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arse-crack-thistle · 3 years

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gifts

rwrb and the five love languages | part two

in which june struggles to have a nice valentine’s date with nora

June never expected to care this much about a stupid holiday like Valentine’s Day, but here she is, practically renovating the apartment to give her girlfriend a perfect night. She strings LED lights around the entire living room ceiling and uses Command hooks to drape the sheer, white Ikea curtains she bought on sale months ago in preparation for this. The lights glow pink through the curtains, making the usually neutral-toned living room appear like Aphrodite’s palace. June’s moved the coffee table into her room and replaced it with a fluffy blanket and a picnic set-up to rival TikTok lesbians. All she needs now is Nora, if only she weren’t stuck at school.

The texts say, Will be late! Data mining for the gods! [Monet X Change gif] I want to be home with you though. Will bring noodles! And chocolate! Scratch that, I ate the chocolate. Sorry.

June knows she shouldn’t be annoyed because Nora has no idea what she’s coming home to. She also knows who she got into a relationship with—a brilliant mind that’s constantly moving parsecs a minute and has a hard time communicating her feelings. June has to remind herself that Nora loves her even if she doesn’t always show it.

That’s what tonight is for. It’ll give them time to slow down and just be together. Break the routine. Talk or not talk. She doesn’t expect it to be mushy or obnoxious—June isn’t a super, flowery romantic herself—but she does want another sentimental moment to hold onto forever.

Like the night of the 2020 election over a year ago. After Alex and Henry slipped away and everyone else was celebrating in their own groups, Nora pulled June into a storage closet at the venue and kissed her point blank, leaving no questions in her mind that their dabbles the months before meant something more than spectacular.

Or like six months ago when Nora asked her if she wanted to move in with her. She didn’t do anything particularly special, but she slammed her laptop shut while June was throwing on one of her sweatshirts and asked her to stay—to take the second bedroom because Nora needs space sometimes—but to stay with her because she was her favorite person. June answered with a happy “yes,” and Nora got up and kissed her. They didn’t talk much more about it; June just packed up her room at the White House and let the world think they were very best friends.

June pours a glass of wine and waits on the couch, flipping through social media. A few hours ago, her brother posted a picture from the Valentine’s gala he and Henry threw for the London queer youth center. Alex, Henry, Bea, Catherine, and even Philip and Martha hold champagne flutes with cheeky smiles on their faces. The POTUS account has a sweet yet posed picture of her mother and Leo. She likes everything she sees, from the various celebrities she follows to the photos she’s tagged in by fans. The time on her phone reminds her Nora’s now over an hour late.

She texts her, Home soon?

Ten minutes later her phone dings. Need more time. Almost done!

You are aware it’s Valentine’s, yes? And that we had plans?

Yes!!!! But flexible plans, right? Not like we can’t eat noodles and make out later. Will leave soon though. Promise.

I got food covered. Just get home please.

June sighs. She thought she made it clear this morning that they deserved a night with no distractions. God, they need to talk; she’s afraid to, but nothing will get better if she doesn’t say anything and if they don’t try.

The charcuterie board spread she copied off of Pinterest has been sitting out for a while so she moves it from the floor to the fridge. “Soon” for Nora could mean an hour. Empty coffee mugs line the sink. An open pack of weed gummies sits on the counter, hardening. Binders of paperwork and schoolwork collect on the kitchen table. There’s so much Nora in here. June redecorated the living room and kitchen when she moved in, but Nora’s managed to touch everything.

She smiles. If this were Alex, she’d be pissed at the mess, but it’s Nora. The beautiful, erratic mess that is Nora. The girl who can have four different shows on at once and can still get shit done. The girl who always burns pancakes when she tries to cook breakfast for June. The girl who never fails to kiss her first.

June won’t lose her. So she sits down on the floor, runs her fingers over the fleece, and waits. And drinks more wine.

Sometime later, when a key turns in the lock, she downs the last sip in her glass and sets it down. Some old love songs play from her phone, the ones she and Nora love to make fun of. She hears her girlfriend curse when her key gets stuck, and then she bursts through the door and catches herself before she could slip on the hardwood.

“I know you said you got food covered, but I got noodles any—Whoa! You did all of this?” Nora walks into the living room with takeout bags in her hands and stares, mesmerized, at the ceiling. Her contacts must’ve been bothering her because she has on her back-up glasses.

“Hi. Happy Valentine’s Day,” June says and reaches for Nora’s hand to pull her down.

“I’m sorry, June. I had no idea. I thought we both hated this holiday, so tonight wasn’t that big of a deal. But this—this is beautiful,” Nora says, having a hard time meeting June’s eyes.

“Thanks.” June rubs Nora’s hand with her thumb. “And this isn’t really about the holiday. I just wanted to give something nice to you—to us—just us. With no distractions.”

The strings from “At Last” by Etta James play from the phone. The curtains billow from the air blowing out the vent. As much as she hates to ruin the moment, June has to start the conversation.

But Nora takes a deep breath and talks first. “I know I’m a bit all over the place but that doesn’t mean I don’t love you. I just have a lot going on.”

“I know, but sometimes it feels like you don’t care about us as much as I do. It feels like an afterthought to you,” June says.

“That’s not true, June! Come on! You know me.” She grabs June’s other hand and squeezes.

She squeezes back. “You don’t act with feelings in mind, but I know you have them. And I know it’s hard for you, but I need you to share them with me more. I need a reminder that you care every once in a while.”

Nora’s quiet. She uses her arm to wipe her eyes, knocking her glasses off. “I—I’m sorry. I don’t know what to do.”

June’s chest collapses. She wraps Nora up in her arms. “I’m sorry, Nor. I don’t mean you’re not enough for me. I love you so much. I—”

“No, I understand. I just—I need help with that. I need you to tell me when you need more—maybe not after the fact like now but—”

June laughs and pulls away. “You’re right. I have a stewing problem. I just assume you’ll eventually get it.”

“Yeah, don’t assume that.” Nora laughs too—the big kind that shows all of her teeth. “Reign me in when I’ve been off for too long. And know it’s not on purpose. I’m seriously spiraling in my own head the majority of the time.”

“Ha! And a hot head it is too.”

They both pause and look into each other’s eyes. And bust out into laughing fits. June makes a fart sound with her mouth, and Nora tackles her. They rumble around on the blanket for about forty seconds before June’s wine glass tips over and surprisingly bounces instead of shattering.

The girls take that as an opportunity to stop and pour some more glasses of wine. Nora preps the takeout while June brings the charcuterie board back to the indoor picnic. Nora changes the music to some weird techno shit, but June snatches the phone. They compromise with One Direction, which makes no sense since 1. June only knows their last album and 2. Nora definitely remembers the story of June turning down the advances of one Niall Horan when she did the daytime talk show circuit after her book deal was announced.

Either way, they stuff their faces and end up cuddled on the floor.

Nora interrupts the moment. “Before we get to sexy time—"

“Jesus Christ.”

“I just wanted to give you something. I would’ve saved it for your birthday, but I can get you something else.” She pops up from the floor and jogs to her bedroom. When she reemerges, she’s carrying a bunched-up blanket. “I didn’t have time to properly wrap it because—you know, you weren’t going to get it yet—although, it probably wouldn’t’ve been wrapped later either—but anyways, happy Valentine’s Day.”

She crouches down and hands over the present. She smiles and bops up and down in anticipation. June unwraps the blanket and sees a book.

It’s one of those photobooks you can get at Walgreens, and on the cover, it reads, “Catalina June Claremont-Diaz and Nora Elizabeth Holleran are NOT good friends…” June flips it over. “They’re fucking GIRLFRIENDS!” Inside is page after page of pictures as early as the day they first met and as recent as New Year’s Eve a month ago. A lot of candid pics they take of each other—Nora’s favorites. A lot of sleepy, cuddle pics—June’s favorites. It’s so perfect.

“Nora—this is—wow.” She feels the tears coming. No one has given her anything like this before.

“I’ll be better—”

“So will I.”

“No matter where my head’s at, I’m always thinking of you—just 50 million other things as well,” Nora says and cups her chin.

June leans in. “I love you.”

“I love you too.”

Nora kisses her, and everything wound up in June relaxes. Her body is so warm. “Best Song Ever” starts playing.

Cue sexy time.

check out the rest of my rwrb and the five love languages series: part one, part three, part four, and part five. (links to come as they’re released)

so this could be for quality time or gifts, but i decided to go with gifts since i had no other ideas for it! it’s definitely not my love language (quality time for the win!) but i had to write something lol. so i made it sapphic bc everything gay is better! <3

rwrb romance week | @rwrb-fests

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arch-venus25 · 3 years

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The Head and the Heart, Part 1

Hello everyone,

I am submitting this for @just-the-hiddles‘s The Damnit Jim, I’m A Vampire, Not A Landlord Fic Frenzy. I chose prompt “1....You can pay your rent in money or in blood.” I was inspired by all the prompts and will probably use them throughout the series. Basically I use the prompts as guide-lines.

This is the first time I have written and shared a fic online-- or ever really! It’s also the first time I’ve written anything modern so please let me know what you think! I hope I’m posting this correctly--I created the title art--LOL I’ve never done this before. I’m aiming to update the series each Tuesday. So here we go...

Series Masterlist: The Head and The Heart

Summary: The twins are taking a night off from their graduate studies-- or at least Tessa is; her twin sister, Antha, is just trying to keep her out of trouble. What starts as a night of good old-fashioned fun and flirting quickly changes as they find themselves at the doorstep of the Hollow House Bed and Breakfast.

Characters: OFCs Antha and Tessa King, original characters/vampires

WARNINGS: 18+ for suggestive themes and violence, cursing, implied drug use, implied rape, stressful/scary situations, vampires, and characters with incredible hair-- you’ve been warned. Read at your own discretion.

Word Count: 2770

Part One: Faced with Foolishness

“Well, you know Tessa, she’s being Tessa,” Antha murmured into her phone as she watched her twin sister cozy up to her flavor of the month; Tessa flipped her box braids off her shoulder, the beaded ends flirtatiously tinkling against every surface they met. As if watching a photo negative version of herself, Antha mourned her nonexistent reputation. Had she not spent years hiding in her books she may have been able to rival her uninhibited doppelganger in white hot-pants.

“Why do you let her do this to you? It never goes as planned, and next thing you know I’ll be cleaning you two up and feeding you McDonald’s at two thirty in the morning!” She didn’t need facetime to picture Doug wincing through the phone, pushing his Buddy Holly styled Ray-Bans up the bridge of his nose.

“So what you’re saying is how could I let Tessa do this to you?” She laughed, rolling her Havana twists through her fingers to fight off the June humidity. Talking to her best friend helped her forget just how long she had been holding it in line to the bathroom.

“Ant, look I don’t like that bar—you want me to come get you?”

“And leave her? I can’t do that—listen, if we don’t call you for a ride home by midnight just come get us. I’m exhausted and I don’t think she will party that long. Besides, you-know-who just showed up.” She watched as Franco the Flake appeared, wasting no time to linger over her sister—Tessa’s flavor of the month, forgotten within an instant. Antha’s eyes rolled like marbles as she turned away to better hear her friend on the phone; some fraternity boys nearby began fist-pumping into the air as the bartender served up a line of shots for them.

“Ugh, the Flake… well I can hear things are getting started on your end—I’ll keep my phone on me, just don’t drive. Leave her car and I’ll get you two—there’s maniacs out there especially on Friday night.” He warned.

“I owe you,” she groaned and hung up. Antha finally arrived in the ladies’ room, only two women away from her sweet release. She watched as the women cornered the mirror like crazed wanton things, bending and zhuzhing, adjusting their “girls” to their perkiest potential through scantily low apparel.

“Heeeyy…” She quietly greeted the woman that exited the nearest stall. The stranger gave her a haughty elevator eye from head to toe making her feel severely underdressed for a Friday night out. When she threw on a sun dress today, she never anticipated her sister would abduct her after class and have them gallivanting across town. Tessa’s exact words were “Godamnit Ant, tonight we’re gonna have fun if it kills us!” A Cheshire Cat grin spread across her face as she floored the accelerator of her Neon, then cranked up the bass as the radio station started their basement remixes. Fun if it kills us.

Antha stared at her white sandals, her nail polish was chipped and at least three weeks old. Then she looked to her messenger bag hanging on the back of the door. It was covered in Community College film badges and club stickers, per her friend’s preferences. Antha liked her graffitied messenger bag. Like a billboard, it made her appear she had a life outside of her graduate studies.

She should have been at home, text books spread on her lap, feet up. She could hear Doug’s old Buick coughing its way up Momma’s drive, then fumbling outside the door, trying to knock with a third of Popov, case of Dogfish Head, and pizza in his arms. Then he would throw everything on the coffee table and announce “I brought Casablanca!” to which she would say “Oh, more white people movies?” and unphased, he would reply “Good god woman, it’s not Birth of a Nation!” Antha smiled, thinking of their weekly ritual of pretending to do research while gossiping long into the night until Zoey and Tessa would drunkenly Uber home. The distinct shamble, like the walking dead, would scrape up the gravel drive signaling their arrival.

“Hey, you almost done in there?” An annoyed voice yelled over the door, cutting through her reminiscing. Antha could see the reds of the stranger’s eyes between the door crack.

Instead of lounging on the couch surrounded by good beer and even better friends, Antha found herself being hustled by some Fireball-turned-up twat—all under the guise of having fun. “Yeah, sorry about that.” She replied and flushed. She tightened the belt holding in the billowy fabric of her flowy, mid-thigh, sunflower-printed sundress. It was passed down from her grandmother to her mother and so on. Looking like she walked off the set of a 90’s music video, she admitted that at least she was cooler than the other girls sweating in their skin-tight jeans and heels.

Some pretty young thing burst through the door past the line and vomited into the trash bin next to Antha while she washed her hands. It was only nine o’clock. That was a bad omen. When she caught her reflection in the mirror, she realized she pouted just like Momma in those sorts of situations. She dampened a paper towel for the poor thing and could hear her mother’s words repeating in her head: “When you’re faced with foolishness—you take care of it.” Her mantra: Take care of it. Antha’s mantra: Do what Momma says. Tessa’s mantra: If it ain’t fun don’t do it.

Antha applied her vanilla lip gloss as she thought on her mother. She made a promise as Momma was lowered in the ground that they would graduate. It was her dying wish that the twins became modern women with college degrees and to have options; to escape the laboring of farming and perhaps even the rinse and repeat of corporate Delaware. That’s all there was in their state: Farming or banking.

She tucked her shoulder-length braids behind her ears; she truly missed her dreadlocks, but ever since the time Tessa’s boyfriend mistook her for his girlfriend, she cut them off. She was always the one to compromise. Not tonight she decided. Tonight was going to go her way. They would wrap up this foolishness by midnight.

Antha sighed and knew it was time to face the havoc of the bar when a chatty patron pawed at her sundress asking if it was “vintage”. She replied, “Well it’s old as hell if that’s what you mean,” and hurried out the ladies’ room into the sweltering cacophony of nightlife.

Fighting across sticky tile and sweaty rednecks she made a beeline for the bartender. “Mar, can I get two?” She bounced on her tip-toes to cut through the crowd huddled around the length of the tacky wooden bar. Maria motioned to the other side because she couldn’t reach through. Antha continued to fight her way through the herd. She could barely hear over the din of the 2016 campaign commercials and sportscasting when Maria slid two cocktails toward her. The southern comfort and coke cocktails reeked with vanilla syrup, Tessa’s favorite. Antha stared into the melting rail drinks and realized she didn’t know what to order herself because she was always the water-boy for her twin.

“Hey, did you see what’s-his-face is in town?” Maria interrupted her thoughts.

“Sure did.” She groused and tilted her head in the general direction of where she saw Tessa and Franco last. Through the bodies, for a moment, the crowd parted and the two stared.

Stepping back from her esteemed role as the older sister, by barely two minutes, Antha admitted to herself that Tessa always looked good. Her off-the-shoulder top exposed a flawless ebony collarbone, shoulder blades, and arms. As if she was the Queen of Sheba incarnate, her tiny wrists were decorated with gold bangles. Her earrings matched the beads in her hair, reflecting light in her hazel eyes. A waterfall of thick box braids fell down her back and over her shoulders, past the tops of her thighs. Her years of dance complimented the country-chic white cut-offs that revealed just a hint of under cheek when she bent across the billiard table.

“If I were a man, I’d pray for her to bite my head off quick and painless.” Maria laughed, her ponytail frizzing from the heat of her work; her hands rapidly dipping then shining high ball glasses.

“But that’s not her style.” Antha replied wryly.

“You’re both good girls. Now you keep her out of as much trouble as you can—I’ll send Kyle ‘round to your table with beers, just let me catch up here!”

Maria was right: they were good girls. All of Tessa’s shenanigans aside, she never forgot cake for a birthday and with everyone’s break-ups she always had a bottle of Jack stashed with a shoulder to cry on. Tessa was the one that painted Antha’s nails and always lent her the best outfits when the event called for it. On occasion she was even known to deliver soup when her sister ran a fever.

Tessa was the heart of the operation and Antha couldn’t begrudge her just because she was the head.

For better or worse, they were sisters.

Antha reluctantly clutched the chilled drinks and felt a pang of relief in the sweltering bar. She couldn’t see her sister at the billiard table with the onslaught of shuffling patrons, so she decided to move toward her booth. She narrowly missed being covered in appletini as the DJ scratched in one more summer top ten into his rotation. Before she could move forward a voice pinned her in place.

“Your sister’s the worst, you know that?” A nice-looking guy glared at her. His teeth gleamed pink in the red bar lights. Antha bet he had a handsome smile on account of those white teeth, but he was not smiling now. She squinted through the hazy dance floor and recognized him as the guy Tessa arrived with before Franco appeared.

“Hey John, don’t fret, Tessa’s just catching up with an old friend—he comes into town every so often, don’t get upset.” She yelled back at his face as kindly as she could manage over the blare of the oncoming band tuning their instruments. For some reason he didn’t seem to believe her and his chest instinctively puffed up.

“John? I’m José!” He replied. Antha felt embarrassed for both her sister and herself. She grimaced unintentionally, realizing she had said it all with very few words.

She tried to defend their position with a weak excuse. “José, I’m bad with names and faces—” but he stormed off before she could piecemeal a string of bullshit. There goes another Mr. Last Month.

This was having fun. Antha doing damage control on last month’s flame, while Tessa stoked a new one. All of the nice memories of her sister evaporated in the heat of the interaction. She grumbled to herself, as she had grown tired of babysitting, not just Tessa but the men-children she dated. When she finally confirmed her party’s booth, she parted the shadowy sea of basic bitches.

Tessa was giggling like a school girl when her sister dropped the sweaty glasses onto the ratty old table. Franco at her neck like a leech. I hate this guy, Antha thought to herself. He turned his hot gaze on her, “Hi Antha, didn’t see you there.” His drawl was thick like humidity. She thought about giving her drink to Tessa’s date, but now that she could see he was it, she plopped down and selfishly sipped one of the nasty cocktails without offering the second.

“Oh hey Brian,” she said playfully, “where’s your camera?”

“Ant, now you know this is Franco, stop playin’!” Tessa tore her eyes away from him for a split second, but after she threw her daggers she was back ogling him like a dog does a bone.

“Sorry, it’s hard to keep all these blue-eyed, blond, gentlemen straight.” Antha marginally resisted saying yokel under her breath.

Tessa had a type. Beyond all logic, light eyes were the buckle in her knee, the hitch in her breath; and Franco was at the top of her list. Antha assumed he was the Porsche in her garage amongst a long list of Ford’s, but she honestly didn’t know the whole story. All she knew was that Franco showed his face sparingly and only after dark. He would disappear for weeks at a time, which earned him the endearment The Flake.

Now, Antha hadn’t dated enough men in her young life to sort them by color and size, but Tessa had. To her credit, her tastes were diverse, she did her research and knew what she liked. No one blamed her either. With that hair and those legs, Tessa could have anyone she wanted. The great appeal of Franco didn’t add up to Antha though. She found him suspicious. She thought his truck was too loud, his jeans too torn, and his eyes much too heavy.

Franco made idle conversation, inquiring after the twins’ classes as if he cared. His blond, three-quarter parted hair was glossy under the dim lights. When he pulled his tooth pick from the back of his ear and chewed on it, it made him look like an old-fashioned mobster—well until that Delmar twang spilled out of his hillbilly mouth. There was an allure about him; all of his parts matched, but his smile unglued those pieces. A smile that never quite reached his eyes.

Antha found herself sizing him up, drinking the disgusting cocktail faster than she wanted. I bet he has plastic zip ties and rope in his truck bed, she thought. She didn’t truly know why the image popped into her mind, it was just a feeling she got when his eyes were on her; made her feel like a snack, as if he would eat her alive right where she sat. No more Unsolved Mysteries for me this week, she insisted to herself.

“Mmmm-hmmm.” Was the best response she could offer when he spoke to her directly. Tessa continued chatted about her business management courses as he deeply stared at her. Antha figured there was no real room for her in the conversation so she took out her world cultures text and flipped to her last page. She liked hanging out, however her final thesis was demanding all of her energy. The page fell open to vampires in the section of Egyptian mythology. She thought how ironic as her eyes shot up at the man sitting across from her.

“So, there’s this bonfire by Slaughter Bay, I thought you ladies could come with.” Franco suggested lazily like it was too exclusive to be excited about. “You can shotgun babe and we can put Antha and her friends in back.” He eyed the textbooks growing damp on the table. Antha finished the first SoCo and started the second just to cope with him. “You could call up the girls.”

“Zoey… Zoey... Zoey!” Tessa dramatically said into her drink and then laughed. Antha couldn’t help but smirk as Tessa explained to him her girlfriend was like Candyman and could be summoned via a pint of beer. The joke was partially lost on Franco.

Before Tessa could agree to go Antha piped up, a little less shy now that her liquid courage had kicked in. “Sounds awfully romantic, but we can’t.” Before she could continue she was interrupted.

“Hey girl haaayyyy!” Zoey appeared as if out of thin air and snatched one of the beers sent over by the bartender. “You goin’ nowhere without me—not after I Ubered across town!” Her two rando friends hollering and sloshing their drinks.

“How the hell do you do that?” Antha insisted, amazed that their friend appeared.

“Uhhhh, never you mind—we can make bonfire plans later—its ten o’clock, I’m here and Bieber is playing! GET UP!” Zoey declared, the glitter from her eyes dusting every surface.

“Keep an eye on my friends.” Antha told Franco as she abandoned her books to be dragged to the floor. This was the moment she decided she was getting them all out of there; she didn’t like the sound of a bonfire with him and she certainly wasn’t allowing Tessa to go on her own either. She sent a pre-written text message to Doug: “Get here.” Which was their code for its really going down, I need back up.

Twinning Taglist: If you want to be added or removed just let me know; please share with anyone that might be interested. I would love any and all feedback so I can learn and become a better writer. Thank you! I tagged some people that I thought would be interested in this. @myoxisbroken @just-the-hiddles @vodka-and-some-sass @nildespirandum @yespolkadotkitty @latent-thoughts @emeraldrosequartz @villainousshakespeare @hopelessromanticspoonie @caffiend-queen @poetic-fiasco @lokimostly @dianamolloy @marvelgirlonamarvelworld @brightsunanddarkmidnight2-0 @cateyes315 @mooncat163 @nuggsmum @plastic-heart @myraiswack @wolfpawn

#landlord vampire fic frenzy #twinning vs vamps #arch-venus25 writes

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addictedtomanga · 3 years

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Shoujo manga recommendations - one shot

1. Adele to Darius

Adele was just another maltreated slave girl being sold at the country market. She was sold one day to become an addition to the harem of the country’s King of Cruelty. Rumor has it that the once the King takes a slave girl for the night, he then executes her in the morning. Once in the harem, she sees that all girls who are called into the King’s chamber really do not return. To fight against this fate, Adele resolves to volunteer to be called to the King’s chamber and find out the truth. But things are not what they seem…

2. Ao no Rhapsodia

There's a legend about a lost continent of gold and only one man has successfully made his way through the treacherous waters to that continent. The man entrusted the map to the lost continent to his daughter, Allegra Reese, making her the prime target for every pirate on Edythe Island.

3. Banken Toki Doki Ookami

A lamb surrounded by wolves gets a guard dog. But is the guard dog the most dangerous wolf of them all?!

4. Bitter Trap (Takagi Shigeyoshi)

Nanao came from a rich family before their business failed. Now the only hope for her family to pay off their debts is if she can cement a marriage with the prestigious Takatsuki family within a week. How will Nanao overcome this problem when one of the three eligible Takatsuki men is her former arrogant schoolmate, Yoshito, who completely distrusts people? And did we forget to mention that Nanao is already the ninety-ninth candidate for the position of future wife?!

5. Black Coffee (Nakano Emiko)

How does a girl declared by her childhood friend to be gloomy and anti-social transform into a cutie “as sweet as sugar” and every boy’s dream? And does every boy really dream of girls “as sweet as sugar”? Or is the rich and deep taste of coffee better than sugary glitter? The story of a girl who may not be sweet, but sure is as addictive as black coffee!

6. Defense Bakari No Koi Ja Dame

Nao is seen by her classmates as the "Cool Queen", however, she is just extremely shy. How will she deal with suddenly becoming the basketball's temporary manager?!

7. Egaku Nara Happy Ending

It's a story about Makoto Nosu and Yusuke Moriyama who have been together for 6 years since junior high school. They are about to finish high school and enter college so they decided to break up since they will be going to different colleges that's far from one another.What happens to their relationship then?

8. Fly High! (Mitsuki Kako)

Asuka, the ace of the volleyball club is training to become the best. But there's the devil coach, Nagano...

9. Gyu... tte shite ii?

I just clean up the club room and threw away trashes! but then he hugged me and "Become my pillow" is what he suddenly ordered me to do...?!

10. Itazura na Ningyo

The love story between two childhood friends and the magical legend of a mermaid can grant a wish of unrequited love

11. In the Chocolate

A collection of oneshots.

12. Kaibutsu-san ni Rei

At the Christmas training camp, Yuzuki was paired up with no other than... that guy?!

13. Kimi wa Tomodachi

He was always by my side. ... So, I thought that I certainly won't fall in love with him.

14. Kira Kira Namida

Yuuma is taciturn and no one knows what she’s thinking. But then, she’ll meet someone that will change that…

15. Kiss to Koukai

A collection of oneshots.

16. Koakuma no Jikku

She was an accomplished fashion model, but her blunt, straight forward attitude drove wedges between her and the rest of the world. She just didn't know how to lie in the least, and when she caught the eye of a famous stylist seeking the face for a new major brand of cosmetic, it promised to be the beginning... or the end... of everthing. Can she manage to not alienate the presumptuous company 'nobility', because if she does, this time it's her whole agency that's going to pay.

17. Koi wa Beniiro

Beniko, an old fashioned high-school girl is suddenly forced to eat lunch with the new teacher in charge, Nomoto-sensei…

18. Meikyuu Yaburi no Hananusubito

Arisawa Kei’s life seems rather bleak until she notices a strange man staring at her on the way to school. Hakamada Ryuuhei, an En specialist who can see and tie or cut threads of fate, tells her that she has “death-bringer” threads on her hands. But what does that mean to Kei, who doesn’t believe in En or luck?

19. Melodramatic Library

A teacher at Kanae's school has been fired for having an affair with a student. Then, a hot new librarian comes in… Kanae falls in love with the new librarian. However, she sees a ring on his finger...?

20. Mijuku na Bokura

Even if they are only friends, she wants to be something else... Can it change the relationship that they have? Or will she be conformed to be just friends?

21. Mitsubachi Hakushaku to Hana no Dress

Dahlia is the only female dressmaker in Galleria. She kidnapped and commissioned by the infamous "Honeybee Earl", who is known to jump from woman to woman like a capricious bee jumps from flower to flower, to make the ultimate wedding dress for his fiancee. Can Dahlia complete the dress without getting stung by the Honeybee Earl?

22. Murasame-kun na Tawagoto

Chika has always seen Murasame-kun as a rival who manages to constantly piss her off. While wondering out loud to herself, her sister whom overhears Chika, gives her a perfume necklace which supposedly able to capture a guy's heart. The next day, Chika bumps into Murasame-kun and spills all the perfume. As she begins to apologize, he suddenly asks her out!?

23. Once Again, I'd Like to Love You/Mou Ikkai

A high school girl runs into her ex-boyfriend at a train station and the two reconnect.

24. Narabuna Kiken

Miku and Natsume have always been fighting with each other until Natsume suddenly asks Miku to pretend to be his girlfriend!!! At first, Miku is quite opposed to the idea, but slowly… This mismatched couple, of a super tall guy and a girl often mistaken for an elementary student, fall in love.

25. Seinaru Yoruni Oshiete Ageru

Sakura is childish and doesn't get why everyone wants a boyfriend. A few days before the Christmas Eve, her handsome childhood friend suddenly kisses her and makes her heart race. What will she do?

26. Sekai wa Kirai de Afureteiru

Ten and Rio are friends from the old days. they will become high school students starting from this spring, Ten stills carries a certain memory in her heart....?

27. Shounen Aromatic

Kabuki Takitsugu is a boy who has the family trait of smell. He can smell anyone's fragrance and find their perfect match. One day, a mysterious girl named Hatsune appears before him, asking him to find a match for her. But, for some strange reason.. Hatsune doesn't have a scent.

28. Takarazora

Yuuchi is a girl that has a passion for art.... or rather, HAD a passion for art. Because of her mother, Yuuchi had to give up her talents and love for painting. Still, she had made a promise to her baseball-loving friend, Natsu, that she'd paint a picture of him. With all hopes lost for her dreams, Yuuchi now must find the "hope" within herself to continue.

29. Tokubetsu ni Naritai

It’s only during rainy days that Kae can get closer to Ichi, the most popular guy in the school, because he always gets under her umbrella. But Kae wants to be close to him everyday, not only during rainy days. What can she do to be special to him?

30. Tsuki to Himawari

Asahi-kun is a carefree junior-high student, never attaching to girls even though he enjoys going with them. But when the school's number 1 honor student Mitsuki "cyborg" Konno asked him to a 1-month date, in exchange for the front row ticket to his favorite singer's concert, he was forced to accept. He only has to show her what it feels like to date, right? He is ready for that...however, what he's not prepared for was his heart's reaction...

31. Watashi no Suki na Souma-kun

Sena is working as a maid to look after her younger brother and sister. But her employer turns out to be a guy at her school! Will she get a new job or will she get a new love?

32. Wish Upon a Glass

Find a piece of red sea glass and your wish is sure to come true. Sachiko is searching for her own piece of red sea glass. Can it make her romantic wish come true?

33. Wonderful Cafe ni Youkoso

A dog shop love comedy! The place where hot men and cute dogs come together!

34. Yuuwaku Honey

To get someone as cool as you to look my way, I'll do my best with my first attempt at seduction!!

35. Zannen Nagara Chigaimasu

He wasn't even that handsome, but when I saw him, I was captivated. He said "meet me upstairs". it seems he also feels the same because we're now signing a marriage registration form?!

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popculturebuffet · 3 years

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Mickey Mouse Birthday Shortstravaganza!

It’s Mickey and Minnie’s Birthday! It was 92 Years Ago Today everyone’s faviorite mouse came in on a tide of whistling, romance and animal abuse and swept into America’s hearts and wallets. Okay I am a day late on this, I had a busy day, but hey a belated celebratoin’s still good right? Right? Eh i’m doing it anyway. Anyway since then he’s been one of animations most iconic characters, and while out of the classic power trio I vastly prefer donald and goofy, they still woudln’t be around without Disney’s big cheese and having not seen a ton of Mickey’s shorts, I felt I owed it to the big eared one to take a look at a bunch of his shorts for his birthday and see how I liked em. If your curious about my previous Donald Duck marathon, it’s CLICK THIS LINK. Unlike last time all of these shorts are on Disney+ as more of Mickey’s library is on there and one or two of these were added recently, as Disney tends to add a few a month. I do wish there were more on there.. but unlike with say the handful of shows they haven’t put on there, i’m a bit more forgiving here. For one thing, YouTube has all the shorts available from various uploaders and DIsney hasn’t touched them despite Plus’ launch. Given like most companies Disney usually has their bots a cirlcing for their content, this has to be delebrate on there part and it’s a good gesture from the company. So while not in crisp HD like the Plus copies, or as easily avaliable, you can find any short that’s happened. So the shorts not all being up at once isn’t an issue like most of the shows that are absent on Plus.

They also heavily need to cherry pick their library as some shorts simply haven’t aged well or have offensive stuff. With the exception of “The Beach Picnic”, which has a racist caricature of native americans via ants.. yes really, most of the shorts are fine to show kids, and have aged pretty well. And as my last marathon showed some shorts.. just haven’t. While not you know racist, seriously why is the Beach Picnic on there?, “Donald’s Penguin”, while utterly adorable at first, ends with Donald trying to murder a baby penguin with a shot gun. No amount of content warnings is going to get past one of their beloved icons pointing a shotgun at a baby. While Disney’s self conciousness can be silly, the splash edit and not putting the Darkwing Duck episode “Hot Spells” on plus for instance, this is one time when I can agree with them: if someone is curious about a paticuarlly offensive short or a propoganda one, youtube exists. But given Plus is trying to be all ages and dosen’t have censoring they have to be careful what they put on there, and I can respect that. I don’t think anyone’s crying a river over the fact that the goofy short where his reflection keeps saying “Hey Fat”, over and over while he struggles with his weight isn’t on Disney Plus and thankfully never will be. But seriously get rid of the “Beach Picnic”. It’s not a good short and you already have one batch of native american stereotypes with “Peter Pan”, I don’t think racist ants are the hill you want to die on disney.

So yeah, this time all of these are from Disney Plus, and since I watched them all at once, their in Watch order rather than chronological like last time. So with all that out of the way...

After the cut

1. Steamboat Willie (1928): It’s All Fun and Games Until Mickey Strangles an Innocent Duck Starting from the obvious source, Steamboat Willie was the start of Mickey’s career. And it’s.. okay. The animation is fantastic and the first half is pretty good: Theirs a pretty good gag with one of the cows. But the finale, with Mickey abusing various animals just isn’t that funny A LITTLE rattling of an animal for comedy is fine.. but the things Mickey does here are just sociopathic> And yes I know it was the 1920′s, but even in that lawless, racist, sexist time, they knew better than to strangle a duck, or, in the moment that puts it over the top, remove suckling pigs fromt heir mom and then play a pig’s teats like an insturment to make it squeal musically.. I assure you I did not make this up. That actually happens. The pacing is also fairly slow at points, with some gags dragged out, though that can be chalked up to having no way to edit the damn thing, so that part I can forgive more. What makes up for it, like I said, are some good jokes, and some gorgeous animation. Decades later and while clearly made a long time ago, it still looks vibrant and really pops even in black and white. It shows just how talented Disney was and how far the company could go with this medium. One last thing to note is Mickey’s Early personality. While he’d retain trickster aspects at times, here he bounces between the loveable jolly mouse we’d come to know for the rest of his career who sometimes has a wild streak.. and a total asshole who strangles a duck. It’s just intresting to see such a diffrent side of him, most of which would end up going to Donald over time. Overall the short is decent, not the best of Disney’s catalogue but worth a watch for the historical significance despite it’s shortcomings, pun unintended.

2. Thru the Mirror (1936): That Was a Weird One This was easily my favorite of the bunch and as of now, my favorite Mickey Mouse Theatrical Short. Part of it is that it’s entirely bonkers; The film STARTS with Mickey , sound asleep, some how astral projecting as his soul, his spirit or whatever lead shis body and having been reading Alice Thorugh the Looking Glass, goes into a mirror world. But instead of encountring evil goatee mickey, he encounters a bunch of living objects and a bunch of fun set pieces for jokes ensue. He dances with playing cards, fights an army of them, has a sword fight with the king after dancing with the queen which.. no Mickey, bad mickey, your in a relationship and so is she. Bad Mouse bad. It is entirely fucking insane, even including a living nut cracker which.. words can’t.. look

They.. they had to know how this looked right? did the director have a ball busting fetish? I mean okay if he did, nothing wrong with that, but maybe don’t put it in your children’s cartoon. That being said it does eat the shells which I find creative. And that’s what really makes this one pop. The creativity. Not a single minute is boring, every minute has something intresting going on, but without throwing too muchi n your face. It’s just a wonderful short and one that like Mr. Duck Steps out, i’ll be rewatching a LOTTTT.

3. Mickey’s Rival (1936): Mortimer: The Original Bro From the same year we have disappointment. Having grown up with the disney classic House of Mouse, I was a huge fan of Mortimer. So when I first saw this, I was happy to see where he came from.. then justifably blocked it out of my mind till this review. While I love mortimer, I love Mickey having a sleazy rival and one diffrent than Pete who has different goals and tactics than the big guy. But his debut just has him as an obnoxious snickering bro.. which to be fair is who he is, but without the venre of charm his later version would have. Mortimer just spends the short being a pranking douche, and blatantly hitting on Minnie in front of Mickey while their on a date. Which even in an open relationship is a no no, so he has no leg to stand on.. metaphorically. He also walks weird in this one because, and this is true, he’s carying 9 volt batteries in his pants. Yes really. That’s the level of Douche we’re dealing with. Someone so up their own ass they carry batteries int heir pocket instead of money or a mask or children’s trading cards like a normal person or a me. What makes it frustrating is Minnie just swoons over the guy. And not like “Awww he’s so funny”, I mean romantically then has the gaul to say “your just jealous” when Mickey is understandably fuming over the jackass who swooped in, pranked him, is hitting on his girlfriend in front of him by teasing a bull, and in general is just the worst. Yes.. yes he is. Justifably. Jealousy is an ugly emotion but there’s a line between some dude bro like Mortimer getting mad your friends with someone you could be in a relationship with, boy, girl, neither, both, whatever your into, and Mickey getting mad his girlfriend is chuckling all over her ex who agian, crashed their date and treated him like garbage and is very transparently hitting on her in the middle of it. It’s also just not a very funny short, outside of the bit pictured and tha’ts more for the sheer aburdity of Mortimer elctifying his pant for a really dumb gag about stealing people’s pants button. He’s very lucky we didn’t see Mickey’s Epic Mickey is what i’m saying. But given he’s a frat bro, the 1930′s version granted but a bro nonetheless, he’d probably find that hilarious until he noticed the sheer size and scope. Overall a forgetable, frustrating short. The one bright spot is mickey and mortimer’s cars which have faces and stuff and look neat.. otherwise it was just a waste of my time and the only good thing it did was bringing Mortimer into our lives. And that ain’t nothing.

4. Mickey Down Under (1948): ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

This is a quick one.. because this one was a vacum. I mean I can at least say for Mickey’s Rival it’s interesting.. i’ts not good but it’s interesting. this is just.. Mickey farts around with a boomerang with his dog and then pisses off an ostrich. There’s not really a lot of consequence or intrest is what i’m saying. I can’t even find a good opening to make a letterkenny joke. No one got close to fucking an ostrich here. It’s telling by the fact theirs no gif’s of this one that no one cares and it baffles me this is one of the ones Disney chose to gussy up for D+ release. But still no donald messing around with a robot?

5. The Band Concert (1935): That’s More Like It. Okay scooting back a year we have the band concert. This is my third time watching this one and it’s a delight. Like the last one I don’t have a ton to say.. but it’s more because this one is just so good rather than because it wasted my time. It’s got a fun concept and the breakout performance from my boy donald duck as he constantly fucks with the band’s performance by either getting in their faces or hilariously pulling Flute’s out of thin heir. I miss that gimmick for donald, his love of pulling objects out of the either via magic and shenanigans. They should bring it back. Also his shenanigans remind me of opus and that’s never a bad thing.

Also Horace takes off his shirt. For the Ladies. A Classic for good reason.

6. On Ice (1935): Donald is a Bastard Man Another great one from the same year. This time around we have what i’ve come to call a Mickey and the Gang Messaround. This is back when Donald and Goofy were supporting characters, so generally each of the big three do something, usually coming together for the climax. In this case Mickey tries to help Minnie with her skating, with him adorably following her around with a pillow before showing off for her, just really sweet stuff. Goofy’s bit is hilariously dumb, as fitting my boy, as he feeds fish tobaco to get them to spit into a spitoon, and tries to club them, with predictable results. While not the most enivrionmentally friendly just the sheer oddness, the fact it sort of works minus him actually clubbing them, and one of hte fish smacking him in the face all make it work. The only bit that reallyd osen’t is Donald and pluto... it was present a bit before but here illustrates why I really dread Pluto based shorts. While I don’t hate the dog, he’s a dog I love dogs, most of the gags in his old shorts, and even up to mouseworks are him either being blamed for shit that’s not his fault, a pet peve of mine, or being tourtured in some way...

But dosen’t work at all now. He puts the poor dog on skates and then laughs at him and even sings a song mocking the poor dog, before justifably nearly ending up going over a watterfall, then ending up clubbed in the head. Good. I love donald but good god is he unsympathetic here.. and for some reason they teamed the two up again for more shorts! Why. It’s why I don’t get why Pluto was the star of his own shorts: if this is all they had.. why do it? Was the 30′s, 40′s and 50′s equilvent of a micheal bay audience really that into dog abuse? So yeah otherwise a good short but that segment drags it down. not Donald’s best work.

7. Clock Cleaners(1937): This is a Great One Not much to say on this one. It’s pretty good, has some fun set pieces, and some great jokes from all three characters. Mickey deals with a seagull, donald effs with a main spring and Goofy fights some statues. All good clean fun. My lack of brevity is more because I don’t have any jokes rather than this genuinely being bad. It’s pretty good.

8.. Mickey and the Seal(1948): More Pluto Torture Porn!

This one’s more of a mixed bag. On the one hand, it is really cute, as a young seal ends up going home with mickey after he visits the zoo to feed them fish. On the other hand.. it’s mostly Pluto chasing after the seal, Mickey being kind of a dick to pluto and not getting he clearly saw SOMETHING in his house, and then teasing him at the end despite him having been right. That being said the ending, with the seal brining back all it’s buddies to mickey’s house, is fricking amazing. ALso the seals in this unvierse who aren’t antrho can speak. That.. that raises a lot of questions I don’t think disney can answer.

9. Ye Olden Days (1933): Jaunty Dueling Music Now this.. this was a fun one. Mickey and Minnie head to Medivil times, proving that the current shorts tendency to jaunt to various settings isn’t a new thing, and it’ sjust a much of a fun change up here as it was there. Mickey, a wondering minstral, ends up trying to rescue Minnie after her father throws her in a dungeon for not wanting to marry Prince Dippy Dog, who hopes she can learn to love him. I can’t tell if he’s genuine or a dick here. But it’s fun, especially the part where, after Minnie declares she loves mickey which.. it’s been a few hours slow down, they decide on a duel and thus sing some ragtime, 1930′s getting ready for duel music that’s just catchy. if X Of Swords ever gets a movie, I want to use this song. Just.. really good stuff. A fun short with some great gag,s a great concept, and my boy goofy as the villian. What’s not to like? Alright one more.

10. MIckey’s BIrthday Party (1942): Big Chicken Breasts We end on another all together now, Mickey and the Gang Messaround that was a great note to end on. I did watch another short, Pluto’s Birthday party.. but it was both more of a Pluto short and more Pluto torture nonsense, so yeah, skipping that one, as I ended up one short of my 12 goal because I can’t count, apparently. So Mickey gets 10, but this one’s a good note to go out on.

Minnie throws a suprise party for mickey which almost turns into a live sex celebration as Mickey clearly is a wee bit horny going in. But it turns into a fun dance party, with Donald throwing out razzes like a good buddy, Goofy making a cake, and some fun gags with a piano they all bought him. It’s a really good short. That’s the problem with Mickey Shorts and doing all D+ ones: There just isn’t the weirdly offensive stuff to talk about there is. He’s not a bad character, but there’s a reason in every short that features all three, Donald and Goofy easily outshine him. Mickey’s not a bad character, but when not in trickster mode, there just isn’t a lot for him to do. It’s why the comics reinvented him, much like they did for donald, into a plucky detective/reporter who reguarly sovles crimes. He’s not bad, and as seen with Ye Olden Days and Thru the Miror, his blank slateness cna be put to good effect and house of mouse gave him more of a personality, but here he’s just the bland good guy to Donald’s loveable scmap and goofy’s loveable dumbass. It’s an issue comedy has to this day: having a lead whose just.. not as intresting as the rest of the ensemble. There is weirdness to note, as Donald dances with Clara Cluck> That’s not the weird part, he and daisy took a while to be etched in stone. The weird parts are 1. Donald wearing a sombrero and smoking a cigar, and 2. Clara’s MASSIVE boobs.. yes really. Clara Cuck has giant breasts. Like actual boobs that sway around while she dances with donald. it’s.. bizzare. Not terrible, who doesn’t like big chicken boobs but just.. really really weird to see ina Disney cartoon.But yeah it’s jus ta fun note to end on.

And that was MIckey’s Birthday special. I enjoyed it even if I had less to say than I thought. If you liked this review, you can comission your own for five bucks, just hit up my pms or my discord , avaliable on request. You can check out my ohter disney reviews in the disney tab on my blog and until next time, ther’es always another rainbow.

#mickey mouse #minnie mouse #donald duck #goofy goof #clara cluck #hoarace horsecollar #clarabelle cow #mortimer mouse #mickey's birthday #classic disney shorts

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theartificialdane · 5 years

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Andromeda, chapter 5 (Vitan - Cassiopeia)

Violet and Sutan might have figured things out, because just because you have decided to stay together, doesn’t mean it’ll be easy to get there. In this we check in in march, we grocery shop, Raven has an agenda, and Violet calls in the middle of the night.

Thanks a million to @veronicasanders - My absolute darling who’s my ever patient and amazing beta. I’m so thankful for her!

“Which milk do you want?” Sutan closed the door to the supermarket fridge. “GrandLait fraise with..” Sutan turned the container, trying to make sense of it. “The blue cap, or the one with the red?”

“I don’t drink milk.”

“Right...” It was mid March, and since Fashion Week Sutan had spent more time in Paris than he had in New York, thinking that it would be no problem to adjust to a country where he knew the language, he had realised that he had no idea how limited his French vocabulary actually was. Sutan could talk for hours about fashion, book a flight without a sweat and order at a restaurant, but navigating a grocery store? Keep a conversation going with Violet’s next door neighbor? Find the products Frida needed at the petstore? Imposiblé as they’d say in his soon to be home country.

“Let me.” Sutan could hear the smile in Violet’s voice, his girlfriend walking over to him, their cart abandoned from where Violet was looking for her brand of oat milk. “Blue is 2%, red is whole.”

“Thanks.”

“We have to make sure you can have your coffee, right?”

Violet turned her head up, silently asking for a kiss which Sutan had no problem giving her. Kissing Violet in public was different, the first time she silently seeked affection coming as a genuine surprise since she would rarely even hold his hand in New York unless they were somewhere private. Violet was different in Paris. In general almost everything was different in Paris.

“Do we have coffee? I think we got some the last time you were here...” Violet bit her lip, clearly thinking, and Sutan couldn’t help but smile. Violet was doing so much to make him feel welcome, doing everything she could to make sure he was happy in her home and happy in what they tried to build together.

“I think so.”

Violet nodded, putting the whole milk in the cart. “We can get an extra jar of instant, just to be sure.”

Sutan wrinkled his nose, making Violet laugh. Instant coffee was among his least favorite. He hadn’t had it regularly since he and Raja had become wealthy enough to buy their own apartment and both of them had to switch to more socially acceptable forms of doping, so coffee it was.

“Are you going to bringing your machine over, or should I start looking for one?”

“Maybe. I haven’t decided yet.”

Violet took Sutan’s hand, gently intertwining their fingers.

When Sutan had stood outside Violet’s door, promising he would make it work, promising that they were going to work, he had no idea how hard it would be. There were so many logistics involved, the easiest of it all actually being his job, though he had never expected that. His boss at Elite had said yes to transferring him almost immediately, not willing to risk losing him to one of their rival companies in France, French Elite opening their doors for him and ready to take him in, the legal process already started. It was close to hell to keep track of, and Sutan had no idea how his parents had actually managed to move from one continent to another when he was a child. He had a company do everything for him, and it was still absolutely terrible.

What had been hard though, was packing up his things, selling his apartment and moving away from his friends. Raja had been furious, angry beyond belief, his sister yelling at him and throwing things, burning with a fire so bright it hurt to look at, until she was finally finally done raging. Then she had cried, tears flowing from her like a river, her reaction just as violent when it came from sorrow, Sutan holding her and letting her sob. Seeing his sister beak apart like that had broken his heart as well. Raja had cried for her brother, cried for how they were going to be apart, had cried for the fact that she was now going to be alone with her baby girls, but Sutan had kissed her hair, letting her finally finally realise that she would be alright, and that it was time for them to not say goodbye, but instead see you soon, their bond strong enough for Sutan to leave and try something new without her.

Jinkx had been the most surprising help, his ex financee and someone Sutan was sure would hate him for the rest of her life easily offering without any prompting to let her family business take on his apartment, creating a revenue stream for him for his life in Paris, a safety net for back home to make sure his mother would always have easy access to the monthly transfer they had never discussed, but that had always come a t the exact same time.

He still needed about three or four trips back to New York, legal matters still needing tending to, and he still had to finish the tedious process of packing and wrapping everything up at work.

“Should we have pasta tonight?”

Sutan was pulled back to the present, Violet standing with a packet of chicken breasts in her hand, their cart besides her.

“Again?” “I have a limited repertoire, and someone complained the day I served oatmeal.” Sutan laughed, clearly remembering the moment he realised just exactly how bad his girlfriend was at cooking, Violet knowing how to make little more than instant mashed potatoes, broccoli salad, oatmeal and if she truly feeling adventurous, whipping up a chicken pasta.

“I’ll get better...” Violet’s voice was small, and Sutan could see that he had accidentally embarrassed her.

“I’m sorry lovely eyes.” Sutan kissed her hair.

They had somehow decided that they would take turns cooking, Violet really trying her best, but Sutan could see that she didn’t enjoy it, his girlfriend somehow seeing food more as fuel than even the skinniest model Sutan had ever encountered. They had never been out grocery shopping together in New York, at least as far as Sutan could remember, the first time Violet even suggested it a surprise to him. It had been years since Sutan had last done his own shopping, his housekeeper happily filling his fridge for an extra bonus in her salary.

“How about I make us something Indonesian?”

“Like what?”

“Nasi goreng?”

“Is that the rice your mom makes?”

Sutan nodded.

“That would be nice.” Violet took his hand. To anyone else, her words might sound dismissive, but Sutan knew exactly what they meant.

///

“Over here!”

Sutan had just landed in JFK returned from a long weekend in Paris with Violet. It had almost turned into an artform for him, stay as long as he possibly could, work on the plane, crash when he got home with jetlag and then get as much done as he could before he returned to Paris. Sutan was only carrying a duffel bag, the entire process of getting into America thankfully over quickly.

“Raven?” Sutan knew he sounded surprised, but he hadn’t expected to see the Russian. “What are you doing here?”

Actually, he should have expected to see the Russian. Only Raven was insane enough to willingly take the trip out to Newark with baby girls who were barely even a month old. Sutan was pretty sure it was breaking some kind of health code, or at least breaching the limits of good parenting, but his entire knowledge of parenting also came from watching Juju and Detox care for their kids, so what did he really know.

“The girls missed you.” Raven smiled brightly as she pushed a twin stroller towards him. Sutan felt a little unsettled, the fact that Raven had actively sought him out worrying in itself, though he was happy to see her. Raven had largely forgiven him for firing her, Raja fucking most of the rage out of her on her honeymoon, the fact that the media was much more interested in that and that her online fans had forgotten that she had been laid off as she posted beautiful photos and pictures of her and Raja together soothing the wound in exactly the way he had planned it. Sutan hoped that her new role as a mother would help her move on entirely, or at least move on to become a social media influencer, brands already reaching out to her to make sure her girls were dressed in their clothes even though they didn’t do anything but sleep and eat right now.

“Did they now?” Sutan hugged Raven, the no longer model so much smaller than he remembered her since she wasn’t wearing heels. Raven was wrapped up in a large quilted jacket, without a doubt wanting to hide the last of her pregnancy weight. Sutan had sped to Long Island the moment the news had dropped that Raven had gone into labor, picking up his mom in the middle of the night to drive her back, Raja almost sobbing when she saw her mother, but thankfully the birth had gone fine, two little baby girls coming into the world at 2 a.m. on the 2nd of March.

“See for yourself.”

Sutan smiled, looking into the stroller. The twins were laying side by side, curled together on one side, seeking each other like they were still in the womb, unable to let go even in sleep. Sutan reached into the stroller, gently running a finger over the cheek of his niece’s face, her little chin adorably fat the way only baby's was. It was weird to see his own flesh and blood, his sister’s little girls out in the world.

“So... Is Raja still mad?”

“It depends.” Raven smiled. Raja was hot and cold, his sister still shifting between furious and like nothing had happened at all depending on her mood. “I think this whole mom thing has been harder for her than she expected.”

Sutan nodded. Raja had held her girls, his normally near emotionless sister looking at her babies with so much love in her eyes that it had been physically painful to witness. Raja kissing and thanking Raven over and over again for the gift she had given her. Sutan knew from Fame that Raja had been a walking zombie at work in the following days, the blonde complaining on the phone that she had no idea how Raja had expected to be able to go right back to work after the birth of her daughters when she had taken two weeks off for her wedding.

“Have you decided on names yet?”

Raven smiled secretly, the two of them walking out of Newark together, a driver already waiting for them. “Yes, but it’s a secret.”

“Of course. Makes perfect sense.”

Sutan was so happy Raven had forgiven him, the fact that life in New York was going on without him, even if it also hurt. They all got in the car, Sutan and Raven sitting in the back, Raven’s hand in the basket with her girls, resting on their little tummies as they made their way into Manhattan.

“Sutan...”

“Yes?” Sutan looked up from his phone, the fact that he was transfering meaning he somehow had received more emails in the last few weeks than it felt like he had in his entire career, a few all nighters in the office without a doubt in the near future.

“Why does Violet hate me?”

“... What?”

“She hasn’t responded to any of my messages, I haven’t heard from her since you guys broke up, and now that she’s talking to you again, why hasn’t she- She hasn’t even seen- I want her to meet- I just- Why?”

Sutan could see that Raven was seconds from crying, the new mom still beyond exhausted all the time even if Mani had moved in with them for a time to help with everything. “Raven.”

“Don’t pity me!” Raven angrily wiped her eyes, and Sutan knew that was really why she had come to see him, a chance to privately ask what had without a doubt been eating away at her soul. “I know I don’t make friends easily, I know I don’t, but- I really thought we were friends, and I-”

“She misses you too.”

“She does?”

Sutan nodded, though he wasn’t entirely sure he was telling the truth. Violet liked Raven, that much was clear to him, but he also understood that his sister in laws bright and loud personality could also be a little much for Violet sometimes.

“She’s just...scared, of meeting all of you again. She told me, during fashion week.” Her reasoning had without a doubt been different back then, but if Sutan was honest, he couldn’t blame his girlfriend. His friends were intense, that wasn’t a secret to anyone, and the idea of just leaving them had tempted even him sometimes, but he loved them, and even if he was growing more and more excited about moving, he wasn’t happy about leaving a single one of them behind.

“So she doesn’t hate me?”

“She doesn’t.” Sutan reached into the basket too, putting his hand on top of Ravens.

“If I throw a birthday party for the girls, do you think she’ll come?”

“... In a year?”

“Of course not silly. For their two month birthday and name reveal! It’ll be amazing.” Raven smiled brightly, the former model’s eyes shining not with tears now, but with pure excitement. “I’m already working with a party planner. We’re having a Russian and Indonesian fusion feast to celebrate the two most amazing girls in the world!”

“We won’t miss it for the world.”

///

Riiiiiing, riiiiiing, riiiiiing

Sutan rolled over, a groan leaving him. His phone was going off, the sound so so loud in his quiet bedroom. It was the middle of the night, and normally Sutan would be pissed that anyone interrupted him, but in the last month, the ringtone had become a lifeline in this new life, his girlfriend on the other side even though she was 6 hours ahead, which meant their days never lined up.

Sutan finally found his phone, sliding without opening his eyes, the phone against his ear as he settled back down under the covers.

“Hi lovely eyes”

“Why is there a delivery man outside my door?”

“... What?” Sutan knew he had to sound stupid, but unlike Violet, he wasn’t quick to wake up, his brain needing time to reboot. Violet often found delight in how slow he was in the morning, teasing him before she pushed a cup of coffee towards him to let him wake up.

“Why is there a delivery man outside of my door, Sutan?”

Sutan opened his eye, the clock on his bedside table telling him it was a little after 4, and therefore 10 in Paris just as he had planned. “It made it there okay?” It was Saturday, Sutan’s head still a little heavy from the party he had gone to last night with Tatianna, the model one of the only girls he was genuinely sad about leaving behind.

“Sutan I’m not joking, you have four seconds to tell me what going on or I’m going to explod-”

“It’s our new bed.” Sutan could hear on Violet’s voice that he wasn’t going to be allowed back to sleep anytime soon, the woman sometimes calling him with a quick update, a simple question he could answer or to say she loved him, which meant he could roll over and go back to sleep, but this wasn’t going to one of them. Sutan sat up, rubbing his eyes before he put on his glasses. Neither of them were great at texting, Violet hating it, so they called, even though it didn’t really work for either of them compared to being together physically. “Already paid for.” Sutan got out of bed, not turning on the lights as he made his way to the kitchen for a glass of water.

“You got us a new bed?”

“You’re dating an old man.” Sutan smiled to himself, the 18 year age gap between them sometimes seeming like it didn’t exist, and other times like it was an ocean of things they had to overcome. Right now though, it was thankfully just amusing. “You may be able to sleep on a crappy mattress on the floor, but I need to sleep in an actual bed, with back support.” Sutan turned on the tap, quickly filling a glass. “Is the delivery man still outside?”

“Maybe.” Sutan could hear Violet biting her lip, an annoyed huff coming from her. “Will it fit?”

“Measured and everything.”

“When did you even- No, no, nevermind, I-”

“.. Are you okay?” Sutan hadn’t even considered that Violet would dislike the bed, his girlfriend never expressing any opinion on furniture, both her room in Fame’s apartment and what he had seen of her home in Paris telling him she didn’t care, but his stomach still twisted, telling him he had made a mistake. “Is this okay?”

“I am, just...” Sutan could hear a deep breath. “Ask next time. Please?”

“I will.” Sutan took a drink of his water. “I’m sorry.”

“You’re forgiven.” Violet’s voice was warm, the woman whispering into the phone. “I can’t wait to try it with you when you return.”

“Fuck.” Sutan groaned, the sound of her in his ear making warmth run down his spine. “God, long distance is killing me.”

Violet laughed. “I’ll talk to you later.”

“I’ll talk to you too.” Violet hung up, Sutan standing alone in his dark kitchen, his toes slowly turning to ice, Sutan quietly cursing himself for the fact that he hadn’t taken his slippers with him. This was hard, but it was worth it. Violet was worth it, and they would be worth it when everything worked out.

#galactica #paris au #andromeda #cassiopeia

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badchoicesposts · 4 years

Text

Don’t Dream It’s Over Flashbacks Part Two

DDIO Masterlist

AN: This is a compilation of all of the flashbacks of Liam and Ali’s story from my Don’t Dream It’s Over universe. You can find the full story on my masterlist.

CHAPTER 6

Ali and Liam were two very different people. There was no doubt about it. They were crazy about each other regardless, but at first glance anyone would believe that they had absolutely nothing in common.

Liam rivaled Luca for the title of the most well-rounded person she had ever met. He was tall, well dressed, and well respected by everyone he met. His blond hair was always annoyingly perfect, even when it had been slept on for the full seven hours of sleep he got every night, and he was good at everything he tried to do. He worked out five days a week and had a natural charm that drew people towards him wherever he went. Liam slept on silk sheets, drank expensive liquor and, worst of all, was a morning person. He was always up early, eager to start his day and be productive. He was typically easy going, but he could take action and control a situation effortlessly when he needed to.

Ali, on the other hand, was the exact opposite. She barely reached five feet tall in the right pair of heels and spent most of her time in sweatpants or leggings because of the insecurities she had about her body. Her workout routine consisted mainly of walking everywhere she needed to go, and she had terrible social anxiety. She had no constant sleep schedule, and at this point, she was practically nocturnal, only being able to get in small amounts of sleep during the day due to her insomnia. She had found her current bed sheets from the discount bin of a department store, and the most she ever spent on alcohol was twenty dollars for a bottle of tequila. She had perfect grades, but she was still constantly stressed about them.

Liam was put together, and on most days she was a hot mess. When she says the words “trust me, I know what I’m doing” there’s about a seventy-five percent chance that she has no idea what she’s doing. However, when he said the same words, she never once doubted him. That is until he decided he could repair the clogged drain in his kitchen sink on his own. Her suspicions were confirmed as she watched the Prince of Cordonia, his nice dress shirt soaked in water, fiddle with a pipe, determined to be “normal”.

“Love, maybe you should just call someone,” she said, raising her voice slightly so he could hear her from where the upper half of his body was lying under the sink.

“I can do this,” he called back, irritation evident in his voice.

“Sure you can,” she mumbled under her breath, taking a seat on a stool in the kitchen. “Have ever even looked at a pipe like that before?”

The banging noises she heard from under the sink was her only response, and she rolled her eyes as she texted Drake to tell him to contact the building’s superintendent. A few minutes passed by in silence before there was a sudden popping sound and Liam’s angry voice filled the room. Ali looked up to see him emerging from under the sink soaking wet, while more water pooled onto the kitchen floor. She wanted to be mad that he had made the situation worse and not given up when he realized that he didn’t know what he was doing, but the sight of him before her made her burst out laughing.

“It’s not funny,” he said, sending a glare in her direction.

“Yes, it is,” she replied when she had finally managed to calm herself down.

He narrowed his bright blue eyes at her, trying his best to stay mad, but he knew that it was a losing battle. He knew that he looked ridiculous.

“I guess we can cross chef and plumber off of your list of potential jobs,” she said, starting to giggle again as she remembered their first date where he tried to cook for her.

“Now stop the water and clean up that mess. The super will be here in the morning.”

Liam watched as his girlfriend ran out of the room before he could get another word in.

CHAPTER 7

Ali and Liam moved around the kitchen in a comfortable silence as they prepared dinner. Well, as she prepared dinner. Liam was mainly observing, helping out here and there when she instructed him to. Ali wasn’t eager to have a repeat of the spaghetti incident and wanted to make sure they had something edible tonight because he had insisted that they stay in.

The two had been dating for three months, and he was Ali’s first actual boyfriend. She was crazy about him and glad that she could experience so many of her “firsts” with him.

“You’re staring,” she said, as she began to carve the chicken that she had just taken out of the oven.

“You’re beautiful,” Liam said, with a smile.

Ali tugged anxiously at her top. She had always been self-conscious about her body, and even though she had been working towards loving herself, she would still feel insecure from time to time. Especially when she compared her body to Liam’s. Liam was tall, broad shouldered, and muscular while her body was all curves. She wasn’t overweight, but she definitely wasn’t considered thin, and she often agonized over the stretch marks she found all over and her slightly chubby stomach. She knew that besides dealing with her other issues, one of the main steps in her mental health recovery was learning how to be kinder to herself. Regardless, hating yourself could be a hard habit to break when you’ve been doing it since you were thirteen.

Liam moved to stand behind her, pressing his chest to her back and burying his face into the side of her neck.

“I mean it. I think you’re so beautiful,” he said, pressing small kisses to the skin there.

“I know you do, Liam,” she mumbled, a smile forming on her face.

They ate in a comfortable silence, sharing small smiles. However, Ali could feel the anxiety coming off of him every time she caught him staring at her.

“Are you going to tell me what’s wrong now?” she asked when they were finally done with their meal.

Liam sighed and pulled her down onto his couch. He kept one arm tightly around her waist and began to gently play with her fingers with his other hand.

“There’s something that I need to tell you,” he said softly.

“What? Are you married or something?” she joked.

The smile quickly left her face when she realized that he wasn’t laughing with her.

“Oh, my god! You are!” she said. She was completely shocked and went to pull out of his arms, but he tightened his grip on her body.

“No, I promise I’m not married.”

“Then what is it?” she asked, relaxing into him and placing a hand on his chest.

“I haven’t been completely honest with you about who I am. My father isn’t actually a diplomat,” he said.

He took a deep breath before his next words.

“My father is the King of Cordonia. Ali, I’m a prince,” he said, holding his breath as he waited for her reaction.

Much to his surprise she began to chuckle.

“That’s funny. You really had me going there for a second,” she said with a smile.

She pulled away from him and grabbed her glass of water from the coffee table in front of her, taking a large sip.

“Love, I’m being serious,” he said.

“What? Liam, I’ve never even heard of a place called Cordonia,” she said, still smiling.

“It’s a small country in the Mediterranean. Most people haven’t heard of it,” he said.

Ali raised her brows and Liam, still smiling.

“Okay, Liam, you’ve had your fun,” she said, resting her glass back down and leaning into his side.

“My love, please. I am being serious,” he persisted.

Ali rolled her eyes and pulled out her phone.

“Fine, you’re being serious,” she said, quickly typing in the words “Cordonia” and “Prince Liam”.

Her jaw dropped as a picture of the man sitting right next to her came up.

“Oh, my god! You’re being serious!” she exclaimed.

She jumped into a sitting position and looked at him, her mouth hanging open. Even though a million things were going through her mind at once, none of them were good. She wasn’t going to fool herself into thinking that just because he was a prince she was going to get a happily ever after. If anything, she saw their relationship completely fall apart before her eyes.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you sooner. I needed a chance to get to know you without worrying about that getting in the way,” Liam said.

Ali could tell that he was still nervous.

“Is anything I know about you even true?” she asked.

“I’ve told you the truth about everything except for my title. I needed you to know me as Liam, not Prince Liam of Cordonia,” he said, reaching for her hand.

He could tell that she was still uncomfortable by the fact that she didn’t lean into him the way she usually did.

“I know that this is somewhat of a shock, but, if you’ll let me, I would like to tell you more about my country and who I am,” he said hopefully.

CHAPTER 10

Ali wandered up and down the aisles of bookshelves, stopping every once in a while to pull out one that caught her eye. The public library had been one of her favorite places for as long as she could remember. She had always been an avid reader and had basically grown up in the children’s section.

The Marshall twins, who she had been babysitting part time for the past year and a half, were both enjoying the public storytime that was offered the facility, and she was glad to have a moment to herself. She loved both of the children, but two four year olds could be a lot to handle.

Her eyes scanned over a copy of “Jane Eyre”, and she pulled it off the shelf, smiling to herself. She opened the book, flipping through the pages casually, taking in a sentence here and there.

“I’ve heard that’s a classic, but I have to admit that I’ve never read it myself,” said a deep, accented voice from behind her.

Ali jumped, not realizing that someone was nearby, and turned to meet a man with bright blue eyes and a kind smile on his face.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you,” he apologized.

“That’s okay. I just didn’t realize that someone was behind me,” she said, smiling up at him.

“Have you ever read it?” he asked, gesturing to the book in her hand.

“Yeah, I have. It’s one of my favorites actually,” she said honestly, handing it to him, “I would definitely recommend it.”

“Thank you. Do you have any other recommendations?” he asked.

Ali began to slowly walk down the aisle again, her fingertips gently tracing the spines of the books as she passed by.

“Well, I’m the type of person that would recommend the ‘Harry Potter’ series to just about anyone, but I realize that they’re not for everyone,” she said with a laugh as he trailed behind her. “I also love ‘Tuesdays With Morrie’, it literally made me cry, and I’m a sucker for just about any book with diverse characters. To be honest, I don’t really have a specific genre of book that I look for. When I was younger I loved mysteries and fantasy, but now I’ll read just about anything as long as I think the plotline sounds interesting.”

“I usually read nonfiction, but I’ve been trying to branch out recently,” he said.

“Is there a specific genre that you’re looking for?”

The two continued their conversation, stopping every once in a while to pull books off the shelves. The man was obviously very well educated and was easy to talk to. She found herself laughing with him and genuinely enjoying his company.

“When I was young my mother would always take me to the library. She would say that no matter where you are in the world, you were always at home a library because the knowledge it holds is universal,” he said.

“Your mother sounds like a wise woman,” she responded with a smile.

A fond smile appeared on the stranger’s face, and Ali felt butterflies erupt in her stomach. He definitely had an amazing smile.

“She was. I don’t want to appear too forward, but would you like to continue our conversation over coffee?” he asked.

Ali was taken aback for a second, but she quickly recovered. She wasn’t exactly accustomed to being asked out for coffee.

“I would say yes, but I have to pick up the kids from storytime downstairs,” she said, checking the time on her phone, “I should actually get down there now.”

“Kids?” he asked confused.

“Oh, no! They’re not mine! I’m babysitting,” she said quickly.

“Maybe another time then?” he asked hopefully as they began descending the stairs to the first floor of the library.

“I don’t even know your name,” Ali said with a laugh.

“I can’t believe I haven’t properly introduced myself yet,” he said, scolding himself, “I’m Liam.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Liam. I’m Ali.”

CHAPTER 11

Ali was stretched out on Liam’s bed, the sheets pulled up around her body, falling in and out of sleep as she listened to the rain fall outside. The man himself was fast asleep next to her, his arms wrapped tightly around her waist, and his head laying on her chest. She ran her fingers through his soft hair mindlessly, the smell of his shampoo filling her senses and lulling her into a relaxed state.

Ali smiled at the feeling of Liam’s breath on her bare skin, and her eyes began to close again. It had taken forever to get used to sleeping next to someone like this, but now she didn’t think she would ever be able to sleep without him again. There was nothing she loved more than being wrapped up in his arms, and the feeling of him next to her always put her at ease. She wasn’t sure how long she had been asleep before she was jumping up again at a banging sound coming from somewhere in the apartment.

She wrote it off, figuring that Drake was just walking around the living room but tensed again at the sound of a loud crash.

“Liam,” she said quietly, gently shaking him awake.

He mumbled in his sleep before opening his eyes slowly.

“What’s wrong?” he groaned, still not completely awake.

“There’s someone in the living room,” she whispered back.

Liam rubbed the sleep out of his eyes, before throwing the covers off of his body. Ali grabbed his shirt from the floor and buttoned it up over herself as he left the room. She gave him a few moments alone and ventured out into the living room after some time passed without any noise.

When she entered the living room she saw a soaking wet Drake sitting on the couch, his head in his hands, with Liam sitting next to him. He had obviously just come in from the rain. The small side table that was beside the couch had been shifted from its spot, and a broken lamp was lying on the floor.

“Is everything okay?” she asked softly, taking in the scene in front of her.

Liam nodded, a strained smile on his face as he rested one of his hands on Drake’s shoulder.

“Go back to bed, my love,” he said back.

She could tell that the two needed a moment alone and nodded in understanding before returning to the room where she allowed herself to fall asleep.

Ali woke up the next morning to an empty bed. She reached over to grab her glasses from the bedside table, and saw Liam buttoning up a shirt at the foot of the bed.

“Good morning,” he said, leaning over to kiss her lips gently.

“Morning. Are you leaving already?” she asked, grabbing her phone to check the time.

“I have to go into work a little earlier than I thought. But, I already have coffee ready in the kitchen for you,” he said with a smile.

“What was wrong last night?” she asked, getting out of bed and gathering her clothes.

She grabbed her jeans off of the floor and walked over to Liam’s dresser, taking out one of the t-shirts he had to change into. Liam sighed, sitting on the bed and pulling her down with him.

“The date slipped my mind. Today is the anniversary of the death of Drake’s father. This is usually a difficult day for him every year. The earlier I get into work, the sooner I can be back here for him.”

Ali nodded sadly and kissed his cheek.

“Let me know if either of you need anything,” she said, squeezing his hand.

“Thank you.”

“I’m going to grab a shower before I leave, okay?” she said.

He nodded in response and pulled her into a kiss before they both got up again. Ali made a beeline for the bathroom as Liam exited the apartment. She took her time, letting the warm water relax her muscles and was feeling completely refreshed when she stepped out.

“Hey,” she said quietly, as she stepped into the kitchen to see Drake already up and holding a cup of coffee.

He was definitely hungover, but she couldn’t imagine that the whiskey she could smell in his coffee was going to be much assistance in getting over it. He nodded at her in response, not meeting her eyes, as she walked around him to pour some for herself. She took a sip of the hot liquid and looked back over at him. He seemed absolutely miserable, and she felt her heart ache for him.

Ali and Drake weren’t close, and she didn’t want to assume that she knew how he was feeling, but she still felt for him.

“Are you okay?” she asked hesitantly, not sure if he wanted to talk about it.

“I’m fine.”

“People who are fine don’t usually start their day with liquor in their coffee,” she pointed out, keeping her voice soft.

“What do you want me to say?” he asked, looking up at her tiredly.

“I don’t want you to say anything, but I want you to know that you can,” she responded, smiling at him kindly.

Drake looked her over for a moment as if trying to gauge her sincerity. He grabbed the bottle of whiskey and opened it before holding it out to her. She took it from him, pouring some into her mug before handing it back.

“My dad used to do security for Liam and Leo, so my sister and I were allowed to hang out with them. That’s how Liam and I got close even though I don’t have the lineage to merit it. He died saving Constantine’s life in an assassination attempt on The Crown,” Drake said.

“I’m sorry. I can’t imagine how that must have felt,” she said honestly, taking a gulp of her now whiskey infused coffee.

Drake chuckled humorlessly.

“Not great.”

Ali didn’t speak. She just continued to sip from her mug, wanting to give him some space to continue talking if he chose to. Drake got up from the kitchen and walked into the living room with his mug and the liquor bottle. She followed and sat down next to him on the couch.

“The worst part was that I… I mean we, my sister and I, we didn’t just lose him,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“After it happened, my mom couldn’t take it. She just up and left in the middle of the night. She didn’t even say goodbye, just left a note saying that she was sorry. She asked another member of the guard, Bastien, to take care of us,” he said with a scoff.

“We weren’t his responsibility. Hell, he was barely old enough to be taking care of two kids. But, he did anyway. He took care of us because she couldn’t be bothered to. I haven’t even seen her in years.”

The bitterness was evident in his tone as he spoke of his mother, and he had put down his mug, opting to drink straight from the bottle instead.

“I can’t even begin to imagine how difficult that must have been for all of you. You didn’t deserve that.”

“Savannah, my sister, she took it the worst,” he said.

“And let me guess, you didn’t take it at all,” she said, a small smile tugging at the corner of his lips.

He gave her a questioning and surprised look, the alcohol allowing him to finally let his guard down.

“How did-” he trailed off, his words slurring slightly.

“Call it a hunch. You don’t seem to be very in touch with your feelings,” she said, taking the bottle from him.

He let out a laugh. It was tired, but it was also his first genuine smile this morning.

“I needed to protect her. To be strong for her.”

“I’m sure you did an amazing job,” she said, lowering her voice into a soothing and reassuring tone.

Drake sat there looking at the wall for a moment. Neither of them seemed to want to break the silence.

“What about you?” he finally asked.

“What about me?” she said, bringing the bottle up to her lips.

She took a swig of the liquid before bringing it back down to her side, deciding that Drake had already drunk enough for the morning.

“What’s your tragic backstory? Liam’s mentioned… a few things,” he said.

“Do you really want to know?” she asked.

He nodded, raising his brows to signal that she should speak.

“I got into a really bad depression when I was thirteen years old, and it lasted for a really long time. I, uh, I don’t really talk about this with anyone, but I guess, looking back on it I had been seeing signs of it in myself for a while. I was just too young at the time to know what anxiety or depression was,” she began.

Drake was looking at her intently, hanging onto every word.

“Were you close to your dad?” she asked.

Drake furrowed his brows, the sudden change back to his story confusing him.

“Yeah, he worked a lot, but he always tried to make time for us. He was the best man I knew.”

Ali smiled at his words, glad to hear this.

“Mine wasn’t so great. Not the worst guy in the world, but definitely not the best. I think a lot of my, uh, issues stemmed from him.”

She didn’t know why she was telling all of this to Drake, but once she had begun talking about it, she couldn’t stop. She was getting too emotional and the words just continued to spill out of her mouth.

“He was an asshole, to be honest. He had a quick temper, and you always had to walk on eggshells around him, never knowing when something would set him off. He was emotionally abusive, and he could be physically abusive to my mom. There were times when I was scared he would turn on me too. Just snap and hit me one day, but he never did. I still vividly remember one night when I was fifteen. My parents were fighting, and I got in the middle and tried to calm them both down. The look in his eyes was terrifying. He started coming towards me, and it felt like my heart had stopped beating. I thought he had snapped. He stopped himself at the last minute, but by then the damage was already done. I was so terrified I had to call my friend Luca to come pick me up. I don’t think I stopped shaking that entire night,” she said with a shudder.

“The physical stuff stopped about a year before I got ‘diagnosed’, but the emotional stuff went on for a lot longer. He would sometimes leave for weeks at a time, going off and doing god knows what with god knows who, but he would always come back, and my mom would always let him. It was always the same thing. He would snap one day, be angry at us for a while and then go back to normal and act like nothing had ever happened. It was exhausting, never knowing if one small screw-up would make him lash out.”

There were tears streaming down her face now, and Drake hadn’t taken his eyes off of her.

“There were some other things too, of course. I had major self-esteem issues, and I definitely had self-image issues. I uh- I had an eating disorder for a while, too,” she stopped momentarily to fiddle with her fingers. “Anyways, things got really bad with me the summer before high school, and it lasted pretty much all the way through. Senior year, when everyone was getting ready for prom, I was getting sent to the hospital for a ‘major depressive episode’. That’s fancy talk for ‘I wanted to kill myself’,” she tried to joke.

Ali felt Drake brush his fingers against her hand hesitantly, but instead of grabbing it, he moved away and placed his hand back in his lap instead.

“I was nineteen when I finally started getting better. I had about five good months before both of my parents died in a car accident.”

“Damn,” Drake whispered as she took another drink from the bottle.

“Yeah, so as you can imagine, all the progress I made kind of went down the drain. But, I had the Larsons with me. Luca and his siblings let me move in with them, and they helped take care of me. They were there for some of the hardest parts, and they helped put me back together when all I wanted to do was fall apart. Because of them I was able to start getting back to myself. It’s been about two years since then, and I still have some pretty bad days, but I’m trying to be okay,” she concluded.

Drake remained silent for a moment, taking it all in.

“Wow, I’m sorry to unload all of that on you when you’re already having a bad day. It kind of just started coming and wouldn’t stop,” she said, embarrassed at her confession and hastily wiping away her tears.

“Don’t apologize. I asked you to,” he said, “You’re pretty damn strong, you know that right?”

“So are you,” she said, with a sad smile.

#trr #trh #the royal romance #the royal heir #liam x mc #drake x mc #drake walker #drake walked x mc #liam #king liam #my fics #choices #playchoices

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mell-bell · 6 years

Text

you are everything I want (but more than I deserve) - Part 2

PART 1

Darcy Lewis x Bucky Barnes

AO3

Words: 1724

Series Summary: The first time Darcy met her soulmate she shot him. A relationship could only go up from there, right? Not when you pair together an ex-Hydra assassin and a woman with a penchant for trouble that could rival even his best friends

Chapter: 2/10

Author’s notes: Finally posting the chapters I had on AO3 on here :D Hope you enjoy!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Bucky’s heart dropped as he watched the woman, his soulmate, race out of the room, away from him.

The gym fell into complete silence as everyone watched Bucky with bated breath. Natasha looked half pleased and half amused. Clint and Stark were glaring at Bucky. And Steve froze in shock.

After a few minutes of silence, it was Steve that ended up breaking the silence.

He reached out whacking Bucky in the chest, causing him to flinch back slightly as pain shot up his already healing arm, “That’s- shit. I mean, she is-woah.”

Bucky turned to Natasha and pointed out the door.

“Who was that?”

Natasha’s eyebrows quirked up, an amused smirk forming on her face, “Your soulmate, apparently.”

Bucky glared at her as Stark smirked, “That’s-“

Clint’s eyes widened as he slapped his hand across Stark’s mouth, “Nope. Um, that’s Darcy. Thor’s girlfriend’s former assistant. Our now PR director and honorary Avenger.”

Steve’s eyebrows shot up, “Ms. Lewis! She’s the lady that I’ve been texting, this past year about our public relations.”

Stark rolled his eyes, “Hence the title PR director.”

Bucky turned to Steve with wide eyes, “You’ve been talking to my soulmate!”

“I didn’t exactly know Buck!”

Without another glance at anybody, Bucky took off out of the room. After his soulmate.

“Well, who would have thought-.”

“Shut up Tony.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Darcy flew out of the gym in a panic. She looked over her shoulder, hoping no one would follow after her, but as she turned the corner she found a tiny piece of her wishing that her soulmate would race at her heels. Her heart was beating out of her chest, her brain racing at what had just occurred. This wasn’t how it was supposed to happen.

This was her soulmate. Soulmate meetings were supposed to be romantic. Like the movies. Like the celebrity stories. Like her parents.

Ever since her childhood, she had imagined so many different ways she would meet her soulmate. You shot me. Not once had it ever crossed her mind that she would shoot him with an actual gun.

She had shot her soulmate. Shot him. With a gun.

Darcy slammed into a wall with a pant, cursing herself for not listening to Natasha. She really did need to bring up her endurance. As she gasped to steady her breathing, pounding footsteps sounded down the hall and Darcy’s head shot up in alarm and without a second thought, she took off running again.

“Darcy!”

For just a moment she hesitated, her footsteps stumbling as she questioned why she was even running. This was her soulmate. She had been looking for them for years. She had been dreaming about them for years. Yet now that he was here, she found herself running away. And she didn’t know why.

As she rounded the corner she came up short, almost running head first into the wall in front of her. She had somehow run right into a dead-end. She looked around her heart racing. She swallowed hard and looked up at the ceiling in desperation, the sound of pounding footsteps getting closer behind her.

“Jarvis.”

“To your right, Miss Darcy.”

She swung around and caught sight of the vent on the wall. Within a second, she had it pried off the wall and quickly pulled herself up and into it, slamming it shut behind her.

“Thank you.”

“If you would like, you may follow the green arrows on the vent floor to the exit on your floor.”

The vent floor below her began to glow.

“Jarvis, have I ever told you how much I love you?”

“Every day, Miss Darcy.”

And Darcy began to crawl.

Once Darcy got back to her floor, she all but fell out of the vent with a sigh of relief. She wasn’t sure how Clint handled crawling through those things on a daily basis. Small spaces and Darcy did not mash well.

As she walked quietly through the common area on her floor, she peeked around corners relieved to find that she was alone. When she reached for the handle of her bedroom, she caught sight of something next to her. With wide eyes, she walked over to the once blank door just inches away from her own.

On it was a picture of Buzz Lightyear holding his detached arm in his hand.

Goddammit, Tony.

Her neighbor was her soulmate.

She reached out to touch the picture when a door slammed from the common room. With a startled yelp, Darcy ran across the hall and slipped into Jane and Thor’s room.

And that’s where she settled down for the rest of the night.

Her mind was racing. She still wasn’t sure what she was thinking. Or why she ran. So instead of facing her problems head on…. she ignored them.

And the thousands of texts she was receiving.

Natasha: малютка, we will talk about this tomorrow morning. 4 am.

Clint: hey babe, will you hold it against me if I give your soulman a stern talking to because I already wrote out a 14 page draft

Stark: yo hot stuff im not sure im cool with you being linked to mr murder but hey who am I to judge but make it known that I will let DUM-E set him on fire if he steps just one foot out of line

Bruce: I will fend as many people off as possible. Take as much time as you need.

Fury: Paperwork on Monday. I do not want to know the details.

Unknown: Ms. Lewis, it’s Steve Rogers. Captain America. Your soulmate’s- um friend. Bucky is a great guy and I hope you’ll give him a chance. He’s been through a lot. And he’s been waiting for you for such a long time.

Her soulmate was Bucky. James Buchanan Barnes. The Winter Soldier. Hydra Assassin. Captain America’s best friend. The hero she had learned about in her history classes in college.

The Howling Commands had been everybody’s favorite topic in college. And now she was bonded to one of them. She smiled. She couldn’t wait to meet him tomorrow. Her soulmate…

But tonight was her time to be alone. Tonight she was alone with her thoughts. Jane and Thor were on Asgard so the room was hers.

She quickly slipped into some pajamas she had stashed in Jane’s closet and settled herself onto the couch, flipping through the channels until she landed on one of her favorite shows. Ghost Adventures.

As the hours grew later, Darcy grew jumpier. As much as she loved this show, sometimes it got the better of her. Zak Bagan’s was currently provoking a “demonic entity” when a loud bang sounded at the door the same time a voice came through on Zak’s device. Darcy all but jumped out of her skin. She quickly leaned over and grabbed the baseball bat she had stashed under the couch and walked over to peek out the door.

Nothing.

She let out a little sigh, relaxing her arms, yet still keeping a firm grip on the bat.

“I’m going crazy. It’s nothing.”

She settled back down and continued the episode when she heard another noise. This time it was coming from the window. She had just grabbed the curtain to pull it back when the door slammed open behind her. She let out a scream and chucked the bat at the intruder, grabbing her taser out of her bra and shooting it without a second thought.

The intruder went down and Darcy’s eyes went wide as she recognized the man on the ground.

“Could you please stop shooting me?”

Darcy’s heart jumped as she shrieked, “I thought you were a ghost!”

The man pushed himself up, throwing her an incredulous look, “A ghost?!”

Darcy gestured wildly back to the TV behind her, Zak Bagan’s voice screeching out as he tried to communicate with spirits.

Bucky stood up fully, shaking his metal arm, still feeling the aftershocks of the taser.

“What the fuck kind of taser was that?”

Darcy looked sheepish, “Stark.”

“Ah.”

Then silence filled the room. Bucky eyes roamed over Darcy, taking in her Captain America pajamas and Chewbacca slippers, as she stood there trying to figure out what to say next.

“Ms. Darcy, Ms. Romanoff would like to speak to you.”

Darcy groaned, “Nope. No way. Tell her to mind her own damn business. And while we're at it….”

Darcy walked over to the closet and pulled out a broom. With a small smile at the perplexed Bucky, she put her finger on her lips asking him to be silent as she made her way over to the center of the room. She stepped up onto the couch and lifted the broom slamming it up into the ceiling.

A yelp and loud crash sounded from above and a few seconds later, a disheveled Clint’s head popped out of the ceiling’s vent.

“Fuck, Darcy!”

“You know I love you Clint so don't take this personally but please fuck off. Oh, and tell Stark to stop hacking into the room’s video feed. I’ve seen the camera light blinking for the past hour. He’s not gonna be able to get it to work. I already put up an encryption, it’ll take at least 12 hours for him to crack.”

Clint pouted to which Darcy rolled her eyes before pointing back toward his room.

“Fine.” He sulked, crawling back into the vent.

After a few seconds of silence, Darcy looked down at Bucky and motioned to her body, “Wanna give a girl a lift? I need to check and make sure he’s actually gone.”

Bucky’s eyebrow shot up as he silently stepped up onto the couch beside her. She held up her arms, her shirt rising a little. And as he placed his hands on her waist, his metal hand hit her skin and he flinched as he waited for her comment, but when she didn’t say anything, he slowly raised her up so that she could peek into the dark vent.

“We’re free!”

Bucky lowered her and she jumped down from the couch, dropping to lie back down against the fluffy couch pillows, her eyes closing with a relaxed sigh. Bucky stepped over her legs and stood awkwardly next to the couch.

Bucky cleared his throat, “So um, you can hack?”

One of Darcy’s eyes opened as she glanced up at the stiff looking man, “Nah. My computer skills started and stopped in my college computer science class. I bribed one of Stark’s tech guys. Plus Jarvis is on my side. Right man?”

“Of course, Ms. Darcy.”

“My specialties lie elsewhere.” Darcy winked.

“Specialties?”

“Need to know basis, sweetheart. You’ll find out in due time. Now sit down, you’re making me uncomfortable.”

But Bucky just backed up, “I don’t want to make you uncomfortable, doll.”

“No no no no no. I meant your tenseness. You don’t make me uncomfortable. You look like a big teddy bear. Well, a teddy bear with a metal arm. But a teddy bear nevertheless. Now, sit. Please.”

Bucky nodded and slowly made his way over to the couch, settling on the complete opposite side. Darcy spun around sitting cross-legged facing him. She stared at him expectantly as he stared at her with wide eyes. And just when he went to open his mouth, his arm spazzed below him. The taser seemed to have lasting effects. Darcy grimaced as she bent over grabbing the Swiss army knife out of her boots that were resting beside the couch. She scooted closer and grabbed his arm, placing it in her lap. She pulled out the screwdriver from the knife, and poked at his arm with it, as he looked down with amusement.

“I hope you know, I have no idea what I’m doing. I could be making this even worse.”

Bucky offered her a wide smile and Darcy responded with one of her own.

“I’m… um- sorry I ran.”

Bucky’s eyes flashed, “No doll, it’s fine. Natural reaction when you find out your soulmate is a mass murder-“

Before he could even finish his sentence, Darcy whacked him across the head with a pillow, “Excuse you. You are not allowed to use the “m” word in my house. You’re a survivor and you’re mine and Hydra will have another thing coming if they ever try to hurt you again. Understood?”

“Yes. Ma’am.”

“Darcy.”

“Yes, Darcy.”

“Good. Now, is it James or Bucky?”

“Bucky.”

Darcy nodded and held out her hand waiting until Bucky placed his in hers, “It’s lovely to meet you Bucky.”

“Nice to meet you too, doll. So you aren’t afraid of me?”

Darcy’s eyebrow shot up, “You? No. I know everything you did wasn’t you. Fucking Hydra. They suck. They kidnapped me once. Those assholes. I tased like 15 of them.”

Bucky grabbed onto Darcy’s hand, her eyes jumping up to meet his, “You were kidnapped?”

“Yeah,” She waved it off, “Don’t worry I kicked ass. Natasha and Clint got me out in like a few days. No harm done.”

“Remind me to thank the team.”

Darcy’s eyes narrowed, “I can take care of myself.”

Bucky smiled, gesturing down at his wrapped up arm and still spazzing hand, “Yeah, I figured that out, doll. But you won’t always have a weapon on you.”

Darcy jumped up, “Alright. Get up.”

Bucky stood up and faced Darcy, who was bouncing on her toes excited, “Alright. Attack me.”

“Tomorrow. In the gym.”

Darcy sighed, “Fine.”

She flopped back onto the couch, Bucky settling down beside her, much closer than before.

“Now. Getting to know each other will continue in the morning. I’m too tired for a serious conversation. So we’re gonna watch the rest of Ghost Adventures. And then bed.”

As Darcy started another episode, Bucky watched with wide eyes, “These men…. they talk to ghosts?”

“Yes.”

“I think I’m going to like the television.”

Darcy smiled at him, grabbing onto his metal hand, “This is the start of a beautiful relationship.”

The hours passed and soon it was rounding 2 am. Darcy began to nod off, her head falling to rest against Bucky’s shoulder. Silently, he reached over the back of the couch and pulled down the blanket, lying it over an almost asleep Darcy.

“You know what I learned in college?” She muttered.

“What, doll?”

“About you guys. You and Steve. Dum Dum. Gabe. Jacques. Jim. Falsworth. All of you.”

“Mhm.” He smiled, “And I was your favorite?”

“Actually, Jacques was my favorite.”

“What!”

Bucky glanced down seeing a sleeping Darcy passed out against his chest. He pulled her closer and rested his head on top of hers, drifting off into sleep right behind her.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

PART 3

#Bucky barnes #Darcy lewis #wintershock #Bucky x Darcy #Bucky x Darcy fanfiction #wintershock fanfiction #my fanfic #avengers #Natasha romanoff #Clint barton #steve rogers #tony stark #Jarvis #sam wilson #Darcy x Bucky fanfiction #DARCY X BUCKY FANFICTION

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kenbinru · 7 years

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I Can’t Believe I Have the Girlfriend of My Dreams! (An Unromantic Love Comedy LN) Chapter 5

Chapter 5

“WAHHHHHHHHHHHH”

Yuki-san was still trying to make sure I was ok.

“Why’d you do that Kazuki! Is it because you’re tired of me! You’re an idiot!”

Yuki-san holds me tighter, making it difficult for me to breathe.

“I’m fine Yuk-“ until I’m lightly punched on my arm by a weak fist.

“Ow…”

“You promised to call me by my first name remember?” and there was that cute pout of hers again.

I’m not falling for this again!

“You told me to never call you by your first name in school yesterday!” Yuki-san looked confused. She had no idea what I was talking about.

“Wait! Tell me your whole day yesterday. Every little detail you can remember.”

I explain to her my whole depressing day yesterday in detail. Every. Detail. Like for example yesterday the class president lost her glasses, and had to use a different pair that her usual ones.

“Hmm… this is strange. How could you have different memories? We have almost the exact same memories, but the only differences are our interactions.” Yuki-san was thinking intently.

“What if…and this is a big what if, but what if you are from a different dimension or something? Like from that one movie about time traveling cell phones?”

That sounded too ridiculous to be true.

This isn’t a manga or a light novel!

This is the real 3-D world.

“What! There’s no way that’s possible. Maybe.”

It did make some sense in a strange way. She did have a point, because it would explain the irregularities of our memories, but this is the same date and I wasn’t in the past or future. Time was still the same.

“Why did you fall over you idiot? You didn’t just fall over because you’re clumsy right?” as she let out a small pout.

Ignoring a witty response, I told her that I thought I was in a lucid dream.

“The feeling of falling is one of the sure ways to wake up from a dream (or a nightmare).” Akane looked even more confused.

Suddenly I feel a piecing pain on my arm when Akane pinched me with her nails.

“Ow!”

Akane laughed. “I guess you really are not dreaming are you?”

We still couldn’t figure out why our memories were different. Until Akane had a lightbulb go off in her head and grabbed a notebook to write in.

“Uh…what are you doin-“ until she shushed me. She was in a deep state of concentration, scribbling and erasing her paper intensively. It was like a machine was at work.

“Finished!” Akane turned around the paper and on it was a bunch of scribbles and pictures.

Uh...what is this?

“Look. This is a theory, but based on what you’ve told me and how our memories aligned, this would explain a lot.”

Akane went around on her chart, explaining all the details, all notably explained through cute cat-versions of ourselves.

“It seems that both worlds are relatively the same, like world events, people, etc. But the one thing for sure that’s different is our relationship status. Based on you saying you started world hopping after the accident, it coincides about the time you and I got together too. That may be the cause of your world hopping power, but correlation does not imply causation.”

I have powers now?!?

“See look, let’s assume that maybe you so have world hopping powers and can move between worlds. Let’s call the world where you and I are not a couple, World B, and let’s call this world where we are a couple, World A(kane!).”

She pointed to two drawn versions of herself, one that’s cute, and one that’s pretty scary. She was making sense for the most part and I couldn’t find any gaping holes to her logic either.

“I also have a theory that what you do with me would not carry over to this world, since I have zero recollection of me telling you not to call me by my first name, and the World B version of myself having zero recollection of our lovely amusement park date. I would also assume the same applies to me and the other world.” I snap her out of her daze of a flashback of our date to continue with her theory.

“Uh…however, it seems whatever you do with other people can carry over, meaning it affects both worlds. Interactions involving us together with other people may be different. Like in this world people wouldn’t be relatively surprised of our relationship, but will be in your world.”

So it seems I don’t have to worry about doing things twice.

Does that mean there is another me?

“For that one, I have no clue. It could be possible since there’s two of myself, but what matters is your memories transfer forward.”

It’s funny to think about another me possibly being a robot and confused that Akane is not his girlfriend, poor me.

“Continuing on, it seems that you must sleep in order to hop into the other world. Maybe there’s a loophole where you can take a nap or something, but given that you’ve slept around the same time for both worlds, there’s probably a cool-down or something. You need to sleep naturally. We can test it out later.” All of a sudden, it seemed like my life was an MMO or something.

“Finally, it seems you will always wake up in the other world. You won’t wake up in the same world twice in a row unfortunately.”

All of these rules made my life complicated in just a second. There was still one lingering question though: could this world really be a real world?

I’m still taking in this mad scientist theory concocted by Akane. It still confused me in some parts, but I think I understood the gist of it.

“To make things less complicated for you, why don’t w- uh, I mean “I” distinguish myself? So in this world, I’ll be Akane, and in your world, you can call the other me “Yuki-san”.” Akane tied a small red string in a shape of a bow to her hair also.

“See, you’ll know it’s me if I have this ribbon on.”

Akane and Yuki-san, that shouldn’t be too hard to distinguish.

“What if the other you decided to put on the same string?” Akane paused.

“She wouldn’t…not if what you said about her was true...”

I see…even though we were a couple in this world, she still has a secret or two. I felt the tension in the air and changed the subject to my question.

“So Akane, what does it mean for our worlds? Are they both real?” Akane paused again, thinking intently.

“Maybe. Your World B could be real, this World A could be real, or neither of these worlds is real. It just means that whenever you fall asleep you wake up in the other. Kind of like you’re in a dream, that just happens to be real. Maybe.”

This world is real?

There’s no way my original World B could be fake.

Could it?

Anyways, I didn’t want to think about the existential crisis. Finally Akane interrupted my train of thought again. She grabs my hands and looks into my eyes. It was as she was looking through the windows into my soul itself.

“Does it matter which world is real? All of these rules and theories are open to interpretation as far as I know! I’m just happy that I’m with you Kazuki-kun.” As she smiles again.

That bright smile of her washed away almost all my worries and doubts. There’s no way that this could be a dream. However, this world was not going to last, I’d have to go back to my original world when I eventually fall asleep. I’ll try to savor every second of my time in this world.

Akane in this world was different at school. She was cheery and full of life unlike Yuki-san. Everywhere she went she was followed by her group of fans. There’s zero chance that in this world she still had her infamous reputation as the “Ice Witch.” Instead, she seemed sort of like a royal princess or something, and I was her knight in shining armor. Daisuke and Kaneko-san seemed the same in this world too, both were idiots, both were hot heads. The Daisuke in my world would have rather gone to a warzone than be seen hanging out with Yuki-san, but somehow in this world she was liked by everyone. It makes me feel warm inside to be surrounded by my friends.

It was lunch time now, and Akane made me a boxed lunch. It was a lot of food, but she said a “growing boy needs his nutrients!” Akane managed to make hamburg steak, my favorite dish! Her box however was almost three times bigger than mine.

“Uh…is that only for her Kazuki?” whispered Daisuke.

“Apparently…”

Kaneko-san was rubbing her eyes at the sight of the enormous bento box. She and Daisuke both looked at their lunches and realized how pitifully smaller and unappetizing their meals were compared to Akane’s.

“Aww screw it! I need the nutrients as brain food!” as Kaneko-san started wolfing down her bento.

“I’ll race you Mary-chan!” said Akane.

Daisuke and I looked on as the two women were racing to see who would finish their lunch first. Kaneko-san would obviously have a bigger advantage than Akane, but it looked like Akane managed to be almost finished with her box! Kaneko-san was distracted by her rival’s ability of speed eating and stopped, since it seemed her efforts would be futile; it was not worth it to choke herself from eating quickly.

“Maybe Akane should try some food challenges or something…” said Kaneko-san.

Woah! Where does it all go?!?

Like the date we had before, eating lunch with her at the spot where I confessed to Yuki-san seemed peaceful. I couldn’t help but feel irony since this was the place where Yuki-san rejected me, but that was the other world – not this one.

It was the school bell ringing, indicating that we had to go home. I walked home with Akane, hand in hand. When we arrived at my house, mother already had a huge pot of curry brewing for us.

“Have fun kids! (But not too much!)” Was the note she written on the pot. Apparently she and my dad left for vacation, leaving both of us alone in the house together.

“Delicious” said Akane taking a mouthful of curry.

By the time I finished reading the note, she already ate half of the curry!

She still has room after lunch?!?

“Save some for me!”

It was almost the end of another perfect (albeit confusing) day, and sadly I didn’t want it to end.

I’m going to try to stay up as much as I can to be with Akane in this world.

Maybe I was being selfish, but I didn’t want to go back. Yuki-san would be there and she hates me. Here, Akane was my girlfriend, one who makes my heart flutter.

“Kazuki?” said Akane.

“Yeah, I’m still awake too.”

Akane turned on the lights anyways.

This must be what they call “pillow talk.”

“Cheer up Kazuki! Just know that when you sleep, you’ll be back to this world. I’ll be in your dreams Kazuki!”

Yeah she will, and a part of me will just have to accept that.

I’ll only have a girlfriend in my dreams…

“Wait a minute!” yelled Akane. “I just had a brilliant idea!” She seemed overly excited, you think she would have a food coma from consuming that much curry…

“Why don’t I help you get with Yuki-san from the other world?” For the first time, that was actually a good idea I understood.

“It’ll be easy! I’ll tell you all about myself. After all great minds think alike!” She was too proud of her selves.

“Ok…ok! Let me know what do you like.” I ask.

Akane was trying to hold back her rage, since I guess she hoped I would already know, but I didn’t.

“Alright, I’ll tell you a secret Kazuki: if I know myself, I’m probably still working at the maid café across town.”

“EHHHHHHHHHH?”

I couldn’t believe my girlfriend worked at a maid café!

“Hey don’t get angry! I don’t do it anymore since we’re a couple, but the pay was good when I needed it, and the customers aren’t that creepy for the most part. You just have to smile see?” There was her bright smile again.

She’s dangerous!

It seemed that job was literally the total opposite for the Ice Witch of our school. That would explain why Akane’s omelet rice was beautifully cooked with her handling of a ketchup bottle like a paint brush.

“Also! I really like cats. So if you would start talking about cats or something, I know “I” or Yuki-san would never stop talking.”

Alright!

Akane just gave me secret information. It was like having a walking strategy guide for “How to Get a Girlfriend.”

There’s no way I could fail!

I feel sleepy after that burst of energy.

*Yawn*

“Good night Akane. I’ll see you soon…”

“Good luck Kazuki-kun…”

2��?)|W(

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dawyer · 7 years

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Rittenhouse Shuffle

You shuffle along the subway platform to where you know you must exit at your destination station. You listen to the water dripping somewhere invisible to your eye. It's a Monday morning during rush hour, yet the station is so empty and quiet that you can hear the drips as loud as bombs, and even time them at 5 seconds between each one. You envision each drop dripping in your feet like your leaky faucet does in your bathtub while you're trying to bathe and clear your mind, yet it's futile. A cold, hard drip. You board the train, usually full at this hour but not today. You take not of the red and blond whiskers on a light-skinned black man's upper lip. His eyes are closed. A Haitian-looking woman clutching a large handbag, and a bum who robotically looks up and down every 2 seconds, like he is agreeing with something, with probably anything you can ask him. He is 100% with you buddy. You listen to your podcast about the latest software, Lenny the Tech Wiz Show. You arrive at your destination and walk down the three empty blocks and through a ghostly Rittenhouse Square to your office building. You take the elevator to the 15th floor. You unlock your office door and a gust of dry, stale air pushes and shoves itself into your lungs like someone sticking a funnel of sand in your mouth. You are a mouth-breather. You want to learn how to use your nose, but it seems perpetually blocked. Your office is vacant. Your start-up tech company is void of human warmth. Everyone is gone. You go to your post and you do some front-end development. That's your job title, front-end developper. The back-end developer is not there for you to consult with, so you make a list of questions, concerns and to-do's for him. Upon his return. You make yourself a coffee at the mojo java machine. You stare into space. The space you stare into is so grand, so vast without your colleagues here today. You relish in the placid office. You think that all your colleagues may have A) died or B) been taken hostage by your rival Philly company, Goya Hermanos Tech. You decide your only concern is if you do not receive your regularly scheduled direct deposit this Wednesday. You catch up on all your leftover work. You look at the whiteboard calendar to see if there are any projects to get headstarted on. You see the letters Mlk on today's square and begin to wonder what project this is. You search on your computer's network for any files named Mlk, but to no avail. You also search Milk. To no avail. You go and get another coffee and see the back-end developer's favorite coffee mug. This mug says *You can bake it after all!* with a picture of a muffin walking down the street, throwing a berret into the air. You place the cup on the platform and press LATTE instead of your regular REGULAR. You know that your counterpart loves those frothy lattes. You close your eyes and pretend that his lips are now your lips, those two pillowy sailboats rowing side by side, those lips you see everyday at work meetings, often repeating the same thing twice or thrice because you get lost in the space between them and then you ask him to repeat himself. You think he thinks you're slow. You try to bring yourself back to reality by looking down at the meeting agenda, but even then you smell the freshness of your counterpart's laundry detergent, activating the good old reveries of past work meetings. These post-lunch work meetings are always your favorite time of day, despite the post-lunch slump. Your fatigue swirls around those lovely lips like a happy twist of chocolate and vanilla trying to keep eachother cold against the nasty hot elements. Most of your coworkers assume you must get stoned out at the loading dock during your lunch break. You walk over to the L-shaped desk in the corner of the office, the one with the best view of Rittenhouse Square. You can see a large number of Philadelphians playing in the park, building snowmen or trying out cross-country skis to fulfill ambitious New Years Resolutions. You sit down at the desk and pull up the login page on the computer screen. A background featuring Cloud from Final Fantasy VII riding a bright yellow chocobo through a forest trail. Who knew a yellow-haired man on a giant yellow bird could look so sexy, you think inwardly. You type the usual office password, GANDALF1999 "Login attempt failed, 3 attempt(s) remaining," the screen flashes. You take a sip of your latte and try again, this time with BONJOUR123 "...2 attempt(s) remaining." LEOLIPS "...1 attempt(s) remaining." You stare at the screen as you take the latte, hands shaking. You scan your brain for another possible password the office uses, when you hear the front office door slowly open. You jump to your feet and, when pushing the keyboard drawer underneath the desk, bump a key. The computer's mainframe begins to beep a terrible mechanical sounding beep, the kind you know musn't be good. You don't look back though and try to look "cool" standing only a few steps away, towards the window. A man with a blue uniform enters. "Oh, hey, surprised anyone is here," he says while scratching his salt-and-pepper stubble, then begins to push a vaccuum cleaner into the room. "I hope you don't mind me," the janitor says, and begins vacuuming. He turns back towards the computer monitor, now flashing, "Override window time remaining... 22... 21..." GANDALF1999 "...19 ... 18... 17" MOONCOSMICPOWER "You have successfully logged in," the monitor flashes. You search the back-end developer's project database for the letters Mlk and Milk, to no avail. Except for a local raw milk sourcing and delivery app that he barely began, a couple years back. You get up and make another latte, then check to see if the janitor is watching (he is not, he is texting someone). You search the BE developer's personal database for an address, a photo, anything. You see a folder entitled LIFE INSURANCE and you click. You see a few topless photos of him. You think you have seen one of these photos briefly on NuLuv a while back, but you deduce that he may have blocked you or deleted that app. You stare at the photo, his dark hairy chest and big Italian arms. Despite the BE developer's small stature, his arms are immense. Like his lofty lips. Your phone rings, it is a number you do not recognize. "Hey man, it's Leo." "Oh.. hey.. hey! What's up Leo?" You say, finding the words slowly. "I called Rick, cuz I got an alert saying someone overrided the system at my post." "What? Really?" "Yeah, but Rick said he isn't there because it's Martin Luther King Day after all. Are you there?" "I went in earlier, yeah." "Did you see anything fishy at my post?" "No I just went to pick up some frozen meals I left in the fridge. I didn't know all the stores were closed today." "Meals? Ha ha whatever man. Anyways how's my favorite little fudgepacker doing these days. Go on any escapades in the Gayborhood?" "Nah, been lying low since New Years Eve. Still recovering from a hangover that seems to have lasted for weeks." "Shit you're a lightweight bro." "Thirty-year-old body ain't like it used to be. How's Christy?" "She's being her bitchy, stormy Greek self as usual. Always talking about wanting to have kids pronto or she is gonna pack up and go back to Jersey. I told her ciao, sayonara, and said some shmucks in Princeton might love to get their hands on her big ass. But she won't get the picture and sticks around." "Gotcha. Sounds like a dilemma." "Fuck she's yelling at me again. Anyway I'm not ready to get married and all that jazz. Life's too short know what I mean? Like I really like working with you and Rick, you really absorb what I'm saying and all my ideas even if you tend to zone out a lot while I'm blabbing. Anyways you guys make me feel valued, really. But her and that goddamn bio clock? Fuggadabuddit. "Yep I'm here for you man." "Alright she wants me to stop calling my 'other girlfriend' now, she always says that when I call you. Ciao bro, see you tomorrow." Click. You sit and finish your latte as you wait for the janitor to leave. The janitor says, "Happy holiday." You pull up the topless photo of Leo again and then turn in the swivel chair to face away from the door. You pull up your shirt a little, exposing your wheat belly, and pull down your pants, close your eyes, rewind and listen to Leo's saucey voice again in your head. You open your eyes, stare at those full lips like ruby slippers on either side of your member, and you pleasure yourself. Your phone rings again, but you won't answer this time. The light next to the computer monitor's camera turns bright green.

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