a lighthouse in the middle of a storm, there shines a beam of light so bright, so concentrated into one area, that they all know exactly where to aim their fire.

It all comes tumbling down, a perfectly set-up domino trap; Haru pulls trigger after trigger, bullet shells flying, ignoring the way her shoulder is inching further and further from where it’s supposed to be by taking the brunt of the recoil. Ryuji hops off the bike, crossing his arms in front of him calling two, three, four bolts as Makoto calls another nuclear blast.

From inside the whirlpool of thick clouds, where the fog is most dense, a figure sways, coughing and lurching forwards and back, trying desperately to escape.

“Oh no you don’t! Zorro!”

Wind, so thick you can almost see it, swirls around most of the mist, locking it in and dragging everyone else’s attacks right in the center.

Futaba’s clacking can be heard even now. “He’s losing health fast! Eighty percent, seventy percent, sixty—”

The ground trembles ominously.

“What in the world…?” Yusuke pants from the ground, elbows barely able to keep his torso up.

It happens again, stronger this time.

“Fifty, forty—” she continues, voice small and desperate. “Thirty! Twenty!”

Akira presses his palm against the ground, eyes closed before snapping open. Despite his exhaustion, he compels himself to stand, arms outstretched defensively. “Guard!”

They do so, and a streak of pure light flickers from the inside, before rapidly getting larger and larger until it turns into a scintillating sphere that grew and pulsed, eating up everything in its wake and blowing away the captivating fog. Try as they might, there’s nothing they can do to stand up against a Megidolaon.

Bruised and battered, Konoe stands tall as the Phantom Thieves can do nothing but look up from the ground, energy and options all but dried up until neither was left.

—

“Stop, I can walk, let me up—”

“Panther, stop struggling, your ankle is already too injured to—”

“Fuck! Oracle, does he know where we are?”

“Not yet; looks like that vanish ball Joker threw out gave us some cover but it’ll last for a way shorter time considering he blew through our plan in less than—”

“Whoa, Fox, you’re not looking good.”

“I’m afraid I can’t keep going, everyone. Goemon has reached his limit, but I don’t necessarily need him to keep fighting. Judging by my vision, however, my accuracy might be much lower than usual.”

“Man, shut up and stay down.”

“Sophia? Can you hear us?”

“Yes, but—ow!”

“Okay, stop moving, you’re only going to make it worse.”

“Joker, we still have plenty of items that we’ve accumulated from previous Jails. We don’t have much time before he can find us again, but if we put our heads together—”

“Are you talking about the scraps of grilled corn and the three life stones we have left? It would be suicide. We have to go in, guns blazing. It’s the only way it can work.”

“You’re talking about suicide, Mona, and the ‘guns blazing’ strategy you’re talking about would be literally lead to us serving our heads on a silver platter.”

“So what’s your plan, Queen? I’m all ears, I’m serious.”

“G-guys, stop fighting! We’ve barely got enough time as is. Just let me scan—”

“We’re pulling back.”

All eyes turn to Akira, posture straight despite the sheen of sweat clinging to his forehead. It’s obvious how he was barely able to stand.

Ryuji takes a step forward. “Are you crazy?”

"More than half of us are running on fumes, and half of those people are injured to the point where they can barely keep going. Our plan was shattered like it was nothing, he has a super move that’s so powerful that it tears through our defenses like tissue paper. We’re retreating.”

“Like hell we are! Do you know what’s gonna happen if we leave?”

“We heal our injuries, we get more items, we prepare better this time, and we come up with a better plan.”

“And that gives that bastard—” he jerks his thumb behind him. “The exact same advantage.”

“And what advantage do we have?” Akira’s voice is calm but they all feel the edge to it. “Who can even fight?”

“I can,” Morgana answers quietly. “He takes wind like concrete, though.”

“So can I. However, I can’t do as much as I normally can.” Haru rolls her shoulder, wincing. “I may have dislocated my shoulder earlier.”

“And me, obviously,” Ryuji finishes. “That’s nearly an entire team. We even have support and a distance shooter, and Futaba’s still in this too, so—”

“No.”

“What?”

“I said no,” he says, hard. “Don’t be stubborn about this. You know damn well why we can’t.”

Akira turns on his heel, only the slightest wobble in his movements. “Let’s move out. We only have thirty seconds left before the vanish ball wears off.”

“We’re not leaving.”

“Yes, we are.”

“Is it because you’re not on the team?”

A hush falls on them, and for a second, everyone forgets that they were even in the middle of a battle.

Akira glances back, hair covering his eyes. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means,” Ryuji takes another step forward, chin tilted up. “That you don’t think that we can handle this without you.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“Is it really? When was that last time you weren’t on the A team, Joker? Does anyone remember?” He glances at the rest of them. “Anyone? No? Yeah, I figured.”

He stares at him. “What’s wrong with you? Why are you acting like this?”

“I just don’t like that you’re implying that I can’t do shit for myself.”

“Ryuji…” Ann tries quietly.

“Yourself?” He faces him, expression blank. “I thought this was about the team.”

“And I’m part of the team, ain’t I?”

“You’re not dragging the rest of them into your petty, nonsensical argument, Skull,” Akira goes toe-to-toe with him, neither one blinking. “That’s final.”

“You know it would be dumb as shit to give that guy even more time to prepare. It’s like Shido—he was the toughest guy we went up against because he gave himself a billion counter measures since he knew we were coming. Konoe barely knew jack but he handed our asses to us. We finish this now or we don’t finish this at all.”

“I’d rather lose the battle than lose my friends,” he hisses. “We’re leaving. Now.”

“You’re too fucking blind to see that this is more than just us, leader,” Ryuji spits the word. “I can do it—no, I will do it.”

Akira grabs the bandana around his neck. “I don’t know what’s gotten into you,” he says through gritted teeth. “But you’re not going anywhere near Konoe.”

But it’s useless, and they both know it—Akira’s far too drained and Ryuji’s far too strong for it to be much more than an empty threat.

Ryuji wraps his fingers around his wrist. “I’ll prove to you that I can fucking do this,” his grip is tight, before forcibly peeling Akira’s grasp from him. “Believe in me. I’m strong, Akira.”

“Don’t do this.” Any anger from his words dissipates, and desperation takes its place. “I’m commanding you, as the leader of the Phantom Thieves of Hearts—do not do this.”

With a wide grin and lightning behind his eyes, Ryuji’s gone, and Akira’s hand is grasping thin air.

“Fuck,” he clutches at his head, body shaking with exertion. “Fuck.”

“Oh my god,” Makoto breathes. “He’s going to fight Konoe alone.”

“Over my dead body,” Akira touches his mask. “Come out, Yoshits—” Before he can finish, a gutteral sound from deep in his throat cuts him off, and he crashes ungracefully on the ground. “God dammit.”

Makoto shakes herself out of her stupor, taking a deep breath. “Alright, we can’t leave Skull. We’ll work with what we have.” Instinctively, she looks to Akira for advice, but his eyes are glazed over. Whether or not it’s from exhaustion or shock from what happened, she doesn’t know. “Noir, range attack. Shoot down the broken limbs from the mech, pray it still has nuclear running through its pipes. Mona, you’ll be on the support. Noir is already down in health, and Lord knows Skull’s going to need it. I’m down energy wise, but I have a good visual from above.” Eyes sliding sideways. “Oracle?”

“Comms are set up, I’m scanning for weaknesses, and Skull’s almost there,” she replies instantly. “If you’re going to join him, it’s now or never.”

“Alright.” Makoto swallows. “Everyone else, stay back. You two—go.” Morgana and Noir dart out.

“Thank you,” Akira says quietly. “I was just…out of it.”

“You don’t have to explain. That was…” she trails off when he looks up at her. His gaze in the Metaverse is sharp, always sharp, but now they’re dull. From knives to pebbles.

“Why did he do this?” he whispers. “What did I do wrong?”

The floor begins to rumble again, and they all lean over the edge to watch the battle playout.

“Everyone’s in position,” Yusuke narrates with a frown. “I don’t doubt Skull’s skill, but even at our full power, Konoe couldn’t be beaten.”

“He’s there,” Makoto says, and Akira watches, perfectly still. “He’s about to hit first.”

Ann leans forward, as they all did, at how Ryuji calls Kidd, voice ringing so loud they can hear it from where they sat on top of a wall. “Can he really do it?”

“Well,” Futaba heaves a deep sigh. “He’s right that this is probably our best shot, considering that we already got Konoe down to twenty percent of his health.”

Captain Kidd materializes, and his cannon is leaning back, glowing with power, and Konoe takes a step sideways, about to dodge.

“But Ryuji isn’t the same fighter that he was before.”

Instead of shooting forward, the cannon is swiftly raised skyward and thunder cracks before lightning strikes Konoe, followed by Ryuji lifting his pipe and slamming it straight into his skull and dodging just as another Megidolaon grows where he stood.

All of them stare, wide-eyed, at the spectacle before them like it was a sporting match; a back and forth happens, where Konoe would use his immense speed and power to try and get the leg up on Ryuji, but he would only hit thin air as he dodges and parries, shifting and ducking with a finesse they’ve never seen before, calling up Kidd and using electricity so potent that they feel can its static. Konoe grips his saber and swings and swings, triple-attack rolled into one but everytime he tries he only gets cut off when Ryuji slams his hand into the ground and calls dozens of wildly waving purple hands, each of them clawing at Konoe mercilessly.

“I knew he was stronger than he was before,” Makoto’s eyes are wide with wonder. “But it's like I don’t even recognize him.”

Ions and plasma strike as lightning meets saber, causing a violent cascade of sparks to fly frantically around the two of them. Bullets ring out whenever Konoe takes a step back, only to send him flying as a mini nuclear blast explodes behind him; Haru’s aim is impeccable.

This dance plays out for a long time, with Ryuji calling earth-shaking attacks and dancing around Megidolaons while Haru finds weak spots.

“Has he grown even faster?” Yusuke wonders aloud.

Futaba is struggling to watch all the data, attention straying to watch the fight. “He’s shaved off another ten percent off his health!”

“He’s incredible,” Ann says, awe-struck. “Isn’t he, Joker? He’s totally kicking his ass, pretty much by himself.”

“There’s something wrong.”

She peels her eyes away from below to stare at him, perplexed. “Things couldn’t be any better.”

Akira’s eyes are trained on Ryuji, on the way he’s limboing, countering every single attack rather than guarding. “I’ve seen his style since the very first day he got his Persona, and I’ve never seen him dodge so fluently. So desperately,” he says, eyes narrowed. “Something changed. And I didn’t notice.”

“Guys, am I crazy,” Morgana’s voice crackles in their ear. “Or is he really, really good at dodging attacks? I’ve only healed Noir this entire time, and she’s not even down there.”

“I just think he’s being cautious,” Haru replies, cocking her gun before continuing her assault. “Oracle? Report, please.”

“Five percent left,” they all hear the grin in her voice. “He’s actually going to do it.”

“Panther.” Ann blinks at Akira. “Help me up.”

She does, pushing his shoulders up until he’s sitting straight. “Needed a better view of him being a badass?” she teases.

Instead of answering, his gaze focuses, irises turning into a bright shade of blue.

Third eye, she registers with surprise. “We already know his stats.”

“I don’t care about Konoe’s,” his brow furrows slightly. “I care about his.”

“Two percent!” Futaba calls gleefully.

Suddenly, air catches in Akira’s throat. “What?” Ann startles.

“His endurance,” his voice shakes so intensely that she almost can’t understand what he’s saying. “His endurance.”

“What? What does that mean? Joker?” He tries pushing himself on his feet, crumbling and spewing obscenities when he can’t. “What are you doing? There’s nothing you can do, and Mona’s already got the healing taken care of.”

“One percent!”

The look in Akira’s eye is wild, and he’s paler than she’s ever seen him—whiter than when he came back from the interrogation room, and it’s enough to make her stomach drop all the way to the ground. “By the time they heal him, it’ll be too late.”

Everyone cheers and they both turn their attention back to the battle below them, where Ryuji summons one last bolt at Konoe, and finally, it’s enough to take him down.

Ryuji turns his back to Konoe, arms raised in triumph and drenched in sweat, immense pride clear on his expression.

It all happens in slow motion.

Akira jumps down, ignoring the protests from above, limping and scrambling towards Ryuji. Behind him, Konoe tries for one last, desperate attempt to win by swinging his saber weakly at Ryuji’s ankles, grazing his flesh ever so slightly.

“No!” Akira cries out.

Despite the cut being as shallow as a paper cut and as wide as a bee’s sting, Ryuji crumples to the ground, all life seeped out of him like he was struck through the heart.

#p5 #p5s #mine #fic tag #plainly in truth #persona 5 #persona 5 strikers #ryuji sakamoto #akira kurusu #akiryu #pegoryu #chapter four...how the time flies

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pollylynn · 3 years

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Title: A Trembling Of WC: 1800

“How’s that for love?” — Tildy Maguire, For Better or Worse (6 x 23)

He loves her and he fears her. These are the anchoring points of their relationship—the anchoring points of his whole world, these days, and three words from a city employee should not be able to pry them up and set the two of them adrift. Proof of divorce? Nothing in this or any other universe should be able to pry them up and set the two of them adrift, and yet here they are. He loves her no less—he could never love her any less—but right now, he fears for her, and that is a rip in the very fabric of reality. But how can he do otherwise?

Here she is, silent in the back of the cab. She has not said—will not say—one word as they lurch their way through the horrors of late afternoon traffic in Manhattan, and he’d like to think it’s the inadequate privacy offered by the plexiglass barrier that has sealed her lips. He’d like to believe that she’s so enchanted by the memory of the days when Paul Sorvino or Joe Torre or Eartha Kitt reminded New York taxi passengers to buckle up, take their belongings, get a receipt before exiting the back seat, she has nothing to say about the present. He’d like to believe that three words from a city employee have not fundamentally altered her lovable, fear-inspiring self, and yet . . .

Here she is, finally home, and yet there is nothing like relief here. There is nothing like relief anywhere in sight. Here she is with her head in her hands, and they’re telling his mother, they’re telling his daughter, because they kind of have to tell them. They very probably are kind of going to have to tell everyone, but this tiny test balloon at him is so awful.

His mother—she of the child-producing one-night stand with a probable sociopath is volubly incredulous: Who is Rogan O’Leary? His daughter—she of the lease with the bee-counting, continent-hopping, passport-losing peace disturbing Pi is volubly appalled: And you married him? He of an untold number of colossal mistakes in the personal and professional realms, in the public eye and in private, is damnably smug: And here I thought you were a one and done kind of girl.

He regrets it the instant it’s out of his mouth. He bounces around the tattered remnants of reality. He goes back in time and regrets it, except there is a moment, there is an instant, there is the merest spark of absolute fury behind her eyes, and he feels the world come right. He feels reality knitting itself back up again. He feels himself quaking in his bespoke boots, secure in the knowledge that she will make him pay, and he is fine with that. He is absolutely fine.

He loves her and he fears her, these are the anchors of his entire world, gloriously restored, and that is just as it should be.

*****************************

He loves her and he fears her and he loves her just that little bit more when everything fearsome about her is directed at someone else. Oh, how he loves being able to watch the fireworks from minimum safe distance, so he’s excited when she sets off for Willow Creek. He’s racked with guilt and uncertainty, too, because she’s going alone and he worries that it’s self-flagellation—that it’s an occasion to be afraid for her—but ultimately, he’s excited.

She is determined when she leaves. She has her keys clutched in her fist and she won’t take an overnight bag.

“Not even a toothbrush?” He turns up the innocence. It’s a calculated risk. It’s more fuel for the fire that burning in her, fierce and bright now, and it works.

“Not. Even. A toothbrush.” She enunciates each and every letter. She grabs the front of his shirt with her free hand and reels him in until they’re sharing air molecules. “Won’t need it.”

And then she’s gone, but not gone.

She is on the other end of the phone as soon as she has hunted down her soon-but-not-soon-enough-to-be ex. She is fierce, roaring as she rails against the stupidity of the quest he’s sent her on.

“Like he’s the damned Wizard of Oz,” she snarls.

“More like the Wizard of Id,” he quips. He’s thinking about being eighteen and all primitive instinct. He’s thinking about drunken nights on the strip and impulse weddings. He’s not really thinking, and it’s fuel for the fire. He swears she’s scorched his ear, she’s scorched the whole side of his brain closest to the phone, so maybe that’s a little too much fuel.

Except he thinks that might be what sustains her through the abduction of Rogan, through the indifference and grudging pity of the local constabulary. He tells himself on his own frantic drive up to Willow Creek that he’s managed to make her spitting mad enough that she’s not sitting there, alone, with her head in her hands.

It’s true. It’s mostly true that she’s down to embers when he gets there, but there’s more than enough Logan-related fury to go around. There’s coma wife and the sheer madness of digging through his pornographic electronic mash notes. There are bikers and strippers and a murderous mob boss. There is an entire Logan-based mad, mad, mad, mad world and she is definitely mad about it.

She is quick thinking and—other than a few slightly moist moments about the dress—she is laser focused on getting this done. She is mean to Logan, and after the whole Man Parts contretemps, that is a delight and a turn on and the world turning beautifully on its axis precisely as it should turn.

She is a warrior goddess, hell bent on marrying him—him—and he is blown away by that honor and privilege.

He loves her. He fears her. He’s going to marry her.

*********************

He loves her. He just loves her. It’s hard for them to part ways in stupid Willow Creek, but there’s really nothing for it. She has her car, and he has his. He has to get to the city. He has to start the paperwork on its warp speed journey through the system, and she has to get to the Hamptons to figure out what she’s going to wear.

“I’m all for nothing at—“

She cuts that off with a twist of his ear that takes him right back to the beginning—right back to when she was Our Lady of Smug, patron saint of the One and Done Girl—and that makes it really hard to part ways, because he would love to get in some last-minute fear and trembling in one back seat or the other before she makes an honest man of him. He really would but there’s just no time. He has to settle for backing her up hard against the driver’s side door of her car and kissing the life out of her. He has to settle for the same as she backs him up hard against the passenger side door of his car where it’s pulled up alongside hers. They have to settle for peeling their bodies apart, breathless, eager, and reluctant, all at once.

“Be safe,” she breathes, her forehead pressed against his. “Hurry, but be safe.”

“You, too.” He steals one last kiss, then hurries around the hood to slide behind the wheel, to get on with it.

He’s not three miles down the road when his phone rings through the car’s bluetooth. He feels an eager grin spread across his face as he thumbs the button. “Miss me already?”

“No,” she retorts immediately, adamantly. “Yes,” she admits slowly, reluctantly. “Shut up,” she orders, shooting an arrow of fear right through his heart, though it softens—it downright melts—when she adds, “Keep me company.”

He does. He keeps her company, though there’s not a lot of heavy lifting involved. She wants to talk—a positivity rarity for her—and other than her, there’s little he loves more in this stitched-up, much-mended reality than to listen when the mood strikes her. So he listens as she wanders far and wide, as she roams through the month or so of Rogan, and when the time is right, he is going to have so many follow-up questions about where Eddie Vedder’s jean jacket wound up and exactly how far she can chuck a hoagie while running down the strip full tilt.

It’s not all fun and games, though. How could it be? But it’s okay. He loves her. He loves her, and when it comes to the place where this was always leading, he’s there. He’s on the other end of the phone. He’s listening.

“I was married then. When my mom died.” Her voice is even. It’s controlled, though he can hear her heaving a shaky sigh. “I told her the whole saga.” Another shaky sigh.”Almost the whole saga with Rogan. We laughed about it.” There’s a silence long enough that he’s worried the call has dropped, but her voice fills up the speakers again. “I feel like I have to . . . confess to her or something. Give her a chance to say I told you so. I feel like I owe her that.”

It’s a heartsore place for things to land. He doesn’t have a joke or anything gallant locked and loaded, but that doesn’t feel right anyway. He’d tear another hole in the fabric of reality if he could. He’d give her closure. He will give her closure if he can—a trip to her mom’s grave with her hand in his, a letter written and burned, its ashes scattered on the wind, whatever she wants, he’ll do.

“I’m okay, Castle,” she says quietly, she says knowing he was wondering. “Really.”

“I know you are,” he says, and it’s true. “I’m glad you are.”

That’s true, too, in the most comprehensive sense. He is glad she’s okay. He is glad of whoever, whatever, however she is in any given moment.

He hears the road beneath his own tires, the road beneath hers. She stays on the line, though she is quiet now and a little sad. She wants things he can’t give her—he hasn’t yet devised a way to give her—and that’s a little maddening. But she is more than okay, and he is more than okay with that. She is fierce and fear-inducing and lonely for her mom and a little bit raw right now.

He loves her and he fears her. He has the twin anchors for his whole world on the other end of the line. That’s as it should be.

A/N: A group of finches is called a trembling. That is a thing. This is not a thing. It is an uneven atrocity, not a thing.

images via homeofthenutty

#Castle #Caskett #Castle: Season 6 #Castle: For Better or Worse #Kate Beckett #Richard Castle #Martha Rodgers #Alexis Castle #Johanna Beckett #Fic #Fanfic #Fanfiction #Fan Fic #Fan Fiction #Writing #Interrogatives?

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yourladyem · 3 years

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Walt Disney

One lesson you can learn from studying the life of Walt Disney is your actions and your words are what make up your integrity. How you act and what you say can either help or hinder your testimony to others. Walt Disney was a man of integrity and humility. He set up the chairs for his own private screening of Fantasia. He gave money out of his own wallet to any cast member who went the extra mile for a customer. He and Roy would forgo a paycheck at times in order to pay their staff when they were first starting out broke and creating Micky Mouse cartoons. He rode his own Park attractions in full disguise and timed his rides with a stopwatch to see if the employees were cheating his customers out of the full allotted time for each ride. He worked until the early hours of the morning painting the "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" attraction the night before the grand opening of Disneyland.

Walt Disney was also a brilliant man ahead of his time. He sold over 3 million Mickey Mouse watches in 1935 in the middle of the Great Depression thanks to the genius of his marketing team. He invented animatronics and created Stereo sound when he made Fantasia with a multi-track sound system that made the audience feel as if they were at a live concert. It was called Fantasound.

The man who created one of the largest empires in the world, never cared about making money. In Pat Williams’ biography "How to Be Like Walt", Walt himself stated, “I’ve always been bored with the idea of just making money. I’ve wanted to do things, I wanted to build things. Get something going. People look at me in different ways. Some of them say ‘The guy has no regard for money.’ That’s not true. I have had regard for money. But I’m not like some people who worship money as something you’ve got to have piled up somewhere. I’ve only thought of money in one way, and that is to do something with it, you see?”

He disliked dealing with the financial side of the growing empire and left that to his CFO and brother, Roy. Walt hated it so much that after endless failed attempts, Roy finally convinced his younger brother to attend a stockholders meeting.

Two good things came out of that meeting. The first came when Walt saw the stone faces of the businessmen in their perfect expensive suits. He just found his inspiration for the bank bosses for his future film, Mary Poppins.

The second good thing came after he boldly read a simple letter from a man in Florida who owned a couple of shares telling Walt Disney, “I don’t care if I ever get any dividends. You just keep up the good work and keep making good pictures.” After reading the letter, Walt focused his attention back to the room and stated, “I wish this company had more shareholders like that one. He understands what Disney is all about. Now, it’s been very nice to see all of you, but if you don’t mind, I’ve got a studio to run.” and left the room. Roy never asked him to attend another meeting ever again.

Walt struggled to convince Roy to back the idea of Disneyland. Many of the famous classic films we know today including Alice in Wonderland, Fantasia, and Pinocchio bombed at the box office. Constantly in debt after so many failures, no matter how many awards the studio won over the years including setting records for a single nominee. It looked like the dream of Disneyland was going to be delayed even longer.

Instead of reaching out to rich friends in Hollywood or begging the stockholders, the people he turned to for the financial backing for Disneyland were his own employees. They believed in his dreams as much as he did. He wasn’t too confident in asking his own people for money and the first person he asked was the studio’s nurse, Hazel George. She not only donated to the cause but also spearheaded the in-house charity group Disneyland Backers and Boosters.

Another prominent woman at the Disney studios was Harriet Burns, the first female Imagineer who helped design and build the Disneyland attractions. And before she became the future Mrs. Disney, Lillian Bounds, was a young inker and painter at the Disney Brothers Studio (later renamed the Walt Disney Studios) along with her friend Kathleen. Two of Walt’s very first employees at the start up studio were women doing the hard jobs and not just errand girls who simply looked pretty and got coffee for the bosses.

Most of the staff loved Walt. He never discriminated or thought lowly of anyone no matter their race, background, religion, or anything else. Neal Gabler’s biography "Walt Disney: A Triumph of the American Imagination", suggests the slander and lies of him being Anti-Semite most likely came about from Anti-Semite Ben Sharpsteen who worked for the studio and Walt was “guilty by association.”

Pat Williams states, after consulting many Disney scholars, another likely reason for the rumors was because of a smear campaign against Disney during a strike in 1941. Union chief, Herb Sorrell once told Walt “I will smear you and I will make a dust bowl out of your studio.” Sorrell stayed true his word of tarnishing the Disney name. For nearly 80 years those rumors have circulated but nothing to back up those ridiculous claims. Firsthand accounts including other Jewish employees who hated Walt because he didn’t agree with their political stances, never accused Walt of being an Anti-Semite.

Kathleen and Richard Greene also addressed the question of Anti-Semitism in the Disney family in their book, “Inside the Dream: The Personal Story of Walt Disney”. They discussed the relationship a former Jewish neighbor of Roy and Walt’s childhood neighborhood in Kansas named Meyer Menda saying she never experienced any sort of Anti-Semitism from the Disney family. As well as Walt’s daughter Sharon dated a Jewish man at one time with no family objections.

Also, if Walt Disney was an Anti-Semite, he never would have hired the famous Sherman Brothers who wrote the music for "The Jungle Book", "Mary Poppins", "Aristocats", "Bedknobs and Broomsticks", and the song "It’s A Small World" for the attraction. Robert Sherman recalls in "How to Be Like Walt", the time Walt defended the Brothers and fired one of his own lawyers who hated minorities and who called the Sherman Brothers the “Jewish boys.”

In the biography by Pat Williams, "How to Be Like Walt", Joe Grant, a Jewish animator for Snow White and the Seven Dwarves and the only animator to animate both Fantasia films, said, “Some of the most influential people at the studio were Jewish.”

Neal Gabler’s biography, "Walt Disney: The Triumph of The American Imagination", mentions production manager Harry Tytle and Kay Kamen stated the Walt Disney studios had more Jews than the Book of Leviticus. Harry Tytle had changed his last name from Teitelbaum to hide his Jewish background but when he told Walt Disney he was half Jewish, Walt replied if he were all Jewish, he’d be better.

Pat Williams and Neal Gabler also report firsthand testimonies of Walt’s love for the Jewish community. Including, how Walt donated money to Jewish charities and even had a Protestant preacher, a Catholic priest, and a Jewish rabbi at the opening ceremony of Disneyland to bless the event. Pat Williams’ biography also states that in 1955 the B’Nai B’rith chapter of Beverly Hills cited Walt Disney as their man of the year.

Walt was never a racist, sexist, nor hated minorities of any kind. If he did, he never would have hired them for spotlighted high-profile positions and certainly never would have made the “It’s a Small World” attraction that not only celebrates the cultures of the world but also showing the world we aren’t that different from each other outside of customs and languages.

Pat Williams mentions the time Walt told Billy Graham on private tour of the Park “Billy, look around you. Look at all the people, representing all nationalities, all colors, all languages. And they are all smiling, all having fun together. Billy this is the real world. The fantasy is outside.”

One of his story artists was an African American named, Floyd Norman. He also testified saying, “I never felt any prejudice from Walt.” A statement found in Neal Gabler’s book.

Walt Disney loved all people no matter status, age, race, religion, or gender. Everyone was equal in his eyes and deserved the same amount of respect no matter what. He never even allowed his employees to call him Mr. Disney. Everyone was on a first name basis. He believed everyone deserved a fair and equal chance at life and he did his best in words and actions to shows that.

So why have the rumors lasted so long? The slander and lies sadly have continued to spur on because many people choose to simply regurgitate rumors out of laziness instead of researching the information themselves. Hollywood does it, college professors do it, and even biographers. Research information yourselves and never take rumors for fact without backing them up with real facts. Especially firsthand accounts and eyewitnesses. These testimonies were firsthand accounts of people who knew him and worked for him and the real Walt Disney was a kindhearted, loving, brilliant man ahead of his time who loved people, loved by his people, and wanted to create a utopia of his own for everyone to enjoy.

Sources:

How to Be Like Walt by Pat Williams

Walt Disney: The Triumph of The American Imagination by Neal Gabler

Inside the Dream: The Personal Story of Walt Disney by Kathleen and Richard Greene

Highly recommend these biographies! You might want highlighters and pens with you when you read them.

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greekletters · 4 years

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I should choose better titles.

Hey everyone! Recently, I found out that my pal @dedicatedseeker has a birthday coming up. So I asked if there was a prompt or anything I could write a fic for. And they sent me this pretty awesome fic idea, (all credit for ideas and discovery should go to @tdactyl and @maburito via this post https://maburito.tumblr.com/post/182471484722/tdactyl-alright-so-like-hear-me-out-a-rwby) and I decided to do my best and give it a go!

And since I'm very Tumblr challenged, I will post the first chapter below and end it with a link to continue reading on AO3.

Thanks for reading, as always! : )

It’s All Downhill

Chapter One

“Yeah Ruby, they’re already here. Checked in like less than an hour ago. I made sure they got the nicest room available. For the whole weekend, yeah.”

The gentleman behind the check in counter of the resort hasn’t stopped talking on his phone on what seems to be a personal call the entire time you’ve been standing at the counter with Winter.

“I can’t believe this place just allows its employees to take personal calls in a customer facing area such as this. Seems.. unprofessional.” You knew it would only be a matter of time before Winter decided to voice her concerns to the host behind the desk in front of you.

“Sorry ma’am, that’s our resort manager, Mr. Arc. I believe he’s on a call regarding a guest issue. I apologize for the inconvenience.”

“Being here is already enough of an inconvenience for me, what’s one more thing.” Winter rolls her eyes so hard you’re surprised they didn’t fall out and roll away.

“It’s three days of mandatory leave. It’s basically a vacation. Just take it as a time for you to relax, and decompress.” You try to be as supportive as possible, even though you also hadn’t wanted to leave work and take a three day weekend.

“If it weren’t mandatory and direct from General Ironwood, I wouldn’t even be here.”

“Yes. You made that incredibly clear the entire ride here.” You grab your room key from the host and begin to pull your luggage behind you, leaving Winter a few paces to catch up.

You don’t know why you even bothered to come on this trip. You knew Winter was just going to complain about not being at work the entire time. But then would complain when you tried to do work on your computer. This is how any vacation the two of you had taken within the last ten years had gone. Someone was always working. And someone always didn’t want to be there. And sometimes, it was both.

So the entire journey from the resort front desk to your regal cabin, that’s what happened. Winter complained about a vacation. You were over it already and you hadn’t even made it through the first twelve hours yet.

“This is going to be a long three days.” You mumble to yourself as you scan your keycard against the reader, flinging the door open in front of you.

The site that greets you on the other side of the door isn’t at all what you had expected. What you had expected was a gorgeous glass front cabin, facing the mountain overlook. What did you get?

Two people, that weren’t you or Winter, already looking comfortable in the shared living area of the cabin. Two people that shouldn’t be there.

“Really? They told us this cabin was ready and it’s not even cleaned yet? This place is run by idiots.” Winter slams her bags down, clearly not pleased.

“Wow.” One of the women with shorter black hair says as she stands up and wanders back into what you guess would be the kitchen.

“Hey guys, uh. No offense. But who are you exactly?” The taller blonde woman asks, standing up from her seat.

“Um, we are the people that have rented this room for the weekend. Maybe we are the ones who should be asking you that same question.” Folding your arms across your chest, trying your best to remain assertive.

“Well, if we also hadn’t rented this same room, how would we have gotten keys and gotten into this same room?” The other woman had returned, with a cup filled with some kind of hot drink. “They probably double booked it.”

“You have got to be fucking kidding me.” Winter lets out the most exaggerated groan as she pulls her phone from her pocket and begins dialing.

After about ten minutes, ten fully silent and awkward minutes, the gentleman from the front desk knocks on the door of the cabin. You let him in, mostly so he can declare the room yours and allow these other people to leave gracefully.

“So, I double and triple checked the system. There seems to have been an error and we double booked the room. Unfortunately, we don’t have any other vacancies anywhere in the resort. Not a single room is available.”

The four of you look between each other, seeing which group would be the first to give. No one budges.

“The resort cannot demand either booking be the one to leave, so it’s something I will leave you to settle amongst yourselves.” And with the swiftness of an olympic sprinter, he disappears.

“Well that’s just great. This is positively ridiculous.” Clearly Winter’s mood hadn’t improved at all.

“Positively ridiculous, ha.” The black haired girl leans back against the wall.

“How exactly are we supposed to just decide who gets to stay and who has to go? This isn’t any of our error and it’s unfair that anyone be punished and sent away.”

“Agreed.” You look up, surprised by the dark haired girl’s support.

“I have an idea. Why don’t we just bet on it?” The blonde opens it up for discussion.

“What are the stakes?” Shocked that Winter would even consider leaving something like this up to chance, you stare at her wide eyed.

The blonde takes a few moments to deliberate with herself, moving her head from side to side like she’s weighing decisions in her head.

“A good old fashioned arm wrestle sounds fair to me. You in?” She gestures to both you and Winter.

“I will be doing no such thing.” Disgusted, you are honestly disgusted. What a brutish suggestion.

“Typical, Yang. And I will not be participating, as usual.”

“Winter?” You can’t help but notice her silence, and it unnerves you.

“I’m in.”

“Heck yeah.” The blonde, Yang, begins to roll up the sleeves of her jacket and prepare for battle.

“You can’t be serious, Winter.”

You catch the faint scent of lavender as the black haired girl crosses in front of you and takes a seat in one of the chairs facing opposite the couch.

“She looks pretty serious to me.” She says as she raises one eyebrow before taking another sip from her cup.

“What are the terms?” Winter asks as she removes her jacket and takes her place across from Yang.

“Well I’m guessing that if you win, Blake and I pack up and go home.”

“Fair enough.”

“And if I win, we share.”

“What?” Winter’s voice is curt.

“Excuse me?” You can’t believe this stranger has the audacity to suggest you share living space with them for an entire weekend.

“If I win, the two of you share the cabin with Blake and I for the weekend. It has five rooms and plenty of space for all of us. No reason someone has to leave.”

Winter squints her eyes as she stares Yang down. It’s the look she has when she’s assessing all the odds. It would usually strike fear in her opponent, but this blonde seems completely unphased.

“Fine. I only have one other condition.”

“And what is that?”

“We battle left handed. I stand no chance against an Atlesian prosthetic arm.” She gestures towards Yang’s right arm.

“Totally understandable, yet still inconsequential. Seeing as how I’ll be winning regardless.” Yang sits down, places her elbow to the table, holding her hand up for Winter to take.

Before she takes her place at the table, you walk over next to Winter and quietly express your discontent.

“You better not lose, because I don’t want to spend my weekend with two complete strangers, one of which appears to be some kind of arm wrestling barbarian. And if you do lose, don’t forget that this was your idea.”

“Oh Weiss, have a little faith.”

As it turns out, your lack of faith was accurately placed. Because Yang wiped the table with Winter. The “battle,” if it could even be called such, lasted less than a minute.

“Why don’t you guys take the rooms on the right side of the cabin and Blake and I will choose from the ones on the left? And then, if you ladies wanted, we can meet back here and have dinner? We should probably at least try to get to know each other a little since we will be spending the weekend here.”

“Sounds fine to me. But I recommend room service. I have no intention of cooking on holiday.” You say as you begin to pull your bag towards one of the open doors closest to you.

“Ah, the request of someone that can’t cook.” Blake says as she disappears down the hallway opposite from you. “I’m cool with that, see you all in an hour.”

Much to your surprise, dinner actually turned out rather pleasant. It was awkward at first, but Yang seems like one of those people that would talk to a rock and have a good conversation. And Blake seemed like the chill and calm balance to Yang’s over the top attitude. She was smart, incredibly well spoken. And very witty. She even managed to make you laugh a few times. Winter seemed to enjoy conversing with the other girls, which was a nice surprise considering she had been a stick in the mud up until then.

When Yang suggests that you all “take the party outside” and make s’mores on the patio bonfire, you are shocked when Winter jumps at the chance to help her set it up.

“Guess that leaves you and I to make the hot chocolate, huh?” Blake asks, motioning for you to follow her back into the kitchen.

You quietly follow Blake into the kitchen, where she has already started to make preparations. Trying to be of at least some help, you start searching the cabinets for mugs to use. Finally finding them on the highest shelf. Try as you might, even on tiptoes, you can’t reach them.

“I hate to ask, but do you think you could give me a hand?”

“Did Yang teach you that joke?” Blake laughs to herself as she steps beside you and reaches up to grab four mugs from the cabinet. When she stretches, you can’t help but notice the scar on her left side, as her shirt rides up.

And of course she catches you looking. God forbid you be smooth at anything.

“Sorry.” You look away. Not sure if you’re embarrassed for seeing her scar, or just because you got caught looking.

“No, it’s fine. It’s not exactly a beauty mark.” She laughs nervously. After you fail to fill the silence, she continues. “Should I wait for you to ask? Or would you just like me to tell you about how I got it now?”

“Got what?” You say, dumbfounded look surely spread across your face.

“The scar I just totally caught you staring at.”

“Oh, not if it’s personal. I don’t want to make you any more uncomfortable than I already have.” You shake your head.

“It’s fine.” She waves her hand in dismissal. “It’s not that big of a deal anyways. When Yang and I were younger, we were in an accident. On the way to school, something happened with the bus. And it was horrible, some people died. Yang lost her arm, and I got some metal from the bus..” She pokes at her side. “Ya know.”

“That’s terrible.” Your mouth hangs open in shock.

“It wasn’t great. But Yang got the worst of it. I was very lucky. But the two of us have been inseparable ever since.” She shrugs her shoulders and you feel something sink down in your stomach. “Can you help me carry two of the cups? I only got two hands so I can’t get all four of them.”

“Oh of course, sorry.” Quickly grabbing the remaining mugs, you follow Blake back outside.

“Look who’s back! We were beginning to think the two of you ran off into the woods on us.”

“Think it’s fairly safe to say that Weiss and I probably wouldn’t make it long in the woods.”

“Weiss can barely make it grocery shopping by herself, much less in the wilderness.” Winter laughs as Yang hands her a marshmallow on a stick.

“I only want-“

“Just the marshmallow. I know Blakey. Chill.”

Yang roasts a single marshmallow and points it towards Blake once it’s finished cooking.

“You know me so well.” Blake gives a wide smile to Yang as she removes the lone marshmallow from the stick and eats it.

“I should. We’ve basically been together forever at this point.” Yang says as she goes about her s’more making duties.

“What do you all have planned for tomorrow?”

“Well, Blake wants to go skiing but I have always wanted to go snowboarding.”

“I love to snowboard.” Winter says, and you look at her suspiciously.

“You do? Since when?”

“For a while now, you just never pay attention.”

“What about you, Weiss? Skiing or snowboarding?” Blake asks as she eats another marshmallow.

“Skiing. I’ve always preferred skiing. It has a certain elegance to it that snowboarding does not.”

“You and I should go then.” Blake says.

“What?” Maybe you misheard her.

“Well, it seems like Yang and Winter want to snowboard while you and I would like to ski, so maybe we should split up. If that’s cool with you guys?”

“Sounds like a plan to me, if you guys are up for it?” You highly doubt Winter would agree to this.

“Seems like the most efficient use of our time here, I’m in.”

You cave and agree to spend the following day skiing with Blake. You aren’t sure what is going on with Winter. The world must be tilting on some unknown axis or something.

Later that night, while you and Winter prepared for bed, you take advantage of the seclusion and try to get some answers.

“What is going on with you? This morning it was like pulling teeth to get you to leave Vale, and now you are agreeing to spend tomorrow with a near complete stranger.”

“There is absolutely nothing going on with me. I was given a direct order from my commanding officer to spend the weekend relaxing, and I am doing just that. And quite frankly, I’m the one that should be asking you. It’s obvious that you are interested in Blake.”

“I am not! And even if I were, she’s clearly in a committed relationship with Yang. They’ve ‘been together forever.’ And that is not something I’m looking to intervene in during a weekend vacation. Honestly, if I had anything to say about it, you’re being way too friendly with Yang.”

“I am doing nothing of the sort. See you in the morning, Weiss. Sleep well.”

“Whatever. Goodnight, Winter.”

As much as you hated to admit it, after hours of lying awake in bed, Winter may have been right. You had only known her for a few hours. But this complete stranger, this Blake whoever, was running circles through your mind and getting stuck in your thoughts. And the more you thought about her, the more disheartened you got. She seemed so amazing. So smart, so witty, so outstanding. Just when you thought you may have found someone of interest. It’s someone that already has a someone.

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

Here is the link to the rest of the story, if anyone wants to check out the rest: https://www.archiveofourown.org/works/25129900/chapters/60886429

#rwby monochrome #rwby checkmate #rwby fanfiction #blake belladonna #rwby elderburn #weiss schnee #winter schnee #yang xiao long

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lozza-85 · 3 years

Text

The Most Unique Strike In History

THE MOST UNIQUE STRIKE IN HISTORY? In December 2020, the GMB union balloted British Gas field engineers for the right to strike against the Fire and Re Hire the Senior Management have been threatening us with since June2020. 89% of ballot returns voted in favour of industrial action. That is around 5,000 engineers. The company is leading people to believe that over 80% of its employees have already signed up to its new conditions so there is nothing wrong with them. The details they have not included is that the ones who have are Office staff and Contract employees on completely different contracts then the field staff. A good majority of these are receiving small improvements and only the long-term employees that are the minority are losing out. What makes this vote unique is that we are not asking for anything extra from the company. All we want is for them to remove S188 Fire and Re Hire and continue negotiations with the Union. The company have point blankly said they will not engage in any further talks and the clock is ticking until a legally approved final date is issued. So far it has been moved from January 2021 and we believe they will be issuing our new contract to sign on the 31st March2021 with two options. Sign the contract or leave the business. No redundancy as the role is and has been understaffed for years. A huge number of these engineers have only ever worked as an engineer for BG since leaving school and have always envisaged it to be a job for life. Two years ago, the company managed to get through a change to our Final salary pension seeing it cut in half moving forward. Yes, it was a good pension in today’s market, but this was one of the major factors in people staying with the company as it had already been removed to new entrants years ago. I believe they got the numbers required in the vote on this due to a £8k one of payment before tax and NI. Personally, it has reduced my pension by around £11k a year so not great. Unfortunately, many had already become disillusioned with the way the company was going and could not foresee staying until retirement. Senior Management must have seen this as a huge win and I believe this started the wheels in motion for what we are being faced with today, after working through the biggest pandemic in centuries, constantly entering and working in people’s houses and even ones who had tested positive. As a leaked clip recently shows a Senior manager is in tears early on in this pandemic because of what the company is asking us to do for its customers. This has been followed by another leaked clip of various senior managers gloating over the fact that the pandemic and recent events in America have managed to keep the strike almost completely out of the mainstream media. Just Before Christmas 2020 they constantly contacted us which some have seen as bullying and intimidation to pre sign a copy of intent to sign the contract in February. For this you got a sweetener or as they called it a transition payment of either £1k or £2k depending what part of field services you worked in. Also enhanced benefits of extra holiday that was being taken away under the new terms and enhanced bonus scheme that has not even been trailed yet to show if fit for purpose. Those receiving London Weighting or those set to lose it under the new agreement also got this for a few extra years, for some up to £5k. I will now try and summarise the changes I have managed to understand under the new contract for a service and repair engineer. I am still yet to find a single positive for the employee. 1. The average engineer will be losing 4 days annual leave and around 10 rest days. 2. Those who receive London weighting (up to £5.2k) will either loose it completely or see it dramatically reduced. 3. We have been told we earn above market average for our role so will receive no pay rise for a minimum of 3 years guaranteed and could be between 5-10 years without a rise. 4. Our 37-hour week will increase to 40 hours, you will not see an increase in your base pay for these hours so will be effectively taking a pay cut as your hourly rate will reduce. The companies new bonus scheme (CTAP) could if you exceed targets pay for these hours. 5. CTAP the new bonus scheme has not been trailed or tested to see if it is fit for purpose. 6. The sharesave scheme will no longer be available. 7. Being forced to pay for private health insurance otherwise you will only receive statutory sick pay. Also 6 months full and 6 months half pay will change to 3 months at 100% and 9 months at 66% 8. Core hours will change Currently Summer Monday to Friday from 8am to 7pm. Winter Monday to Friday 8am to 8pm. Saturday 8am to 6pm and Sunday 8am to 5pm. All days will be 7am to 9pm. 9. No caps on weekend working, Sundays are currently 1 in 6 max. 10. No weekend payment currently around £26 Saturday and £40 Sunday. Depending on roster frequency a loss of just over £1k 11. Start time, at present need to be at collection point or on patch en route to 1st job. New contract you will need to be on your 1stjob at start time and should be within 30mins from home. So technically 30 mins of unpaid hours. You will be told by the system when to collect your parts and allocated the travel time for this. 12. Overtime rates will all be at 1.33% of hourly rate. Currently from 1.25 upto 200% 13. EA (Emergency call out throughout the evening and night) is the biggest hit as going from 200% to 1.33%. 14. Will now be rostered to work on bank holidays and apart from Christmas, Boxing day and NYD will attract no extra payments. 15. Current 6 monthly roster will change to 6 weeks rolling roster making planning your outside time a lot harder. Also, any holiday booked outside the 6-week window will be at 40 hours regardless of what that future shift time will be. 16. Loss of 28/45 hour summer and winter shifts replaced with 32/44 min and max depending on workloads and not summer and winter. 17. Our managers will remain on a 37-hour week and these extra hours will I assume only be covered by a duty manager if they decide to answer the phone. Good luck at 7am and up to 9pm 18. Loss of 3-day weeks in summer when work loads are low. Minimum will be a 4-day week. 19. Work systems are old, and the company have stated that these needs updating to accommodate todays demands. New contract relies on these but no commitment or time scales as to when these will be updated. 20. If an engineer’s performance is below the required new untested target, then a new untested performance management will be used and could result in dismissal within 3 months. 21. Overtime will only be paid once your CTAP balance is positive so could be doing OT just to balance the books. 22. No confirmed details to say if consolidating London weighting will affect pension cap. 23. You will only receive time credits whilst working or if waiting for a job. So, if you have 20mins left on shift and do not want a job then you loose 20mins from CTAP. Also, if you request a job in this time anything could come down and you will be forced to take it and work OT or loose the wait time. 24. QDOS will be no longer so no more payments for selling products and upgrades. You will be allocated a set time into CTAP for this. 25. No commitment to stop contractors picking the best jobs and travel plans. All the company have committed to is looking at this later. Means they get better pay and we lose out n CTAP. 26. Job Recall time currently at 10 days will change to 28 days even if it unrelated. 27. No travel time will be credited if you need to pick up parts from another engineer. So, you will be penalised for doing the right thing for our customer. 28. No more quarterly bonus. 29. Rest day working will only be paid if you have a positive balance in CTAP 30. Business have agreed some long duration time takes a lot longer than the time allocated. Again, no change of this and hopefully something they will look at later. 31. All Training roles have gone and manager/CDMs will coach engineers even though many have been off the tools for ages. 32. If you log a lead and that goes ahead you will still get a recall if we need to go back within 28days. Even if the installer is at fault and not the engineer. 33. CTAP is not in your Terms and Conditions so no collective agreement for the future of this. 34. Some current work tasks will not be left to an engineer’s judgement rather than credit the relevant time to these and protect safety. 35. No longer be able to carry over or sell holiday entitlement. 36. April 2019 the company made a commitment in the pay agreement to 400 new apprentices by 2023, only 48 so far to date. Half the time gone and only 10% of this has been fulfilled.

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newstfionline · 3 years

Text

Monday, November 30, 2020

Turns out working from home means more work (LinkedIn) Employees around the world put in on average half an hour more each day while working from home during lockdowns, workplace software developer Atlassian says in a report. Out of the 65 countries studied, only Brazil and China logged shorter hours during the crisis. Based on when employees interacted with Atlassian’s software, the study also found that people started to shift their workload from the afternoons to mornings and evenings—suggesting greater flexibility, but also a trend of work intruding on what is typically considered downtime.

A professor offered to deliver Thanksgiving meals to all her students (Washington Post) When the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued recommendations against traveling or gathering for Thanksgiving, Liz Pearce, a longtime lecturer at the University of Iowa, was worried for her students. “I was afraid many of them might be spending the holiday alone, without a proper Thanksgiving meal,” said Pearce, 61. “I’m a mom and wouldn’t want anybody to feel alone and sad.” Plus, she added, “a lot of local businesses are closing down, and many students work part time in the restaurants and bars, so their sources of income have dried up.” The communication studies professor and mother of four swiftly drafted an email to her 130 students on Thursday, spontaneously offering to hand-deliver a warm, traditional Thanksgiving meal. Finally, Pearce offered to provide additional portions for roommates or significant others. Then, she hit send, having no idea her thoughtful gesture would soon go viral. Within hours, the post amassed close to 1 million likes, over 70,000 retweets, and thousands of comments. For Pearce, the offer to cook for her students was “no big deal,” she said. “I just wanted everyone to know that there was room at my virtual table.” Pearce’s children are especially excited about cooking for students this Thanksgiving, she said. In fact, her 10-year-old son asked to make it an annual tradition. Given the outpouring of support, Pearce decided to pass along the same email to the whole undergraduate class of more than 600 people. She wants to ensure that anyone staying behind in Iowa City is well taken care of. “I don’t want any one student to feel like they are alone,” said Pearce.

Pandemic calls off Christmas markets in Europe (AP) The European plazas where people would usually gather at crowded stalls to partake in hot mulled wine, gingerbread, sausages and other delicacies are just empty squares. Christmas markets, a cherished tradition in Germany and neighboring countries, have joined the long list of annual traditions that were canceled or diminished this year because of the coronavirus pandemic. November saw many European countries impose partial or tougher lockdowns as new virus cases soared. The restrictions are either being retained or only partially loosened as Advent begins Sunday. Nuremberg’s sprawling, bustling Christkindlesmarkt, one of Germany’s best known holiday markets and traditionally a big tourist draw, was called off a month ago. Markets across the country—including in Frankfurt, Dortmund and many in Berlin—have suffered the same fate, with authorities canceling the events or organizers concluding that it didn’t make sense to push ahead with their plans. Over the border in France, the roughly 300 stalls of Strasbourg’s popular Christmas market won’t go up this year. And it’s the same story in the Belgian capital, Brussels.

French protesters clash with police over new security law (AFP) Violent clashes erupted in Paris Saturday as tens of thousands took to the streets to protest against new security legislation, with tensions intensified by the police beating and racial abuse of a black man that shocked France. Several fires were started in Paris, sending acrid smoke into the air, as protesters vented their anger against the security law which would restrict the publication of police officers’ faces. Some 46,000 people marched in Paris and 133,000 in total nationwide, the interior ministry said. Protest organisers said some 500,000 joined nationwide, including 200,000 in the capital. President Emmanuel Macron said late Friday that the images of the beating of black music producer Michel Zecler by police officers in Paris last weekend “shame us”. The incident had magnified concerns about alleged systemic racism in the police force.

Pope urges finding good even from pandemic (AP) Pope Francis is encouraging people to try to take away something good “even from the difficult situation that the pandemic forces on us.” Addressing faithful gathered a safe distance apart in vast St. Peter’s Square on Sunday, Francis offered these suggestions: “greater sobriety, discrete and respectful attention to neighbors who might be in need, some moments of prayer in the family with simplicity.” Francis said that “these three things will help us a lot.”

Turkey’s new virus figures confirm experts’ worst fears (AP) When Turkey changed the way it reports daily COVID-19 infections, it confirmed what medical groups and opposition parties have long suspected—that the country is faced with an alarming surge of cases that is fast exhausting the Turkish health system. In an about-face, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government this week resumed reporting all positive coronavirus tests—not just the number of patients being treated for symptoms—pushing the number of daily cases to above 30,000. With the new data, the country jumped from being one of the least-affected countries in Europe to one of the worst-hit. That came as no surprise to the Turkish Medical Association, which has been warning for months that the government’s previous figures were concealing the graveness of the spread and that the lack of transparency was contributing to the surge. The group maintains, however, that the ministry’s figures are still low compared with its estimate of at least 50,000 new infections per day. The country’s hospitals are overstretched, medical staff are burned out and contract tracers, who were once credited for keeping the outbreak under check, are struggling to track transmissions, Sebnem Korur Fincanci, who heads the association, told The Associated Press. “It’s the perfect storm,” said Fincanci, whose group has come under attack from Erdogan and his nationalist allies for questioning the government’s figures and its response to the outbreak.

South Korea bans year-end parties, some music lessons, as virus spikes again (Reuters) South Korean authorities announced a ban on year-end parties and some music lessons on Sunday and said public saunas and some cafes must also close after coronavirus infections surged at their fastest pace since the early days of the pandemic. South Korea has been one of the world’s coronavirus mitigation success stories but spikes in infections have reappeared relentlessly, triggering alarm in Asia’s fourth-largest economy. Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun said restrictions would be tightened on gatherings and activities seen as prone to virus transmission, especially in the capital Seoul and surrounding urban areas.

Severe fire danger for Australia as temperatures smash records (Reuters) Parts of Australia, including Sydney, sweltered through the hottest November night on record with temperatures likely to stay high on Sunday, prompting authorities to issue a total fire ban. Sydney CBD surpassed 40 degrees Celsius (104 F) on Saturday while swathes of western New South Wales, South Australia and northern Victoria baked through even higher temperatures nearing 45 degrees. Temperatures are expected to cross 40 degrees for a second straight day on Sunday while the Bureau of Meteorology has predicted a five or six-day heatwave for parts of northern New South Wales and southeast Queensland.

Attack on Afghan army base with car bomb kills at least 30 (Washington Post) A Humvee laden with explosives backed by gunmen struck an Afghan army base in central Afghanistan Sunday, killing at least 30 people and wounding 16, according to local officials. Local media is reporting that most of the casualties were members of the security forces. The bombing is one of the single deadliest attacks to strike Afghanistan in recent months, where violence has been on the rise nationwide despite ongoing peace talks between the Taliban and Afghan government in Doha. Ghazni, seated along a key highway that connects the Afghan capital to the country’s south, is one of the least stable provinces in Afghanistan, with roughly two-thirds of its districts controlled or contested by Taliban fighters.

Sudan inflation soars, raising spectre of hyperinflation (Reuters) Inflation in Sudan has risen to one of the highest levels in the world, and the country risks slipping into hyperinflation unless it gets its budget deficit and money supply under control, economists say. The government has run up enormous budget deficits by subsidising the cost of fuel, then financed the deficits by printing money. This has debased the currency, weakening it against other currencies and driving inflation up to annual 230% in October, according to the state statistics bureau. The skyrocketing prices have led many consumers to spend their salaries quickly, particularly on durable items that hold their value. Idrees Abdelmoniem, who works in marketing at an engineering company in Khartoum, said he had snapped up car spare parts and furniture, but was not as quick with food and drink, whose prices were not increasing as fast. “If I have something I want to buy outside of the monthly house supplies, I buy it as soon as I get money, and I won’t even try to haggle because tomorrow it could be double the price,” he said.

Ethiopia says military operation in Tigray region is over (Reuters) The Ethiopian government launched a manhunt on Sunday for leaders of a rebellious faction in the northern region of Tigray after announcing federal troops had taken over the regional capital and military operations were complete. Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed government has been trying to quell a rebellion by the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), a powerful ethnically-based party that dominated the central government from 1991 until Abiy came to power in 2018. He said on Saturday evening federal troops had taken control of the Tigrayan capital Mekelle within hours of launching an offensive there, laying to rest fears of protracted fighting in the city of 500,000 people. The prime minister, who refers to the three-week-old conflict as an internal law and order matter and has rebuffed international offers of mediation, said federal police will try to arrest TPLF “criminals” and bring them to court. However, TPLF leader Debretsion Gebremichael told Reuters in a text message on Saturday evening that TPLF forces would fight on, raising the prospect that the conflict could drag on.

#headlines #news

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chiazu · 4 years

Text

@nancylou444 @hello-nicolexoxo-love @outercorner @emzbuckley @venusethereal @otherbully1 @reddieandwaiting87

Y’all I need some advice. How do you, as an assistant store manager, tell the store manager that you don’t feel like you’re being treated as an ASM? And that you might start looking for another job as a result?

Backstory: so the management team at my store (myself, the store manager, and the other assistant store manager) agreed earlier this week that we would have a meeting of sorts amongst ourselves about how to better improve the customer experience here. Now, me being the customer experience manager (in charge of training associates and making sure everyone is their job correctly and people are leaving the store satisfied) thought this was a good idea. I’m still fairly new to this position and thought this would be a good chance to bounce a few ideas off them and learn a few things I hadn’t yet.

Well, low and behold, when I came into they told that yesterday (my day off) they had already decided on what to do. They told me their plan and said this is how it’s going to be from now and that’s that. It’s basically a strike system against employees who aren’t doing their job 100% perfect. I tried to tell them that I thought that was too intense, especially since we work with minors and for most of them this is their first job, but they wouldn’t listen. They said that the girls shouldn’t worry about getting strikes since they won’t be written up or anything for getting strikes against them (which kind of makes the whole Indra moot).

So not only did they decided on a whole new process for training staff and assisting customers without me, the customer experience manager, they also ignored me when I tried to give my opinions on the matter. I really feel like they don’t care about what I have to say which is really frustrating because I even though I still have things to learn I still know enough about how this store works and our staff/customers to be able to know when something will and won’t work.

What should I do?

#about me #my life

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fightmeyeats · 4 years

Text

Rethinking “Inclusive Excellence”: A Critical University Studies Approach to COVID-19, the UC COLA movement, and Inequality in the University

If there’s one thing we know about power, it’s that it is most effective when it is obscured; we do not question what we cannot see, what we take for natural. This is something which the UC system depends on, positioning itself as a space of accessible education and “inclusive excellence” while refusing to engage with the way that the very infrastructure maintaining the UC is inherently antithetical to these goals. Wildcat strikers and organizers for the COLA4ALL movement currently sweeping through the UC system have done much to excavate these oppressive systems and contradictions foundational to the UC through the fight for a COLA (Cost of Living Adjustment) and the simultaneous refusal to disconnect this specific goal from the need to address the broader violence of the institution.

For those unfamiliar, the movement initially started at UC Santa Cruz. UCSC graduate students, like nearly all UC graduate students, are rent burdened. During the Fall 2019 quarter, graduate student instructors began a wildcat grade strike, calling attention to the contradiction between the university’s dependence on graduate student labor to function and the university’s refusal to provide graduate students with a reasonable standard of living through a refusal to submit grades. The movement quickly spread, and now spans all 10 UC campuses (many of which are on a full or partial strike). COLA4ALL’s overall vision, taken from the inter-campus website StrikeUniversity.org, centers free and accessible public education for everyone (without student debt), critical thinking and skills that are not bound to the imperatives of the market, replacing competitive models with communities of care and shared struggle, brilliance that refuses hierarchical models of “experts,” and the decolonization, democratization, queering, and abolishing of the university.

The UC has responded to COLA organizers with violence which is deeply revealing of the anti-black, carceral power foundational to the entire system. Militarized police presence has been prevalent at COLA picket lines, walk outs, and other organizing events. During a COLA rally on February 20, 2020 at UC Irvine campus police officer Trish Harding tackled and arrested a Black alumna who was not even involved with COLA and simply on campus trying to pick up her transcripts (please sign the UCI Black Student Union’s petition demanding accountability). UC-wide, many students have been harassed, assaulted, and arrested for daring to tell administration that they cannot survive under “business as usual”.

Recently a student in one of my classes asked the professor about their stance on UC graduate students organizing for a COLA; the professor said that it was up to us as their students, asking if we would be willing to have our grades withheld. Framing the issue as one of undergraduate willingness to go without grades fundamentally misrepresents what is going on. None of us want our grades withheld. Many of us cannot afford to have our grades withheld. But the consequences of having our grades withheld only exist within the context of institutional intransigence, not graduate students going on a wildcat strike.

It is imperative that graduate students be paid fairly and the university reevaluates the oppressive model it is currently operating under.

One of the things that stands out to me in the way that COLA4ALL is discussed is the emphasis put on the fact that the strike is illegal because UAW 2865, the graduate student union, has not voted to strike. As those of us who have critically engaged with criminality and the construction of “illegal”, part of the discourse surrounding illegality is an undermining of the value and contributions of those who are positioned as “illegal.” This is something which is, of course, multiply impactful to those who are already criminalized, as we can see clearly in police response to Black alumni existence on campus. The law is so often unjust and frequently sides with those who hold power and money. Why is it illegal for workers to organize outside of a singular union? Why is it legal for the UC system to put union busting measures into their contracts? Why do we talk about the wildcat strikes in terms of legality instead of engaging critically with the University as an institution?

The extraction of wealth from students is central to the current operation of the UC. This is evident in the high cost of tuition and the rate of student debt, and further heightened through the multitude of ways in which the UC system profits off of its students; while we can think about this in the insane cost of parking, the use of work-study to maintain a labor force of minimum wage workers, the denial of sick pay to undergraduate student workers, the tokenization and marketing of students, and the obviously inflated prices at on-campus stores like The Hill or Zot-n-Go, no where is it more apparent than in housing. Focusing on graduate students, since COLA4ALL is currently focused on improving pay and labor conditions for graduate students, not only are the majority of students extremely rent burdened, but many are living in “subsidized” campus housing, paying large portions of their paychecks back to the very institution already underpaying them and exploiting their labor. It very much feels like company scrip.

Under the social distancing/remote learning model being deployed in response to COVID-19 many of these already untenable circumstances are only being heightened. Housing insecurity, a major problem for many undergraduate and graduate students alike, is significantly increased through the rise in un-and-under-employment resulting from shelter-in-place closures; meanwhile, the UC system is encouraging students to leave campus while doing nothing to assist those who live in off-campus housing who are now not only rent burdened and frequently living in highly crowded living quarters during a pandemic, but given no option to break their lease without penalty and are still required to somehow continue paying rent despite changes in their ability to work.

Similarly, while some campus employees are now able to telecommute to work the administration obviously has no intention of allowing those working in food services, maintenance, custodial services, etc to “conference in”, leaving them at continued risk while prioritizing the safety of those in higher wage positions. Additionally, graduate students and professors without access to the technology needed to teach from their homes are being encouraged to continue to come to campus and teach from classroom spaces. What this means is that those with the resources (stable housing, internet access, a computer with a webcam and mic) can work safely from home, while the most marginalized (those most in need of a COLA) will have to risk exposure.

Furthermore, many telecommuting workers are being told they must sign a contract which includes the provision that employees are “responsible for establishing and maintaining a safe, ergonomically sound, and secure work environment. The employee will establish a functional workspace, including appropriate computer and communications equipment within their telecommuting worksite.” Forcing workers to sign this contract creates a situation where the UC is not obligated to ensure students/workers have access to either the tools they need to work remotely or paid leave, and further establishes that the UC is not responsible for work-related damage to the health and personal equipment of workers. It also makes it possible for the UC to fire those who are not able to independently establish and maintain said work environment.

The level of exploitation and discriminatory violence on this campus and in the UC system is unethical and untenable. The fact that a billion dollar institution would rather negatively impact graduate and undergraduate students, would rather pay for a militarized police presence at the picket line, would rather heighten the risk to their most marginalized students and employees, would rather arrest a Black alumna than pay graduate student workers a living wage speaks for itself. This is not about whether undergraduate students can afford to go without grades, it is about refusing a system where the interests of graduate student workers and the interests of undergraduate students are falsely constructed as oppositional.

The stakes are too high not to speak candidly. I hope you will consider openly standing in solidarity with COLA4ALL.

#critical university studies #academia #COLA4ALL #COLA #COLA UC #ucsc strike #labor organizing #social justice #covid-19 #corona virus #structural inequality #carceral studies #sorry it's been a while #I've really been Going Through It y'all #also as a note: I do not in any way speak for or represent the COLA movement #these are simply my thoughts on the matter as an undergrad who supports the movement #essay

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honeymoonjin · 5 years

Text

*now honeymoonjin

Chapter One

A/N: welcome to my new series! I’m super excited for it, and I hope you all enjoy it too ;)

genre: survival, angst, zombie outbreak!AU || word count: 2.4k || warnings: panic attack, cursing

prev || next || masterlist

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“Get that thing away from me.”

You bite your lip, but it doesn’t stop the grin stretching across your face. “Come on, it’ll look good on you!” You hold out the wide-brimmed hat with a soft pout. “For me?”

Yoongi snatches the hat and puts it on with a scowl, but his cheeks redden the moment you begin praising him.

“I told you! Oh, my handsome summery boyfriend! My stylish fiancé! You can wear this when we go to the beach on our honeymoon, Yoonie.”

The scowl trembles as he fights a smile. “The wedding’s next year; why would I buy a summer hat now?”

You raise an eyebrow at him but reach up to take it off and throw it back on the shelf, turning to grab the handle of the trolley again. “Fine, then,” you call breezily over your shoulder, “let’s move on.” It takes less than thirty seconds for the white hat with a black underside to find its way in the cart, Yoongi of course turning his head away immediately and linking his hands behind his back, pretending it wasn’t him.

“Yoonie, let’s check out the linen section, we need some blankets before it really heads into winter.” Your pace with the trolley falters a little as a wave of lightheadedness hits you, but after shaking your head and blinking a few times, the lights floating around your vision fade, and you catch up with your fiancé.

Wordlessly, Yoongi uncaps the water bottle he’s been carting around the department store and passes it to you, eyes still roaming the shelves. You take it gratefully, downing a couple of gulps as he takes the trolley from you. “Mm, you’re right. We need to buy a blanket to put on our bed in our house.” He turns down the appropriate aisle, turning to give you a soft smile which you instinctively return.

Once you hand the water back to him, the two of you arrive at the aisle where tightly-packaged blankets and throws line the shelves. Absentmindedly, you reach into your bag to grab some chapstick, coating your drying lips as you ponder the different price points. “Should we get the thicker-”

“Is that chapstick nice?”

“Huh?”

You turn to Yoongi, who’s ducking his head shyly, rolling the trolley back-and-forth on the spot. “I heard that chapstick is really good, you know.”

You grin at your fiancé. You’ve known Min Yoongi long enough that you can decode his little demands. Forgetting the blankets, you step forward, wrapping your arms around his neck. He looks up at you, lips curled up slightly. After all this time and he could still be so timid. “Do you want a taste?” He looks up, eyes soft and twinkling. The tip of his tongue darts out to swipe across his full lower lip as he nods. You lean in and join your lips tenderly to his, moving against him slow enough that his breath hitches and he becomes needy for more, running his tongue over your lips to lick the flavor off. When you pull back, his breathing has picked up and he bites his lip, eyelids fluttering.

With a croaky voice, he coughs lightly. “So, blanket?”

You laugh and unlink your hands from the back of his neck, cupping his cheeks on the way, watching his eyes flutter closed as he leans into your touch. “As I was saying, I think we should get-”

You’re cut off yet again by a noisy vibration, coming from between you. Yoongi starts, and pats himself down, pulling out a ringing phone. “It’s work,” he notes with a frown, answering it. “Min speaking. Y-Yes, sir, I can talk. Is there something wrong?” His wide eyes find yours, and they’re brimming with confusion and concern. He brings a hand up to bite at the nail nervously, a bad habit he’d been working to fix. “No, I haven’t heard anything… Oh, what? That’s alright, I guess we’ll just have to cut back on spending for a while… That bad? Sir, I think maybe-” He’s interrupted by whoever’s on the other end, likely his manager, and his eyes fly open with unfiltered panic. Automatically, you grab his hand and pull it away from his mouth, intertwining your fingers and squeezing gently, your own heart racing. He takes no notice, brow crinkling. “But please, sir, I’ve been a loyal employee for years now, surely there’s some other way! Si-”

You hear the call cut off and watch his eyes shake, flitting helplessly around, not focusing on anything. The phone slips from his slackened fingers and hits the floor hard. You hear the smack, but don’t spend a moment looking down, instead stepping forward to force yourself into Yoongi’s line of sight. “Baby, you need to take a deep breath for me, okay? Breathe with me.”

It’s not the first time Yoongi’s had a panic attack in front of you; it’s not even the first time he’s had a panic attack in front of you in public. But it has been a while, and you’re conscious of the other customers starting to stop and stare at the two of you, at the way Yoongi trembles violently and gasps for air that doesn’t seem to fill his lungs properly.

You exaggerate your own breathing, ignoring the way your heart thuds in your chest. “Come on, Yoonie. In, and out, yeah? It’s okay, it’ll be okay. Everything’s fine. I’m here. In, and out. Deep breaths for me, baby.”

His eyes finally land on yours, but they’re frenzied. “They’re letting me go.” His voice is so weak you can barely hear it, and you strain to hear him against the sound of onlookers starting to whisper back and forth. “If I don’t have a job how can we- we can’t- oh god.” His voice pitching is the only warning you get before his knees give out, and you grab onto him, lowering him gently to the floor.

A voice behind you. “Ma’am?”

You ignore it. The only thing in the world right now is your boyfriend. He’s half-lying down, propped up awkwardly against an aisle full of designer cushions. You pull out a couple, pressing them behind his back and reaching for his hands, holding on to them tightly. “It is okay,” you emphasize, “we’re okay. Deep breaths. Look, if money will be an issue, we can just push back the wedding-”

“Y/n!” You’re taken aback by the conviction in his cry. “No, we’re not doing that.” The sudden burst of protest shocks his system enough to break him out of the full brunt of the panic attack, and his eyes go glassy, his body slackening. The only thing that’s moving is his chest as he sucks in shallow gasps of air. “Please, not that…”

“Ma’am, sir. Are you both alright?”

You swivel around in your crouched position, staring up at an older gentleman in black slacks and a straining white polo shirt. The patch on the sleeve reads MALL SECURITY. “He just had a bit of a panic attack. We got some bad news.” You bite your lip, looking down at your exhausted, panting boyfriend and back up to the man. “Is there anywhere we could go just to calm down for a bit? He drove us here but I don’t want him behind the wheel like this.”

The man straightens up, hand resting naturally on a walkie talkie at his hip as he thinks. “I can take you up to the management offices. The manager himself is in meetings all day, but I’ll let him know you’re there.” He glances back down at Yoongi. “Can he…walk?”

It takes you far longer than expected to finally make it to the offices. They’re at the other end of the mall on the first floor, down a toilet corridor and up a flight of short stairs, and you can’t help but wonder why the fuck they’re so out-of-the-way. By the time you finally help Yoongi collapse down into an old upholstered armchair in the main office, you’re sweating from carrying most of his weight. The guard wasn’t much help; the moment you step inside he’s saluting a goodbye and leaving, the door shutting gently behind him with a click.

“How’re you doing?” you ask softly, perching on the arm of the chair and running a hand through his hair, separating the strands that have matted together with sweat.

His eyes flutter closed, and his face is simultaneously flushed in the cheeks and an ashen grey everywhere else. “What are we gonna do?”

Your heart breaks at his desolate tone, and your brushing of his hair becomes closer to massaging his scalp in the hopes of calming him down more. “Oh, Yoonie. We’ll find something. Maybe you can think of this as an opportunity? You did always want to open your own flower shop. Our new house has that garden.” He manages to muster a strained smile, nodding slightly. “How about I increase my hours, and you can focus on the garden? Get the soil ready for summer, maybe start growing some seedlings inside, and then you can sell them at the local market on the weekends.”

He laughs through his nose, though not unkindly. “Hm, aren’t most of the people that go to that market retired?”

You shrug. “Then we’ll stand out.”

He cracks open an eye. “We?”

You smile down at him, sliding off the arm of the chair to sit on his lap. “Of course.” You hold up your left hand to him, showing off the slim engagement band. “It’s we now, Yoonie. You and me against the rest of the world.”

Though he looks tired and drained, he grins at you, eyes soft. “I love you so much.”

You smile back and open your mouth, only to be cut off by a blaring screech. You wince at the piercing blare, trying to make out anything beyond the frosted glass door. “Is that the fire alarm? Come on, let’s get out of here.”

Yoongi looks stricken, but thankfully he doesn’t slip back into his panic attack. You get up off him and run to the door, him following close behind, and go to open it. The handle doesn’t budge. You frown, tug at it again, then feel Yoongi brushing you aside.

“Let me.” He jiggles it again, with enough force to rattle the glass, but it doesn’t open. “What the fuck?” The two of you share a single silent moment of confusion, as the alarm continues to ring through your skull, then his flat palm strikes the door. “Hey! Hey! Someone let us out!”

Your eyebrows knit together with worry as he continues to smack the door and holler through to the other side. As he expels his vocal cords appealing to passers-by, you do a perimeter check for other doors or windows. There’s nothing. The only windows are solid panes of glass that cannot be opened, and even if you smashed the glass, it’s a sheer face down to the ground, as the office is high enough to be on the second floor. You’re stuck.

Yoongi gives up, rubbing at the reddened skin of his palms. He has to almost yell to be heard over the alarm that persists. “Honey, can you smell smoke?”

You shake your head wordlessly.

“Neither can I,” he muses, “besides, if it were a fire the water sprinklers would’ve gone on automatically.” He pinches the bridge of his nose. “I don’t understand what the problem could be.”

You shrug, trying to keep your breath from picking up, anxious energy rising inside of you. “Maybe it’s a drill?” You glance over to the manager’s desk, something you had previously tuned out, and notice a small belt radio on the surface. “Wait, let’s see…”

A laminated slip of paper blu-tacked to the bottom of the computer on the desk dictates different channels for each department. You pick out security and twist the dial to the correct station. It flickers in static for a moment, before a crackly voice comes through, pitchy and frantic. It’s the security guard from earlier.

“…picks this up, this is Joong-ha, I work here. Please, get out. I repeat, you need to get out of the mall, go home and lock yourselves inside. Be careful, we have sick people roaming the streets, it seems to be contagious and they’re extremely aggressive. If anyone is tuning in, go home now. Don’t walk, take a car. Run if you have to. They’re not fast but there’s so many of them. Fuck, what’s happening? I don’t- I’m leaving now, I’m getting my wife and kids and getting the fuck out of town, is isn’t-”

Yoongi rips the radio out of your hands and holds down a button on the side. “This is Min Yoongi, you helped me and my girl out in the department store? We’re still stuck in the management office, the door locked, you need to come help us.” He bites his lip. “Uh, over.”

Upon releasing the button, Joong-ha’s voice returns immediately, the two of you holding the speaker up to your ears to hear him over the siren. “…get you, okay? I can’t. I’m going home, try find a key or something, I don’t know. I’m sorry, man, my kids are at daycare, I need to leave.”

Your eyes widen and you snatch the radio back, frantically holding down the button. “No! It won’t take long, come here and get us out, please! There’s no keyhole, it needs a scanner, but you had the keycard. Please, sir!”

Yoongi’s eyes lower; his bottom lip is bleeding a little from where he’s bitten into it. With a pained expression, he shakes his head and takes the radio back off you. “We’ll figure something out. Go pick up your children. I hope they’re safe. Over and out.”

Without another word, Yoongi stares at you balefully and shrugs. You sniff, feeling tears well in your eyes, but nod. “I’m sorry,” Yoongi says finally, raising his voice so he can be heard over the constant whine of the siren, “but I don’t want us going out there alone. Not if there’s a sickness going around. He said they’re aggressive. Let’s just wait here for it to blow over, okay? We’re safe here.”

Suddenly, the siren cuts off, and the two of you are pitched into a ringing silence. It’s completely still, except for some distant screams and crashes. You think you preferred the alarm. “Safe,” you echo hollowly. You don’t think so.

---

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prorevenge · 5 years

Text

SO my health not worth your attention? enjoy when i destroy your career

so this is my first post, be gentle. after a lot of consideration, i post this. also English is not my language.

4 years ago, i was hired on a big Japanese trading company ( for selling commodity items), I was living alone and the current job pay was not enough for me to save anything . And that is where i meet this guy, he is my GM in his 50 lets call him Trash, because he keep talking trash to me while he himself doing jack shit.

First day is a training day about how to use the system in the company and all.

2nd day, Trash only trained me for 2 hours before asking me to do some customer clearance process (this company imported products from other country) which i have no idea how to do it at all, he proceed to tell me to ask other sales staff in the department, which to my surprise there is only 1 lady.

The 3rd day is the beginning of my torture.

Trash found out I live alone and have no one in the city, so he decided to harass me.

He kept mentioning that i work so slow, and that i cant remember a lot of thing ( this i bypassed with writing memos.)

I then apologized to him, saying i was still learning. This turns out become his reason on keep harassing me through the year.

I told HR, but HR doesn't do anything other than sent email to Trash to stop his behavior.

Skip to the end of 1st year of my slavery under Trash, aside from His harassment on every chance he got by belittling me in front of me and sometimes customers, my work and relationship with customer progressed very good. I tripled the sales of this dept and make most of my customers as my friend. Comes the judgement day of target meeting. Trash opened with he is very satisfied with the work of the sales staffs. Then he start by showing the growth of the sales, and then proceed to tell us to leave the room and come inside one by one to talk about raise and bonus. Come my turn, he open the discussion with a heavy sigh and he told me that he cant do anything but gave me a fixed bonus by company but the raise is satisfied ( company arrange these two). The bonus was on the contract, but its only for 1st year the next year its according to my sales.

Enter the 2nd year, turns out Trash talked to HQ and raise the sales target by 400% for our dept without the sales staffs approval.This is important.

2nd year was a disaster, our suppliers undergoing strike from their employee and the currency in my country inflated by 30%, not to mention some customers having financial problem due to this. Sales was dropping by 40% and the situation was grim. I was under the heavy stress and pressure, Trash harassment increasing because he is now being chase by HQ.

My health condition dropped through the year, and i was hospitalized due to high blood pressure. Everyone visits me except Trash. 2nd day of hospitalization i got a message from him, " Hey, are you still in hospital? customers keep calling me, you need to work from hospital i don't care what happen.". I was stunned when i read that, my doctor clearly telling me i need to stop working for 1 week, and company accepted my medical leave, but this guy doesn't care about me and that was the last straw. That week he kept barraging my phone with calls and messages but i ignore him.

When i get to work i told him i would like to resign and to my surprise, he want me to give him 3 months notice and start spouting insults why i ignored him last week,he told me he got 3 new customer which is his friend's and i will handle their order but the sales value won't be added to mine as punishment. in that moment i decided to take revenge on his ass. I want him fired or demoted. Then i hatch a plan which referred by my friend as time bombs.

The First time bomb :

In our company overdue of payment is a big NO NO! the whole management will rain shit on you and your customer if you do and will rain bigger shits if you do delivery after overdue.

Due to the sales drop and his friend's financial problem, Trash sometimes altered the invoice date and do delivery after overdue( not more than 2 days) just to keep sales number good.

He usually collects the order for 6 months and shove it to me to do everything. for my revenge, i do the first 3 months order as usual, then piled up the other 3 as 1 order. Trash being trash never read the sales contract because he expect me to do everything correctly, when he signed the contract, my heart was jumping with joy. The sales value stated on the contract was more than $ 2,400,000.

The Second time bomb :

Aside from giving credit, our company preferred to use LC ( Letter of Credit) which to cash the LC you need to follow all the clause in it before the expiry date, one of the biggest customer preferred this method too, hassle free they said.

Trash love to bypassed some of the clause by doing some negotiation with the customer and usually they agreed, but this time when making the required documents to cash the LC, I voluntarily made a typo on weight number.

The LC will be cashed 1 month after i resigned valued around $ 1,900,000.

The Third time bomb :

My resignation date was coming fast, and it was 1 month before my resignation. Trash still haven't look for my replacement, I don't bother to mention this to him either. 3 weeks before i resigned, he suddenly running to HR and asking that they can do some headhunting for him and come up with result within 3 weeks, HR said its impossible.

2 weeks before i resigned, He suddenly come to the office with a young lady and announce she is my replacement and she is daughter of his friend. after talking with her i found out that she is fresh grad of Art Major while my position ask for minimal 5 years experience in sales. I then have this good idea to turn her to my third bomb.

10 days passed, still no request from trash for me to train and do handover to this girl, instead he keep bringing her to meet his customers ( I heard he advertise her as the perfect sales staff and way better than me and brainwashed her that I am an idiot). I already have my plan for her. FYI Trash have hardly meet my customers as in his word " not to important" and his customers most of them has stopped buying from us.

2 days before my resignation, Trash loudly demanded that i have to train her today and she will have all the knowledge i have, I then began constructed the best sales staff he has, first I told her very basic information of my customer, thinking I am an idiot, she decided its enough information, which if you are in sales: company name and company product is not nearly enough as information. Second, I told her about ongoing project and delivery and payment, she nodded and she said she know. Third, I told her that she need to calculate price from supplier and cost ( we are doing Delivered Duty Paid), without showing her how to. she nodded and tell me its enough. Later in the day, she told Trash she already have enough information from me and no need to do more training. Trash satisfied with this.

And I resigned, the moment i stepped out of the building, I blocked Trash and the girl from all of my communication method. and wait for the bomb to explode.

The second time bomb exploded :

1 month after my resignation Finance Dept was trying to cashed in the LC but the LC came up with discrepancy ( you cannot cashed in), customer rejected the request from Trash to submit acceptance and ask for explanation why he signed all the documents needed back then ( documents sent to the customer and the bank ) and it's already on their system which it need a lot of permission and explanation why they have to change it, on the other hand the LC expire tomorrow.

According to some witness, COO chewed a new one out of Trash and he is relieved from all his power to sign EVERY documents, and must be able to work this out.

The First Bomb Exploded :

After 3 correct delivery, 2 month after my resignation. the 3 piled up order came at the port. All 600 MT in 24 containers.

as my ex coworker recalls : Trash rushed to the office, swearing and keep saying i was incompetence and making such a big mistake. He kept swearing until 30 mins and then sit down call his friend and he was shocked his friend doesn't want to accepted the delivery because he has small warehouse. At my country you will be charged $ 200/ day per container if you don't take out your container from the port. I don't know the event after this but i was told company knew about this they have to cough up around $ 30,000 for renting warehouse and everything. The next month company also found out about he is doing delivery after overdue risking company around $ 600,000 COO chewed his ass again and now relieving his power to even order from the supplier.

The third bomb exploded :

The girl, being so stuck up and brainwashed, she never followed up most of my customers. Being fresh grad she doesn't know what is sales work is. 3 months she is still enjoying my ongoing project and sales. Then it stopped, It just stopped.

COO called Trash, asking why there is only 5% of sales after 3 months, Trash confused and bring the girl to COO, the girl told COO that she is doing her work properly. Then they found about her not doing any order collecting. By this time all my former customers called me and ask why there is no call from my company and the new sales staff doesn't respond. I then proceed gave them direct line to their respective product suppliers.

Trash and the new girl going around asking to meet my customers which is declined by them, suppliers doesn't want to help them either.

1 Year after my resignation, My former Coworker called me, informing me that Trash is demoted to staff and now being sent to Pakistan's branch to "train". I then asked what happened, turns out the sales never recover, he was demoted because sales dropped to 10% from when at the end of my 1st year. The new girl, got transferred to other dept involving arts.

TL:DR : GM harass an employee, demoted to staff and sent to Pakistan to train.

(source) story by (/u/whatshouldismean)

#prorevenge #by /u/whatshouldismean #pro revenge #revenge stories #pro revenge stories #pro #revenge #last10

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sabraeal · 5 years

Text

Les Liaisons Juridique

A shirakiki fic in honor of @krispy-kream’s birthday, inspired what is probably her own failure to realize she was on a date YOU WERE ON A DATE SHARON

Shirayuki is getting this job.

“You’re getting this job,” Dr. Weise -- Shidan, he corrected her earlier with a smile, Doctor Weise was my father -- tells her, sitting back in a leather office chair that must have been paid for out of his grant money. “You’re more qualified than any other candidate; you shower, thank god; and Garrack called me up to personally call me a -- how did she put it? Fuckwad if I let you pass me by.

“And let me tell you, Doctor Roos.” He leans forward with a conspiratorial smile. “I am not a fuckwad.”

“I...wouldn’t imagine you were, sir,” she manages faintly, more than a little light headed. She’s been worrying around this interview for a month, and just -- she has it. She’s...going to be a post-doc.

Shidan’s smile widens into a grin. “You see? Already doing better than half the idiots in this lab.”

But that’s only half of why she’s getting this job. The good half, because the other half --

“You’re getting this job,” her HR liaison -- Zen -- tells her as he pierces the seal on his juice. He says he’s her handler, which is a much more appealing title than the reality, which is babysitter. “I’ve been doing the processing for Shidan’s other candidates, and you’re really just top of the stack material. Real talent, you know?”

She does know; MIT doesn’t hand out PhDs for the asking. Still it’s a nice enough sentiment, and even if she’s starting to get the, ah, vibe that maybe Zen is getting a little more personally invested in her hire than is professional appropriate -- well, she’ll take it. Tenure track doesn’t grow on trees.

“Yo, Zen!” A collection of limbs folds itself into the plastic chair next to her handler, teeth broad and white in the bronze of his face. “Is this the interviewee?”

“Obi,” Zen remarks mildly. “I didn’t realize you’d be coming to lunch this early.”

“And we didn’t realize that you would be taking your handler duties so strictly,” another voice wryly observes. Its owner followers, and --

And Shirayuki doesn’t really keep up with celebrity gossip, doesn’t really look at the covers of magazines unless one of the tag lines boasts something like 10 SPF 80 Sunblocks That Really Work! so she doesn’t really know anything about models, but --

But she’s pretty sure that they aren’t supposed to work in academic labs, even if those labs are in California.

“Kiki,” Zen says, voice only mildly filled with dread. “You’re here too.”

“I am, willingly or not.” Her ice blue eyes shoot him a look that would freeze most men on the spot. “We thought you’d be eating alone. Though I’m glad to see you’re enjoying the...perks of your position.”

Zen flushes red from collar to hairline, and Shirayuki feels a pang of sympathy. It’s not easy having a crush with pale skin. “Prospective employees have a fully paid lunch scheduled into their day --”

“You know, you never personally showed me how the voucher system works,” Obi complains, eyelashes fluttering. They’re long for a man. They’d make him pretty, if he didn’t have a shiny scar right over his eyebrow. “Should I be hurt? I think I should be.”

Zen murmurs something, and over the din of the cafeteria Shiryuki can’t quite make it out, but it sounds like, I think you should shut up. But that doesn’t sound very Human Relations-y to her.

“You know, I’m pretty too,” Obi forges on, grin getting sharper with every word. “Aren’t I, Kiki?”

Kiki spears a cucumber in her salad. “No.”

“Striking.”

It takes her a full minute, and all of them staring, to realize it was her that spoke.

“I mean, you’re more striking than -- than pretty.” She swallows, eyes darting towards the other woman at the table. “And Kiki is...”

Words fail her. Beautiful is something you say when you look at a sunset, or someone’s kid in a prom dress; Kiki is --

“Sublime.” Oh god, who let her mouth do word things. She was certainly not telling it to do them!

Kiki’s mouth ticks up at the corner. “Well, that certainly is a new one.”

“Oh, I like her,” Obi says. “I’m gonna tell Shidan we’ve got to hire you.”

Shirayuki, of course, promptly forgets about all that. Hiring takes months, and between applications, interviews, and straining to make ends meet -- she is never going to quit on the spot like that again, she can tell you that much -- she forgets the specifics, just remembers when she gets the call that, yes she liked this place very much.

Yes, she would very much like to be hired.

It’s a decision she only half regrets later, when she turns a corner at the end of her first week, and runs straight into Zen.

“I told you you’d get hired,” he says, teeth Crest ad bright. “And here you are!”

She bites down on the fact that she knew it too, that Shidan told her straight out that she’d get the job and that his request just had to chug through HR’s red tape. It seems like a defensive thing to say, especially to a guy who works in HR, and especially to a guy that probably filed most of the paperwork.

“Ha ha, yeah,” she goes with instead, so smooth. Guys like Zen always intimidate her; that whole combo of handsome and confident is just...overwhelming. “Here I am.”

He leans against the wall, all casual-like, and her heart kicks up in her chest. Oh no. He’s going to do that thing. That thing handsome and confident guys do.

“We should go out sometime,” he says, oblivious to the copious sweating she is doing. “You know, for coffee. To celebrate --”

“Sorry!” she yelps, too loud for this size of corridor. “I like girls!”

She completes this stunning feat of social prowess by bolting down the hall like there’s fire on her heels and doesn’t stop until she’s half a building away. Which is the exact opposite way she should be, if she wants to be at the vending machine that sells cinnamon buns for ten cents cheaper.

Wow, this whole acting like a normal person thing -- really starting off strong. Go team.

“Hey.”

Shirayuki’s chin snaps up as she hurries into her bay, feeling like everyone knows what just happened, even though it’s impossible; rumor works fast but it can’t possibly be that fast. Obi’s there waiting, all tense with some tortured expression on his face, and for a long minute she worries what sort of bad news could have him this knotted up, whether he’s about to tell he’s moving bays -- which would be terrible, since having him as a bay-mate was one of the best surprises this week --

“You’re gay?”

Oh, nope, this is worse. Way worse.

She draws herself up, still only coming to his chin, and says, “Ye--”

“Oh, awesome.” His whole face lights up, and he presses a hand to his chest. “I’m bi! Or well, pan? I really don’t know what the difference is, to be completely fucking honest. Probably pan.”

“Oh my god.” All the wind goes out of her, and she gets that light-headed feeling, like she might pass out, only like, from relief. “Me too!”

He cocks his head, like a curious bird. “You too?”

“I’m bi,” she says. “Or -- well I don’t think I’m pan? From what I understand? I don’t know.” She hesitates. “I maybe I need to brush up on the literature.”

“Let’s just call it part of the bisexual experience.” he laughs. “But wait, I thought you told Zen you were into girls?”

“Ohhh.” Right, this would be the, uh, sticky part. Obi and Zen are friends; close enough that in the fifteen minutes it took her to take a walk around the building and mentally scream, Obi had managed to get a blow-by-blow of their two minute conversation. “I...um...”

“No judgement here,” he assures her. “He’s my friend, but like, I get it. If he asks me, I will say you are full on into the ladies.”

“I...” She doesn’t really know how to handle that sort of thing, the whole...loyalty deal. She’s never really had anyone like that. “I’m just like, um...a Kinsey Scale five, honestly.”

Obi blinks. “I feel like this is a terrible thing to admit, but I know shit about, you know, the academic gayness.” He grimaces. “I hope that doesn’t lower your opinion of my academic or gay credentials.”

That surprises a laugh out of her. “No, it’s fine, I just -- labels helped when I was trying to tell my grandparents. Just being able to quantify on a scale was easier than trying to, you know, explain everything.”

“I feel it.” He twists back to his computer, typing with his loud hunt-and-peck style.

“It’s when --”

“No, no!” He holds up a hand over his shoulder. “I’m googling it. I’m educating myself.” He squints at the screen. “Only incidentally heterosexual, huh?”

It feels like a lot to get into to, trying to explain how incidental a lot of her attraction feels, that it took her a lot of googling and staring up at the ceiling to even get her a number, so she just says, “Yeah.”

His mouth peels back in a grin. “And Zen wasn’t the incident.”

She wants to glare, but -- god, she needs to remember that. “No,” she manages around a giggle. “Boys are okay, but you know...girls.”

He laughs, settling back into his chair with a groan. “You make an excellent point.”

It’s hard to shake the feeling, at first, that the other shoe is about to drop, that just like last time her dream job is going to be wrenched out of her hands by some...some idiot with a trust fund, but --

But two days after her disastrous I like girls word vomit, Obi mentions they need to gay up this place. She thinks he’s joking, up until he sends her links to etsy shops that sell desk tchotchkes with the bi pride flag on them, asking her whether they’re going for understated or opulent.

“You don’t think people will get weird?” Everyone here has been nice, but everyone at her old work was nice too, right up until it became inconvenient.

“Kazaha works here,” he tells her, “people are already weird.”

“No, I just mean...” There’s no good way to say, do you think we’ll get fired. “People, could, um...”

“I’ll punch ‘em,” Yuzuri’s disembodied voice offers through the bench. Shirayuki can see her just on the other side, a blur of blonde and neon. “If anyone gives you any trouble, you let me know, and I’ll go straight to Shidan and raise hell about it.”

For a minute, her chest gets tight, and it’s -- it’s nice to know that someone has her back, but there’s a part of her that wants to say, but I don’t want to need your help. She doesn’t want there to be a problem in the first place, doesn’t want to have someone have to speak up for her because of who she is --

But she’s grateful too. That someone would. It’s a...weird feeling, being angry and touched all at the same time.

Yuzuri stomps around the end of the bench, fists sitting high on her hips. “If Suzu can keep his dolls around, there’s no reason anyone should give you trouble for flags or whatever.”

“Uh, first off, they are collectable figurines,” Suzu says following after her, like always. “And second, Cardcaptor Sakura is an institution.”

“They’re dolls,” Yuzuri tells him. “Cute dolls, but still dolls. Also, not really the point.”

“Oh, right.” Suzu distinctly grims up. “It’s your bay, decorate it however you want. We’ll all back you up. You can put up porn for all I --”

“Please don’t put up porn,” Ryuu says, the loudest she’s ever heard him.

This is, of course, the worst time for Shidan to walk in. “Who is putting up porn?”

Shirayuki drops her head to her desk. Well this will certainly be a new thing to get fired for.

Shirayuki’s been at the lab two months and one very excruciating discussion about workplace pornography (re: not even once), when Shidan catches her in the hall, looking sheepish. She nearly bolts right then -- the last time he looked like that, she suddenly found herself as the new lab safety officer, and she does not need to interface with Mihaya from EHS ever again, thank you -- but he says, “I need to ask you a favor, for Ryuu.”

This is dirty pool and there’s no way Shidan doesn’t know it, giving her that look. Ryuu may have his PhD, but he’s just a baby; she’s not precisely sure how old, but considering how he keeps forgetting he’s old enough to come to happy hour, she’s guessing not very.

“You know that the university is very excited about his new paper --?”

Of course, everyone in the department does. He’s -- well, he’s no where near having to worry about thirty, and his first paper as a post-doc is getting published in Nature. It’s been all anyone can talk about for the past two weeks.

“Well, they want a press release,” he explains, looking guiltier by the second. “And we don’t really have a...PR department, per se, so we have to write them ourselves...”

Shirayuki sees the writing on the wall. “And you want me to write it.”

Shidan deflates in relief. “Yes.”

“I’ve never done anything like that before.” Not for real, at least. She’d had to practice writing a fake one, way back for her undergrad writing course, but -- something that actual people with journalism degrees would see? Never. “I don’t even know where to start.”

“That’s fine.” Shidan waves a hand, as if her protests are nothing more than technicalities. “Legal’s got someone who did PR. They send her around whenever one of us has to write up a brief. I told her she could wait by your bench.”

“She’s here now?” Shirayuki blinks. “You want me to do this now? I have --”

“Just to get the ball rolling!” he promises. “It won’t take more than a couple of minutes.” He gives her a knowing look. “It’s for Ryuu, after all.”

She lets out a soft sigh. “All right. I can -- I can take a few minutes.”

“Sorry to keep you waiting,” Shirayuki starts, swinging around the corner of her bay, restraining herself from adding, but Shidan didn’t tell me I should be expecting you. “I was just --”

Her eyes catch on the impeccably tailored suit, the sharply pulled back ponytail, the whole towering blonde in heels thing --

It’s Kiki. Here. In her bay.

And Obi’s nowhere in sight.

“Hnn.” She shakes herself. “I mean, sorry, I don’t think Obi’s here -- maybe he’s already in the cafeteria? -- I just thought you were -- Shidan told me --”

Her mouth quirks at the corner, and it’s -- it’s a lot. “I’m not here for Obi.“

“N-no?” Shirayuki grips at her bench. It’s the only way to keep her legs from wobbling.

“No.” Her teeth flash, perfect and white, between her lips. “I’m here for you.”

Pretty girls like Kiki really shouldn’t say things like that to her, her heart can’t really take it.

Kiki taps something in her pen holder. “I like your flag, by the way.”

She nearly asks what flag? when it occurs to her -- her bi flag, the one Obi had shoved in next to all her ballpoints as he’d waved his own, pink, yellow and blue, saying well, it’s more impressive if they’re different.

“Oh!” she shrills, suddenly very aware of how very...colorful her whole desk is. “Thank you! But...you....um....have something...that I...uh....?”

“Didn’t Shidan tell you?” Kiki smiles. “I’m your liaison from legal.”

“Did she say she liked my flag too?” Obi asks, much later, concerned.

“I don’t -- no?” She blinks. “That’s what you took away from this conversation?”

“I’m just saying!” he gestures toward his desk. “The pan flag is nice too! If she likes one, she should like the other!”

“Okay.” She pats his arm. “I’m going tell you this story again, but I’m gonna need you to focus.”

“But --!”

“Focus.”

It becomes a -- a thing.

“Shirayuki,” Shidan calls out from his office as she passes. “Kazaha is having something printed up in Science. Do you think you could liaise with Legal --?”

“Hey, Shirayuki.” Yuzuri waves her over in the cafeteria. “This newspaper wants a quote, do you think you could run this by Legal --?”

“Yo, Red,” Obi leans back in his chair as she trudges in from the imaging room. “Ryuu says he’s confused by the wording on some of that press release. Do you think you could look over these edits and then send the new one --”

“Onto Legal?” she asks wearily. “Yeah, I can handle that.”

“Rough day?” he asks. “I’d thought you’d be excited. You and Kiki are buddies now, right?”

“Yeah, it’s just...” She shrugs. “I just have my own work.”

“Oh, I see.” He waggles his eyebrows. “You want to be passing your own press releases past Legal.”

Heat bursts across her cheeks. “I mean, yes! I’d like to be promoting my own research.”

Obi’s mouth splits into a grin she does not like, not one bit. “You mean, you want to be showing Kiki how smart you are, and not everyone else.”

He -- how? -- that’s not -- “That doesn’t have anything to do with --”

“Shirayuki!”

“Kiki!” She jolts up, chair rolling back into the shelves beside her desk. She winces, but Kiki only smiles.

“Obi, is that a new sticker?” She nods her head toward his laptop, where a round, pink sticker reads STEMINIST. It sit next to another, more worn one that reads I’m going to have to SCIENCE THE SHIT out of this.

“Oh, yeah!” He grins, flipping down the cover so she can see it better. “I saw it on twitter and was like, that is mine, you know?”

She rubs a finger over the word and grins. “I like it.”

“I’ll send you the link.”

“Would you?”

“Definitely.” He swings it open, already typing. “They have it in blue too, but like, what’s the point, you know? Pink all the way.”

“Right.” She turns her attention over to Shirayuki, and her mouth softens into a smile. “Did you get your hair cut, Shirayuki?”

“J-just a trim!” she squeaks, curling a strand around her finger. “It was starting to get in the way --”

“She almost lit it up on a Bunsen burner,” Obi translates helpfully, the traitor.

“It was starting to get in the way,” she starts again, darting a glare in his direction, “and so I either had to, you know, commit to growing it out, or get it cut, so...”

There’s a tug on her hair, right by her ear -- a brush really -- and -- and--

Kiki is touching her.

“It’s cute,” she says, with a tilt of her head. “It looks good on you.”

“Thanks,” Shirayuki manages, in a range that only dogs can hear.

“I was just stopping by about the press release.” Kiki leans a hip against her bench, a long fingered hand wrapping around her waist. “Ryuu sent me the changes he requested --”

“He did? I thought...” Shirayuki darts a glance at Obi, who looks equally surprised. “Never mind.”

“I’m having a hard time understanding what he’s trying to say, I was hoping you could explain it to me.”

“Oh sure --”

“Maybe over lunch tomorrow?” Kiki raises her eyebrows expectantly. “I’ll swing by around twleve.”

“Obi. Obi!” she hisses, whacking at his arm. “Did you see that?”

“I did,” Obi admits. “I’m not sure what I saw, but I was definitely here the whole time to see it.”

“She said my hair was cute!”

“I know, I was here.” He leans back in his chair. “Also, that was what you took away from that?”

“She touched it.”

“She also said my sticker was nice.” He smiles at his laptop. “I wonder if she’s going to get the blue or the pink one. I should tell her pink so we m --”

“Obi!” she shrills. “We are talking about my hair right now.”

He stares. “You’re right, I’m sorry. This is about you.”

She nods. “Thank you.”

“You and your ginormous crush.”

Her jaw drops. “That’s...I’m not...we are...” She coughs. “We are professional colleagues.”

“Shirayuki, come on. You’re gay.” Obi sweeps a hand towards the door. “And Kiki looks like that.”

Shirayuki stares at him, stares at the door.

Flight is the only option. “I’m going to go get cookies from the vending machine.”

Obi’s smile is far too self-satisfied. “Cookies can’t drown out your gay panic.”

“I. Am. Getting. Cookies.”

He grins, calling out after her. “You’ll still be gay when you come back.”

“That’s not -- I’m not--” She huffs. “I just like cookies!”

Lunch is supposed to be a quiet table in the cafeteria with both of them picking over their salads; Shirayuki with a Caesar salad without the dressing but double the chicken and croutons, and Kiki with -- well, whatever she liked on her salad. She seems like maybe a baby corn and avocado person. Lemon poppy seed dressing? That seems...right. It’s supposed to be quick food and work between them, not --

Not the nice little diner down the way, made to look like it’s all down-home even though it’s right next to a Dick’s and a Starbucks in the center of a strip mall ten minutes down the road from their building. Shirayuki’s still looking for the salads when Kiki orders a Belgian waffle with fresh fruit, and with a sigh a relief she orders a set of “mouse-themed” pancakes.

“It’s just Mickey Mouse,” Kiki tells her, “but this way, no one gets tempted to sue.”

Shirayuki, for the first time in her life, is torn between telling her, I know about copyright law, and --and --

Just playing entirely dumb, if only so that Kiki would keep talking to her like this. Ever since they walked in, Kiki’s been -- well, animated, at least more than she usually is. She’s explained about four different features that are the result of class-action lawsuits, asked what she liked to eat before recommending at least two different dishes, and now, well --

“Do you want dessert?”

Shirayuki blinks up from her empty plate. “Dessert?”

“They have a display,” Kiki tells her, nodding towards the counter. “It rotates.”

“Oh!” She cranes her head over her shoulder, trying to catch a glimpse. “Just like a real diner.”

When she turns back, Kiki’s just...amused, one eyebrow arched in question. “Oh, is that what makes a real diner?”

“N-no!” She can feel her cheeks burning, and she wishes she wasn’t so -- so pale. “It’s just that, I, um, well...”

“Obi said you were from a small town,” Kiki tells her. “And you had opinions on diners.”

Namely that California didn’t have any real ones, yes. Though this place comes close, if it has a rotating display. “Are there pies?”

Kiki smiles. “The last time I checked. Do you want to go look?”

Shirayuki traipses up to the display, watching as key lime and lemon meringue spin around the top tier, with a half dozen choices of cakes and cheesecakes below it.

“Ohhh,” she murmurs, hand pressed to the glass. “These look so good.”

“Let’s get one,” Kiki says, leaning on the counter beside her. “We can split it.”

Shirayuki stares up at her, wide-eyed. “Really?”

“Yeah, pick what you like.”

She blinks. “But what if you don’t like it?”

Kiki smiles warmly. “I’m sure I’ll like whatever you pick, Shirayuki.”

“O-okay!” She peers at the display, trying to figure out which pie has the most meringue. “I think I’ll pick --”

To this day, she’s not quite sure how it happens. She reaches out a hand, gently slides the door --

And the glass shatters, sprinkling shards onto the floor, onto her shoes, and worst of all, right onto the perfect slice of lemon meringue pie.

“You are a disaster,” Obi laughs, voice muffled through his hands. “You broke a glass door?”

“The owner said it wasn’t my fault!” she protests. “The glass on those doors is just -- just faulty!”

“Uh-huh,” Obi hums, unconvinced.

“It’s true!” she insists. “And Kiki even gave me her number, in case something happens!”

“Wait, roll that back,” Yuzuri says through the shelving. Shirayuki hears the patter of Yuzuri’s flats before she pokes around the corner. “She gave you her number? Are you sure this was a business lunch?”

Shirayuki blinks. “What else would it have been?”

Yuzuri stares at her. “A date?”

“W-what?” Shirayuki can feel her face going red, can feel the heat practically searing her freckles. “N-no, that’s not -- not --”

“She asked you to lunch outside. She tried to impress you with her legal know-how.” Yuzuri ticks the points off on her fingers, expression showing her dry annoyance. “She gave you her personal phone number. Did she pay for lunch too?”

“Only because --” Shirayuki hesitates. “Obi, is Kiki straight?”

He stares back at her, equally lost. “She had a boyfriend.”

Shirayuki waves her hands, as if to say see?

Yuzuri remains unimpressed. “You’re both bi!”

“Well,” Obi hedges. “Actually, I think I’m more p...”

She looks at him. He looks at her.

“Oh my god, she could like both,” he says.

“Oh my god,” she agrees, feeling the blood drained from her face. Kiki may not have been asking her out to business lunch but -- but --

Yuzuri throws up her hands. “Did you both forget bi people exist? Is that a thing that just happened?”

“I mean,” Obi coughs, pink riding high on his cheekbones. “It’s not, you know, a common thing --”

She lets out a huff, annoyed. “There’s two of you in this lab alone! We only have twenty people!”

He shrugs. “Statistical anomaly.”

“I...” Shirayuki turns back to her desk. “I think I have to -- email?”

“Text?” Obi offers.

“Text! Yes.” Shirayuki nods. “Text. I must -- text --”

Hi. It’s Shirayuki. You gave me your number.

Yes, I remember :) Is there something I can do for you?

I just wanted to thank you for lunch. And I’m sorry about breaking the glass. And stuff.

Don’t worry about it It was cute

GREAT. Sorry, I accidentally put capslock on. Also I was wondering if you’d like to go to dinner. As a date. Officially.

I’d love to ...but wasn’t today an official date?

#shirakiki #kikiyuki #akagami no shirayukihime #snow white with the red hair #my fic #ans #listen i'm just saying she shattered a glass door and gave you her number sharon #JUST SAYIN #also please note the many times i clearly was about to segue into an obiyuki fic #out of habit #and then was like NO WAIT PRETTY GIRLS #once kiki was hanging around it got easier to remember THIS IS THE LOVE INTEREST #i also meant to mention either mitsuhide or hisame in here but just never got it to flow right #so they're you know #off doing stuff #modern stuff #i guess #whatever this is about sharon not being able to tell she's on a date

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dansphlevels · 6 years

Note

Can I request a soulmate au! But like angsty

This took me longer to write than I intended, but God, I love it.

6:30 Special

Summary: In a world where you and your soulmate both have constellations of dark blue freckles that glow when you’re together, Dan has been waiting for his whole life for it to finally glow. And when it does, he is stood face to face with a man Phil, who looks back in confusion, his own constellation unlit.

Includes: Dan, the workaholic who accidentally ended up managing a small convenience store and spends most of his life there; Phil, the nocturnal painter who believes that art can only properly be made at night and buys a coffee every morning at 6:30 on the dot; and the story of a man who falls hard for someone who could surely never return his feelings.

Length: 8k + epilogue

Themes: unrequited love, soulmates, au, strangers to friends to ?

Dan always wished that finding his soulmate was simple. He wished that their name was written on his forearms, or the moment that they met was shown on a clock that ticked down, like in some of the stories he read. Then maybe he wouldn’t have to be so worried all the time, wouldn’t constantly be looking for people’s marks and checking his own to see if they matched.

Unfortunately for Dan, finding his soulmate was a little more difficult than that. Somewhere on everyone’s body is a little spattering of blue freckles that show what the stars will look like the first time you and your soulmate kiss. Therefore, your soulmate should have the same blue constellation as you do. Then, when you are with your soulmate, the constellations light up, almost as a way of saying ‘I told you so’. There were drawbacks, however. For example, most people liked to keep their constitution a secret. Your constellation was similar to your middle name, in the way that many people found themselves keeping it a secret, just because that’s what felt right. That’s what Dan did. His constellation was five indigo dots at the top of his inner wrist, shaped like an archer’s bow. He covered it with a thick-banded black watch that was loose enough that if his constellation started glowing, he’d see. He lived in a world where love was a secretive thing, a world of stargazers and people who wrapped bandages around their freckle constellations so that they could avoid a possible love. The soulmates system was flawed, but there was nothing anyone could do about it. So Dan waited for the day when he would meet his soulmate for the first time and see his constellation light up like a glowstick. He’d always imagining what it’d be like to find someone with the same pattern as him, two archer’s bows, one on a wrist, the other on a hip, or a shoulder, or something like that. Until Dan actually met his soulmate, he was excited. Until Dan actually met his soulmate, he’d always dreamt of how perfect it would be. Then he met his soulmate, and realized with a start that he was wrong, so wrong, because the day he met his soulmate was the day his heart was broken in a way that just wasn’t repairable.

——

The day Dan met his soulmate, he was working at his job at ‘Murry’s’, the part convenience store, part minimart, by the pharmacy on 7th. He’d started working there as a part-time cashier but was gone the weekend that the other employees went on strike, so he ended up the only employee who wasn’t fired. Dan was promoted to store manager, and two part-time cashiers were hired, but cooperate couldn’t be bothered to rehire the whole staff, so instead they gave Dan a raise and told him to do what had to be done to keep the store afloat. This resulted in most of Dan’s life being spent at said mini-mart, whether behind the cash register, restocking the shelves, or in the back, where he often spent his nights when he had the late shift and early morning shift in secession. That particular day was a Monday, and Dan had turned on the coffee maker, put fresh doughnuts in the display boxes, and sat behind the register, waiting for customers. Phil came in after about an hour. He wore a paint-splattered hoodie and made a beeline for the coffee machine. “Rough night?” Dan asked easily, observing the first time costumer curiously. “Never went to bed,” Phil mumbled, popping a lid on his coffee. “How much are the doughnuts?”“Depends on the type. The price sheet is on the side-” “I’ll get this one,” Phil decided, reached in and pulling out a pink frosted one. “And the coffee.” “Will that be all for you sir?” “Yeah.” Phil came up to the register, close enough that Dan could see the constellation on his cheek. Bright blue freckles, at least a dozen, vaguely forming the shape of a star. Dan’s heart drooped, the way it always did when he saw someone’s constellation and saw that they weren’t soulmates, the fear of being alone much worse than the fear of an ill-suited partner. Dan typed in the items, trying to ignore this. “Oh, that’s neat,” Phil mused, looking at Dan’s watch. “I think your watch’s flashlight just turned on.” Dan looked where he was pointed, and for a moment, he was positive that his heart had actually stopped beating. Because on his inner wrist, right underneath the watch, his constellation was glowing blue. It was a moment he’d dreamed of his whole life. Except for one thing. When he looked up, Phil just looked at him in confusion. The freckles on his cheeks were the same shade as they’d been before. The realization hit Dan like a truck. He’d found his soulmate. This man, Phil, was his soulmate. Dan just wasn’t his. —-Phil came in often. He didn’t sleep at night, apparently, because he was an artist and nighttime was his favorite time to paint. He came in around 6:30, sometimes 7, and got a coffee and sometimes an assorted pastry, always making small talk with Dan as he paid for his items. The first few times, Dan glanced at his watch over and over, checking to see if his constellation was still glowing. It always was. Sometimes, he knew that Phil had just parked outside because his constellation would blink into life, glowing excitedly. He’s here, he’s here! Dan, your soulmate is here! Dan imagined the lights saying. “He’s not my soulmate,” Dan would mutter under his breath, then look up, realizing he’d said it out loud. Yes he is! Yes he is! Look, I’m glowing, I’m glowing! Hug him! Kiss him! Marry him!Dan would chuckle under his breath and busy himself with the cash register or something else. The door would open, the bell jingling merrily, and without looking up, Dan would say “Morning Phil, paint anything new?” Phil, as per usual, made a beeline towards the coffee. “I’m working on a city skyline,” he’d say, or it’d be “a portrait”, “a recreation”, “a study”, “the space station”. Sometimes, he’d tease Dan, asking “How do you always know it’s me?” “This is when you always come,” Dan would say, still pretending to be busy. The blue light glowed happily, and Dan pushed his watch back against his skin, suppressing all of the light but the fine line of light just around the edge of his watch. Phil would get his things, go to pay, and Dan would find himself staring. The blue marks on his cheeks disappeared after a week or two, probably due to concealing foundation. It wasn’t uncommon to use makeup to cover up your constellation, especially for people like Phil who had their marks so blatantly displayed. Even after the marks became hidden, Dan couldn’t help but stare. Phil had the most beautiful blue eyes that Dan wanted to get lost in. But he couldn’t act unprofessional; he couldn’t scare Phil away; he had to stay cool. The light kept glowing. It seemed to get brighter as the time passed. Eventually, Dan gave in and wrapped a part of an ace bandage around it, putting his watch on over it and making a small tear in the fabric so he could still see when the little blue marks were glowing, but it’d be much less noticeable for anyone else. “You seem in a good mood,” Dan noticed one day when Phil hurried in, grabbing a doughnut and biting into it as he rushed to get his coffee, humming and smiling all the while. “My brother got engaged. He called me in the car,” he explained, taking another bite. “His soulmate. He found her.” Dan managed a small smile. “That’s nice. What do you think about soulmates?”He shrugged. “Love isn’t really a priority for me right now. It’s nice, I guess, the whole soulmates thing, but I’m not exactly looking.” “You haven’t found yours then?”Phil made a face, carrying his coffee cup over and placing it on the counter in front of Dan, digging around for his wallet. “Has anyone our age?”“I have,” Dan said before he could stop himself. “Oh. Have you gotten married yet?” “No. We’re not… together.” He tried making a face, messing with the cash register. “Is that all?”“Yeah, make sure to add in the cost of the doughnut. I had a glazed one.” Phil handed him the cash and Dan smiled, accepting it. For some reason, he wanted to lie about the price and have Phil only pay for his coffee, but it’d be futile. Phil had already been coming around for long enough that he knew the prices. “Thanks,” Dan said, perhaps a bit too genuinely. “And have a good day!” “You too, Dan!” Phil picked up his things and waved quickly as he walked out the door. Dan kept smiling until he was gone, then slowly slid to the floor, still smiling painfully. “You too,” he muttered through gritted teeth. “Fuck.”——Phil was Dan’s soulmate, but Dan wasn’t Phil’s. It took a while for them to become acquaintances, and a little longer for them to become friends. Dan asked Phil about his job, his paintings, his family. Phil asked him about his life too, so Dan ended up telling him a fairly decent amount about Murry’s, the mini-mart where he practically lived. They went out for drinks once, after Phil had gone on a short family trip and demanded he and Dan catch up. Dan got to the bar first and found himself staring at the hole in the ace bandage, waiting for the light to blink on that signified Phil’s arrival. It did, and a good minute later, Phil was grabbing his shoulders, saying “Rah!” to try and scare him. They sat, they talked, Dan fell, and not just off of the bar stool, though he did that too. The night ended, and they exchanged phone numbers. Just friends. Casual friends. He was one of Dan’s only friends. Dan saw him far more than he saw any of his actual friends. Some nights, they went as far as texting. Hours would pass, and Dan would clean the store, close it, restock it, and fill in the books for the day, all while texting him.From: PhilUndertale?From: DanFinished it. One of my favorite games. Skyrim?From: PhilHaven’t played it. Is it a VR?From: DanYeahI’ll play it for days on end and just not sleep or eat or anythingI love itFrom: PhilI’d probably get seasickFrom: DanIt’s not that badFrom: PhilI’ve got a sensitive stomach! I’m also lactose intolerantFrom: DanSo you can’t have cheese?What about pizza?From: PhilI hate cheeseIt’s fine on pizza thoFrom: DanYou hate cheese???How????And good if you didn’t like pizza I’d have to boycott youFrom: PhilI can’t stand it! It just tastes so horrible!!Dan snorted, and went back to mopping. Dan always restocked the store on Friday nights. It was long and lonely- much less lonely when he Skyped Phil, who of course was also up, painting. Dan set up his iPad where he could see him as he organized and sorted a few boxes of fruit, throwing out the ones that had gone bad. They talked for a while, both accustomed to the night. “Did things ever work out with you and your soulmate?” Phil asked. Dan tried for a smile. “They’re… in progress. Sort of. I don’t know. Any changes with you?”“Nah, my constellation is as unlit as ever. Have I ever shown you it?”“Yeah, it’s shaped kind of like a star, on your cheek? Do you use makeup to cover it up?”“What do you mean?”“When you first started coming into the shop. You had a bunch of blue freckles on your cheek, almost in the shape of the star.” Phil ended up laughing, and explained to Dan that it wasn’t his constellation, it was likely just paint. “But it was there for weeks!” Dan argued. “I’m a nocturnal recluse who stays up all night painting and is addicted to caffeine. How often do you think I shower?” Dan told him, with an utter lack of sincerity, that he was disgusting. But he couldn’t help the flicker of hope welling up inside of him. “So where is your constellation then?” “My ankle. It’s always covered by my socks, look.” Phil tucked his paintbrush behind his ear, accidentally staining a small patch of his forehead a lily pink. Phil brought his foot up, pushing up his pants and rolling down his sock. “It’s right here. See? I think it’s shaped like the big dipper, but-” “It is,” Dan agreed. “Maybe more like the little dipper, actually.” “What’s wrong? You look upset.” “It’s nothing, I just… long day. I’ve hardly gotten a break at all, and I’m tired. Here, I’ll show you mine.” Dan unclipped his watch, trying to ignore his trembling hands. He pulled off the ace bandage, and showed his wrist to Phil on his iPad screen. “Oh, I like yours. It looks like that math symbol, you know? Like, the squiggly brackets things.” “I’d always thought of it as a bow, like the type an archer would use.” “Yeah, I can see that too.” Phil’s ankle was still on display, showing off his constellation of little blue freckles. “Both of ours are pretty similar.” “Yep. But they’re still… they don’t match. The bottom two.” “Yeah. But it’s not like we thought we were soulmates anyways,” Phil said, laughing good-naturedly. —–Your constellation only glows when you are in the physical presence of your soulmate. That’s why Dan could show Phil his over the video message, since it wouldn’t glow. Phil didn’t have to worry about that. According to him, his had never glown. “Do you ever wonder what your soulmate is doing right now?” He asked one Friday night as Dan organized candy bars. No. I know what my soulmate is doing. He’s painting a picture of a dog, and there’s green paint the shade of grass on his nose, and he’s smiling and talking to me openly about his soulmate, who is not me, because our constellations don’t match and I need to accept that they won’t ever match, no matter how hard I wish them to.“Yeah, sometimes.” —–“Morning, Phil,” Dan said from where he was kneeling on the ground, packing in packages of potato crisps. He didn’t have to look up to know it was him. “You’re amazing,” Phil said, heading towards the coffee maker. “But I guess you have that watch to tell you what time I get here every day.” “Or I just say 'hey Phil’ to everyone who walks in here until I get it right,” Dan suggested, while mentally telling his heart to stop racing and his cheeks to go back to their normal shade. “What’d you paint last night?” “An underwater scene,” Phil said as he poured his coffee. “It had fish and these big octopus tentacles wrapping around a coral reef.”“Ohh, tentacles. Kinky.” Phil laughed. “Only to you. You know, you should really look into hiring more employees. It seems like you’re always here.” “That’s because I am,” Dan teased. “And no one wants to work here. Frankly, I don’t blame them. The boss is such an ass.” “Aren’t you the boss?”“Obviously.” Dan scooted past Phil, nudging him lightly. “Don’t worry about it. I make good money. And I have this afternoon off.”“Oh yeah? You doing anything fun?”“Skyrim. Until a week has passed and I’m too dehydrated to move.”“Sounds healthy.” “Oh trust me. This break is just what the doctor ordered.” —————Dan spent the afternoon cleaning his house, his real house, the one he paid rent for and supposedly lived in. He scrubbed it until it shined with polish and he shined with sweat, then looked to the VR controller sitting by his couch.It starred back at him. It could be good to play it for a while, he reasoned. Think about something else. He went over and picked the headset up. He then set it on the counter, swapping it for his keys. ——Dan’s car was some offland, four wheeling, mini-van turned car for a manly man with a spacious backseat perfect for collapsing for him to put things into when he had to run errands for the store. Sometimes, right on Friday night he’d get a call saying there was a problem with this shipment or that shipment and he had to go to the store, coupons in hand, and buy the missing stock. A few times it had happened where the recycling bin in the back of the store was overflowing and it was still a few days until it was picked up, so Dan loaded some of it into his car, taking it to the recycling plant himself. The car was the only one he’d ever had. It was navy and was used when he’d bought it, but reliable and a comforting presence. He’d slept in the back of that car when he was in between apartments and when he first started working as the manager of Murry’s and was afraid that he could be fired if he was caught sleeping in the back of the shop. The point was, he cared for his car. It was already getting dark when he began driving that night, but he and the Navy Machine knew the way. Finally, he got to the field, far enough away from people that there was almost no light pollution. There, he drove until he hit the middle of it, parking the car and turning it off. The headlights turned off, and the true darkness of night was seen. Dan climbed up the hood of his car- another reason why he liked it, it never dented- and laid on top of it, looking up at the sky. The stars were on full display. Hundreds, maybe thousands twinkled above him, the crescent moon shining brightly among them. He exhaled, taking it all in. Almost subconsciously he found himself pulling off his watch and the bandage underneath it, raising his arm to the sky and finding what he called the soulmate stars, the five ones that would align in the shape of a bow on the day he kissed his soulmate for the first time. He found them almost instantly, not far out of place. It made his heart flutter. That meant that he’d either kiss his soulmate for the first time soon, or it’d be at least another decade before it happened. The constellation on his wrist always seemed to gleam a little bit brighter when he was out here, as if it sensed the other stars and wanted to go home.———Phil was telling him a story about how he used to think seahorses were actual underwater horses. His words were always so full of animation and excitement, even at such an ungodly hour of the morning. Dan, on the other hand, was exhausted. He sat amongst a huge pile of various cardboard boxes, and was trying to fold them down to all fit in his car. “…and he raised his hand and said 'Phil doesn’t know what a seahorse is!’ And everyone laughed!” Phil told the story like it was a casual, slightly humorous event, not some horribly traumatic incident like Dan would probably see it as. He was a ball of sunshine, sitting in a well-lit room with his painting project sat next to the computer he Skyped on, always just out of Dan’s view.Phil dipped his large brush into the light blue paint. Dan rubbed his eyes, trying to keep himself awake. “What’re you painting?” He asked once Phil was done with the story. “I don’t know yet. The inspiration hasn’t struck yet.” Phil was a sucker for inspiration. He said that once he got an idea, he kept working on it until he was done, usually with few breaks, if any. He started his paintings as soon as the sun began to droop behind the horizon, and depending on the size and complexity, sometimes finished as late as 5 or 6 in the morning. He ate meals before and after he painted, and then when he was done painting he brushed his teeth, cleaned himself up a bit, and went to Murry’s where Dan worked to get some coffee to make him through the rest of the morning. He had all of his meetings with gallery directors and clients in the morning, then went to bed around noon, or earlier if he could help it. Phil mentioned something about the last time he’d had creators block, and Dan requested he tell the story. “Well, one of the things I do on the side is do digital art for children’s books, and I was supposed to be drawing a fairy…”Dan found himself nodding along to the story, his eyelids becoming heavier and heavier. And then he nodded asleep. ——Dan woke up in the pile of boxes he’d been trying to fold, with his iPad facing him but the screen black. He rubbed his eyes, pulling himself up into a standing position and brushing some of the cardboard scraps away. Turning on the iPad, Dan rolled his eyes, wondering if he’d ever wake up later than 5. He went to the employee bathroom, which was far nicer than the customer bathroom. It was complete with a soft towel set hidden under the sink, scented soap, and a motion control radio that turned on smooth jazz whenever anyone walked in. It was an important touch, which he’d boughten last Christmas. This year, he wanted to get a new sink, preferably one that was deeper so I’d be easier for him to wash his hair in it. Or even better: have a shower installed. He cleaned himself up, put on his uniform, which he had several sets of in his office closet, and was going about the daily tasks when someone began to pound on the door, yelling something through the thick glass. He grabbed a metal spatula and marched towards the door, pushing his shoulders back. He instantly relaxed when he saw who it was, however. Dan went to the door and flicked the lock, opening it halfway. “Phil?”“Dan! You’re up!” “Yeah,” he agreed, not really sure what Phil was doing there before the shop had even opened. “It’s almost 5:30. I have to get it ready for customers.” Phil shifted uncomfortably. “Oh, um, my bad. I just figured since you fell asleep on accident last night…”Dan looked at his feet, willing himself not to blush. He really tried. “Yeah, nah, I don’t set alarms anymore, biological clock or some shit. Thanks though. And, um, sorry about falling asleep on you. I mean, not literally on you, but…” he stopped to breathe in sharply, and offered Phil a small smile. “Thanks though.” “No problem.” Phil was as alert and ready as always, as if he’d been awake for hours. Which of course, he had. “Since I’m here anyway, do you mind if-” Dan checked his watch quickly, still blocking the door with his body. The hole in the bandage glowed an intense blue. “It’s not quite 5:30 yet but… just don’t tell the manager.” Phil laughed lightly, and Dan moved out of the way to let him in. After he was inside, Dan flipped the sign so the store was officially open. Phil, as per usual, made a beeline for the coffee pot. “Sorry, I haven’t put one on yet,” Dan apologized, following after him. “It’s fine. Where is-” Dan opened the cabinet under the machine, pulling out a big bag of ground beans. He worked quickly, scooping them in and filling the machine with water at the same time, then choosing the setting right as the pot gurgled to life. He leant up against the counter, standing opposite of Phil. “What’s that?” He asked, noticing the smear of color on his hand. Phil was already saying “It’s nothing” as Dan was saying “No, show me.” “A color palette,” he explained. “I did a painting. And I was trying to get the right shades of brown, but I’m not sure if I’m doing it justice.” “Brown’s such a boring color,” Dan observed, the coffee machine working beside him. “I don’t think so.” Phil raised his hand, covered part of Dan’s body with it. His eyes flicked between his skin and Dan’s curious look. “I think I did it more justice than I thought.” “That’s good.” Dan paused the machine, pouring the dark liquid into a travel cup and offering it to Phil with still enough space to add cream. “Thanks.”Dan smiled and quickly went back to work, bringing out the pastries to put in the display boxes. “Where do you get those?” “A bakery a few blocks away drops them off every morning.”“I bet they’d get cold after a few hours.”“Not really. The box is insulated, so it keeps them warm.” Phil finished mixing his coffee and sipped it. “It’s good. Do you, uh, want some?”Dan peered out of the glass doors, watching the multicolored sky for a few moments. “Nah. I might get a doughnut though.” He went over to the case, and after much deliberation, decided it was a simple glazed kind of morning. He pulled out one for him and a frosted one with multi-colored sprinkles for Phil, handing it over. “Thanks. I’ll pay now, before I forget-” “Don’t worry about it.” Dan bit into his doughnut, and decided it was definitely a glazed doughnut kind of morning. “5 am special. But don’t think this means you can come early every morning and get free food.” That was Dan the manager talking. Dan the person wanted nothing more than to have Phil come over, every single morning, and have them both indulge in free pastries to their hearts contents. Phil laughed, saying something else but Dan didn’t really hear, all of his attention was focused on the way Phil’s tongue peeked out from between his teeth when he laughed. Dan took another bite of doughnut. To the 5 am special, he thought. —–That was the first time Phil came to the shop when it was closed. The second time happened two weeks later. It was horrid. At this point, Dan knew that he was as good as doomed. Phil kept asking him about his soulmate, why Dan isn’t in a relationship with them, whether Dan thinks it’ll ever happen, if they’re even talking. “I think that the soulmates thing is stupid,” Dan announced one day. “It’s a messy system that has too many issues. I’d rather just be able to fall in love without literally having a literal neon light tell me it’s okay.” Phil told him he thought it was sweet, and a time saver. “I know that I’ll find them one day,” he said over the phone, to which Dan had to actually set his phone down and hit his head against the metal shelving because fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. “And this way I won’t have to waste time with relationships that aren’t worth it.” Like a relationship with Dan. Because Dan was clearly not Phil’s soulmate, therefore a relationship between them would be a waste of time. That happened about a week after the 5 am special discount, and a week after that was when Phil showed up at the door, 11pm Friday night, when Dan had so much left to do. “Phil? What’re you doing here?”“You said you’d be working for so long you might pull an all-nighter,” Phil explained. “And I happen to be the expert at all-nighters. Plus, I don’t really need to paint tonight.” Phil had this horrid idea that he could just come by and help Dan prepare the store for the upcoming week like it was no big deal. He even refused pay. Dan literally wasn’t able to find anyone who would do this job for pay, and here Phil Lester was, with his permanently paint-stained hands and his kind smile offering to do it for free. It was surely against the store’s policies. But Dan found that he just couldn’t say no. Phil was a good worker. They put music on through the store speakers, and danced and hummed along to the familiar songs as they did their work. Dan would give Phil a box and show him where to line the things up on the shelf and how to arrange them in the most aesthetically pleasing way, all the while brushing their hands together and hoping Phil didn’t notice how much Dan was sweating. God, it was horrible. Dan wanted to combust. Phil smiled so much it actually made Dan frustrated. How dare this ray of sun come in and ruin his night of brooding?Phil only drank one cup of coffee, saying any more would disrupt his natural rhythm or some other excuse that made Dan want to hit his head against the wall so he could get a concussion and never have to deal with this warm fluffy feeling ever again. By around 3 in the morning the store had been thoroughly cleaned from top to bottom, the expired food had been thrown out, most of the goods had been restocked, and Dan had even managed to sneak away to his office for an hour to get the paychecks in line for his employees that week. They only got paid for the hours they worked when the store was open, which was one of the big reasons why he usually had no help in the Friday restock. Both of his employees worked part-time, which was less than 30 hours a week. The store was open for over one hundred hours a week. Dan finished up the boring work and shut down the computer, going back outside to where Phil was restocking the soda, singing along quietly to a song. Dan hummed along, alerting Phil to his presence. “You’ve got to love Ed,” Dan commented, stuffing his hands into his trouser pockets. “'Thinking Out Loud’ is one of his best ones.” Phil nodded in agreement, standing and stretching his back. “It’s got a good music video too. He learned how to professionally ballroom dance for it.“ “Oh? Like… this?” Dan tried to mimic slow dancing with an invisible partner, to which Phil responded with one of those damned giggles that made Dan’s dimple show up and his heart pound a little harder. “No, fancier. Let me show you.” Phil walked over, grabbing Dan’s hands in his purposefully, and having them sway side to side. “Yeah, this feels very professional,” Dan observed jokingly. Phil fidgetted with their posture, trying to get their rhythm right. “And there were spins…” He spun Dan outwards, except Dan wasn’t expecting it so their hands disconnected mid spin. “…and, um, solo moves.” Phil swayed on his own, stepping forwards and back and moving his arms like he might have some idea of what he was doing. “And lifts.” “Lifts,” Dan repeated. “Unless you’re talking about a lazy alternative to stairs, I don’t think I want to try.” “At least do the spin with me,” Phil insisted. He took ahold of Dan’s hand, and this time they were a little closer. Phil smelled better than he honestly should have, and Dan probably shouldn’t have taken so much relish in inhaling through his nose, drawing it all in. Phil stepped back, and came in, bringing Dan’s arm over his head so he spun. He spun once around, then was tugged back so quickly he accidentally ran into Phil’s chest. “My bad,” Dan insisted, quietly. 'Thinking Out Loud’ was still playing, at the part where it says 'people fall in love in mysterious ways, maybe it’s a part of a plan. But me I fall in love with you every single day, and I just want to tell you I am…’ Phil didn’t pull away. He held Dan close to him, almost in a hug, but somehow even closer. Dan could feel his chest moved as he breathed. It was 3 am. Dan was tired. Ed Sheeran was playing in the background. All excused Dan used later to explain his actions, to validate them. Phil’s eyes were so blue. It was a color no one, not even him, could ever replicate. They were beautiful. So Dan moved over a little. He and Phil were eye level, and their noses were almost brushing. Then Dan leaned in, until their noses were brushing, and then their lips were too, in a few quiet, soft kisses that felt so right until Dan realized Phil was as solid as a statue, and hadn’t kissed back. Dan pulled away, looking back at those eyes. Phil didn’t meet his gaze. “But Dan,” he said, voice breaking mid-sentence. “What about your soulmate?”——-Dan had the early morning shift the next day, but he called in one of the part-timers and traded shifts with them. Phil had left immediately after the kiss. There wasn’t much work left to do, and everything was too awkward for him to stay. Dan finished up his work so quickly he knew that he didn’t do it up to his standards. The cans weren’t organized right, the 2-liter bottles of soda were crowded instead of in neat rows, but he couldn’t care, he couldn’t care, he couldn’t care. He threw on his coat and sped out to his car, his heart pounding in time with his footsteps. He didn’t know where he was going. Actually, he did. But he didn’t need to. It wasn’t a conscious choice, driving out of the town five above the speed limit the whole way, but the Navy Machine knew where to go and knew how to take the corners. Dan hit the brakes and thundered to a stop, putting the car in park and turning it off as quickly as he was possible, his hands trembling. He hated how he got this way, hated how he could be a manager and a professional and how he could handle everything so well, except for when it came to Phil. When it came to Phil his composure dropped and his mindfulness dropped and all of a sudden his heart was beating loud enough to hear and his hands were all sweaty and trembly, betraying his thoughts.

He clambered up on top of the car, tearing his watch and the fabric bandage off and throwing them to the ground, laying down and raising his wrist towards the sky. His constellation was of an archer’s bow, five little blue dots going in and out gracefully. They matched perfectly with the five corresponding stars in the sky. His freckles, which had been turquoise, began to glow like the stars themselves. They didn’t glow blue like they did whenever Phil was around. Dan didn’t know that it happened, but he knew what it surely meant: he had kissed his soulmate, for the first time, tonight. It would also likely be the last time. Because as much as Dan wanted their constellations to match, Phil had a different arrangement of freckles. He would kiss his soulmate a different night.

Dan laid on the top of his car until he was shivering, though he wasn’t sure if it was from the cold or something else. Finally, he came down, climbing into the drivers seat and falling asleep with the car still off.———He had the afternoon shift, and got there as his part-time employee began to pack up. “Someone came over this morning,” the started, and Dan huffed. Of course Phil came over this morning. Of course he did, of course he did, of course-“They said they were from upper management? They didn’t buy anything, just kind of poked around, looking under shelves and measuring stuff. And they asked to use the bathroom and I let them use the employee one. Sorry about that, but they seemed important and the customer bathroom smelled.” Dan rubbed his eyes, trying to process it. “We had a surprise inspection,” he mumbled. “One of the one day I didn’t finish cleaning, the one morning I wasn’t here.” He shook his head. “Well, thanks for telling me. I’ll go put my uniform on and then you can leave.” “Um actually… I kind of really gotta go.”“You can’t wait one more minute?”He shook his head. Dan looked around the store. There weren’t any customers currently inside, but if one came inside and Dan was in the back, they might steal something. “Thanks!” The employee said, hurrying out from behind the register. “Have a good shift!” Dan looked down. He was technically already in uniform, but his uniform was still dirty from wearing it all day and night yesterday. He peeked out the window and darted into the back, changing into his fresh clothes and running back out. There was one person in the store- an older woman named Meryl who rented out the apartment above it- who bought a large coffee and left. Once she was gone, Dan went over to the soda aisle, reorganizing it the right way as he had failed to do early that morning.—-That night, he went home and slept in his own bed. He came right back the next morning, opening it up promptly at 5:30 and starting up the coffee. He’d lost track of time, and before he knew it he was sweeping the floor and the little bell over the door jingled, alerting someone’s presence. “Dan?” Dan looked up so quickly he almost hurt his neck. “Phil? Why are you here so early, it’s only-”“6:30, on the dot,” he answered. “You would’ve known if you had your watch.” Dan was still so scatterbrained that he didn’t even fully process Phil’s words. “Oh! Um, I’ll get you some coffee then.”“I can get it myself, you don’t have to-”But Dan was already in motion, going over and pouring him a cup of coffee with enough room in the top for cream. He handed it to Phil quickly, almost spilling some.Phil stared at him, shuffling slightly uncomfortably. “Hey.”“Hey.”“I’m sorry about ditching you the other night. I said I’d help out, but I didn’t.”“No, you helped a lot!” Dan hated how he sounded so needy, hated how unprofessional it all was. “Thank you, it was very kind of you. And I’m sorry-” “You don’t have to be sorry,” Phil was saying, but he was looking at Dan’s hand or arm or something, not at his face. His eyes shot up, wide for a moment, then his poker face returned. “It’s fine. No harm, no foul.” He looked at Dan’s hand or wrist or something again, then back up. “Um… could you get me a pastry? I’m going to tie my shoe.”“Sure!” Dan bounded over, opening up the box. “What’re you in the mood for?”“I don’t care,” Phil said behind him, kneeling. “Maybe one of the warmer ones?” Dan chose one out and put it into the paper sleeve, turning around right as Phil finished pulling his sock back up. “Thanks. How much-” “6:30am special,” Dan insisted. “It’s okay. I’ll just pay for it.”——-Dan’s nights were much more boring without Phil. He ordered a new refrigerator for the store. He compared and contrasted produce companies until he ended up switching to a different supplier that would save them 25 cents per carton. He searched online, and considered remodeling the customer bathroom.He looked at his bank account, and paid his own bills. The results: he’d been making a lot of money from working so much overtime, but too much of it was being funneled into his rent, especially considering that he was hardly ever there. So the apartment search was on. Phil stopped coming by every morning. Meryl, the woman living in the apartment above Murry’s, died of a heart attack. Too many large coffees. And, the biggest thing to happen- Dan’s boss came by. “Murry’s is a shit store,” she said. “Over the past five years, we’ve had to shut down over half of our stores, and the ones that are still open are crap. Almost none of them passed the health inspection, there’s too few customers, and we’re losing money.” Dan began to argue, saying that they had loads of customers, but she shook her head. “Frankly, your store is the only one that we could keep open. But I’m retiring. I’m going to sell the remaining properties, and move to a three-story in Michigan.” “I’ll buy it,” Dan said, before he even knew what he was saying. “I’ll buy it from you and keep the store open.” She raised her eyebrows. “You want the place?” In the past month, Dan had already lost his soulmate. He refused to lose his job, the place he devoted so much of his life to, as well. “I want it. We have a new refrigerator coming in, and the bathroom is getting remodeled. I have money saved up, I’ll take it.” She considered this. “It’s not just the store. It’s the whole building, with the apartment above it. You sure you want it?”Dan forced his business side to take over. “I want to have a full inspection done of the whole building, see what repairs need to be made. Then we can negotiate prices.” ——Dan was doing paperwork when his constellation began to glow blue. He’d left his watch and bandage on the ground in the field, and since then hadn’t bothered trying to cover up the freckles that made up his constellation. Ever since that night when his constellation lite up like the stars, they’d turned black, like they’d been burned out. They felt more natural now, like an actual part of Dan’s skin rather than some paint that he couldn’t scrape off. Dan didn’t even think that they could glow anymore. But somehow, as he was filling out the papers, they started flowing blue like nothing had changed. Dan looked up just in time to see Phil slowly pushing the door open, coming in and stopping like he wasn’t really sure where to go. The first thing Dan said was probably dumb. “It’s evening.” Phil looked behind him, checking the sky through the glass doors. “Yep.”“Then… what are you doing?”Phil walked over slowly, his hands in his coat pockets. He shrugged. “I don’t really know.” His eyes latched on the blue glow radiating from the freckles on Dan’s wrist. He hesitantly reached over, flipping his hand so he could see the constellation. Dan watched his expression, trying to figure out what he was thinking. “My mark is different from yours,” Phil observed. “I don’t get it.” Dan sniffed, trying desperately to smile and failing. “There’s nothing to get. You’re my soulmate. I guess… I guess I’m just not yours.” Phil let go and backed up until Dan could see his full body over the counter. He bent over and slowly pulled his pants leg up, shoving his sock down to reveal his little dipper constellation- that was glowing blue. “I noticed it last time I saw you,” he admitted. “I saw yours glow, and when I checked, mine was glowing too.” Dan found himself looking down at his papers, shuffling them and desperately trying to look busy. “Oh, well, um…” “We’re soulmates.” Dan looked up. He smiled. “Phil… that’s not how it works.” He stepped forward. “It is. I’ll prove it to you, you just have to tell me how.” Dan gnawed on his lip. “Fine. But you have to trust me.” “Okay.” Dan tucked the paper away underneath the counter and grabbed Phil’s hand, flipping the OPEN sign and leading him out the door, locking it behind him. He pressed a button on his keys, and a few feet away a large blue car beeped. “Phil… meet the Navy Machine.”——Dan drove too fast, his hands too tight on the wheel and his teeth gritted. Phil sat next to him, in the passenger seat that was never used for holding anything but crates. “Where’ve you been lately?” Dan asked, flipping his blinker on as he made a right turn, almost completely ignoring the stop sign. “I went to an art conference in a city named after me.” Dan gave him a look. “In Philly,” he explained. “I was going to tell you, but then…” He shrugged, and Dan shrugged, trying to act like it was no big deal. “What’ve you been up to?”“I’m buying the store.” Dan said in a monotone. “And the apartment above it. It has some water damage, but nothing too difficult to prepare.” Phil congratulated him, albeit a little awkwardly. “What changes are you going to make?”Dan shrugged. “I’m going to get better staff, for one thing. Maybe increase the salary or benefits so it’s not such a crap place to work.”Phil nodded slightly. “It’s a good idea.”They both fell into a silence as Dan flicked his high beam lights on, no other car in sight. They kept driving for a bit longer until he pulled into a field, driving to the middle and stopping. “We’re here,” Dan mumbled, so quietly Phil practically had to read his lips. Dan turned the car off, climbing out and pulling himself onto the hood, crawling onto the roof of the car and sitting there, waiting for Phil to follow. “Wow,” Phil said, after he was sat next to Dan. His left leg dangled off of the side, and his right leg was bent at the knee, gently pressing against the roof of the car. Dan hummed in agreement. The stars were as bright as ever, and on the cloudless night, the sky was so clear that they covered it, going on endlessly. Phil stared at the stars. Dan stared at Phil. His attention was caught by a small cluster of stars that shined a bit… differently than the others. They formed an imposter Little Dipper in the sky.

Phil rolled down his colorful sock, the constellation on his ankle glowing even brighter than before. Dan looked back and forth between it and the stars in the sky. They were the perfect match. Phil kicked his shoes off, letting them fall to the grass and scooted back. He laid down on the top of the car. “You can see the stars so much clearer here than in the city.”Dan nodded. “That’s why I like it.” He bit his lip, then kicked his own shoes off and moved back to lay next to Phil, staring up at the sky. “I actually know a lot about constellations.”“Yeah?” Phil moved his hand, brushing some of Dan’s fringe aside. “Like what?”His blue eyes were brighter than the stars. “There’s the Big Dipper and the Little Dipper, and the Nemean Lion, which is from Greek Mythology,” Dan recited, hardly paying attention to his words. Phil intertwined their hands, giving Dan’s a gentle squeeze. “The Greeks were obsessed with stars.” Phil was smiling. “I can’t blame them. I… I missed you Dan.” Flutter flutter, the sound of moth wings inside of Dan’s chest. “I missed you too,” he admitted. “There’s so much I wanted to talk to you about but couldn’t.”“I know what you mean.” Dan rolled over onto his side, resting his head on his arm. Phil followed suit, so close their knees were touching and Dan could hear each individual breath. Phil’s eyes flicked down a little. “So when I asked you, about your soulmate, and you said you weren’t together…” “It wasn’t a lie,” Dan explained, in that voice that only Phil could ever get out of him. “I knew who it was.” “Me.” Dan smiled. “You’re my soulmate. But our constellations are still different. We kissed that night, remember? They should match.” “Maybe.” Phil brushed his hair out of his eyes. “But Dan… I didn’t kiss back.” A thousand different thoughts went rushing through Dan’s mind at once, questions and information that he’d thought was set in stone, but was actually set in sand. And Phil leaned forwards, he was leaning forward, and Dan knew to do nothing else than to kiss him. His lips were warm and soft, tasting of coffee. They kissed on top of his car, under the stars and the moonlight, until finally they pulled away and found themselves clutched in each others arms, panting and trying to hold it together. “Dan,” Phil said, and was his voice always that deep? “My constellation…”Dan moved just far enough away to look down to Phil’s legs. On his right ankle, his constellation glowed as bright as the stars. “We’re soulmates,” he said, and Dan had never relished the word 'we’ quite so much. “We’re soulmates.” And Dan pulled him into another kiss, almost smiling too widely to do it properly.

Epilogue

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Fun fact: when I went through to edit this, I found out that I misspelled every single ‘constellations’. Every single one. There are over 30.

But genuinely, I love how this story turned out. If you were the one to send in the ask, please let me know how you liked it! And I always love talking and discussing my stories and the universes, so if you have any questions regarding the technicalities of the way soulmates in this story work, let me know and I’d love to discuss!

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classyfoxdestiny · 3 years

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The Surveillance Apparatus That Surrounded Britney Spears

Britney Spears’s father and the security firm he hired to protect her ran an intense surveillance apparatus that monitored her communications and secretly captured audio recordings from her bedroom, including her interactions and conversations with her boyfriend and children, according to a former employee of the security firm.

Alex Vlasov, the employee, supported his claims with emails, text messages and audio recordings he was privy to in his nine years as an executive assistant and operations and cybersecurity manager for Black Box, the security firm. He came forward for a new documentary by The New York Times, “Controlling Britney Spears,” which was released on Friday.

Recording conversations in a private place and mirroring text messages without the consent of both parties can be a violation of the law. It is unclear if the court overseeing Ms. Spears’s conservatorship was aware of or had approved the surveillance.

Mr. Vlasov’s account, and his trove of materials, create the most detailed portrait yet of what Ms. Spears’s life has been like under the conservatorship for the past 13 years. Mr. Vlasov said the relentless surveillance operation had helped several people linked to the conservatorship — primarily her father, James P. Spears — control nearly every aspect of her life.

“It really reminded me of somebody that was in prison,” said Mr. Vlasov, 30. “And security was put in a position to be the prison guards essentially.”

In response to detailed questions from The Times, a lawyer for Mr. Spears issued a statement: “All of his actions were well within the parameters of the authority conferred upon him by the court. His actions were done with the knowledge and consent of Britney, her court-appointed attorney, and/or the court. Jamie’s record as conservator — and the court’s approval of his actions — speak for themselves.”

Edan Yemini, the chief executive and founder of Black Box Security, also did not respond to detailed questions. In a statement, his lawyer said, “Mr. Yemini and Black Box have always conducted themselves within professional, ethical and legal bounds, and they are particularly proud of their work in keeping Ms. Spears safe for many years.”

Ms. Spears’s lawyer, Mathew S. Rosengart, said in a statement: “Any unauthorized intercepting or monitoring of Britney’s communications — especially attorney-client communications, which are a sacrosanct part of the legal system — would represent a shameful violation of her privacy rights and a striking example of the deprivation of her civil liberties.”

“Placing a listening device in Britney’s bedroom would be particularly inexcusable and disgraceful, and corroborates so much of her compelling, poignant testimony,” Mr. Rosengart said. “These actions must be fully and aggressively investigated.”

Mr. Vlasov said his superiors had often told him that the severe surveillance measures were necessary to properly protect Ms. Spears and that she wanted to be in the conservatorship. He said he had felt compelled to share his information after hearing Ms. Spears’s comments to the court in June, when she excoriated the judicial system, her conservators and her managers. She called the arrangement abusive.

Ms. Spears’s father, who is known as Jamie, was appointed conservator in 2008, shortly after Ms. Spears was twice taken to the hospital by ambulance for involuntary psychiatric evaluations amid a series of public struggles and concerns around her mental health and potential substance abuse. He was given broad control over her life and her estate, including the power to retain round-the-clock security for Ms. Spears.

Mr. Spears and others involved in the conservatorship have insisted that it was a smooth-running operation that worked in the best interest of his daughter. But in the wake of Ms. Spears’s comments in court in June, the judge authorized her to choose her own lawyer, Mr. Rosengart, for the first time. Mr. Rosengart swiftly filed to remove Mr. Spears as the conservator of the singer’s estate. After consistently arguing that there were no grounds for his removal, Mr. Spears abruptly asked the court on Sept. 7 to consider whether to terminate the conservatorship entirely.

Mr. Rosengart’s and Mr. Spears’s requests are expected to be considered at a hearing scheduled for Sept. 29.

The security company

The security team’s role has long been a mystery.

Mr. Yemini, the Black Box Security founder, was born in Israel, and is described on a company website as having a background in the Israeli Special Forces. The Spears account helped Black Box grow from a tiny operation to a prominent player in the celebrity security industry. It counts the Kardashians, Miley Cyrus and Lana Del Rey among its clients.

Mr. Vlasov joined Black Box in 2012 as a 21-year-old college student, excited by the opportunity to master the security industry. He started as Mr. Yemini’s assistant and grew into a role that encompassed wide responsibilities over operations and digital management. “I did everything from write his messages, write his emails, to be on all phone conversations in order to take notes for him,” Mr. Vlasov said. “I was the only person at Black Box that knew everything, really.”

He generally worked at Black Box’s office in the Woodland Hills area of Los Angeles and seldom saw Ms. Spears in person, he said. But through the surveillance apparatus and his close work with Mr. Yemini and his colleagues, Mr. Vlasov said, he had a uniquely comprehensive view of her life.

Mr. Vlasov said that Ms. Spears’s phone had been monitored using a clever tech setup: The iCloud account on her phone was mirrored on an iPad and later on an iPod. Mr. Yemini would have Mr. Vlasov encrypt Ms. Spears’s digital communications captured on the iPad and the iPod to send to Mr. Spears and Robin Greenhill, an employee of Tri Star Sports & Entertainment Group, the former business manager for the singer’s estate.

This arrangement allowed them to monitor all text messages, FaceTime calls, notes, browser history and photographs.

“Her own phone and her own private conversations were used so often to control her,” Mr. Vlasov said.

In response to questions about the surveillance operation, a lawyer for Tri Star Sports & Entertainment Group said: “These allegations are not true. Ms. Greenhill was only involved in Ms. Spears’ security to the extent Ms. Spears requested her involvement, as well as Tri Star’s role of issuing the payments to the security company.” The lawyer did not respond to follow-up questions specifically asking whether Ms. Greenhill had ever received copies of or reports on the contents of Ms. Spears’s text communications.

Mr. Vlasov said the reason Mr. Yemini had given for monitoring Ms. Spears’s phone was to protect her from harm and bad influences. But Mr. Spears monitored his daughter’s text-message conversations with her mother, her boyfriend, her close friends and even her court-appointed lawyer, according to screenshots of messages provided to The Times.

Mr. Vlasov’s accounts of how Ms. Spears’s life was controlled by the security team were confirmed by others with firsthand knowledge of the conservatorship who requested anonymity. They said Ms. Spears essentially could not leave her home without the presence of security personnel, who would inform Mr. Yemini, Mr. Spears and Ms. Greenhill of the singer’s movements via group chat.

As conservator of the estate, Mr. Spears controls his 39-year-old daughter’s nearly $60 million fortune and has the authority to employ workers for her.

Mr. Vlasov said Mr. Yemini and another Black Box employee had once given him a portable USB drive and asked him to delete the audio recordings on it.

“I had them tell me what was on it,” Mr. Vlasov said. “They seemed very nervous and said that it was extremely sensitive, that nobody can ever know about this and that’s why I need to delete everything on it, so there’s no record of it. That raised so many red flags with me and I did not want to be complicit in whatever they were involved in, so I kept a copy, because I don’t want to delete evidence.”

The drive, he discovered, contained audio recordings from a device that was secretly placed in Ms. Spears’s bedroom — more than 180 hours of recordings. Mr. Vlasov said he had thought the timing was curious because some of the recordings were made around the time that a court investigator visited Ms. Spears to perform a periodic review in September 2016.

The New York Times reviewed the recordings to confirm their authenticity.

When asked why he had continued working with Black Box despite harboring so many concerns, Mr. Vlasov said he had feared the amount of power Mr. Yemini and others had, and the possibility that they could damage his job prospects in the industry.

After Ms. Spears’s impassioned remarks to the court in June, Mr. Vlasov said, his mind-set changed.

Choosing to leave Black Box in April was the best decision of his life, he said, and he believes going public is the right thing to do. “I don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow, but I’ve never regretted it,” he said.

‘She did not want to be there’

Ms. Spears spent time at a mental health treatment facility in 2019 — a stay that appears to have been a turning point in the conservatorship. Who exactly sent her there, for what reason and whether she went on her own volition are in dispute.

Mr. Spears and others involved with the conservatorship have said that she consented to go to the facility and that she was aware that no one could force her to stay. Conservators are not allowed to force a conservatee into a mental health treatment facility against their will.

“She did not want to be there,” Mr. Vlasov said. “I heard this from multiple people, including Robin and Jamie themselves when they would talk on the phone to Edan. I overheard multiple conversations where they knew Britney didn’t want to be there.”

The Times obtained text messages that Ms. Spears had sent from the facility that said she felt she was there involuntarily and that she could not leave, noting that security personnel were at the door at all times. Ms. Spears told a judge later in 2019 that she had felt she was forced into the facility, according to a transcript of the closed-door hearing. She repeated that claim to the court publicly in June.

Mr. Vlasov shared digital communication that showed how Ms. Spears, while in the facility, had tried to hire a new lawyer to replace her court-appointed lawyer — and that Mr. Spears and others had monitored that effort.

The prospective lawyer asked Ms. Spears if he could come talk to her. Ms. Spears responded that she didn’t think the security personnel would let her see him. “They will say no for sure to me seeing a new lawyer on my side,” she said, and proposed that he tell the security personnel that he was a plumber instead. The lawyer declined that plan. “You have to be approved by the court before I hire you, but I don’t understand how can I know I want to hire you unless I meet with you first?” Ms. Spears wrote.

“Yes, it’s a Catch-22 situation,” the lawyer said.

In a text message sent a week after the initial exchange with the lawyer, Ms. Spears said that Mr. Spears had taken away her phone after finding out that she had been talking to a lawyer.

The lawyer confirmed to The Times that the correspondence provided by Mr. Vlasov was accurate.

Mr. Vlasov recalled that “one of the biggest ‘aha,’ red-flag moments” in his tenure at Black Box had happened in August 2020, when Ms. Spears’s court-appointed lawyer, Samuel D. Ingham III, sent an email to Mr. Spears’s lawyers and Mr. Yemini asking for written confirmation that Ms. Spears’s new phone was not being monitored.

“Ethically, I need to get written confirmation that no one other than my client can access her calls, voice-mail messages or texts directly or indirectly,” Mr. Ingham wrote in the email, which was reviewed by The Times.

Geraldine Wyle, a lawyer for Mr. Spears, responded: “Jamie confirms that he has no access to her calls, voice-mail messages, or texts.”

In response to questions from The Times about the exchange, Ms. Wyle said, “Mr. Spears’ actions have always been proper, and in strict conformity with the law, and the orders of the Los Angeles Superior Court.”

Mr. Ingham did not respond to requests for comment.

Mr. Spears was particularly interested in Ms. Spears’s boyfriends, Mr. Vlasov said. The security team tailed her boyfriends in a continuing effort to look for incriminating behavior or other evidence that they might be a bad influence on Ms. Spears, he said.

“There was an obsession with the men in Britney’s life,” Mr. Vlasov said.

Her boyfriends were required to sign strict nondisclosure agreements, Mr. Vlasov said. An agreement signed in 2020 by her boyfriend at the time, Sam Asghari, who is now her fiancé, technically forbade him to post on social media about Ms. Spears without Mr. Spears’s prior written approval.

In a confidential report by a court investigator that was obtained by The Times, the investigator wrote in 2016 that Ms. Spears had told her that she could not befriend people, especially men, without her father’s approval and that the men she wanted to date were “followed by private investigators to make sure their behaviors are acceptable to her father.”

Mr. Vlasov said that Black Box Security had billed more than $100,000 in 2014 for investigating and surveilling Ms. Spears’s boyfriend at the time. The boyfriend, David Lucado, told The Times that he had been aware at the time that he was being followed by private investigators, and he said he had called 911 twice because of dangerous tailing situations. He said he believed he might have been more of a target because he was encouraging Ms. Spears to understand her legal rights under the conservatorship.

‘Free Britney’ draws attention

Another object of intense interest among those controlling Ms. Spears’s life, Mr. Vlasov said, was the so-called Free Britney movement, a growing cohort of fans that in recent years has brought heightened attention to the conservatorship case. Black Box Security sent investigators to infiltrate the group at a rally in April 2019 and to develop dossiers on some of the more active participants.

“Undercover investigators were placed within the crowds to talk to fans to ID them, to document who they were,” Mr. Vlasov said. “It was all under the umbrella of ‘this is for Britney’s protection.’” He shared surveillance photographs with The Times that corresponded to photos posted by Free Britney participants that day.

Black Box prepared a “threat assessment report” dated July 2020 that included background information on several fans within the movement, including people who had popular podcasts and social media accounts like “Britney’s Gram,” “Eat, Pray, Britney,” “Lawyers for Britney” and Diet Prada. One activist, described as a young mother in Oklahoma, Megan Radford, was classified as “a high risk due to her creation and sharing of information.”

An email from August 2020 sent by Mr. Yemini discussed the possibility of surveilling Kevin Wu, a fan who runs the prominent Twitter account Free Britney L.A.

“They were extremely nervous, because they had zero control over the Free Britney movement and what’s going to come out of it,” Mr. Vlasov said.

The fees for surveilling Ms. Spears’s boyfriend and the Free Britney participants, Mr. Vlasov said, were billed to Ms. Spears’s estate.

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