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spookysmujer · 3 years

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Maraschino pt.2, O. Diaz

Summary: After the rejection from Oscar, things seems to take you on a roller coaster ride.

warnings: angst, f e e l s, theTEAbeenSPILLED ☕️ daddy issues

word count: 3.5K

a/n: Here is the highly requested part 2 of Maraschino! I had fun writing this though if it is trash it’s because I wanted to hurry and get it out for y’all since I been getting msgs. heh. But Ray? Whew chile, the ghetto! Part 3? Please enjoy and don’t forget: follow the blog, heart/comment/reblog the content as well as turn on the notifs! (Y/S/N: your sister’s name)

(gif belongs to @thesewickedhands ✨)

“Have a wonderful day!”

God, why is the person yelling? You smile weakly and squeeze your eyes nearly shut as the sun is blazing down on you while you say your thanks and exit the uber. The throbbing of your head and the loud lawnmower from one of your neighbors has you internally cursing.

How did you end up like this? Granted this was the plan last night to go out and have a good time, you certainly did not expect to be doing such a thing. You never let yourself get to this point before. But you also never got denied like you did with Spooky last night. A shiver goes through your body as you think of him. You won’t let him infiltrate your mind no more.

“Y/N!” Your sister’s voice sounds frantically as you round the corner of the house.

Well there goes your plan to sneak in through your window to pretend you were in your room all along. She wraps your arms around you, gluing herself to your body causing you to stumble back a bit. “You are a dead woman walking!” She whispers to you as you arch an eyebrow at her.

As confused as you were, José appears from around the corner taking long strides towards you. His face sports no emotion of missing you but a lot of anger. It causes you to automatically back up the closer his approaches you. Your sister has since removed herself from you as your brother is now in your face.

You blink as you peer up at him, “Where the fuck have you been, hermana? You know how much shit you are in, hm? I get a call from Y/S/N saying you aren’t home. I assure her you would be and when she calls me at 6 in the morning telling me that you still aren’t in? You left a note?”

“José! Calmate, I went out with a friend. And I spent the night. What’s the big deal about that?” You briefly explain yourself. He laughs for a moment before grabbing you by your upper arm and pulling you towards your sister. Now it’s her turn to start backing up, “Ven aqui, her! That’s the big deal. When I ask you to be the sister you need to be, I don’t mean when you feel like it. You know the Santos have been getting into heavy shit lately. I need you here when I’m not!”

The tension is thick as you pull your arm from his hold and push him, “But when you wanna go and do whatever it’s okay? When you wanna hitch a ride with Spooky to Sin City with dirty ass hynas last week, it’s all good. Business trip, huh? Don’t come for me when you are far from perfect!”

The two of you are both very stubborn with your brother usually being calm and collected while you’re more expressive with your feelings. Family is important to him especially considering it’s just the three of you. Jose scoffs as you stomp away from him and your now crying sister.

Oscar suddenly appears in front of you as round the corner and collides with his body. He reaches out to grasp you before you can stumble back, the feelings hitting you all at once, “What are you doing here?” You swallow thickly.

He licks his bottom lip as his eyes rake over your body. Still in your dress from last night, hair unruly and make-up smudged. Anyone can spot a ‘walk of shame’ when they see one. He laughs internally thinking of how you wasted no time after last night’s rejection.

“I offered to drive him when little hermanita called up again worried you weren’t home yet. Seems we know why now.” A small grin painted across his lips, you squint your eyebrows at his words as you hear your brother approaching the two of you. You step back before Spooky migrates his eyes to behind you, “We got business, everything good here?”

José nods and steps beside you, “Don’t be leaving.”

The two guys leave as you stand there a bit dumbfounded. Y/S/N appears next to you and grabs your hand. She apologizes for you getting into trouble with José. You want to yell at her for starting unnecessary drama. But she explains she didn’t want your brother to potentially find out about your little sneaky link with Spooky.

“Well, he and I ended that shit so nothing to worry about. I went out and got wasted. I am done with these guys. No más!” Though even sounding like fake news to yourself, you go and wash off last night’s memories.

As the day had gone by, you skimmed through your daily journal of all the entries you wrote about Oscar ‘Spooky’ Diaz, ripping them out. All 6 pages. You roll your eyes at your thoughts about him, some sappy and some nasty. How did you believe a man who runs a street gang, that is as mean mugging as Oscar the Grouch from Sesame Street, would be into you the way you are him?

It didn’t matter the answer now. Good riddance of him! That’s when the sound of your window opening pulls you from the wandering thoughts. You stand up quickly, reaching for a bat that’s besides your bed. “Get the fuck out!”

“Calmate! It’s me, Oscar.”

You clutch your chest, doubling over to catch your breath. “What is wrong with you? Ever think of flying a pebble at the window or calling first?” You say as he climbs in, adjusting his flannel before closing the window then your room door. You watch him as he starts to look around your room. Though there’s a part of you that wants him out, you haven’t made any advances to get him out.

He sits on your bed and finally looks at you, “Abajo.”

Uncompliant, you cross your arms and shift your weight to make it known you are fine standing there. He smirks and looks away before locking eyes with you. “You don’t think I like you too? You think I fucked with you for this long cause it was just convenient? Girls everywhere around my place but I was only fucking you. Why do you think that?”

“Is this supposed to be your sweet confession that makes me go all heart eyes? You're gonna apologize and I’m supposed to forgive you and then we give us a try and realize all our worries were nothing but fear that our anxiety instilled in our heads? Because that’s not how it’s gonna go.” You say as he gives you a semi-disgusted look.

You chuckle softly and watch him intently.

Oscar analyzes you closely. It’s a front, no doubt he thinks. He doesn’t deny the thought that you are a thick-skinned woman. He knows you have a superior mind and a mouth to go with it but he knows there is no way that you could’ve gotten over him that quick. Though judging by your appearance earlier in the day, you definitely tried.

You laugh a little more as you step in front of him and lean over to get your vision in line with his. “You made it clear to me and now I’m making it clear. Nothing you say will convince me that you give a rat’s ass about me. If you really did? There would be no sneaky link shit. You wouldn’t have a problem with people knowing about me, or my brother knowing but it is a problem so get out.”

This ticks Ocscar off a bit. He stands which makes you straighten up as he gets in your face, stepping towards you. You are stepping back slowly as he creeps more, “You think you can handle this lifestyle? The constant threats, the territories? You can’t. When it comes to this kind of life, something like love can be the bane of your existence. So we don’t get into it. We don’t get involved because the people we fall for end up dead.”

You’re pressed with your back against the wall and your chests against each other. Oscar’s eyebrows are connected and he’s staring at your agape mouth. His breath is fanning against your lips, emotions hitting you all at once. “I-I slept with someone last night. Got it good too.”

The jealous tactic seems to fail immediately as Oscar laughs. And for some reason the look of amusement on his face seems to be familiar for a reason you can’t seem to figure out.

“Sleeping around is simple, falling for someone is something else entirely. I’m not saying that we jump into something. But at least you know now it’s not just one-sided.” He steps out of your room. You follow and watch him walk down the hall as Y/S/N stands there. She is stunned seeing Oscar nonchalantly trek through the house.

You don’t know what to say. As you look at your little sister, you sigh in defeat trying to explain this one. Instead you go back into your room and shut your door. You got what you wanted, right? But you still feel like something is missing.

The week had slowly crept on.

A few shifts at the bodega, classes at the community college and life at home. Jose had basically converted you back to your teenage ways. Making sure you were doing your part in parenting your little sister. Friday night Y/S/N wanted to have Dwayne’s BBQ for dinner and since your social life is drier than your skin, you agree.

The thought of a BBQ bacon cheeseburger lifts your mood which has been dragging throughout the week. Your sister happily skips into the restaurant as you trail behind slowly, when you enter you look for her and see she chatting up with Dwayne.

“Y/N!” José calls out and your vision unfocuses from them onto your brother and pile of Santos in a booth. They all look your way including Oscar. You exhale a deep breath through your nose as you put on a fake smile and wave before stepping up to place an order.

Your brother approaches you as you look past him to the booth of Santos, “Didn’t know you guys would be here.” He sets down a $20 bill on the counter when the cashier tells you the total. “Foos gotta eat too.” José starts talking to you about something but your focus falls back on Spooky again. You watch as he stands and makes his way towards you. A small panic sets in your chest but fades away as he ends up exiting the BBQ joint.

Unknowingly to yourself, your watch as he walks to his car. He leans against it and pulls out a cigarette, no matter how hard you try to avert your eyes from him, you can’t. All week you had been doing fine. Even with the little things reminding you of him, even with the memories that have been seeped into your bed. You didn’t dwell too much on thinking of him until you see him now.

“Talk to him.”

It’s just like the movies where the car tires come to a screeching halt and there’s the obnoxious crashing sound. You move your eyes to your brother’s. Did he just say what you think he said? “Talk to him? Spooky, what for? Why would I need to talk to him?”

Jose chuckles, “Hermana, I had my suspicions about you two. Then he told me bout it, he acts like it doesn’t bother him much but it does so go talk to him. Yeah, I’m not so thrilled that he’s messing around with my baby sister. I know how he is but I know he wouldn’t do anything to intentionally hurt you so I’m cool with it. So go talk to him, figure that shit out because I’m getting over you moping around the house.”

You push him away as you look back to the red impala. After a moment of contemplating it, you decide to head out and approach Oscar, he had his eyes on you since he settled by his car. You lean on it besides him and cross your arms, “You told my brother?”

He smirks and shrugs his shoulders. You try your best to keep the smug look off your face. He holds out the cigarette, you take it and inhale. Coughing a bit as the smoke burns your throat a little. You hand it back and sigh, turning to look at him.

“I like you, you like me. I’m not saying we jump into something… but why not?” You question as he exhales some smoke, you lock your eyes into his, “You ain’t cut for this lifestyle, you would be a liability. Plus your brother in my line of work? That makes him vulnerable as well. It woul--”

You groan loudly which quiets him mid-rant, “Drugs, alcohol and money do all the same things to him too. You see how he is when he gets wasted. There are so many things that make you all vulnerable. If he can make it work with the hyna he’s with, then you can make it work with me. Plus I know this lifestyle more than you think. I know when and where to be and not to be. I know who to know and who not to know. I know things! So don’t act all big bad Spooky to me.”

Now standing directly in front of him and he’s peering down at you. He dips his face lowers and looks at your lips as you look at his. In no time your lips are connected. Oscar slides his hands over your waist, gripping it and pushing you flush against him. You bring your hands to cup his face, letting your tongue slip into his mouth. A full on make-out session breaks out.

As if you didn’t dream of something like this happening you smile into the kiss, pulling away, “You get into this with me, it’s not gonna be glitter and gold. This shit is tough, I can’t be worrying about the things I already do plus you.” You nod and kiss him again, wringing your arms around his neck, he hugs you and feels calm for the first time in a while.

So you enjoy the night more than you thought you would be. With your siblings and the Santos at Dwayne’s. After a night of chatting, Oscar asks you to come back to his place. And well since it isn’t your first rodeo, you agree and send Y/S/N home with José.

You don’t keep your hands off him while heading back to his place, you are pressed against him and kissing his neck, he is loving every moment of it. The both of you get out to head into the house but the mood is killed when you walk in to find Cesar and his friends on the couch who get frightened due to the scary movie playing on the TV.

Oscar cursing under his breath, “Can’t you watch movies at some else’s house?” You elbow him as he rolls his eyes. But Cesar didn’t want to start anything with his older brother so he asks Jamal if they can continue watching at his house. Soon after the house is empty and quiet again. The two of you settle on the couch, you straddling him and pulling your top off.

“Yo! There’s someone posted up outside!” Cesar suddenly bursts through the door which causes Oscar to push you off him and reach for his gun. He tells the younger Diaz, his friends and you to stay put as he checks out the fool that runs up on the Santo trap house. You scramble to put your shirt back on and curse when Cesar trails after his brother. You follow in pursuit, trying to tell Cesar that Oscar said to stay inside. “Who is that?”

“Ray?” You say out loud though you thought you were just thinking it.

Oscar turns to you when you say the name of none other than his estranged father. You look to both Ray and Oscar, looking at the two men and making the connection. You feel the color get sucked out of your face, oh fuck.

“You know him, who is he?” Cesar asks you and he looks at Oscar. The Santo leader has his eyes on you and is still confused as to how the hell you know his father. “He’s our father.” Oscar says, still looking at you.

The confirmation makes you want to be obliterated right in your very spot. This can’t be happening! Is it? You try to speak but nothing comes out of your mouth. You finally look to Ray who has a small smirk on his face and that’s why that look Oscar had on his face that day seemed so familiar. You saw it that night you went out of town to have a good time.

“Hola de nuevo, pequeña coyote.” Ray says looking at you.

You grimace as Oscar connects the dots himself. The amount of heat that settles into your face along with the gasps from Cesar’s friends don’t make it any easier to bear.

“Wait Oscar, wait!” He is stepping towards his father, ready to charge. “I didn’t know he was your dad! Listen to me, please!” You step forward quickly and pull his arm back, he yanks it out of your grasp quickly as you plead for him to listen to you.

Oscar begins to snap at you, “Him? This is who you slept with and you want me to listen to explain? Huh?!” The anger booms in his voice as he is mere inches from your face. Cesar appears next to you trying to get between the two of you. You didn’t think Oscar could ever get so mad. And you have seen the Santo leader in moments of rage before.

“Mijo, listen..”

Ray’s voice sounds from behind Oscar now. He turns and wastes no time in welcoming him with a right hook. His father stumbles back as you gasp along with the sounds from the teens. “Oscar!”

You take the initiative to stand between the two of them, holding out a hand against Oscar’s chest as he is heaving and exuding anger. Ray is mending to his jaw as he stands up. You notice the lights of the neighbor had turned on and people were beginning to pile outside of their homes to see all the commotion.

“Oscar just stop and listen to me for one fucking second! No, I did not sleep with Ray. We did get together that night, yes but we didn’t do anything that involves other body parts. I started going off about you with him, I vented and we spent the night drinking. I got too wasted and he offered to let me spend the night in his motel room. Nothing happened!” You release in one breath.

Everyone looks at you, unable to make sense of the situation.

“That’s why I came, when she mentioned things about you, I had to come see for myself if what niña said is true. That you’re running the Santos.” The two men stare at each other as you stand in the middle. Your heart is racing.

Oscar doesn’t say anything as he looks back and forth between his father and you. When you step towards him and reach out to grab his hand, he raises his hand up in defense and steps back. You can see the glint of hurt in his eyes as he backs away from you. Your eyes pleading for him to try to understand everything.

You trail behind a fuming Oscar into his house, you are nearly jogging when you catch up with him. But he steps into his room and slams the door in your face. You step back and sigh. “Please talk to me…Oscar. Nothing happened, you have to believe me.”

He doesn’t respond as you rest your head on his door. You hold your hands on the door silently cursing yourself. What could you say that made the situation sound better? How could you make it look like it really was nothing even with Ray right there?

A few moments have passed by when the door opens, a still very upset Oscar stands there as he flies forwards a bunch of crumbled paper at you. You watch as the papers fall to your feet and he slams the door in your face again. No context of nothing.

When you pick up the papers, it’s drawings of you. Portraits sketched out from a ballpoint pen. Some dated as far back as a month ago to as recent as a few days ago. Oscar drew you. He did so multiple times and in such craft it takes your breath away.

You feel the tears begin to well in your eyes. The pain that you have caused him. How do you fix this?

taglist: @clemmingstylins0n @fairygardenss@princesstiffxoxo@firebenderwolf @spookysnena @mbaku-babygirl @chellybear98@multiyfandomgirl40 @i-just-wanna-live-gc@roury66 @kkim120 @lillict @tinylumpiaa @prettymya3@starrynite7114 @onmyspookysblock @aneitii @b3mybunnybaby @angelxfics @spookysbabymama @ladylj @vayagrxce @irenne-stans @boujee-bitches (please let me know if you want to be added or removed!)

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maliceinborderland · 3 years

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From Here, to the Moon, and Back

Summary: A collection of moments in Niragi’s journey raising his daughter alone.

Word Count: 7,066

Warnings: brief mentions of character death(reader is deceased), mentions of depression, bit of swearing

Genre: Single Dad Niragi AU, oofc Niragi, slight angst, slice of life, fluff, some crack ig?

**oofc : out of character

A/N: this took me FOREVER to post. I wanted to make this MUCH longer and go more into detail as well as provide more dialogue but this new post restrictions are killing me. I might turn this into a mini series in which y’all give me prompts and I write more extensive scenarios depicting those situations/prompts. ALSO: the depiction of Niragi in this fic is akin to what I believe his behavior outside of the borderlands. **spoiler** he is nothing like his borderlands self in the real world, and he doesn’t even remember his action that took place there nor did they actually happen as they occurred in a different plane of existence **end of spoiler**

A soft, whimper snapped Niragi out of his slumber. He slowly sat up in bed, strands of his unruly hair falling over his eyes. The whimpering continued as he got up and walked to the crib by the window.

He stared at Tsuki as she wriggled about, her cheeks bright pink and small droplets forming at the brims of her wide eyes. She stared up at him, her lip quivering, not yet crying.

“What gives?” he said, quietly, more to himself than to her.

Niragi checked her diaper to see if she needed changing. Clean and dry.

He went to the changing station next to the dresser, fetching a clean bottle, formula, and a bottle of water. Already second nature, he prepared a bottle for her. He made his way back to the crib, nudging the bottle’s nipple against Tsuki’s mouth, to no avail.

“Come on, kid.” he mumbled. “We both need to sleep and you’re not exactly helping me out here.” He sighed and found her pacifier somewhere by her feet. Oddly enough, she suckled on it no problem.

What a weird kid, he thought, shaking his head.

He let her lay there, hoping she’d end up falling asleep. He made his way back to his own bed, throwing himself face down onto the mattress, releasing a deep breath.

A few minutes later, having felt like seconds, Tsuki began to softly whimper again.

Niragi groaned into his pillow. Just one night of peace and quiet. That’s all he wanted.

He debated on letting Tsuki cry it out as he had been. Deep down he knew it was wrong, but he just didn’t know how to go about this parenting business.

Tsuki’s whimpers rose in volume, her whimpering becoming full fledged cries, and hopelessness began to overwhelm him.

Niragi crawled out of bed once again, and loomed over her crib, his breath heavy, teeth clenched. His fingers curled over the rails of the crib, his knuckles white. Tsuki’s cries continued, and Niragi felt himself starting to completely lose it. His breathing became shallow and heavy, and he felt lightheaded.

He sunk to the floor, his back against the railing of the crib, tired out of his mind. His eyes ached and throbbed from lack of sleep, eyelids heavy, and his body felt like it was being weighed down from exhaustion.

He just wanted to rest. Just a little bit.

He wanted to go numb.

He wanted to feel nothing.

He wanted everything to stop.

Just a few moments of peace and quiet was all he wanted. He just wanted to sleep and forget the reality he was condemned to live in.

He didn’t know what he did to deserve this, what sins he committed that he was atoning for now.

Stop… just stop… be quiet…. he thought.

He pressed the palms of his hands against his ears, covering them.

Be quiet, he begged silently. Please just be quiet.

Tears began to threaten to fall from his own eyes.

If she was here, she’d know what to do, he thought. She should be here.

Tsuki’s cries became piercing and impossible to drown out.

Niragi stood up almost too quickly, stumbling slightly over his own feet, and leaned over the crib railing.

“What? What?! WHAT?!” He asked, a little too loudly. “You’re not messy. You’re not hungry. You won’t sleep. Just what the fuck is wrong with you?!”

Tsuki’s cries hushed, and the baby girl looked up at him eyes wide, her lip quivering.

Whether she stopped crying to listen to him or because she was afraid of him, Niragi couldn’t tell.

Tears began to spill down his face.

“I’m trying. I’m fucking trying.” He cried. “I don’t know what to do. Do you think I wanted this? No! I wasn’t even ready for kids! But your mom…” his voice broke, “your mom wanted you so bad. And I went along with what she wanted. Mommy always got what she wanted, and now look! She’s not even here! How fucked is that?!” Sobs began to bubble up from his throat. “How could she leave like that?” He rested his head against the railing, allowing himself to let it all out. He didn’t care how loudly the sobs ripped out of his throat, he just couldn’t hold back.

The whimpering began again, and he looked at the baby girl with his piercing eyes.

“What? What do you want?!” He yelled, and Tsuki became silent once more as she stared up at her father, their gazes connecting.

He looked over her. She’d grown quite a bit in the past few weeks. Her downy hair had thickened, and was nearly a full head of dark, raven colored hair. Her milky skin was tinged bright pink from her crying, especially near her eyes and cheeks. But his heartstrings tugged as he looked deep into her eyes. Your eyes. Sure, they resembled his eye shape more, but the gaze, color, lashes, and depth… that was all you.

She stared up at him so intently and after what seemed like an eternity, Niragi felt like he understood.

“You just want someone to hold you, huh?” A stray tear fell from his right eye. Carefully, he did his best to lift Tsuki out of the crib, her whimpers shushing altogether. “That’s all you wanted, huh? It’s what you needed?” He felt a knot form in his throat again, and more tears began to fall. “Me, too.” He gingerly caressed her cheek, his scarred hands a huge contrast compared to her soft, unblemished skin.

How could he have been so careless?

He hadn’t been the only one hurting.

He wasn’t the only one who missed you.

Slowly, Niragi began to softly rock her back and forth in his arms as he paced around the room.

“You wanna know how Mommy and I met? Hm?” He asked her. “We met at a support group. There was an accident a few years ago in Shibuya, and your mommy and I got caught in the middle of it. That’s how I got all these scars, you know? Your mommy had some, too, but she was still the most beautiful person in the room. Always.” He smiled down at Tsuki, who had begun to coo quietly. “She asked me out first, too. I thought she wasn’t serious, but she was. My scars aren’t so bad right now, but they were back then. She still saw something in me, though. Something worth loving. We loved each other a lot.” Tsuki took hold of Niragi’s finger, squeezing it tightly. Niragi went on to tell her several stories of how he and you started off your relationship, your milestones as a couple, and even your wedding. “When your mom told me she was pregnant, I was scared shitless, but you know what? We loved each other. And it’s because we loved each other that you exist. You were made out of love, Tsuki.” Niragi stood by Tsuki’s crib, where moonlight from the window began to pour in.

He shifted the curtain open a bit more, the moon coming more into view. “You see the moon? That’s where mommy is, along with all the stars in the sky. And you wanna know what else? There’s a famous quote about it. ‘月が綺麗ですね(Tsuki ga kirei desu ne?).’ You know what it means? It means ‘the moon is beautiful, isn’t it?’ But you know something really cool? It’s that some people use this phrase to tell each other they love each other. Like their love is so true and obvious just like how there’s no doubt in the moon being beautiful. That’s why we named you ‘Tsuki,’ you know?”

Tsuki cooed curiously at the repetition of her name, but her eyelids began to flutter with sleepiness.

“For us, your mom and I, nothing was more certain than our love for each other and our love for you.” He gave her a sad smile, shifting his weight as he lay himself on the bed, with her resting on his chest. Tsuki wriggled a bit as she settled into the unfamiliar position but ultimately sighed with content.

Niragi did his best to find a position ideal for the both of them without jostling her too much and being as gently as he could, so as to not disturb Tsuki. He looked down at her and he was met with her tired gaze. Tsuki sighed deeply, bewildering Niragi completely, because frankly, he didn’t know babies could make such deep gestures. The corner of his mouth lifted. She was a weird baby, indeed.

He felt her muzzle up against his chest, cooing quietly. He chuckled softly, his fingers twitched and he reached his hand up to place the palm of his hand over her small back, lightly patting. He’d seen people do it in movies to try and coax babies to sleep, but he’d only ever done this action when trying to burp her, so he figured he ought to give using it to put her to sleep a shot. Niragi watched Tsuki’s eyelids flutter shut with a deep exhale.

She had been tired, too.

Niragi felt his heart swell at how Tsuki looked as she slept. The way her lashes lay flat against her cheeks, how her lower lip pouted out in her sleep. If he focused hard enough, he could feel the light thrumming of heart against his chest.

This little girl was his world.

“I love you, you know? I love you so much, Tsuki.” he hummed, as he gently rubbed circles on her back. “From here, to the moon, and back.”

Niragi had done his best to figure out how to manage on his own, doing his best to limit the amount of phone calls he made to either Usagi or Arisu with panicked parenting questions.

Tsuki was a relatively easy baby to take care of. She was quiet for the most part, only becoming fussy when she was hungry or sleepy. Her sleep schedule seemed to have adjusted to Niragi’s, as he had found that the kid could only really fully fall asleep if she slept on his chest. Sometimes he took advantage of her midday nap to catch a few Zs himself.

Niragi also found that she didn’t particularly like not having him where she could see him. She was a clingy little freak. He didn’t mind having her around though, and would often sit her on his lap while he worked at his desk. Sometimes he’d offer commentary as to what he was doing to the games he was working on, or what he’d fixed to make them run smoother. He knew Tsuki didn’t understand, but when she’d gurgle or make baby noises while he talked, he almost felt like she was responding to his conversation. Whenever he’d play video games himself, he’d still keep her on his lap and he found it amusing how entranced she’d become by all the colors and flashing lights coming from the monitor. Cutely, she’d giggle and kick her feet whenever Niragi would voice his excitement in the games he was playing. Clearly she found him entertaining.

When it came to eating, there wasn’t anything Tsuki wouldn’t eat. Except peas. She really hated peas. The one time he tried feeding her pea Gerber, she ate it just fine, only to spit it all back up on one of his only white t shirts. He assumed the experience of having to eat such an atrocious mash traumatized the poor kid because when he tried feeding them to her again, she just about slapped the pack out of his hand and refused to open her mouth to accept the spoon, even if he made airplane noises. She usually got a kick out of those.

Still. Niragi learned quickly.

He had come across a baby book you had put together with spaces left blank for pictures and writing, meant to document Tsuki’s milestones. He’d made sure to keep it up to date as much as he could. He’d managed to capture pictures of the first time she tried solid food(which was really just a piece of fruit she tried sucking on), the stunned look on her face when she’d gone to get her vaccines and to his surprise she did not cry, he also captured the first time she sat up on her own, and another where she was midway to rolling on to her back, one where she was aggressively nibbling on her foot, he also included a few selfies in which he’d caught her tugging on his nose ring or one of his many ear rings. The kid liked shiny things. He knew that you’d have gone crazy trying to fill the book up, wanting to capture every moment.

At 9 months old, Tsuki learned how to crawl. The way Niragi found this out was rather unconventional.

He could have sworn he set her down in the living room. On the carpet right in front of the TV. He knew exactly. Why was there no baby there? All he’d done was leave her there for 5 minutes while he answered the door to receive and sign for a package and as soon as he’d come back she was gone. There was no one else in the house. She couldn’t have moved on her own.

Could she?

“Tsuki?” He began to call out.

Nearly tripping over his own feet, Niragi ran through the kitchen, checking under the table, inside the pantry, nothing. He continued to call out to her, staying quiet enough to try and listen for a response, but nothing ever came. His socks slid across the floor as he ran into the nursery. A few toys were laying on the floor but no baby in sight. He poked his head into the bathroom, checking behind the clothes hamper, and inside the bathtub, with no luck. He checked the laundry room, inside the clothes baskets, inside the washer and dryer, hoping she hadn’t crawled in there.

Thankfully, she did not, but still he had not found her.

“Listen, kid, your papa’s not really into hide and seek, so if you’re hiding, you best come on out before I totally lose my shit.”

He ran to his room, this time stumbling onto his knees before running into it only to see that it was perfectly empty. He grabbed his phone from the nightstand and dialed.

“Hello? Niragi?” Her voice sounded tired, almost as if she was just waking up.

“KUINA! I NEED YOUR HELP!” He was beginning to panic.

“Sheesh! Not so loud, you’re gonna busy my eardrums!”

“It’s Tsuki! I can’t find her anywhere.”

“Where’d you leave her? Are you sure your mom or Yuzuha didn’t pick her up?” Her tone was a little too cavalier for his taste, especially in the situation he found himself in.

“I left her in the living room, and I left to answer the door, and when I came back she was gone! I looked everywhere! The kitchen, the bathroom, my bedroom, her bedroom, the laundry room, the fucking closets.”

“Did you leave your back door open? Could anyone have gone inside at any point?” Her voice sounded more awake, now assessing the situation.

“Yes! It’s locked and dead bolted. No one’s been in here other than me and her, so unless someone climbed through a fucking window-“

“Okay, smartass, just check the rooms again. UNDER the furniture this time. Maybe she crawled under somewhere.”

“I told you I checked everywhere!” He checked under his bed, just in case, to find nothing. He walked through the rooms again, looking under furniture, to no avail. “The kid’s gone! I’ve got to call the police and make a report-“ he got to the end of the hallway and noticed the door to his study was slightly ajar, a faint glow coming from the dark room. No...

“What are they gonna do? You said no one’s been in or out of your house. God, how irresponsible could you have been to leave a baby on her own, Niragi?”

“Kuina, I’ll call you right back.”

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOULL CALL ME BA-” he hung up, cutting her off.

He walked into his dimly lit office, the faint glow of the tv he kept in there lightly lighting up the room.“Tsuki?”

He heard a soft mumbling coming from the room, and as he moved further inside, he saw his daughter on standing while holding on to the couch. She turned her little head to face him, his game controller in her hands, before letting herself fall back on her behind to sit on the floor.

“Uhhuh banana pplllbt,” she mused in her baby speak. Without so much as a glance his way, she began to chomp down on the controller with her gums.

“God damn it, kid!” He groaned in frustration. And relief. He sunk to the floor, running his hands through his hair, breathing shakily. “Holy shit.”

This caught Tsuki’s attention, and she released the controller to crawl his way. Despite his racing heart and frustrations, Niragi watched in awe as his little girl crawled his way. She giggled and squealed as she did so, clearly excited that she had learned something new. As soon as she got to where his legs were, she sat up and outstretched her little arms up at him, asking to be picked up, to which Niragi obliged. He held his little girl close to him, gently combing down her unruly hair. “You really had me scared for a minute, kid.” Tsuki cooed up at him. “Yeah. How’d you learn to move around like that, huh?”

He knew she was around the right age to start moving around, but he hadn’t really mentally prepared for it to actually happen. He did his best to read all the books and guide her so that she stayed at the same pace as other babies, but he still found himself in awe when she succeeded. All of the reading in the world, however, didn’t prepare him for what she did next. She bounced on his lap, reaching up to touch her baby hands up to his face. “Paaa... paaa... baba..”

His eyes widened. She mumbled things all the time. Ma, ba, ga, goo, all sorts of noises. But that felt a little too... smart. She had looked right at him, pointed at him and everything, and said what sounded like papa. That was too much of a coincidence. “Kid, you can’t play with Papa’s emotions like that. I’m not ready.”

“Papapa?” She repeated, smacking her little hand on his face.

“Are you seriously saying what I think you’re saying? Or am I crazy? I’m crazy aren’t I?”

“Papa!” She called out, giggling.

“Oh for fuck’s sake.” He held his little girl close, doing all he could to not cry.

Niragi learned that Tsuki didn’t like strangers. She wouldn’t get too fussy, but she hid in the crook of his neck whenever they were out and she didn’t recognize the people that approached them.

She also got visibly excited when she did recognize people. Especially Kuina, or “koo” as she managed to say. Y/N had told her early on in the pregnancy that she hoped Kuina would be the baby’s godmother, and this was a role she took very seriously, always coming to visit with tons of toys and clothes. Kuina’s mother also deeply grew to love Tsuki, often sending food and side dishes with Kuina for them. Tsuki wasn’t particularly fond of her doctor, Dr. Chishiya. Matter of fact, she often kicked or smacked his hands away whenever he tried checking her, and only really let him do anything if he bribed her with candy. One time, he tried carrying her to put her on the baby scale, and pulled on his hair right at the root, causing him hand her over back to Niragi and say “I don’t need to check. She’s healthy enough,” whilst rubbing at his head.” Niragi noticed that the doctors and nurses made a point of tying their hair up whenever Tsuki was around for an appointment.

“Serves him right for prancing around with that mane of his. He reminded you of one of your dolls, didn’t he, Tsuki?” Niragi didn’t quite like him either at first, but the doctor had understood their situation and made himself available 24/7, which led to Niragi considering him as a family friend, much to the doctor’s chagrin.

“She can call me Uncle Shuntaro.” He had said whilst visiting the Niragi home after Tsuki had a late night fever. Despite her little attitude, Dr. Chishiya had developed a sort of liking to the kid. She had character, he thought.

“She can barely say Papa, and you expect her to say that mouthful, Shuntaro?” Niragi asked, incredulously.

Chishiya eyed him coldly with his feline eyes. “I said SHE could call me that. Not you.”

As Tsuki’s first birthday approached, no one really knew how to ask Niragi on whether they’d be having a birthday party for her. After all, it wasn’t just Tsuki’s birthday. It also marked the first year anniversary of you being gone. He had done his best to not think about it, even with the lack of prompting from the others, but this was something he still kept in mind. Birthdays only came once in a lifetime, but then again, so did a love like the one you and he had shared. How could he celebrate one while ignoring the other, or have a service for you and not doing anything for his daughter. He loved you both more than life itself.

He came up with a plan to try and do both. He wanted to make it a day for you both. So, Niragi had packed a bag for Tsuki and taken her on a tour of all the places the two of you frequented as a couple.

He took her to the arcade the two of you had gone on your first date, telling her of how you’d kissed his cheek when he managed to get the high score on the Alien FPS game. He took her to the cafe the two of you had often gone to during your lunch hours, and even fed her a bit of the filling from the egg sandwich you used to like so much. He found that Tsuki liked it a lot too. He took her to the botanical gardens. You had absolutely loved flowers and the two of you had gone almost every weekend. He took her to the zoo and made a point to take her to the aquatic exhibits and tell her how much you loved water animals, especially how “mama loved how cute the seals looked when they bounced all over the place.” He made sure to buy Tsuki a white seal plush at the gift store. He took her to an old video store, where the two of you often found yourselves on boring nights without much to do and had filled the void with movies. He bought copies of a few of your favorites, along with a few of his, making a mental note to watch them with Tsuki when she was old enough. Lastly, he took her to the carnival. He didn’t play any games, but he walked by them and told Tsuki all about which ones the two of you would play together. He told her about how he couldn’t explain how, but the two of you had always been drawn to this place and how free you both felt being here, almost as if you’d been there together in another life. He showed her the old swinging pirate ship and he told Tsuki about how it was your favorite ride and how one time you rode it so many times that you ended up puking cherry icee all over the side of the ride. He’d never seen so many people run away screaming. Niragi took Tsuki to the photo booth, and told her about how you had both gotten the idea to kiss each other on the cheek at the same time and ended up kissing each other for the first time on accident. The second one that came after wasn’t. He took her on a ride on the Ferris wheel, doing his best to hold her tightly and show her the view. He told her about after 3 years of dating, he had asked you to marry him at the very top.

Tsuki had smiled a lot throughout the day, notably whenever he used the words “mama” and “papa,” this didn’t go unnoticed by Niragi, and he felt partially guilty. He felt like maybe he should be talking to her about you more, but some days it was too much.

The ride home was a quiet one, other than for Tsuki’s babbling in the backseat as she tried to sing along to the faint music from the radio. He peeked at her through the rear view mirror. She was really starting to look like you. As she grew, her hair had gotten longer, and aside from his hair color, the texture resembled yours. Her eyes, although the shape resembling his, were the same color as yours. She had his nose, but her lips were yours. She was the perfect combination of you both with just the right amount of your features to ease his mind that the image of you wasn’t totally lost. He missed you. A lot. You had blessed him with a daughter, and he knew she was not meant to fill the void he had in his heart, but having her around really eased some of his pain.

As he approached the dark house, he spoke. “You know,” he began, Tsuki’s face perking up to look at him. “Back when Mama was around... I used to come home and the lights would be on.” She gurgled in response. “I’d go in and tell her I was home, and she’d always be there to welcome me. She always had dinner just about done by the time I came home from the office.” Tsuki hummed. “This is a house. But your Mama made it feel like a home.” Niragi pulled into the driveway, and with a heavy sigh gathered Tsuki out of her car seat and her souvenirs. He fumbled with his keys only to find that the door was unlocked. “That’s fucking weird,” he thought out loud. “I could have sworn I locked it...” He stepped inside, feeling the wall for the light-switch, only for his hand to touch someone else’s. Before he could react, the lights came on.

“SURPRISE!”

Niragi jumped back in shock, holding Tsuki protectively.

The room was filled with all of your close friends, all of which were wearing ridiculous party hats, and the living room was decorated with pink balloons and a sign that read “Happy Birthday Tsuki.” Dr. Chishiya aka Uncle Shuntaro. Kuina and her mother. Yuzuha and Arisu. Mr. Aguni the landlord. A few of your workplace coworkers were there too.

“What’s all of this?” He asked, stunned.

“We couldn’t let Tsuki’s birthday pass without a proper celebration.” Kuina explained. “No birthday is a birthday without a cake.”

“She’s right,” said Chishiya. “You celebrated the day your way, but we wanted to celebrate, too.”

“She’s such a precious baby, we just wanted to do something special for her.” Kuina’s mother chimed in.

“We know how much you’ve through...” Yuzuha began.

“We just wanted to show our support.” Arisu continued.

“For the both of you.” Yuzuha agreed.

“You’re both real fine kids, so all of us got together and put a little something together for ya.” said Aguni.

“I can’t... I can’t even begin to express how thankful I am to you. All of you.” Niragi began, “the past year... really hasn’t been the easiest. With Y/N gone, and having to raise Tsuki on my own, trying to get my life together for the both of us... all of you have been such a big help to me. I can’t thank you enough. I’ll never be able to repay you for all you’ve done for me and Tsuki.”

“There’s no need,” Aguni waved his hand, dismissively.

“He’s right.” Kuina smiled. “Everything we’ve done is because we wanted to.”

“You’re our friend.” nodded Yuzuha.

“You’re like family.” Arisu corrected.

And Niragi agreed. All these friends had become like an extended family of his. Always there.

His knees were shaking, a cold sweat formed on his brow. He felt queasy and on the brink of throwing up. He wasn’t ready for this. Quite frankly, he’d never be.

“You know, if you want to wait another year, I wouldn’t blame you.”

“Papa, I’m five. I gotta go to school.”

They said the first day was the hardest. Niragi had held the slightest hope that Tsuki would throw a tantrum and outright refuse to go to school, but to his disappointment she had been rather excited. She was incredibly bright for her age, already knowing how to count to one hundred, knowing her colors, as well as all the letters of the alphabet. She even knew how to write her name in Kanji, Hiragana, and Katakana.

“I know you do, but still, Papa will be lonely without you.”

“But you’ve got work stuff to do.”

“But you’re my little helper.”

“I’m a kid, papa.”

“Since when are you a little smartass?”

She shrugged. “If I’m smart, that means I gotta go to school.”

“I- Now where the fu-”

“Papa, hurry up! I’m gonna be late!” Tsuki grabbed on to his hand and dragged him away from the parking lot and closer to the school gates. He could feel the eyes of others burning holes into his figure. This was another reason he worried about her coming to school. The prying eyes of others. Even though the surgeries he’d gotten had managed to make him look relatively normal, upon closer inspection, there was still visible scarring. He’d never forgive himself if he became the cause of Tsuki being bullied.

He signed in at the front desk and gathered all the paperwork for Tsuki’s schedule, class directory, and list of school supplies.

“You’ve got art class.” He mused.

“Really?” The corners of her eyes perked up in curiosity.

“I didn’t think kids could learn art.”

“Aunt Yuzuha’s kids draw on the walls. Uncle Arisu calls that art.” She said. “I think it’s messy.”

“Well aren’t you a little critic.” He chuckled.

“It’s true. What kind of dummy makes grass red?”

“Tsuki, you can’t call other kids a dummy.”

“But you call other people things, too.”

“I’m a grown up.”

“Then can i call them dummy when I’m a grown up, too?”

“For sure.”

Tsuki nodded in understanding.

The two reached her classroom and while Tsuki was led to her seat by the teacher, Niragi stood to the side with all the other parents, most of them being moms. If he was being honest, he felt awkward and out of place. Compared to the other parents, he was sure he was the youngest parent there. Chills ran down his neck, as he looked around and saw the other parents throwing side glances at him, and a soft hum of whispers surrounded him. He tried to shrug it off and focus on Tsuki, who was now chatting away with her classmates. He noticed that the other kids say something and pointed in his direction, to which Tsuki would shrug and and answer like it was no big deal. Oh no, he thought. It’s starting.

“First time?” A voice said behind him.

Niragi turned to see an older man with shaggy black hair covered in a beige fedora, his eyes hidden behind big dark sunglasses. What kind of a freak wears a hat and shades indoors? Niragi thought, but nonetheless, he nodded. The older man patted him on the back. “It’s never easy.” He said with a smile. “Which ones yours?”

“Umm, the little girl over there. The one with the silver clips in her hair.” Niragi described. “Her name is Tsuki.”

“Oh, she’s absolutely precious!” The older man gushed.

“What about you?”

“Oh, I’ve got two. The boy and the girl on either side of your girl. Twins.” He said proudly. “Nara and Naoki. Little devils, those two.”

“Is this your first time here, too?”

“Me? No. I’m an old timer. My oldest, Nanase, is a second year at the middle school nearby.” He sighed with a smile. “But just looking at your face I can tell this is your first time.”

“Really? You can tell?”

“Don’t worry about it.” He wove his hand up and down, dismissively. “We’ve all been there. Ain’t that right, Mrs. Kobayashi?” He nudged the lady next to him, who gave him nothing more than an awkward side eye. “Don’t mind her. She’s a hoot at PTA meetings.”

The teacher interrupted the parents’ chatter and asked them to bid farewell to the children so that they could commence the first day of school. Niragi panicked and looked at Tsuki who flashed him a dimply grin. He took a deep breath. She’s fine. She wants to be here. The two shared one last look before he walked out of the classroom with the other parents.

“Hey, kid.” He heard the strange man call out, causing Niragi to look back at him once more. “I didn’t catch your name.”

“Niragi. Suguru. I’m Niragi Suguru.” He bowed politely.

“Nice to meet you, Niragi.” He tipped his hat in acknowledgement. “I’m Danma Takeru.”

The two chatted for a bit more and exchanged numbers with Mr. Danma, or Hatter as he liked to be called due to his profession, saying the kids just had to get together for play dates sometime.

The day passed by horribly slow, with Niragi getting virtually no work done. His thoughts consumed with how Tsuki must be doing at school. 3 o clock couldn’t come soon enough and be just about sped to the school. Tsuki waited for him by the gate, holding several papers in her hands.

“Papa!” She exclaimed, running excitedly up to her dad.

“Hey, kid!” Niragi crouched to pick her up in his arms. “How’d it go?” He asked as he walked them back to his car.

“It was kind of boring.” She admitted. “But that’s cuz I already know all the stuff.”

“Really!”

“Uh huh.” She nodded.

“Whatcha got there?”

“Oh!” She held up the papers. “I made these! Ms. Nobuo let us use paints to draw shapes! And the art teacher lady Ms. Osaki let me use pastel thingies!” She held up her work for him to see.

“Wow! You did great, kiddo.” He took the papers from her hands as he ser her into her car seat and buckled her in. As he got into his own, he looked over the papers, smiling at her work. She really had a knack for creativity. Tsuki chatted away about her day on the ride home, and Niragi felt at slightly at ease that her school experience had gone better than his.

“Oh my goodness! Papa, I almost forgot!”

“What’s up?”

“Papa, all the kids kept asking me about you.”

His eyebrows shot up, a bit concerned. “Me?”

“Uh huh. All the kids said your hair and the shiny thingies on your face make you look like a rockstar.”

“Huh.” He chuckled, dryly. “They said that?”

“Uh huh! And then all the boys went all crazy cuz I told them you work on video games and that you and Mama helped make that Borderland game.”

He smiled at her through the rear view mirror. “You told them about Mama?” He felt his heart tug a bit. Kids always said what they thought, so he could imagine what kind of responses they might have at Tsuki’s... situation.

“Yup! They think you guys are so cool and that they wished their parents were like you guys.”

“Is that so, kid?” He chuckled, relieved she had managed to get positive attention. “Did you make friends?”

“Not really... all the kids were kinda noisy... I talked a lot with these kids... what were their names? Naka and Naori!”

“You mean Nara and Naoki?” Niragi laughed.

Tsuki gasped. “How did you know?!”

“I met their dad. He’s kind of...”

“Weird?” Tsuki answered. “They’re weird, too.” She giggled.

Tsuki’s school years came and went, and she had grown quite a lot. She had become taller, and her hair had become longer and fell down to her waist. Unfortunately, she’d inherited his eyesight and needed to wear glasses, but she didn’t seem to mind. Some time in her early teens she had asked him if she could get her ears pierced, to which he was a it stunned she felt she needed to ask, since he had gotten his without permission from anyone and just cuz he’d felt like it. He agreed, and went along with her. What he didn’t expect was her wanting to get four done on each ear on the first sitting, and had been slightly proud at his daughter’s determination. However... Niragi wasn’t too happy when he found out she’d gotten her belly button pierced while on a school trip to a beach resort.

She did well in school, she participated in school clubs, and never complained about doing her chores around the house. She even had a handful of friends, for which Niragi was thankful for. On one occasion, he’d overheard one of them refer to him as a dilf, which he didn’t understand, and when he asked Tsuki about it, she became flustered and urgently changed the subject, and when he asked Kuina, she laughed in his face. He didn’t dare look up the meaning online.

They say parents are never prepared for their children’s milestones, but when Tsuki graduated high school with honors, he really couldn’t believe it. 18 years had gone by quickly right before his eyes, and the little girl

25 years had passed in the blink of an eye. Tsuki had graduated from university, having pursued a degree as a software engineer specializing in AI development. During her internship, she’d met someone special and developed a friendship which blossomed into romance. Of all the things Niragi had never given much thought to doing, giving his daughter away was at the very top.

Tsuki had shook nervously as Niragi walked her down the aisle, whispering to him “Please, don’t let me fall, Papa.” To which he replied that even if she did, he’d be right there to pick her up. He was thankful her groom came from a large family, believing it to be a far less lonely atmosphere. Nonetheless, he was happy that he had been lucky enough to amass a good deal of close friends to accompany him on this journey.

At the reception, Kuina and Yuzuha had just about shoved Niragi on the dance floor for his father daughter dance with Tsuki, who had taken it upon herself to choose the song. With the lyrics of “When She Loved Me,” matched to the scene of Niragi and Tsuki, rest assured, there was not a single dry eye in the house.

During the dinner, somewhere within him, Niragi felt the courage to stand and tap his spoon against his champagne glass. “I’d like to say a few words. I didn’t prepare anything, but... I’d like to speak from the heart.” He announced, to which everyone in the hall suddenly hushed in respect. “The last time I went to a wedding,” Niragi began, “was about 26 years ago. And just like the bride and groom, I was marrying the love of my life.” He looked down at his glass of champagne, briefly, before continuing. “Love is a crazy thing, really. It’s having this connection with someone that you just can’t explain and you really don’t have to because they already understand. Love is scary. It’s finding someone that accepts you, flaws and all, whether they be physical, emotions, psychological, metaphorical, what have you. Love is pretending to lose at a video game you’ve cleared at least 20 times just so you can watch them be happy.” He chuckled as the crowd quietly laughed. “It’s about getting a call at three in the morning asking you if you want to go out and get donuts at the 24/7 donut shop downtown. Love is... not being able to hear anyone say your given name because no one else says it as beautifully as that one person. Love is hating rainy days all your life but learning to love them when they drag you under the rain to dance. It’s when you’re driving and she reaches out to hold your hand. It’s about holding each other after nightmares and reminding each other that none of it’s real, even when reality sometimes feels like it’s a nightmare. It’s about treasuring every single moment because you’ll never know when it will be the last.” At this point, everyone who wasn’t crying already was tearing up at the realization of Niragi’s words. “It’s about being scared together. When your plans change and suddenly you’re getting ready to bring another life into the world together. That look between the two of you when you feel your baby kick for the first time at the sound of you voice. Staying up until dawn figuring out baby names because your child deserves something totally unique. Love is when you hold your baby girl and you realize that you really can love someone just as much, if not more, than the love of your life because... she is your life. As some of you know, Y/N isn’t with us today, but I know better than anyone that she would have loved to be here, and even though we can’t see her, she’s still with us.” He smiled. “the love she and I had... I like to think of it as something that only happens once in a lifetime, because to me, there really was no one else I could see myself with that wasn’t Y/N. But the way I see you two kids with each other... this is YOUR once in a lifetime. Treasure it. Always.” He looked directly into his new son-in-law’s eyes. “My life is in your hands now.”

#ITS OUT #daddy niragi lives #alice in borderland #ima wa no kuni no alice #imawa no kuni no arisu #suguru niragi #niragi #niragi suguru #aib #arisu ryohei #arisu #chishiya #shuntaro chishiya #chishiya shuntaro #kuina #hikari kuina #kuina hikari

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thelittleboyfromloveactually · 3 years

Text

Innocent hug

Dylan O’Brien x reader

Warnings: mentions of rape, sexual assault, cussing, mentions of smut, Dylan being sweet (this can be possibly triggering!!!!!!) angst

Promt: when Dylan finds you crying after an uncomfortable interview, the two of you find your selves admitting things you never thought you would say again (y’all i just, I don’t even know, I can’t write freaking descriptions hahaha)

Word count: 2712

Disclaimer: so basically the interview is for maze runner, just pretend that you play another character in the movie that was like Thomas’ best friend and newts love interest (also y’all pls send some requests)

Not my gif! Credits to @dyobrien! <3

“Hi I’m Dylan O’Brien!” Started Dylan trying to control himself from his laughter, before the cameras had begun rolling Dylan had cracked a joke that he was still trying to recover from.

“I’m Y/N Y/L/N” you said smiling

“I’m Thomas brodie sangster” Thomas said giving the camera a small wave

“And we’re the cast of maze runner” you said still smiling, also trying to control your laughter

“Or at least some of it” Dylan added on making everyone lose it again. Dylan practically fell out of his chair, Thomas giggled and you just kept laughing. Dylan had a habit of making you laugh, it was one of the many things you loved about him. You and Dylan had been best friends since you met on the set of teen wolf. You were a guest star who was quickly killed off. You and Dylan hit it off immediately, you two just got each other. You had the same sense of humor, same interests, and generally you two just felt normal around each other. The two of you stayed connected even after you left the show. Then you were lucky enough to land another part with Dylan in maze runner. Dylan played Thomas, and you played Y/C/N, Thomas’ best friend and Newts love interest. You had become extremely close with the cast, they were like your family. Since the release of the scorch trials you and Dylan had become quite the hit. Though you weren’t together in the movie, everyone shipped it. Two years after scorch trials, you and Dylan were in another movie together! American assassin, Dylan played Mitch Rapp and you of course played Y/C/N, Mitch’s love interest. Everyone wanted you two together, and it was not secret, the two of you were constantly teased on set for “flirting”.

You were doing this interview for the release of your latest movie, Maze Runner: The Death Cure. You were very sad that this series was coming to an end, you were definitely gonna miss it, everyone was.

“So my first question is for all of you actually, out of the three of you, who is the funniest?” The interview met asked

“Dylan and Y/N are both quite hilarious, especially when they are together, they are always cracking jokes and laughing” Thomas said looking at you and Dylan

“We do have fun” you agreed “honestly though I think we are all pretty funny, but Dylan I would say wins this one” you said looking to your right at Dylan

“What can I say? I’m a true born comedian” said Dylan

The questions continued, Dylan and Thomas were asked a lot about work and their new projects, whereas you seemed to be getting the clothes questions, the personal life questions. Things like, “where do you recommend buying clothes?” “How was your trip to Italy” “what are you wearing today”. Sadly that was fairly normal.

“Alright Y/N your up again, now the buzzing question everywhere right now is, are you single?” The interviewer asked

“Yes I am single” you smiled even though you were generally annoyed inside “Im that girl at the family reunions who gets introduced to the 3rd cousins, and who always gets told by the grandmas, “see honey this is why you are still single”” you said

Next to you Dylan weesed and began laughing hysterically. Thomas again just giggled his sweet laugh.

“Well do they know the men you work with? I mean your standards must be pretty high huh?” The interviewer pushed

“Yes yes I guess they are” you said, Dylan laughed next to you

“Why aren’t you with any of them Y/N?” He asked

Your eyebrows knitted together at this question, was he really asking this?

“Well blondie over here” you said gesturing to Thomas “is taken as you know, and taken by one of the nicest people I know, so”

“Well what about you Dylan, I mean the media definitely wants you two together, you two are like Tom hanks and Meg Ryan, and hey if I were you I would totally hit that” he said to Dylan

You froze at this, wtf was this guy doing? Dylan’s eyebrows shot up and his jaw clenched, and Thomas glared at the interviewer.

“Really man?” Dylan asked, you adjusted yourself in your seat, moving your arms to cover your body, you suddenly felt exposed and uncomfortable.

“I was just kidding with you guys” the interviewer said laughing it off

“Wasn't very funny” Dylan said

“Sorry man, didn’t mean any harm” he said putting his hands up in defense

You were shaking, you had a past. A past no one knew about, a past that would be easily triggered by a comment like that.

“Maybe think before you speak next time” Thomas added

“Ya, not cool man” Dylan said

The tension in the room was deadly. But still the interview continued on with only two questions left.

After the interview everyone was checking to make sure you were ok, Dylan kept saying that he’d beat his ass and Thomas just repeated that he is a dick. On the way back to the hotel you were all staying at, the consern eventually died down. Thomas and Dylan were planning on meeting up with ki Hong and kaya at a bar somewhere. They asked if you wanted to join but you kindly refused saying that you needed some me time. They were hesitant at first but then gave in and left you in your hotel room. Once the door closed you ran to the bathroom, looking at yourself in the gold rimmed mirror. Then suddenly you were crying.

“No!” You yelled at yourself “don’t cry, stop it Y/N!” You told yourself, but the tears just kept flowing and they wouldn’t stop.

Dylan’s POV

I swear I was gonna murder that man, who the fuck makes comments like that? I knew Y/N, I knew how this was going to go. I could talk she was shaken up and uncomfortable, but she would never admit that. She never let people in, she claimed she didn’t want to bother anyone with her personal problems. Leaving her alone in her hotel room felt wrong, I knew she wasn’t okay. I could see it in her face. As we walked away from her door, down to the lobby I felt the sudden urge to go back. To run back to her and take her in my arms, stroke her hair and tell her it was ok. Then I decided that that was exactly what I was going to do.

“Hey man I think imma go back, you know how she is, I don’t think she should be alone” I told Thomas, he looked back at me with understanding eyes

“Ofcourse mate” he said nodding, “I think that is a brilliant idea”

“Tell kaya and ki Hong I’m sorry I missed them” I said already waking back to Y/Ns room

“Will do!” He responded

Then I burst out into a run, running back down the hall and to the elevator. I clicked the 6th floor and the second the doors opened I was out, running to Y/Ns door.

Once I got there I took the liberty of unlocking it with the extra key she had given me. She said it was only for emergencies, but I thought I could make an exception. I walked quietly into the hotel room, I opened my mouth to yell for her but then shut it again. I heard muffled cry’s coming from the bedroom. Shit, I hope she’s watching some random soap opera, I hope that’s not her crying.

“Hey Y/N?” I said opening the door to the bedroom

Your POV

When you heard Dylan say your name you quickly sprang into action. Because you were still in the bathroom he wouldn’t be able to see u for at least a few more seconds. You wiped your eyes and tired to put yourself together before walking out to greet him.

“Hey Dylan” you said smiling, keeping up your act

Dylan studied you, he saw your smile, but he also saw your red rimmed eyes and your fidgeting hands, he heard the slight crack in your voice and the tiredness in it as well.

“Are you alright?” He asked stepping slowly toward you

“Ya ya I’m fine! What are you doing here?” You said, way to quickly

Dylan looked at you with sad eyes, it broke him to know that you were hiding from him. “I was worried, I wanted to make sure you were ok”

“We’ll hate to break it to ya, but um you came back for nothing, I am totally fine, faaaaaantastic!” you said smiling at him even more

“You can talk to me” he said stepping closer to you again

“There is nothing to talk about” you said

“Y/N, I know you, I know what you are doing, your not ok, and your hiding it, your shutting me out again”

“Dylan you need to calm down! I. Am. Fine!” You said, he was right though, and you both knew it “you should really go have fun!”

“Y/N-“ he started before being cut off again

“I insist Dylan, please, don’t worry about me, ok?” You said smiling sweetly

“That’s a lot easier said than done” he said looking down, then an idea came to him, it was horrible and he knew you would hate him, but he needed you to let him in “but if that’s what you want, then I’ll leave” he said

“Yes! Go have a good time!” You’d aid practically pushing him out of the bedroom

“See ya later!” You said closing the bedroom door behind him

Dylan walking over to the front door, opened it, and then closed it, still standing in your hotel room. Meanwhile you were listening to hear him leave, and when the door shut you began crying again. Then suddenly strong arms were tapped around your body, pulling you in close. You jumped.

“Hey hey, it’s just me” Dylan said stroking your hair

“But-but you left” you said looking up at him confused

“I didn’t, I’m sorry angel but I needed you to be honest with me” he said looking at you in your eyes. His heart breaking into a million pieces, he hated seeing you like this.

“I-I’m so sorry” you said beginning to cry even harder

“Don’t be sorry angel, it’s ok I’m here” he said hushing you and continuing to stroke you hair. He held you in his arms and never let you go. He held you as you cried, though he was also breaking inside.

After what seemed like forever, your tears ran out and you began to calm down. Dylan still holding you close.

“You wanna talk about it?” He asked sweetly

“Not really” you said sniffling

“You know I will go back and kill That guy if you want me too right?” He said pulling away from you so he could see your face

You didn’t look at him in the eyes, though his tried to find yours

“No it’s ok, really. That guy was a Douche bag, it’s not his fault I have shit” because you had just been crying and weren’t thinking strait, those words just slipped through your mouth. Dylan’s eyes widened and he moved your chin to that you had to face him.

“What kind of shit?” He asked

“Nothing” you said

He widened his eyes saying “really?”

You nodded in response to his action.

“Come on Y/N I’m here, please just talk to me” he pleaded

You stood up and out of Dylan’s grasp. “Listen Dylan, there is a lot you don’t know about me, and it’s all for good reason, ok? I recommend leaving it alone” you said

“I have left it alone for long enough Y/N!” He said standing up as well

“Whatever Dylan” you said waving away his statement

“No! Do not shut me out!” He said walking over to you again grabbing you hands, you could tell he was getting mad, but when he grabbed you it scared you

“No stop! Please! I’m sorry!” You pleaded, Dylan let go of your hands. His heart broke. He looked at you with concerned eyes.

“I’m sorry” he said, he noticed you were shaking, he was so confused, your reaction wasn’t normal. “Please just talk to me, please?”

You sighed and sat down on the bed, putting your face in your hands. Dylan sighed, giving up he began walking away when suddenly you began talking.

“I was 20, it was the first week of my sophomore year of college, my best friend at the time was bugging me about going to some frat party for back to school, the guys she liked had asked her to come and bring a friend. I told her I had to study but she didn’t believe me because it was the first week of school. I wasn’t a party person but I gave in. We got there, and she was drunkenly talking to the guy. I only had one drink, that the guy, his name was Brandon gave me. I started to feel sick and I went to go lie down. I was not thinking strait and when Brandon offered to help me I accepted, he carried me to the bedroom and put me down on the bed. By that time I was confused but barely conscious. He um…” you hesitated, Dylan stared at u in disbelief “he rapped me, he fucking rapped me. I tried to tell my friend but she just accused me of being jealous and not happy for her, saying Brandon would never do that. She never spoke to me again. Then a year later my boyfriend, who I had only been dating for a month or so wanted to ya know do it and I told him I wasn’t ready, I lied telling him I was a virgin. He was fine with it and he said he would wait. He asked again a month later and I still said no, this time he was more angry. We fought and I told him what happened and he called me a slut. We didn’t technically break up but we didn’t really speak. I felt bad so one time I decided to surprise him in his dorm. He was there with another girl. He cheated on me. I never told anyone else about what Brandon did to me. Not my parents, not my friends, not the police.” You finished in tears again

Dylan’s heart was in a million pieces, his best friend was raped and he didn’t know about it. Ofc it was a few years before you met him but he still kicked himself for not protecting you. He loved you! He loved you so damn much. He walked and he wrapped you up in his arms.

“It’s okay angel” he spoke softly so he would scare you. He let his emotions take hold of him, he no longer had control of what he said, “I love you so much and I will never ever leave you or hurt you, I will always protect you.” He told you

You looked up, he just said that he loved you, “what?” You asked

Dylan then realized what he had said “oh um ha” he said scratching the back of his head, screw it he thought. “Ya I love you Y/N, I have loved you for a long time, and and I feel bad telling you now, I don’t wanna take advantage of you but I do. I love you and-“ he was cut off by your lips on his. They were soft, moved as if they were meant for each other.

“I love you too” you said as you smiled

Dylan let out a breath of relief and kissed you again. When Dylan met you, you were nervous about your new job next to big actors, Dylan hugged you trying to comfort you. You never forgot that hug.

You layed in his arms, and for once in a long time you felt light, happy, and safe. And it was all because of one innocent hug.

#dylan obrien #the maze runner

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pretendrocketships · 4 years

Text

Relaciones

About: You’re Shawn’s personal assistant but things aren’t how they used to be

A/N: 2.2k. ALL angst my guy. Ok so depending on what y’all think I have two more parts in mind but lmkk I be in my head a lot.

Song: Relaciones by Lunay

“Shawn, we had to leave three minutes ago. We’re going to be late for the radio interview.” He was rushing past you, not caring about brushing your arm in the process.

“Well if you packed my journal where I asked you to, I wouldn’t be here looking for it now would I!” he spat frantically, tearing apart his hotel room looking for a tattered brown book he brought with him almost everywhere. You would’ve been taken back by his actions if you didn’t understand the importance the book held, holding all his thoughts for songs, inspiration, things that wouldn’t leave his head. You wanted to roll your eyes and laugh at him at the same time, but as always, you remember he’s technically your boss. You walked to the side of the extra-long, full bed, smoothing your skirt down before crouching down. You didn’t notice how in the middle of his rage, Shawn’s eyes flickered towards your ass. You reached around until you pulled up his bag for him to see.

“Your travel bag, middle pocket, zipped into the side,” you narrated as you pulled out his notebook from exactly where it was supposed to be. Part of the reason you let him act this way is because of the bashful, child-like smile he would always shoot you after a blowup.

“I-I-” he stumbled over his words as you dropped the book into his hands. “I could’ve sworn I check there already.”

“Yeah, there and the rest of the hotel,” you said looking around at the mess that would surely give the housekeepers a headache. You mentally reminded yourself to leave a good tip before check out. His soft features were replaced with a scowl as he grabbed his bag and his jacket, once again brushing past you.

“Let’s go. We’re late.”

You were mindlessly swiping through your phone while Shawn did the radio interview. The hard part was getting him there, because as soon as someone said ‘Action!’, the best Shawn was out, showing off his charm dimples for all to see. You watched from behind the glass, thinking back to how you got here. Music affects everyone’s lives, whether they realize it or not. Some people are meant for big stadiums and sold-out tours, some are meant to manage entire corporations, and some are meant to keep the divas in line. You were the latter, but only for now. Singing in front of crowds didn’t give you the high everyone talked about, but instead you felt your best being the reason everything went smoothly. But you don’t wake up being the head of a Sony or Atlantic Records, you have to start somewhere. So, that’s how you landed the job of being Shawn Mendes’ personal assistant. Was it where you wanted to be forever? No. But it wasn’t bad. The connections you’ve made, team that has turned into family, and the experience in the field has been amazing. Your relationship with Shawn was. . .interesting, to keep it short. Things were different now, but you still couldn’t lie and say you didn’t admire him in more ways than one. Maybe it was that you weren’t blinded by the dazzling Shawn he presented to everyone because you saw all sides of him. You were far too familiar with the grumpy Shawn, who came out when no one was listening to his input at record meetings. You knew the drunk, cuddly Shawn who would very much threaten the professionalism of your relationship with his constant touching and whining in your ear. Perhaps your favorite Shawn was the one that just got completely heart-eyed for his fans and his love for music. All these different sides of him that the public never got to see were what grew your soft spot for your boss. Your boss. You had to continually remind yourself of that seeing that you were so close in age, despite him being able to end your career at the snap of his fingers. That did not slightly turn you on. Nope. Not at all.

“Hello! Earth to (Y/N). I’ve been done for like ten minutes. C’mon, let’s go. I’m not paying you for sitting here.” He said swatting his hand in front of your face. ‘Technically the label’s paying me not you,’ you wanted to snap back, but you knew it would do nothing to help the situation. He was in a mood. And you’ve learned after months glued to his side that it was easier to just go with it than fight him right now. You rubbed your eyes and looked around to grab your things. Lack of sleeping was hitting you big time. Usually, you and Shawn would plan things together over a pizza and cheap wine in one of your hotel rooms, but butting heads so much lately has left you starting your days earlier and ending them later trying to avoid him and sort things out on your own. You started to get up to collect your things, and again, you saw his demeanor change. He reached out to grab bag, coffee, and folders for you. “Ok, call the car.” You rolled your eyes away from his view. Picking up your things did nothing to distract from the fact that this constant back and forth was getting on your nerves.

“Already waiting downstairs.” As you followed behind him, he kept shooting you quick glances that you couldn’t read. It felt like forever before you joined him in the elevator, the small space making any relationship feel like it was lacking air, especially yours.

“Are we going to talk or?”

“What would you like to talk about, Mr. Mendes?” you asked, forcing yourself to hold back as much sarcasm as you could.

“Oh, give it a fucking rest, Mr.Mendes? It’s like--”. Ding! The elevator announced that you were no longer alone as swarms of people flooded in with you. Shawn shoved his hands in his pockets and began shooting all the newcomers his world-famous smile. The ride felt like an eternity with everyone getting off at a different stop, the weight of an impending conversation, you didn’t want to have, fill the air. The walk out of the elevator: silent. The walk to the car: silent. The car ride: silent. As soon as you got to the comfort of your hotel room, it was a whole other story.

“You’re the person that I thought knew me the best, and the fact that you think so little of me that you won’t even talk to me?” he chuckled bitterly and put his hand up when you tried to protest. “Don’t. I’m not done talking.” That shut you up quickly. “Things have been weird lately, and I thought it was just me being in my head because-” he cut himself off, fiddling with his hands, “well you know me, but I thought it was me, but no. It’s you” He said pointedly. Again, you opened your mouth to defend yourself, only to be shut down by a look. “Something is wrong because we’ve never not talked this much, and when we do, you’re only telling me what’s on the schedule or picking a fight with me.” Your mouth dropped at that one.

“You are always the one starting fights with me!”

“No, I’m--”

“Always getting mad at me for nothing, pushing my buttons, misplacing things, at this point I know you’re running late on purpose just to make my job hell!” You yell at him, arms flailing, hoping your exaggerated movements, your stray from your normal behavior will get his attention.

“Oh, so being with me is hell?” he assumed.

“That’s not what I said,” you threatened walking closer to him, finger accusing in his face.

“Well, I’m sorry I’m stressed!” he yelled right back, face starting to flush red, clearly exposing his anger.

“You should be! I am not your punching bag to fucking attack whenever it makes you feel better--”

“You!” he said getting closer to you, close enough to keep pushing that line he was playing with, “You are the one who’s supposed to make me feel better.”

“Supposed to?” you scoffed walking away from him. Your move was futile as he grabbed your hand and spun you straight into his chest.

“Not,” he sighed, the anger melting off him in waves and being replaced with something else,” not like that. It’s just, you were the one who always made me feel better before things went bad, and you won’t even tell me what I did!” You stayed silent, unsure of where to go next because he was right.

“I--” you started to process all of your thoughts.

“Thought you knew me more than anyone,” he whispered.

“I do.” You’re not sure why you jumped to reassure him, but you felt like you had to. “I know you more than anyone, and I take pride in that.” You felt him deflate as he flopped onto the bed.

“Because it’s your job.”

“Well yes, but --”

“Thanks.” You could have sworn you saw him wipe a tear when he thought you were looking. Too bad you were always looking, always watching out for him. “Thanks for sitting with me, I know you’re busy.” He stood up too quickly, wiping his hands on his jeans and storming out of the room. You sat there and thought about not what he said, but what he didn’t say. You thought about the little whine in his voice that always happened to seep through when you know he needed you. You thought about every time he drank a little too much on a night out and ended up in your room rambling or telling you how much he couldn’t function without you. You weren’t dense, but he was still your superior and under some HR policy you knew this was a bad idea. But most of all, you couldn’t do anything if he didn’t just come out and say what he was feeling. You scrambled to slip on a heel while simultaneously running out of your hotel room. You took a breathe and slung his door open. He let out a small scream and jumped, the white shirt he was packing messily falling on the floor. You snorted.

“Nice one.”

“Jesus, how the hell did you get in here!” You rolled your eyes and held up his room key.

“I’m your assistant, duh.” The corners of his mouth were fighting a smile until he completely lost and broke out in a grin.

“I’ve missed you,” he mumbled, eyes strictly trained on the comforter. You didn’t need him to say anything else, you heard how loaded the phrase was, his emotions laced in every word. But at the same time, you needed him to say more. You needed to know if this was a friendly work relationship or something more because teetering the boundaries was getting to your head.

“Shawn--”

“Things have been,” he trailed off trying to find the right words, “tense, weird’ not us,” he moved to face you, “but I want us to get back to that, back to us.” He looked up at you with those big, hopeful eyes that managed to get everyone around him under his spell.

“I know what you want me to say but do you realize what you want me to say right now.”

“Well, yeah that’s why I asked it.”

“Don’t be smart with me,” you said narrowing your eyes at him, but the soft smile resting on your lips made him feel like he could breathe again.

“Aren’t I the boss here?” he asked with that smirk that just made you remember how good your relationship was. How exactly do you tell Shawn why you’ve been acting weird when he was also your boss and this would make things one thousand percent harder to explain. This is a best friend wine night conversation just waiting to happen. You needed to think about how to word this while making the smallest mess possible.

“Can I think about it?”

“You’re in charge of me, I’m not in charge of you.”

KINDA REALLY WANNA MAKE THIS A SERIES IF Y’ALL DOWN. TALK TO ME ABOUT THEORIES ON WHAT HAPPENED OR FEEDBACK OR ANYTHING

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spaceorphan18 · 3 years

Note

i really liked your s6 blaine meta! would you be willing to do something similar for season 5 episodes 14-20?

Hi Nonny! Sorry for the delay, this is kind of a huge undertaking. I’m going to be honest, this will be more of an abridged answer. I really recommend looking over to my Finding Kurt Hummel Meta, because a lot of Kurt and Blaine’s stories are intertwined, and I do talk a lot about Blaine and his motivations there. That said, let’s dig in!

Pre-New York Arc

So, as Blaine tells us when before he’s going to graduate, his senior year has been really hard and really weird. He broke up with his boyfriend, dealt with a school shooting, suffered the loss of a good friend, and then got engaged. (Y’all should check out my Glee Timeline to see just how squished all of this stuff really was.) By the time his tenure as a high school student is over, he’s desperate to fast forward to being a full fledged adult -- living out his dreams in New York City. The problem is trying to force your dreams come true doesn’t always work, especially when a) you’re still a kid trying to figure things out and b) you still have a lot of insecurities and mental health issues to deal with.

So Blaine (and Kurt) still have a lot of growing up to do. And a lot of the New York Arc is figuring out just that.

Let’s talk about the proposal for a second, too. Blaine jumping to marriage is, yes, a bit pre-mature. He’s was so desperate to get his relationship back on track with Kurt, and so wanting to prove his commitment, he jumped about fifteen other steps and went straight to what he would be the ultimate band-aide -- marriage. Well, just because you’re married (or engaged) doesn’t mean you don’t have a lot of issues in your relationship. Blaine and Kurt were too young for their engagement -- and not necessarily because of their age, but because they really hadn’t dealt with a lot of things the move to New York, the cheating, and the first break up did to their relationship. However, Blaine wants to ignore a lot of the red flags because he feels since he has Kurt back, and put a ring on that finger, he should be fine, right? His insecurities about Kurt not loving him or wanting to leave him should be squashed because -- ring. Right?? Oh, Blainey.

New New York

So, what we don’t see is the six-to-nine months of Kurt and Blaine living together. Which is a shame. Because we don’t see how it started, and how they probably were so head over heels wanting to live together and do all the fun things Burt listed off in his conversation with Kurt before the proposal in Love Love Love that they did not have any kind of conversation about how living together would ultimately work. So, it’s nine months later, and things aren’t so rosey.

Blaine is trying very hard to make them the old married couple he wants them to be (which is no shade on Blaine!). He’s singing old timey songs, and basically trying to show his love through acts of servitude, and kind of trying to ignore the nagging feeling that Kurt’s unhappy about it.

Blaine is a giver by nature, and wants to make Kurt happy, and he thinks if he can be the perfect boyfriend (because he wasn’t before, made a mistake, didn’t take into account that Kurt really was part of that issue, and blames himself for the relationship woes) that his relationship with Kurt will be fine. The problem is that Blaine is losing himself in the relationship -- trying to be the person he thinks Kurt wants him to be, and the person his own imagination thinks he should be, instead of the person he really is.

The other thing is that Blaine is a bit clingy. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to spend time with your significant other. But Blaine wants to spend every waking moment with Kurt so they can share their magical journey together. You see -- in high school, they were joined at the hip, and did do a lot of things together. But they also had a lot of time apart. They both had groups of friends to do things with, and different households to go home to. But now, all aspects of their life are jammed into that little loft. And for Blaine, it’s fine, (though it’s not - he has to learn how to be an individual person, too), but Kurt is struggling with it.

Here’s the part where I do need to bring up Blaine and his homelife. Blaine being who he is - is somewhat just his personality. But part of it is also his homelife. We can infer that unlike the Hummel household, Blaine’s family wasn’t exactly ones to unconditionally supportive in the same way. He always had to compete for attention (and possibly love) with Cooper. He has always felt that no matter how ‘good’ he is -- he’s a failure. And he is, by far, his own worst critic. These are things that Kurt cannot fix for him, and while Kurt can continue to love and support him, Blaine himself has to reach a belief that he is a worthy individual of love, support, and happiness.

Also, because Blaine is trying so hard to make life perfect for Kurt, he’s not being able to make his own experience uniquely his own. He tries to find a cute couch -- but it’s rejected (rightfully because bed bugs, but still). He tries to make himself a space in the loft, but Kurt shuts that down. Everything is about how Kurt thinks and feels, and because Blaine’s giving in on these things, he starts to go inward on himself, and thus they fight over dumb things. (Kurt needs to learn how to share and compromise, Blaine needs to learn to stand up for himself and his own wants and needs.)

As an aside, Blaine isn’t really jealous of Elliott -- that’s a bit of displaced anger. But going to Elliott does help (wise sage that he is), and while that convo is a little weird, there is some good advice in Elliott saying you have to figure out who you are, and maybe not be so clingy. Boundaries are good and don’t lose yourself in the relationship.

So, about their decision to live apart -- my Kurt meta had a good paragraph:

I’d also like to mention that Kurt isn’t really thrilled with Blaine’s idea. He doesn’t want Blaine to leave, but he recognizes that something has to change. Unfortunately, they’re still young and growing and don’t have the tools or experience to figure out how to fix what’s wrong. So - in a way, I get this solution. Blaine doesn’t know how to give Kurt emotional space - so let’s try physical instead.

Blaine wants to fix the situation, so it’s no surprise that Blaine is the one to comp up with the solution. It’s not great (honestly, they should have moved out and found their own place but alas tv show logic), but it’ll have to work for now. Blaine is more interested in salvaging his relationship the only way he can try to. Unfortunately there are some other, bigger issues going on, but for now, they’ve come up with something that might help.

Bash

It’s a shame we don’t get more Blaine during this episode, because I think it’s really important. There’s a story here about the frustrations a gay couple can have when one of them is going through a major trauma, and the other can only sit and wait to see how it turns out -- adding in outside factors such as, hospitals not allowing the partner to visit because they aren’t legally “family”.

So, one of Blaine’s biggest fears is losing Kurt. And this time he does to an external power. Blaine, who likes to control things just about as much as Kurt, feels like he should be able to protect Kurt no matter what, and comes out of this episode feeling like it’s his duty to do that.

You see, Blaine doesn’t think he’ll survive very well if anything ever happened to Kurt, and kind of ignoring the fact that Kurt kinda jumped into the fight himself, Blaine decides that he’ll do everything in his power to ‘save’ him. Problem is, that’s not at all what Kurt wants or needs.... Which will be discussed more in the next episode.

Meanwhile, Blaine manages to piss off Carmen Tibideaux with he and Rachel’s little duet idea. Not liking anyone mad at him, he does go retake the final (or whatever it is), and pours his own fears and sadness into the song. I do kind of wonder if Blaine’s involvement in this is a slight nod that Blaine won’t be finishing his college career at NYADA. (Which is fine - the school is utter shit.)

Tested

Okay, god. Here’s the Kurt Meta because this is one really complicated episode that I won’t do justice in the little blurb I’m going to write here. There’s A LOT going on, and it’s helpful in understanding the story as a whole, and I do write about both their sides in the Kurt Meta.

So, here we are -- Blaine is trying to make Kurt’s New York life and experience perfect, and he kind of ignores his own. But, he is indulging himself (as young people in new places often do) and not taking care of his physical health either. He does gain some weight (or Glee tries to suggest that he does), and this latches on to his insecurities from before.

A lot of this episode’s issues comes down to identity --- Blaine saw himself as the White Knight in Shiny Armor -- the one who protected Kurt from Karofsky, and made him smile. The one who was the prince who got to give the other prince the Happily Ever After. The problem, though, is all of this is magical fairy tale talk that doesn’t work in the real world.

Kurt isn’t a delicate flower who needs rescuing. He is very physically fit, and is seen as attractive by other people. And Kurt is trying to find his own, individual identity that isn’t solely connected to Blaine. All of this activates Blaine’s major insecurity about being rejected -- about not being loved enough. He doesn’t understand that he doesn’t have to be the person who another person needs for them to love him. He can just be the person who someone wants. But Blaine has a very hard time with this concept. His value of himself is wrapped up in how much he thinks he’s needed, which of course, causes all the problems.

What’s making it worse is that Blaine begins to manipulate the situation -- trying to make Kurt ‘need’ him again, which is very unhealthy (don’t do that guys!). But also starts to do what he always does, and we see a repeat of the issues had back in season 3/4. Blaine starts to pull away physically because he fears he’s not good enough, and in turn, Kurt pulls away emotionally, and it’s just a downward spiral that they keep doing.

The thing that Blaine is not doing is expressing how he actually feels to Kurt. When he finally does that at the end of the episode, when he reaches out and says ‘hey I need help’ Kurt is finally there for him. (Yes, Kurt is still pissed, but at the end of the day, Kurt is not wrong about the fact that he’ll never stop loving blaine -- no matter what happens.) The problem is, no matter how many times Kurt can say it, or even show it, until Blaine actually trusts him, it’s never going to work.

As an aside -- one of the reasons I think the second break up actually was good for them, is that Blaine learns how to love himself, and live with himself, after Kurt’s gone. He’s too attached to defining his self worth based on what Kurt thinks of him -- and that’s not healthy.

(Also, I encourage you to read the Tested Meta -- there is so much to dig into in this episode!)

Opening Night

There really isn’t much Blaine in this episode - but we do see him use his acts of service love language towards Rachel. Usually, she’s much better in her response, though.

I also want to point out that it’s Blaine’s idea to go to the gay bar. I’m all for Blaine starting to learn where his places in the city are. Makes me wonder if Kurt and Blaine frequented there together, of this was a Blaine only thing. Hmm.

The Back-Up Plan

So... the June Dolloway stuff. Okay.

June plays to Blaine’s romantic ideals of what life as a successful performer would be. And, as we’ve talked about, Blaine’s self worth is based on the idea of how much people need him (or want to use him). So, he kind of falls into June’s trap, and lets her try to mould him into who she thinks he is. The problem is, that entails getting rid of Kurt. But a big part of who Blaine is - is loving Kurt.

There’s also the issue of competition again (which came up in Tested, too) that I kind of roll my eyes at. I’m not going to say that Hollywood, or the performing arts, isn’t competitive. Because it is, in a lot of ways. However, I feel like media and society are often the ones pushing that narrative. You can be successful and still support your friends and love ones.

There’s an entire conversation to be had about how art is subjective, and this idea that this painting is better than that one is just kind of stupid, so all of these fancy awards for things are really, often times, just rich or powerful people stating what they think is the “best” and puts a false equivalency on things that can’t or shouldn’t be pit next to each other.

So, this whole idea that Blaine is ‘winning’ because June picked him is just -- whatever, Glee. The thing that I do like, however, is the fact that, despite Kurt being disappointed in the situation, he is still supportive of Blaine and his career. The thing that I think is a bit contrived is Blaine’s eagerness to please everyone leads him to lie to Kurt instead of be honest about what’s going on with June. But alas, television.

However, as we’ve talked about earlier -- Blaine’s ultimate goal is to make everyone happy at the expense of his own happiness, so it isn’t out of nowhere that Blaine would try to please June and Kurt at the same time, in an attempt to ‘fix’ everything before someone rejects him.

Old Dogs, New Tricks

So... this episode really isn’t about Blaine or the Klaine issues at all. Chris was perhaps wise (and maybe mandated a little) not to even get into it.

The thing, though, we do see is that Blaine’s spending a lot of time on his fantasy career ideas with June. He does recognize that Kurt isn’t really happy with life, and while the Klaine issues will eventually hit the fan, that’s not what this episode is about. It’s about Kurt trying to find his own place, and make his own happiness, when everyone around him is becoming more successful. It’s really not Blaine’s issue -- and I’m glad Chris didn’t make it out to be.

Instead, Blaine plays the supportive partner here, and while they do need to work more of their shit out, I’m glad they do get a softer, and more emotionally aware moment here.

The Untitled Rachel Berry Project

So, Kurt mentions in this episode that he and Blaine have had some long conversations about their relationship. And while I’m sure that’s true (probably a lot after Tested), I do have to wonder if Blaine wasn’t listening as well as he should have been. I think, in order to preserve things, Blaine probably nodded along, and took more notes on how to be the world’s perfect boyfriend, while maybe not actually comprehending some of the issues Kurt laid out. All the while, I’m guessing that Blaine didn’t express many of his wants or needs, in order to not rock the boat. Unfortunately, all of this holding back, on both their parts, comes back to haunt them.

The big lie comes out, that Kurt isn’t in the showcase, and this plays a lot on Kurt’s insecurities, partly about being a failed performer, and a lot about his trust issues with Blaine from the last time they broke up. Blaine is the type of guy who tries to make everything perfect until he literally can’t anymore, and he’s left there being forced to tell the truth, even though he knows it’ll hurt himself and Kurt. And while this, normally, would be a minor thing, because of their past history -- this self-imposed forced disappointment is what he expects. Because he believes that sooner or later, he’s going to eventually disappoint everyone he loves, and they will eventually leave him.

The thing is -- Blaine has a tendency to push people away, because he thinks that’s what he deserves. But interestingly, Kurt comes back to him -- and they talk about it.

And, I’m just gonna quote my Kurt Meta cause I don’t feel like writing it all out, but the Klaine scene here is important!

So - yeah, let’s break this down… Kurt’s pretty stiff when he comes to Blaine, arms crossed, looking forward out at the birds and not at Blaine. He’s thought through is anger, but these kind of conversations are still hard for Kurt. But then there’s Blaine – who outright says to him that the showcase doesn’t mean anything without Kurt – that /Kurt/ is more important to him than his career. And Kurt visibly relaxes when he hears this. Because its confirmation of something he does already know – that Blaine really does love him. He seems to fuck it up, but he loves him. And it’s something Kurt really did need to hear again.

(Obviously vise versa needs to happen, too, but more on that in a second.)

So - Kurt goes on talking about birds, and builds this elaborate metaphor around them – about how taking a step out of the nest is freakin’ scary, but you can’t stay in that nest forever – at some point you have to trust that you can fly. And even if you fall and hit the ground, you have to keep on trying.

Well, Kurt comes to the smart conclusion that relationships are like his bird metaphor – you can’t have a relationship unless there is implicit trust there as a foundation. And he’s learned, the hard way, that yeah, sometimes one of them is going to fuck up and they will hit the ground like a stone, but if you hold on to your faith that it’ll be all fine in the end – that you can help each other out keep that solid foundation, it’ll be okay. Because at the end of the day, you can’t ever be 100% that someone won’t hurt you again, you can’t control anyone else but yourself (oohh and Kurt letting go of complete control is huge - HUGE).

And yeah, yeah this little speech is nice and all but what about what’s about to happen? What about the second break up? Do you guys remember in Dance With Somebody when Blaine says to Kurt - if you’re unhappy talk to me don’t cheat on em? Well - this is almost the inverse of that. Kurt says to Blaine that you don’t even know if or when someone’s going to break that trust – and this is true, because yeah, Kurt is going to fuck it up not that long after this conversation.

But this is a resolution to the original issue back in season 4 – Kurt’s finally understanding that in order for this thing to work, he has to choose to trust Blaine. Blaine can’t instill that in him – it’s something Kurt has to do for himself. And for better or worse, he does choose to trust Blaine, to love Blaine, to let Blaine in implicitly. Blaine has been desperately trying to break through Kurt’s shell since the whole cheating incident, get back into that place in Kurt’s heart. But what Blaine doesn’t know - or realize - and what Kurt’s just figuring out himself, is that it’s not about Blaine’s ability – it’s about Kurt allowing it to happen.

Kurt doesn’t let people into his world, past is exterior, implicitly into his heart – but on a smaller scale, this whole June ordeal kind of just puts things into perspective. Yeah – he was mad about Blaine’s lie – but he realizes that the way Kurt was acting about it, he was going to be hurt either way. And he can be mad and be angry, but at the end of the day, they all have choices to make, and Kurt makes the decision to still stand by Blaine through the hard stuff as well as the easy stuff.

(But what about season 6? Well – we’ll talk about that when we get there ;))

I will say this – Kurt never breaks his promise about loving Blaine no matter what. Even through the stupidity of the second breakup, it’s really not because he doesn’t love Blaine. That’ll always be apart of him, and the more they go on, the more he understands his own heart will always feel that way.

Meanwhile – Kurt actually can be (gasp) a loving and supportive partner. Yeah, it’s hard on him to feel unwanted by June – he’s been fighting that fight since forever. But he is proud of Blaine, wants Blaine to fly incredibly high – and much like way back when in season 3 with Tony – he’ll be there giving Blaine flowers and telling him how amazing he is. Which is reassurance that Blaine needs, but doesn’t always get.

(I realize that’s mostly Kurt’s POV - but it covers what’s going on with Blaine, too.)

The thing though, while Kurt’s learning what it means to trust again, Blaine really just wants everything to be fine. And gives in to Kurts wants and needs immediately. The one problem, really, that’s still lingering is the fact that Blaine is still only defining himself through his relationship, and that’s not good, and is part of the reason Kurt’s going to pull away, and ultimately break up with him, the second time.

But, we do end the season on a happy note. Blaine, feeling the love and support from Kurt, is able to stand up to June, and is able to have a moment for himself, where he gets to express his true self, in the form of showing everyone his love for Kurt at the showcase. We also get a moment of a small step forward when Kurt let’s Blaine have a bit of the loft -- a small space to call his own.

Yes, ultimately it’s going to break down again, but it’s a first step. By the end of the season, Blaine and Kurt have started to learn what being in a real, adult relationship is like, but ultimately, for Blaine, he needs to learn to be okay with himself first and foremost, and that is what Season 6 was about...

If you’d like to continue on, here’s the Season 6 Blaine Meta!

I know there are things I didn’t get into -- like Blaine’s relationship with Sam, but idk, I don’t think there was much to pick apart there.

If you guys have any questions on specific things, let me know! :)

#blaine anderson #that's how s.o. sees it #Anonymous #season 5 is really unresolved for blaine in a lot of ways #poor kiddo

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bellamygateoldblog · 4 years

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i will never be over the way this show has continuously tried to frame bellamy and clarke as heroes and good people, or the way the fandom has almost completely embraced and supported that narrative

the amount of times i’ve read “[clarke] saved everyone’s ungrateful asses” makes me seriously consider turning evil. like aren’t y’all bored? don’t you have a different sentence you would like to say for a change?

i want to talk about this but i probably don’t remember a lot of the details of this show so if im forgetting something or get something wrong i apologise, but i never have any desire to rewatch past s2.

clarke isn't even the hero of her own side, she took power of them using the military force of the grounders, someone else’s people, she’s forced them into alliances without their knowledge that weren’t in their best interest (while she literally had no idea what they were even going through because she’d abandoned them after upsetting their entire political structure, and this leader she’s bowing to is responsible for the slaughter of their children, has broken an alliance previously with them, has hung the threat of genocide over their heads, and who isn’t even wanted in power by her own people- dragging skaikru into that conflict, too), she’s sacrificed them and what’s best for them in order to cater to/concentrate on the grounders newest demands or pursue her own personal mission, she’s lied to and patronised them, she’s abandoned them and surrendered them to die while they were under her protection and responsibility, and in Book 2 (and these aren’t her people but in canon she’s their leader anyway apparently despite trying to blow them all up a few days before...) she’s abandoned them again, and is speaking for them without consent or any connection to what’s happening with them again,.........her inner circle/her ‘friends’ have to be extremely careful to remain important to her or on her team or they’ll be sacrificed, harmed or become acceptable losses to whatever her newest goal is too (but hey at least she says she cares about them) all while acting very ‘woe is me’ about the whole crushing weight of responsibility she shouldn’t have.

but she’s the hero, she’s beloved, she’s special, she has relationships that were never built, she and only she saved everyone again and has all the lines telling us so no matter how dishonest those statements are.

like this is where i personally see what you said in your ask most: when it concerns clarke.

bellamy on the other hand...i don’t place him at all on the same level as clarke when it comes to this. clarke has privilege that bellamy just never had as a character. and i think that does probably play into why i like him.

him being a hero to the delinquents/the 48 is completely believable to me. he was the original leader, he got them through a tough time, he chose to put himself on the line for them, and he’s the one who stayed. i also think it’s reasonable that fandom might romanticise him this way because he is one who has been shown to value the one life as well as the many of his people, a guy doing his best and making big mistakes along the way, a mixed complex bag of good and bad, i find him very likable and i love the toxic/pained/vulnerable ones lol but more than anything i find him to be one of the more interesting/entertaining characters on the show (Book 1).

we also see him torment himself with his own mistakes instead of just having other people do it for him/remind him like we see happen with clarke- and we all know fandom loves equating that with a “redemption arc” and as much as i personally dislike seeing pity parties i do like self-awareness and responsibility in characters that goes beyond a 3-second-long puppy dog look or straight dismissal of someone else’s pain, and for the most part bellamy’s expressions of this don’t come across as demanding sympathy from others but from genuine self-loathing and an honesty to himself, internalising the effects of his actions/childhood.

i know i personally prefer The Flawed Protector over The Tortured Saviour nobody asked for (same white male hypocritical moral hero in a woman’s body).

i don’t believe in assigning “hero” to any of them though like that’s the whole entire point of the show lol “there are no good guys.” and i also think a major chunk of fandom/shippers have warped bellamy’s character so much that it isn’t even him anymore, so this man they’re celebrating as a hero/good person isn’t even bellamy sometimes.

all of the genuinely “good” and kind people are dead.

i don't think i'd say bellamy was ever framed as a hero. like he was just never important enough to be, he’s just not put into those positions (despite being the male lead), clarke is. as the protagonist ig. bellamy...he’s the protector/knight of the heroes, but not the actual hero himself (applies to octavia too i think, where she acts and he reacts).

like take mount weather, clarke becomes empowered by her “wanheda” status, bellamy’s (and monty’s) part in that is lost...clarke is “bearing it so they don’t have to” (rme) which simultaneously strips the other boys from claiming the ‘victory’ of saving the 48 while still leaving them with the guilt, like it suits how i see clarke perfectly that she’s the only one to refer to the genocide (and shutting down the CoL, i realised) as “i” while monty and bellamy say “we” and it was clarke’s actions that got them to that point in the first place, but this is one of those times she’s clearly The Protagonist. if that makes sense lol.

bellamy is on the opposite side to clarke in s3 and s7 and he needs to be moved to her side in order to be on the ‘right’ one. now i don’t agree with that one bit mind you (when it comes to s3, idc about s7 lol) and i didnt see it that way but imo that’s how the show wrote it, to the point he was either demonized endlessly by fandom or woobified in a way that denied him his own agency. during s5 i don’t i think anyone was framed in a good light. i can see this applying in s6, though- where he was his absolute worst self yet, betraying his own development, failing at every point to “do better” despite claiming it, but still was given that reasurring line that they did better and saved people and was in that “heroic” position i guess? but is that because he was back to being clarke’s “good little knight” tho? (but do we claim s6??? do we really??? do we claim it ladies???)

s6 was 100% dedicated to making clarke look good/like a 'good' or sympathetic person. the bodysnatching plot (and the s6 sheidheda plot because if it was supposed to be about bellamy and address his s5 actions he would’ve been present to experience/observe those consiquences himself but he wasn’t lmaoooo. instead it was to tell the audience ‘actually clarke was right last season and here’s another reason to feel bad for her and how those ungrateful bitches were treating her’) has no other purpose for existing. clarke's character has consistently been elevated at the expense of everyone else's. but im not sure the writing did a very good job convincing me she was a good person if it was trying to do that LMAO like my interpretation of her is so fitted to canon, and no amount of throwaway lines telling me how good she is did anything to change what i saw yk? and in s6, combined with being patronised by the writers, i found her to be at some of her most obnoxious.

i don’t agree with placing bellamy and clarke in the same boat tbh. like they just come from completely different places and come across differently, especially in the way they interact with other characters.

in my experience this fandom (on tumblr) is extremely skewed in favour of clarke, like ive never seen a fandom so obsessed with their protagonist. there’s A LOT of clarke stans who stan her for being one of those “deserves better :(” characters, selfless and heroic, and support that view that she’s the superior character, entitled to other character’s devotion, love and validation yet doesn’t have to reciprocate any of it. the CL/BC ship war was just a bunch of people fighting over clarke, who deserves her more, which character is more toxic to her, which other character would 100% be her bff supportive of that relationship, treating her as a passive whose actions don’t take affect. im not sure how much i blame the writing for that because if so many of us are capable of recieving her character in this way then...why aren’t so many other people? how is there such a massive disconnect between the ways we see her?

and imo a lot of the bellamy love in this fandom comes from shipping him with clarke too rather than being because of who he actually is.

#the 100

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neshabeingchildish · 4 years

Text

Hensley & Char: Friends or Whatever || Part 5

@just-a-j-reallly @junknstu1f @wandmaximoff I am SO SORRY that this took this long and is still this short, but girls, y’all know i be hustling.A lot of corona dodging happening, since some folks got it around me and just other things as well. Hopefully, this one still matters tho. :)

The Secret Adventures of Hensley and Char

Charlotte stuffed her bookbag and rushed out of the door, mentally calculating the tightness of her schedule tonight. There was going to be an announcement this evening and since Hensley would have to go as Kid Danger, Charlotte was tasked with watching Piper after school. She didn’t mind. Piper was the closest she might come to ever having a little sister and since she was covering for a Man Cave related reason, she could submit a payment request to Ray for the babysitting hours. She deserved some compensation for taking on something else while she was trying to get her body ready to sign up for a marathon.

This evening would be the FIRST time that she had to cringe about Piper’s Kid Danger fangirling. “I’m basically GAY for Kid Danger!” the kid cheered.

“You don’t need to be saying that,” Charlotte offered. She wanted to expound, but she didn’t want to be obvious, but she couldn’t think of a single thing that she could add that might not make her seem homophobic or something. “You’re 8,” she finally settled on.

“I’m 9!” Piper corrected her.

“Also too young to focus on crushes. Crush those books,” Charlotte said, hating the fact that she sounded like her mother.

After she brought Piper back home and checked in with the Harts, allowing Jasper to tell them an indirect lie about where Henry was. (Charlotte had botched it up by telling him that Hensley’s goldfish had babies), and whenever Jasper asked them about it and they were confusedly discussing whether or not Hensley had a goldfish, Charlotte ducked out to head back to Junk N’ Stuff for an emergency.

She’d just text Jasper the lie that Hensley decided she wasn’t ready to be a goldfish granny and parted with all of them… Yeah! Lying was so much easier via text. The truth was that somehow, Captain Man was not indestructible, and as the brains of the operation, Ray had demanded that she come in PRONTO and get with Gooch on trying to figure out what was happening and what to do. “I’m literally a 13 year old girl,” she said to herself, after sending Jasper the text and reading through Ray’s meltdown in her texts. “What does he want me to do?”

She wondered this more and more as time went by. Technically, to be honest… She often was the one to figure things out and help save the day with her brains, but, still… And being the person to try to tell the lies to Jasper was a struggle too. Jasper was simple, but she knew that she wasn’t very good at lying. She had to always text him the lie. Sometimes, from right next to him. Luckily, the confusion of why she texted him while she was right next to him instead of just telling him was enough to throw him off of the weirdness of her and Hensley’s new secret lifestyle.

And THAT was a journey of adventure for Charlotte. She had been reading books since she was 3, and now, she got to live out everything from botched hero antics (Only her journal would ever know the story of what happened to poor Ortho), to unfortunately having to remain quiet while Jasper made an utter fool of himself over a girl, pretending to be Kid Danger… Why… Did that girl think that the OBVIOUS girl in KD’s costume could be Jasper? WHY??? It brought the conversation back up between the trio that “Maybe Kid Danger isn’t a she!” But… Hensley and Charlotte simply had to be mad that Jasper was very willingly being obtuse about her gender, because yikes… the conversation went way wrong and Hensley was looking a little transphobic before too long. Charlotte shut both of them down with a, “Hensley… Just because Kid Danger looks like a girl to you doesn’t necessarily mean that they have to BE one. YOU don’t know for sure whether they are or aren’t. Jasper, you know that whether or not they are a girl, YOU are not Kid Danger. You and her have been in the room at the same time on several occasions! We need not ever discuss the true identity of Kid Danger, EVER again, because I don’t like either of you right now!”

Weeks of patrols, dozens of missions, hundreds of memories. Charlotte and Hensley were both a little sad that they had to hide these things away from Jasper, but they were also having a good time and unintentionally bonding too…

Though, that changed a little bit whenever Chloe finally decided that she was ready to be comfortable with herself. That even if she didn’t necessarily like girls, she really liked Hensley and that should be enough to make the two of them matter… even though Charlotte was painfully aware that Chloe sort of “viewed Hensley as a boy.” She didn’t hate her. She just wasn’t someone that Charlotte could see Hensley being very happy with for a long time. She decided to just not think too deeply about it. Hensley’s bad habits of neglecting others would soon catch up to them.

When it did, Charlotte was entertained from the outside of it. Firstly, there was the slightly terrifying transformation that Hensley went through, turning into what Charlotte could only describe as a Cavebeast - Hens and Jasper had a small tiff in the midst of Hensley trying to get things good with Chloe, and at some point… Hensley turned into a boy!

He was… alright, Charlotte guessed. She wasn’t into him. He was only there for a moment, anyway, but one thing tapdanced on Charlotte’s psyche upon seeing him… She wasn’t sure if boys were her thing.

Since she had become friends with Hensley, there was always something about her that got beneath Charlotte’s skin in a number of ways. Charlotte thought it was because Hensley was carefree and careless - two things that she herself couldn’t afford to be and therefore often tried to police out of others. But, it made Hensley endearing to Charlotte. The smaller, smarter girl felt like she needed to guide and protect her… but, now that Hensley was a sidekick and Charlotte had seen her prove herself for months… she knew that she didn’t have to be this protective. She shouldn’t have to offer as much guidance and advice as Hensley still seemed to think she needed. But, it was nice to be needed, so Charlotte never stopped, even in those moments when Hensley was not open to her assistance.

People sometimes thought that there was a romantic connection between the two, to which both girls would laugh. Charlotte would tell them, “We’re just friends,” and Hensley would say, “Charlotte’s not gay.” Something that Hensley assumed. Charlotte had never confirmed nor denied it, but she would know, right? She’d know if she liked girls. She was old enough and smart enough, wasn’t she?

Apparently, those weren’t the indicators needed to determine this. Her indication was whenever she saw boy Hensley… He was lanky and tall and there was something like Hensley about him, but… she just didn’t like him, but she liked Hensley. And, it took losing her for a moment, the fear of thinking that they might lose her forever to the beast form, and the boy version of her for Charlotte to have a moment of clarity. She liked Hensley. The way that she was. She liked her that way, a lot.

Maybe it was simply the fear tricking her. She wouldn’t say anything. Besides, there was Chloe, and… it would be complicated anyway. Charlotte mentally shut that down and didn’t speak of it out loud. She couldn’t like Hensley, so she figured she was one of those people who must’ve swooned platonically over her friends. It didn’t extend to Jasper, but… he was weird, so she just accepted that was why. It wasn’t because like poor Piper, that she was “gay for” her friend. It wasn’t. She silently reminded herself of this at times whenever her heart was especially soft for Hens, and was thankful that she didn’t need to do so too often… Because Hensley could be a wreck sometimes. A clueless wreck.

But Hensley was her clueless wreck.

Whenever Charlotte took Piper to the movies and the little girl had the opportunity to work with Captain Man and Kid Danger, as well as become the new president of the Man Fans, Charlotte brought her home afterwards, turned her over to Hensley and said, “We’ve gotta talk.” Piper was still on Cloud 9 about her night, so she rushed to her room, talking on the phone about how amazing it was - a night that she in portion had Charlotte to thank for and wouldn’t soon forget it, Hensley looked at Charlotte.

“What’s up, Char?”

“Your sister. She has a super crush on Kid Danger,” Charlotte said.

“My sister is gay too?” Hensley asked, excited, but then winced and said, “Wait!”

“Yeah…” Charlotte said, “And also, I don’t know that she’s gay. She could simply respect Kid Danger so much that she sees her in a light that she sees no one else, and honestly, same.” Charlotte’s face warmed whenever she said that, but to try to backtrack might make it seem suspicious.

“So… You’re gay for Kid Danger, too?” Hensley teased.

“What? No! She’s just very admirable and… and…”

“I was obviously joking, Char,” Hensley laughed, and pulled her into a one armed hugged and kissed her forehead, “Thanks again for hanging out with Piper. She needs an older female person around sometimes.”

“You’re…” Charlotte started as she moved out of Hensley’s reach.

“Yeah, but I meant like, you know, a girl, girl. One that I don’t know, can rock a skirt and like likes boys or whatever.”

Why does everyone just presume that I like boys? EVEN my lesbian best friend, whbo snhould know better than to presume things about people’s identities…

“This is stupid,” Charlotte said, keeping the front thoughts to herself. “Night, Hens.”

Chloe went to star on Kids in the Woods, and honestly, Charlotte wouldn’t miss her, but Hensley was very sad to see her go. Which, Charlotte only understood to a certain degree, because… she never really had time for Chloe ANYWAYS, and now, she wouldn’t have to always try to make up reasons that she had to duck out or cancel. But seeing Hensley depressed was sad and over a girl? Of all the frivolous things. This was a girl who fought crime and faced villains, and what was she doing… being heartbroken over her girlfriend? Pathetic.

Charlotte let Jasper break into her thoughts and welcomed the interruption, because she was thinking TOO much about Hensley anyway. But, after only a few minutes of Jasper talking, she regretted letting him interrupt her thoughts. I have GOT to find other friends, she thought, frivolously. She definitely was not going to try to meet new people nor get close to the ones that she knew casually. She did wish that she could bounce some of her Hensley problems off of Jasper, though. But… too many of them would reflect upon Kid Danger, and… she sighed. That part of Hensley’s world was shut off to the rest of the world. In that way, they were connected.

That’s what it was. That was all it was. They were connected by this very important secret and ALL of Charlotte’s confusing feelings were related to that connection. “Thank you Charlotte. I knew that you would figure this out,” she told herself confidently.

#Hensley and Char: Friends or Whatever #henry danger #Girl! Henry wlw AU #Friends or Whatever #Hensley Hart #Nesha HD Fics

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what-the--curtains · 4 years

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Braving the elements

(Bucky x OC and/or Bucky x reader)

Summary:

A mutant with elemental control flees her life of crime after an altercation with her boss. In hopes of bringing him down she seeks out her old friend Wanda and offers to help the Avengers. Whilst there a certain avengers catches her eye and she catches his. As a more sinister plot begins to reveal itself, you realize that your former employer is the least of your worries and that something wicked was being planned for you since the day you were born.

Warnings; Violence, Swearing, Theft

Author's note: First piece of non-academic writing I’ve done in a while so feedback is always appreciated, but be kind! I may change this to be a reader insert, but I just don’t like how (Y/n) looks in the writing. If y’all want it changed though let me know! Bucky makes his appearance in Chapter 4 so it’s a slow burn romance, but there’s gonna be fluff, angst and smut involved! Steve/Nat and Wanda/Vision are in it later as well, but I wanted to establish the main character a bit first as she’s the only one who's made up

Word Count: 2.0K

Act 1: Chapter 1: The Robbery

Songs inspiring this chapter

Ain’t no rest for the wicked – Cage the Elephant (Bank robbery)

Boss Bitch - Doja Cat (Fight with the avengers)

Monday 10 AM, N.Y.C

“This is it?” you ask, pulling your sunglasses down slightly in order to get a better view of the building standing before you.

“That’s the one.” Your getaway driver Calvin says into your ear piece, he’s a block away in the back of a white van waiting for the go ahead from the boss.

You squint as the sun hits your eyes, letting out a low whistle “Pretty fancy for a bank, you gonna tell me what I’m getting out of here?” you muse.

“That’s on a need to know basis sweetheart.” He responds flatly.

“Well sweetheart, hate to break it to ya, but I need to know!” you pause for a moment to see if you’ve managed to make him laugh “Seriously Calvin this is some of my best stuff!”

“God do you ever shut up, cameras and emergency buttons are down, you just have the guards to worry about now so get on with the job. Once you’re out make sure your face is covered. Do you have your mask with you? ”

“”You know as the person doing most of the brute work I think I deserve a little respect” you retort “Do I have my mask? Do you have your mask Calvin? God your infuriating!” you mutter, pulling out your “mandatory” earpiece and throwing it into a nearby gutter, before taking a quick glance in your purse just in case you had forgot.

Seeing the mask in its place, you pull your leather jacket over a white t-shirt and tighten your belt ensuring your shorts stay in place. Alright let’s do this you think with confidence before immediately tripping over your shoe laces and falling to the ground.

“God how embarrassing” you say slightly louder than you meant too. Pushing yourself onto one knee you tie your laces up and hop back on your feet “Alright let’s try this again.”

You walk through the sliding doors into the marbled interior of the bank, smiling as you pass by two security guards. One with a long mustache and another with a poorly done tattoo of a tiger on his bicep. You make note of the other two guards who were currently leaning up against the roman-esque columns lining the perimeter of the building. One was wearing sunglasses and the other was casually twirling a baton around.

“Hey, only four of you guys defending this whole building?” You inquire

“Ya sweetheart just the four of us, but don’t you worry we’ll keep ya safe” Tattoo replied with a smile and a slightly unnerving arm touch.

“Well thank goodness for that and god bless America!” you say sweetly grinning from ear to ear. Turning on your heel you head towards the counter ringing the bell twice before a woman in her mid-twenties appears from the back room and walks over to the counter. She’s wearing a name tag that reads Sandy.

“Hi there Sandy, how are you today?”

“I'm doing just fine thanks for asking and what can I do for you today?” She replied with a smile.

“I’m here to retrieve my belongings. Vault 176 here’s the key.” you say sliding it under the protective glass. Sandy smiles politely and walks into the backroom for a few minutes before emerging with a small box.

“Alright, I’m just going to need see some ID then your good to go ma’am”

“Well you see Sandy, I left it at home and my husband’s gonna kill me if I don’t get this back to him tonight could you do a gal a favour and just look the other way?” you plead

“I’m really sorry ma’am, but I just can’t do that.” Sandy replies sympathetically.

“Well I understand,” you say “Oh and Sandy, I’m sorry about this really I am”

“Sorry for what exactly ma’am?” she asks with a worried tone

“For this' ' you jump onto the counter and pull out a gun “Hi, yea, hello, people of the bank can I have your attention please? I just wanted to inform you all that I’m gonna be robbing this branch, but this does not mean it has to be a traumatic or unpleasant experience. I just need that box there and I don’t want anyone to get hurt, really I don’t. So if you could pretty please hand it over to me and any spare cash you have lying around this joint.”

Unfortunately, Tattoo, Mustache, Sunglasses, and Twirly were now approaching you with guns raised.

“Ma’am drop your weapon and put your hands where I can see them” demands Mustache

“C’mon sweetheart we both know you don’t know how to handle that thing.” Sunglasses says patronizingly

“Fine you got me glasses.” you pout “My little lady brain doesn’t know how to use a gun!” you exclaim before quickly throwing the gun at him, hitting him right in the head and knocking him out “ You’re supposed to throw the gun right?”

Mustache rushes towards you at full speed. Before he can reach you, you jump off the counter connecting the soles of your feet to his face knocking him down onto the floor unconscious. You land painfully on your hip feeling a bruise forming almost instantly.

The last two guards begin their approach. From the ground you kick Twirlys feet out from under him and jump to fight the baton out of his hand. Punching him in the throat you stand up and turn to knock tattoo, your least favorite of the four, right in the stomach with the baton. He doubles over in pain. Twirly tries to stand up, but you bring the top of your foot down on his neck causing him to drop, this time staying down. Bringing the same leg forward you knee tattoo in the nuts and feign a pained look as he topples over. Bending over you pick up the three guns now lying on the floor

“You know, you should really learn how to use these properly. Wouldn’t want you hurting anyone, especially yourselves.” You scold. The few people in the bank remained still and decided it was probably best to comply with you. You turn back to the counter now sweating, and Sandy hands you the box from the vault and a bag full of cash which she had filled during the beatdown.

“Thanks Sandy you’re a peach!”

Sandy looks at you pleadingly “Oh come on, we both know you ain’t gonna get fired because some lady came in and threatened you. If anything you should sue them, unsafe workplace and all” you offer sincerely with a shrug of your shoulders.

You gingerly step over the four guards lying on the floor and slip on your mask before exiting the bank.

Monday 10:25 AM Avengers Tower

A field agent runs into Tony’s office where he and Steve were working “Sir one of the downtown branches has been broken into!” he wheezes.

“And?” says Tony

“And you’re going to want to see this” He pulls up a video taken by one of the bystanders in the bank. The video depicts the scene of you beating up the four guards.

“You know who that is?” Steve asks Tony

“Never seen her before in my life, which is surprising considering how well she fights. Let’s get in for questioning. I'm a bit busy here so Steve if you wouldn’t mind.” He says turning back to his work.

“Peter, Wanda suit up, we’ve got a robbery to stop” Steve orders.

10:35 AM Downtown N.Y.C

God this mask is hot you think struggling to get the eyes hole in place as you approach the white van concealing Calvin’s whereabouts. Knocking three times he open the door and you

throw the small box from the vault up to him.

‘’What have I told you about taking out your ear piece?” he fumed “And what the hell is in that bag?” he shouts pointing to the large bag of cash you had grabbed.

“Money.” you say with a shrug of your shoulders.

“Last time I checked boss said no extra risks, he ain’t gonna be happy about this.”

“Well last time I checked he likes money” you respond causing Calvin to become even more agitated. As you turn to grab the money you see a ball of red light come hurling at you. You duck just in time.

“Shit, how the hell did the goddamn Avengers get here so fast?” Calvin shouts, you grab the money and throw it into the back of the van he extends his hand and you’re about to grab it when BAM something hits you in the back knocking you forward.

“Alright who the fuck threw a whole ass shield at me!” You yell more irritated that angry

“We gotta go c’mon Eve” Calvin pleads “Boss really ain’t gonna like this!”

“Screw that, this just got personal! Go, i’ll catch up” you promise turning and running towards the shield throwing culprit a.k.a Captain American. You kick him right in the gut having caught him slightly off-guard he doubles over. You remove your belt and wrap it around his neck pulling as hard as you can.

“Aren’t you supposed to be a superhero or something?“ you begin to ask, but before you can fish the sentence something slaps you in the back of the head pulling off your mask. You're thrown off the captains back.

“Shit!” you mumble before turning to see one of spidey kids webs still holding your mask.

You hear her before you see her “Chris?” you turn to see someone you hadn’t seen in years

“Wanda?” you blink a few times no it can’t be. Just then a truck skids up behind you and firm hands hoists you up

“We gotta go now!” Calvin says angrily, shooting suppressing fire out towards the three avengers.

“Chris!” Wanda yells again before throwing energy towards the truck. You pull the air around it and throw the energy back her way.

With Spiderkid and the captain still on your tail you decide to pull out a few of your old tricks. You pull the branch from a tree up and wrap it around the kids arm trapping him in the tree

“Um Mr. Rogers I’m down and out” he sighs.

“Two down one to go.” you focus on the captain who's now running through the street after you at superhuman speed. Lucky for you it had rained the day before on the street was full of puddles. Crouching down you turn the puddles to ice causing the captain to wipe out. Hard. Closing the doors of the van as It turns the corner you make your way back to your headquarters.

“They made me. Spider kid took my mask.” you whisper hoping Calvin doesn’t hear you

“He ain’t gonna be happy” he chastised.

“God you don’t think I already know that! At least we got the goods. He’s gonna be real happy about that!”

#bucky x oc #bucky x you #bucky x reader #buck barnes #avengers fanfiction #x men fanfiction #origin story #I SWEAR ITS A BUCKY FIC I JUST GOTTA SET UP MY CHARACTER

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trying-write-fanfics · 4 years

Text

OverhaulXReader part 41 (E)

So this a different path/decision written for the long ass Overhaul story. Basically this part takes place after part 40, but the E and the O in the titles stand for different paths. I hope that’s not too confusing.

Y/n had forgotten to set her alarms. Though she didn’t sleep much the night before, she had the morning. When she did wake up, she felt like shit. It was hard to peel herself out of bed because she wanted to go back and sleep. Kai really did a number on her last night, so much build up to only get ruined by more fighting.

Marriage? Now? What was she thinking? Sure her life was pretty set in the career department, but Overhaul didn’t want her around his men for his own reasons. He didn’t think she could defend herself, BUT HE WAS RIGHT! Marrying someone he has to worry about would probably be too much for him.

When she entered the bakery she was expecting to get scolded, but everyone had hounded her for a completely different reason.

“Don’t clock in just yet!”

“I can’t believe it!”

“A pro hero wants you to visit the hospital!”

They all wanted to know how she was close with a pro-hero. Y/n couldn’t believe how the events were getting weirder. First she had an over the top romantic date with her boyfriend which ended in life threatening disaster, and now a pro-hero summoned her. She knew exactly who it was, but she didn’t think her friendship with Tai was that deep. Then again it’s been a couple years and she does give him free food.

“Is it dire?” She asked.

“Of course it is!” Her employees pushed her.

It hit her that only the staff at the old restaurant knew about her being in a relationship. Ever since she had the bakery she never really mentioned Overhaul, no one really asked. They all just thought it was a little cool that pro-hero Fatgum would stop by.

“Alright, don’t burn the place down.” She yawned.

“Oversleep? Is that why you’re late?”

“Yeah I ran into some villain activity last night.”

“They should use you as a radar to find villains!”

She wanted to call Overhaul, but resisted the urge. He told her last night he had an early morning. He was working and couldn’t be bothered with little worries. Oh to be engaged. To show it off to her co-workers and then say they’re having a small wedding. How she’d rub it in her mother’s face for trying to set her up with that gross doctor. It would be a true fairytale ending. Would she go traditional or western for the dress? Overhaul would probably want to go traditional, but she wanted a big puffy skirt and call herself a full cake. Telling her he loves her in front of everyone they know. Oh such naughty thoughts. But he didn't propose, so it would be best to store such thoughts.

At the hospital, the nurses directed Y/n to Fatgum. There were two younger people in the room with him. Suneater who she recognized despite the bandages, and an even younger body in a full cast. Both the boys were asleep. She didn’t even recognize Tai. He was in a hospital gown, awake. He had a bandage on his face and head.

“I might be in the wrong room.” She said.

“Did someone else call you?” Oh it was his voice.

“I’ve never seen you without a mask before.” She tried covering up. “Sorry sorry.”

“It’s fine, Red Riot over there didn’t even know it was me and I was with him during the whole transformation.” He told her

“You have a whole party in here. What happened?”

“I can’t give you too many details, but we did complete a raid.”

Fatgum had a plan. Considering Y/n was still in the city, and willing to visit him, she doesn’t know what happened to the Shie Hassakai yet. Despite her lack of knowledge that didn’t make him feel easy. It seemed the league and the Shie Hassakai were not on good terms when they worked together. She may have been used without knowing it, but she wasn’t safe yet. He wanted her here so that no one would attack her. Her fate was unsure.

“Did you need anything from me? Meals?” She asked him

“Nothing like that, I thought maybe I could turn the tables.” He tried joking.

“Too bad I’m not a hero.” She told him. “I’d have to change my whole wardrobe if I was.”

“Thank you for coming, Y/n. You’re a good friend.” He was worried this visit was going to be too short.

Tai was learning a lot from her movements. She didn’t see flustered or worried about Overhaul. She couldn’t have known. If she did there would be no reason how she could act so calmly. She’d be overwhelmed if she found out her boyfriend's place was raided. What if they were never a couple and Tai only put a bunch of information that seemed connected wasn’t? Sure they did go to the same elementary, and maybe she came back home just to be close with her family or the place she grew up at. Maybe her and Overhaul got a drink once or they were friendly at her restaurant which made that guy assume they were more than something and choked her. Overhaul was just probably being nice. Sure her grandpa was connected to the old head, but her parents seemed to have distanced themselves as much as possible, which probably distanced Y/n. They might know each other and that is all. Overhaul could have used someone else's regeneration quirk despite Y/n being the closed guess. There were so many things they still didn’t know.

“Well you did the same for me. At least you have your interns with you.” She told him. “I bet you were a great leader.”

“I feel like a lot of the good today was already in their hearts.” He told Y/n.

Y/n stayed a bit longer but confessed she had to get back to work. Fatgum tried to sway her, but his words fell on deaf ears. She promised she’d bring him a meal tomorrow and for his interns, but for now she had to manage the bakery.

The Wicked Sparrow’s bakery was hopping with customers and her employees were bustling. They asked her the connection she had with pro hero Fatgum over and over and just drooled over the story of being personally saved. They all had at least seen him in person a couple times since he was a customer who wasn’t so easily disguised. They asked if he was her boyfriend, but she told the truth and said “no”.

It felt wrong, the whole day did. Overhaul was going to propose, she knew it in her heart! He mentioned it at a wedding for crying out loud! Now her friend was injured and her employees gushed over her closeness to a hero. They came a dime a dozen!

When the work day was done, Y/n dragged herself to the subway to get home. She hadn’t heard from Overhaul all day, but that wasn’t new. She just missed him. Especially now. She wishes she could tell both Overhaul and Fatgum to get different jobs, less dangerous. It would be easier said than done. These jobs were what they dreamed of since they were young, being there head of the yakuza and a pro-hero.

Y/n unlocked her apartment door and found her place to be a mess. The couch was flipped, wine glasses were broke, there were papers everywhere. She hesitated but slowly stepped in the house. She knew it was best to call the police before walking in, but she might have had stuff to hide. She turned into the bathroom to find the sink running. She shut it off and pulled the shower curtain to see if anyone was hiding. No one. Behind her she heard a click, and her eyes widened. Danger again. Something that happened so many times and yet the feeling never adapted well. Her eyes looked in the mirror to find a man with a gas mask on behind her pointing a gun at the back of her head.

“If you wanna live, come with me.”

“O-okay.” She shook.

“Wait.” He said as Y/n turned to face the man.

He took her phone out of her pocket and smashed it against the sink. That was her only hope! There would have to be some sort of GPS on it, she gave Overhaul her “find my friends”. And now she’s gonna die!

Y/n followed him to the car. He instructed her to get in the back seat as he drove. The locks on the car had child locks to prevent the escape.

“This won’t be so bad I promise.” The man said

Oh god she was going to get...she couldn’t even think it. Her lungs tightened.

“You don’t trust me?”

“I’m gonna end up on the news, being a dismembered body aren’t I?” She asked, shaking.

“No, not that.” He told her.

The man’s demeanor was different in the apartment than in the car. In the apartment he was intimidating, wanting to kill her, y’all, looking over her, broke her phone. Now he was more casual and relaxed. Trying to make it seem this wasn’t the worst thing to happen. If she stayed with Fatgum maybe this wouldn’t happen even though this guy was hiding in her place. It was inevitable wasn’t it? He was probably crazy, he was pulling this.

“I actually don’t know how you’re gonna take any of it, to be quite honest.” He told her.

“Why do you care? Are you a stalker?” Why is he pretending to care how she takes this! He kidnapped her. “If you’re gonna kill me why didn’t you just do it back there?”

“Well I’m not a stalker...okay maybe sorta, I was interested in who you are.” He told her.

“Oh my god!” She fiddled with the door handle that didn’t do anything to unlock.

“Hey, hey calm down! I’m not gonna hurt you unless you make me!”

“I just might make you, I’m not as submissive as you think!” She growled, kicking his seat.

“Hey hey! I’m taking you somewhere! Can’t you see I’m driving!”

“If I’m gonna die, I’ll take us both down!” She yelled.

Noticing she wasn’t wearing her seat belt the man took a sharp fast turn which caused her to slam her face in the windows. She groaned as she held her cheek.

“Dick.” She told him.

“You made me!” He yelled.

“Yeah, I made you kidnap me!”

“I’m doing something nice for someone.”

“Oh my god! Did my mom put you up to this! What is it this time! That I didn’t come crawling back to her and that now it’s real that I wasn’t coming back!”

Under the mask the man felt the pressure of the situation rising. She was just throwing wild cards at him and he didn’t know how to respond, but also keep the favor concealed.

“What? She did, didn’t she?”

“No. Right now the less you know the better.”

“That’s so unfair! How long is it gonna take for us to get to wherever you’re driving?”

“A while. I was hoping we can talk to keep the drive less boring, but it seems to only be stressful. I’ll turn on the radio.” He said.

Ariana Grande’s Break Free came on. It was the chorus.

“Looks like the radio is trying to tell me something.” Y/n said.

“We’re obviously not listening to that.” Told her.

He dialed the radio and the next station was playing Sweet Escape by Gwen Steffani. He could see Y/n raising an eyebrow at him. Sweating, he put on the news, and it was about a woman escaping from her abuser and setting them on fire.

“NEVER MIND!” The man yelled turning off the radio.

The car ride was long, but Y/n was feeling like she could put her guard down just a little bit. It was gonna be a long car ride that didn’t seem like it was going to end. While the man couldn’t do anything but drive, she could at least relax her muscles. She wondered what Overhaul was doing. She didn’t know if he knew she was missing her not. He might be too embarrassed to face her just yet after last night. He shouldn’t though, though he despises so many heros, he was her hero last night. But it’s still a high possibility. She also didn’t message him at all today! The day slipped away from her! That could add to the distance. If he did find out she was missing, he would probably lose it. It would start with a call to ask about last night, he can surprise her. Sure they are immature sometimes, but Overhaul did overcome a lot to be with Y/n, she knew that. There would be no pick up. When he gets a free moment he would break in and see her place was a mess. Though she was the messier one, she wasn’t that messy. But what hints or clues would he have to be able to track her down. She was a goner.

“Hey, I have a favor to ask, stalker.”

“I can’t let you out.”

“If I’m gonna die, I wanna at least let someone know how much I love them. You can read the letter if you want if you’re worried if I’m gonna snitch you out. We can mail it from a random address too. I just can’t forgive myself if I left things like I did.”

“Did you two break up?” The man asked.

“First of all rude, yes I’m in a relationship, and no we didn’t fight last night.” Her knife like tone was back up. “I just want him to know my feelings haven’t changed, even if it’s hard to tell sometimes.”

“Well I’m not gonna kill you.”

“So who is?”

“I meant the purpose of this trip isn’t gonna get you killed.” The man said.

“I don’t trust like that.” She told him.

“I’ll think about it, but we’re almost there anyway.”

She sighed. Y/n’s eyes looked through the tinted window to see they were on the coast. Her eyes went to the other window finding they were in a less populated area. There was grass and trees, the waves crashed on the sand. The sun was going down. Y/n didn’t even know what to think at such a location. Who did she know would want her at a beach? It wasn’t a nice beach, a little dumpy with litter and seaweed. The car pulled into the rundown town. There were no huge big store names. Some even were planting flowers in their windows. They drove out of the downtown area and then drove into some secluded private property. There was a lot of land, a lot of lush greenery too, covering the house from the street view. They parked in front of the small cabin.

“Whatever you do, try not to scream.” The man told her.

Y/n gulped as she was reaching for the front door.

#overhaulxreader #overhaul #chisaki kai #chisaki kaixreader #xreader #bnha #bnha fanfiction

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pandemicthestory · 4 years

Text

5: distanced

The next step is to find an in, and then an out.

The morning news briefing on TV:

Kelly Sanchez, lead anchorwoman, stares gravely into the camera. It will be another day of news that no one wants to hear.

“Good morning, Chicago. We’re here with your daily update of the coronavirus. Schools across the country have been canceled due to a significant shortage of public funding. These are funds that are currently being allocated to bail out the tanking airline industry. The President says that allowing the top corporations to suffer will result in a greater hole for the economy. We hope he’s right.

Meanwhile, bars, restaurants and shopping centers that have been re-opened early to boost the economy have not seen the dramatic rise in business that was expected. Perhaps people are too afraid to go out to dinner amongst the public, or perhaps they simply can’t afford it due to a loss of work. One thing we do know is that the most detrimental effect of these early openings is causing a further spread. As people in certain states that have not seriously social-distanced begin to cross state lines…”

Emma’s mom and dad are sitting on the couch, waiting for Kelly to tell them that things are going to get at least slightly better. But she doesn’t. It’s getting impossible to convince themselves that this will all be over soon--that everything will return to normal. It’s becoming likely that the new “normal,” if it ever comes, will be something that no one has ever seen.

*buzzzz*

Emma’s alarm wakes her up at 8:30 AM. She facepalms herself upon remembering that school doesn’t exist anymore and therefore alarms are canceled. Dammit.

But then, she remembers that Universe is currently downloading to her external hard drive. The excitement of this sends a shock through her system and wakes up every cell in her body. It’s that “Christmas morning” excitement, which is marginally more enjoyable than that “about to run away with a possibly bad dude” excitement. That kind is good too, just, different. She runs over to her computer.

16 HOURS REMAINING

Shit. The size of this application is no joke. Seemingly she’ll have to wait until tonight to begin her exploration. To find Mason.

Emma remembers the talk they had last night, and reflects on his support of her relationships with her friends. She realizes that she didn’t know many people with that quality, guys especially...it seems like they always demand her full attention and become frustrated if asked to share. Especially one guy. Well anyway, Mason. Intriguing.

Emma heads downstairs to make herself a bowl of cereal. Oh wait, there’s no milk. And no cereal either? These days, groceries are scarce and pickings are slim. Ah well, might have to be plain oatmeal. Serious orphanage vibes--which is somewhat fitting since her parents wish they could leave her at one.

Ugh. Every time you eat oatmeal, you forget how horrible oatmeal is. Isabel sits across the table from her, scrolling through her phone with intent and drinking black coffee. Emma smirks.

“Aren’t you kinda young to be drinking coffee? Plus what do you have to energize for, your job at the office?”

Isabel pays no attention to her.

“Hello? Okay what is up with you.”

Isabel looks up from her phone, a faraway look in her eyes.

“Do you have a headset?” she asks.

“Um, what do you mean? Like headphones? What are you talking about?”

Isabel looks down again.

“No, like a viewing headset. Like an Oculus or a Vive. Aren’t you like, a tech nerd? You don’t do anything with VR?”

Odd request. Emma isn’t much of a gamer anymore, she used to play Dota and Warcraft, but that was before she decided to cut back to become more social. Spend time with her friends. Date an asshole. Whatever. But in all her experience with gaming, she had never gotten into VR. She never saw the point...either play games or experience the real world. What was the point in trying to achieve both at the same time?

“No I don’t. And you know those are expensive as hell, right?”

Isabel looks nervous.

“I know. Which is why...um, I was wondering, can I borrow some money?”

Emma bursts out laughing.

“No Iz, you can’t borrow 800 dollars to buy a VR headset. Hey are you aware that we’re going through a global pandemic and the world may or may not be ending? I think food and toilet paper are better investments than virtual tennis, or whatever.”

Isabel just shakes her head. What is with this girl? She’s normally the queen of smartassery--loves to spar with Emma and argue about literally everything. She’s usually so ready for a fight, but now she feels surrendered. It’s weird how you can be trapped in such close quarters with a person and still feel like they’re on a different planet.

Emma and Isabel are two years apart. Up until Emma was 6 and Isabel was 4, they were best friends. They shared everything. Isabel didn’t want to play with a toy unless Emma played with it with her. She wouldn’t wear clothing unless it was Emma’s hand-me-down. They shared a bedroom, the walls covered with monarch butterflies. Their mom went for a theme, tacky lamp shades and all, lord knows she tried her best. Often, they would stay awake late into the night, vividly describing the dream that the other sister would have. They thought if they focused hard enough, they could carry those dreams with them into sleep.

But as they got older, things changed. The tacky butterflies were no longer endearing. Emma moved into a room that was being used as her dad’s office. She got a Nintendo DS for Christmas. And she started locking her door.

Isabel was left to wonder where her role model went. But after Emma made it clear that her hobbies were no longer to be shared, Isabel hardened herself to the rejection. She promised herself to become her own person in any way that she could, to never be dependent on Emma to define her personality.

In fifth grade, Isabel met Anush. They met because they were both teacher helpers in art class, and it was their responsibility to help set up the room before class and clean it up afterwards. They were both very outgoing, emotional, and honest. Isabel always told Anush exactly what she was thinking, and vice versa. The two girls were popular among their classmates, but the good kind of popular. They were kind, and they included the other girls who wanted to be like them.

So really, it makes no sense that Isabel is being the way that she is. She’s confident, vocal, and annoyingly optimistic. On a normal day. So what’s wrong?

“Emma, someone just dropped a package off for you.”

Their mom called from the other room. Isabel leaves the table, stressed and defeated. Emma continues to chip away at the bowl of grey sludge in front of her. It’s crazy that there are still people out there delivering the mail--how long until that stops too?

*buzz*

Good morning, group chat.

OLIVIA: GG morning check-in: I want to talk about what the hell Serena sees in Dan

MADISON: or what dan sees in serena?? Come on he’s like an intellectual and she’s a superficial barbie princess

ZOE: Mad you know that is MISOGYNISTIC and that you’re letting the fact that she wears expensive dresses and has blonde hair cloud your judgement!!

MADISON: oh shut up it’s early

OLIVIA: Remember when you were begging not to watch the show??

MADISON: quarantine does weird shit to people ok

Emma enters the chat.

EMMA: Ok but without Serena, don’t you think Blair is so much more lame? Like it’s the best friend combo that makes the show imo

ZOE: There she is!!!

MADISON: goooood morning to our very own barbie princess!

OLIVIA: Why are any of us even awake? SCHOOL’S OVERRR. Should we like, do something?

EMMA: Like what? Sit on our asses and text each other from afar?

MADISON: sounds chill

Emma laughs to herself. Damn. She’s going to miss them.

Maybe there’s a way for her to tell...part of the truth? Leave the part about Julian out? Kind of a big part... Say she’s coming back? Make up a concrete opportunity? There has to be some sort of acceptable explanation...there just has to be. And even if she can’t come up with one...there are other things she wants to tell them about. Another boy.

EMMA: Hey do you guys wanna do a zoom chat in a few min? Just kinda feel like talking more than texting rn

MADISON: do u mind if i go back to bed and pass on that? I love u girl but i’m tired af

ZOE: aaand same here, but it’s only because i’m supposed to do this thing…

OLIVIA: so call Gabriel?

ZOE: Wellllll...I don’t wanna lie to y’all.

Ha. Emma knows the feeling.

EMMA: you out too Liv?

OLIVIA: I am innnnn give me a call when you’re ready

MADISON: kiss kiss kiss

ZOE: kiiiiissssss

EMMA: bye losers

Well, maybe telling one person is a good place to start. Liv is super understanding...she’ll be able to think of a good way to break the news to Mad and Zoe. Emma runs up to her room and closes the door. She flops down on her unmade bed, and facetimes Olivia.

“Hey Liv”

“Emmmm”

Lingering silence. Emma just kind of stares at the wall. Olivia breaks the silence.

“Sooo what did you wanna talk about?”

Emma doesn’t know if she can do it. Ok, form words. Try.

“I wanna tell you something, that’s kind of a long story. And it’s connected to other stories. And basically I’ve just gone too long without talking about any of it and now there’s like this big clusterfuck of details that I need you to know but can’t figure out where to start.”

Whew. Even the vaguest of outbursts feels cathartic. Olivia doesn’t seem to be freaked out yet.

“Emma, I’m pretty sure I know you better than anyone. And you can trust me.”

“I know you say that now but...I don’t know if, after I say what I, well I don’t know if you’re gonna trust me. I haven’t said everything that I need to say to you. Or Zo and Mad.”

“Ok, so, here’s your chance. I’m listening.”

Emma takes a deep breath. Where to start?

*knock knock*

The knocks are soft. Unlike her mom’s, whose are very prison guard-esque, and actually who is more likely to not knock at all. Emma calls out.

“What.”

Isabel’s voice comes from the other side of the door.

“I gotta tell you something.” Her voice is uncharacteristically soft.

“I’m on the phone with Liv right now, can it wait?”

Silence.

“Iz?”

Emma hears the creaking of Isabel’s footsteps down the wooden hallway, and then her beddoor shutting. Click, it locks.

Emma turns back to the phone.

“That was Iz, she’s been acting like a freak.”

“What’s going on with her?”

“No idea. I feel like 14 is a weird age, plus like, she’s REALLY social and into school and shit. This quarantine is probably forcing an inversion of her personality.”

Olivia nods with sympathy. “God, that’s rough.”

“Yeah...I feel kinda bad I guess. We just don’t really have anything to talk about.”

“Oh come on, you’re sisters. Talk about how controlling your mom is.”

Emma laughs. She flips onto her back and stretches her legs against the wall. Oh, physical exertion of any kind feels so unnatural.

“Well Liv...we do have one thing in common. Which is...one of the things I haven’t told you.”

Emma fights a smile.

“TELL ME”

“So I saw Isabel playing this weird computer game, I mean I don’t even know if it was a game or like what the hell it was, but now, I’m downloading it…”

“Uh, ok?? Why?”

“This is going to sound insane, but hear me out…”

“Hearing…”

“I got this...message...online. From someone who I’ve never met. A guy, I think, and his name is Mason.”

“OOOMG”

“Hahah well it’s not like that, I mean I have no fucking idea WHAT it’s like, because it’s very weird, and um, he’s the reason I’m downloading this game. The one that Iz is playing. Cuz he told me to.”

Silence.

“That...is really fucking weird.”

“I know.”

“You don’t even know how badly I wish I was coming over right now to go all detective on his ass right now with you…”

Emma laughs. “I know you would be. It’s so weird being here alone.”

“You’re not alone Em!!! I’m here. I know it doesn’t feel like it, but I’ll ALWAYS be here for you. That’s corny as hell but hey it’s true.”

“Hah, yeah...same. I’m here.”

How can Emma keep this incredibly annoying feeling of guilt suppressed? It’s kind of ruining the buzz of anything else. But it will be ok. Olivia will understand...

*ping*

Emma has come to expect that any message received to her ghostwriter account will be from Mason. She jumps up from her bed, still on the call with Olivia. Emma starts to get excited.

“So this is crazy but he just messaged me, ahhhhhh…”

“Eeee tell me what he said!!”

Sure enough, the message is from Mason.

MASON: hi! did you get it yet?

Emma reads the message aloud to Olivia, who is equally confused.

“What is he talking about?

“I have no idea…”

Emma starts typing a response.

EMMA: Good morning! Get what..?

MASON: a package!

Emma looks confused. Was it...Mason who sent the package? What the hell? How does he know where she lives?? Well at this point she’s not surprised.

“Liv, I gotta call you back!”

“Ok you BETTER tell me what the hell this package situation is because congratulations this is now the most interesting thing happening in my life!!!”

Emma ends the call and runs downstairs. Her parents haven’t moved from the couch, still watching coverage of the virus’s destruction on TV.

“Hey Mom where’s that package??”

“Iz said she’d bring it up to you.”

“What? Can you not give her my mail?”

Emma’s mom turns to face her. “Attitude. Chill.”

Emma rolls her eyes and runs upstairs. She knocks on Isabel’s door. Well, bangs, really.

“Hi ready to talk now. What’s up??”

No response. As Emma presses her ear against the door, she can’t hear anything. She jiggles the handle, it won’t open.

“This is really weird. Hello.”

“Hellooooo.”

“Fine, we don’t have to talk. But I need my package. Now.”

……

Emma grabs the little key from behind the thermostat in the hallway. Isabel will just have to forgive her for this. Emma inserts the key into the lock and…

The lock clicks, the handle turns, and the door opens.

Emma enters the room, ready for Isabel to yell at her.

“Iz??”

First Emma sees the packaging. The medium-sized cardboard box on the ground, the bubble wrap, the plastic…it had clearly been torn off in a hurry...

Isabel is sitting at her computer, her back turned toward Emma.

“Isabel?!”

Emma runs over and jerks the swivel chair to face her, and Isabel slouches over. She’s wearing a virtual reality headset.

The one that was sent to Emma in that package.

“ISABEL”

Isabel’s ears are covered with oversized headphones, but even without them, she wouldn’t be able to hear Emma anyway. Her body is limp. Non-responsive.

Emma starts panicking and checks Isabel’s pulse--steady. Her breathing, normal. What is happening here? What is going on??

Then Emma sees the computer screen.

The map. That fucking map.

She turns back to Isabel. She thinks of Mason. She realizes.

The right question is not “What”, but “Where.”

#writers #writers on tumblr #write #short fiction #shortstory #writing #pandemic #coronavirus #young adult #ya novels

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x0401x · 5 years

Photo

Okay already.

Y’all are really damn eager for it, so here you have it: the infamous List of Erased Gay, AKA a glimpse of how we could be having it all if KyoAni weren’t doing us so dirty this year, Tsurune edition. The Violet Evergarden edition seems to have left a big impression, so maybe this listing will become a thing.

Then again, along with the canon gay that we lost, we gained a lot of anime-only shippy service that is not only weirdly fixated on Minato alone but also ruins the nature of many characters. KyoAni has been outright baffling this year in how little it understands the novels that it has been adapting, and even more in how proficient it has become in destroying the main relationships of each title. All in all, the personalities and purposes of the main characters have been severely altered, and there has been a disturbing trend (not only in Tsurune, but also in Violet Evergarden and Liz to Aoi Tori) of making the protagonists obsess with someone who apparently does only the minimum for them and being lukewarm with the people that seemingly care more for their wellbeing.

That’s not what any of these novels are about.

But since this post is centered on Tsurune, I’ll only talk about how the aforementioned major flaws apply to it. That boils down to KyoAni erasing most of what Masaki did for Minato and about 85% of the scenes they had together, replacing it with additional scenes without much purpose involving other characters. For whatever incomprehensible reason, KyoAni is hellbent on enhancing Minato’s relationship with everyone except the person he has the strongest bond with in the books, and a lot of you guys seemed to notice this. So, in order to address the cringeworthy disaster that the Tsurune anime has become, I’m naming this one as the List of Erased and Misplaced Gay.

Had to put it under a cut because of how long it got. While we’re at it, please consider reading the novel translations.

I gotta apologize to the Anons for stalling so much with this post. It took me a while to write it down since I had to skim the novel to take notes. By the way, to the people who haven’t finished the anime or don’t plan to read the novel: none of what’s cited here are things that will happen; they’re things that already happened in the canon timeline and didn’t make it into the screen. I’ve put them under a cut because it’s too much stuff. It feels like I just wrote a fanfiction but this is actually how canon goes.

I’m going to sort out the list by character relationship, from the mildest to the most blatant (y’all know which one it is).

Noa and Rika

Noa’s anime counterpart seems pretty meager, but her canon self is far more active, and if her saying “there’s no one in this world greater than Seo” isn’t an indication that she ain’t as straight as her arrows, then maybe her shouting at Nanao to “shut up and go burn in the fires of hell” after his advances might be an indication of it. Telling him that he “should be quiet because Seo’s feelings matter” when he flirts with her might also be one. Or not. Sadly, there’s not enough material in this aspect for the girls in the first volume.

Ryouhei and Nanao

These two are the straightest characters out of the group, but their interactions are always full of implications regarding the other club members. The two of them are often used as a means to translate the exchanges between the boys in a way that sounds suggestive as hell, and Nanao is oddly smug about it, which really doesn’t help.

Here’s a compilation of these dialogues, for convenience’s sake:

Nanao: Seiya doesn’t seem like himself today. Ryouhei: Minato probably turned him down. I already got rejected too. Nanao: I understand he wants everyone to join the the tournament, but aren’t those two too stubborn? That Minato guy is such a calamity, being popular with both boys and girls. I’m only popular with girls on that point.

(Try to convince me that Minato isn’t bi after this one. You shall not succeed.)

Kaito: You guys, don’t just stand there and chat; practice! Nanao: Geez, Kacchan, don’t take your anger out on us just because Seiya left. Kaito: Hah? What’re you saying? Nanao: Don’t you watch Seiya a lot? Kaito: Of course. Archery is about practicing while watching each other’s shooting forms.

Nanao: Kacchan, you really suck at endgames. Kaito: Shut up. I got what I needed, so it’s fine.

Kaito: I don’t wanna do team competitions with half-hearted feelings. Didn’t it seem like that guy had been practicing secretly? And I can’t understand the fact that he knows Masa-san. Since when have they known each other? Nanao: Aren’t you Masa-san’s favorite among his acquaintances? Minato’s a genuine bow geek, so I think he’ll unexpectedly be on the same wavelength as you, Kacchan. Kaito: We’re definitely not the same! And anyways, I don’t like that guy. There’s nothing decent about guys with nice faces, including you.

Seiya and Masaki

This one is in the misplaced gay list. In this case, implying Seiya’s non-existent co-dependency towards Minato. In the novel, Seiya isn’t jealous of Masaki and Minato’s relationship. He’s polite with Masaki all the way and starts calling him “Masa-san” from day one. Seiya also never says that he hates Masaki. Because he doesn’t.

Kaito and Masaki

Another example of misplaced gay. Kaito is very obedient around Masaki and obviously stans him as a good example of successful archer, but not in the exaggerated way that the anime tries to sell. In fact, it feels like the anime tries to get him to Minato’s level of fanboying, but although the two of them are equal when it comes to fawning over archery, they have a different vibe when it comes to Masaki. That’s probably because Minato is much closer to Masaki than Kaito is, and Kaito canonically sees Masaki as the brother he never had, while it’s unclear what exactly Minato sees Masaki as in his life.

For starters, Kaito never tried to keep Masaki for himself. He is jealous of Minato for also knowing Masaki and apparently monopolizing him, and he’s mad as hell that Masaki decided to start teaching archery because of Minato, but he never tried to keep Masaki’s existence itself a secret. The only one who did that was Minato. Kaito never refrained from talking to Nanao about Masaki at all. He also talked to Masaki about Nanao, enough for Masaki to be able to recognize Nanao at first sight.

Masaki jokes around Kaito like he does with everyone else, but Kaito responds to it right away with threats that he doesn’t really mean. Whenever Masaki dares him to actually do it, he meekly recoils. They’re found family through and through.

Daigo and Hiroki

The anime has been doing a piss-poor job at showcasing this ridiculously married duo. There isn’t much about them in the first volume, to be fair, but the little we had was enough to deliver that they’re old friends who complete each other. Hiroki is also the only person who listens to Daigo nerding out embarrassedly about idols without judging him, and the two of them are considered “special goods” of Kirisaki for being so inseparable and well-balanced.

Shuu, Sen and Man

These three aren’t nearly as close in the anime as in the original work. The twins absolutely love Shuu and admit to worshipping him. They’re clearly very jealous of Minato for holding Shuu’s attention, and physically attempt to drag Shuu away from him when they’re talking to each other. They’re also openly aggressive with Minato more than to any other team member of Kazemai.

In Kirisaki, their interactions are also different. The twins normally follow Shuu around and monopolize him, which he doesn’t seem to mind. The author describes Shuu sandwiched on both sides by the twins as “charming in some aspects”.

Shuu gives advice to them when asked, which the twins do often, not only because his shooting is their ideal, but also because they find his explanations easier than the teacher’s. He also defends the twins from the more hot-headed senpais when they’re called out for their rudeness.

Also, the twins’ admiration for Shuu isn’t equal. Senichi is way more serious about it than Manji is. The way this trio is depicted, it feels like Senichi is Shuu’s arranged fiancé who happens to be madly in love with him and has to deal with Shuu being in love with someone else.

Delicious.

Kaito and Minato

The anime keeps trying hella hard to maintain that Kaito and Minato have some sort of hero crush on Masaki and that this is the main connection between the two of them, but the novel begs to differ. It also keeps trying to pretend that Minato is the kind of spineless idiot who would act like Kaito is right in trying not to let him into the club because of his target panic, and who would attempt to gain Kaito’s friendship by catering to his unfair treatment. The novel also begs to differ.

Minato is a serious and assertive character. He acknowledges that he’s in bad condition and tries his best to prove his resolve, but only within realistic standards. He tells Kaito right to his face that entering the club is his own decision and warns that Kaito should back off from speaking on Seiya’s behalf, arguing that Seiya would be displeased with it. He also lectures Kaito on being a little shit to everyone, especially to Nanao, simply because he’s insecure.

After Minato joins, Kaito immediately bares his fangs at him. Albeit not putting up with his shit, Minato asks what he could do to be acknowledged as a comrade because you sort of need camaraderie in a team, and Kaito spits out that such a day would never come.

Kaito is outright displeased having to work together with Minato as kaizoe. Minato also isn’t in high spirits. The two of them comically have the same reaction when finding out they’d have to do it.

Minato decides to strike a conversation after the yawatashi, when he and Kaito are getting changed, mainly because he had noticed that Seiya and Kaito’s relationship wasn’t going well because of him. Kaito barks at Minato that there’s no honor in working with him, and Minato reasons that they should reach a mutual understanding, since they’d be in a team competition. Kaito retorts that he didn’t even want to be in them, but he had to after Minato joined. It only becomes clearer that Minato is ruining Kaito’s prospects one by one.

Despite all the clashing, Minato notices that Kaito’s passion for archery is genuine. Still, there’s a lot of misplaced gay in the anime during the training camp. Minato doesn’t desperately try to win Kaito’s favor, isn’t saved by Kaito from falling into the river, and doesn’t ogle at Kaito’s back when he shoots as the oomae for the first time.

Kaito finally shows a slight sign of warming up to Minato by thanking him for saving Nanao’s hat, which had been a present from him and his sisters. This is destroyed by him finding out that Minato and Seiya had attended Kirisaki for middle school.

After the whole accident with Masaki, Kaito assures Minato that it wasn’t his fault, and then he emphasizes it the next day, saying that Minato wasn’t worth being saved by Masaki if he was still twitching with guilt.

When Minato gets a ganglion on his hand, he tries to hide it from everyone, but Kaito notices something wrong. He forces Minato to have it examined by Tomio. And after Seiya performs first-aid on Minato, the following dialogue goes on:

“Shit, you’re seriously so…” “Sorry that this happened right before an important competition… It was because I was careless that I got hurt.” “Aah, you’re so freaking annoying. It doesn’t look like you get why I’m pissed off.” “You’re angry because I messed up?” “Wrong! This is why I said I wanted to focus on only the individual competitions. You tried to hide that injury from us earlier. You think you can compete in a team like that? In the end, you just don’t acknowledge us. All you do is keep secrets!” “I just didn’t want to worry everyone! What, don’t you have a secret too, Onogi!? You said you want to focus on the individual competitions, even though you actually couldn’t help but want to be in team competitions!” “Wha--no way that’d be true!” “I heard it from Nanao!”

Kaito almost gets back at Nanao for opening his mouth, but Minato put himself nose-to-nose in front of Kaito. This is one more example of closure that the anime doesn’t show.

“Onogi, didn’t you say that I was using target panic as an excuse to run away from archery? But aren’t you running away too? You run, run, and you’re still running away even now.” “What do you say that I’m running away from?” “From your ‘comrades’.” “What the hell are you talking about…” “You’re scared of making comrades. You’re scared that your thoughts and desires won’t be followed by other people. Even though you really longed for it, you didn’t want to disappoint others or yourself, so you decided to seal away that wish and not look at it. You’re the weakest kind of archer with that cowardice of yours.” “What did you saaaaaaaay——?!!”

This is how we get to the fight right before their face-off against Kirisaki, which was showed in the anime, but in a wholly different way. The fight itself is different as well. Kaito grabs Minato by the lapels of his gi, but Minato steps forward without any hesitation, unlike in the anime, where he seemed pretty terrified and just stood in place like a rock.

“Kaito.” “Don’t call me Kaito!” “Then, Kacchan.” “That’s even worse!” “Kaito, call me by my name. Call me Minato. Then we’ll be comrades.” “Haaa!?” “Besides, in the Kazemai High School Archery Club’s male division, everyone is calling each other by their first names, but we’re the only ones calling each other by our last names. It’s embarrassing to feel special, right?” “There’s no special feeling——! It’s normal, average. You’re such an airhead.” “When I learned that you wanted to be in a team competition, Kaito, I was really happy. I felt the same way.” “So what?” “Tommy-sensei didn’t make me the ochi for the evetuality of my target panic starting up. It was to make me feel like I had four comrades in front of my eyes. So, Kaito, you must feel the four of us at your back, right? You aren’t alone. I’ll protect the end of the line so that everyone can follow behind you. I’ll go with you to the very top.” “You were just babbling on. I’m gonna trample you.” “Why would you trample me? We’re going together.”

Yes, they didn’t get to this point by Kaito being hysterical about following Masaki’s teachings or by Minato telling everyone to forget them, because that’s just fucking dumb. If teachings weren’t necessary, there would be no need for taking classes in the first place.

It’s only here that Tomio hands them the headbands. They all put them on and Minato doesn’t need a pep talk from Seiya in order to tie his own. Kaito then finally calls Minato (and only Minato, as he’d already been on a first-name basis with Seiya since the beginning) by his first name for the first time.

Kaito and Seiya

To quote myself from an earlier post:

One of the things I noticed is that not just their relationship but their personalities are different in the anime, and this in turn affects the rest. What I find so good about them is the irony that Seiya is a dog person who acts cat-like and Kaito is a cat person who acts dog-like and you can feel this shit in their exchanges.

There are many details to this relationship that could be considered gems. When Kaito meets Seiya and Minato at Kazemai, he recognizes Seiya right away from their tournament in middle school, but not Minato. As I said before, the two of them refer to themselves by their first names off the bat and Kaito is quick to try to get Seiya into individual competitions with him. He insists that the two of them can “aim for the top together”, and gets extremely frustrated when Seiya refuses. He’s also pretty offended when Seiya claims that Minato is above him when it comes to natural ability.

The day after Seiya and Minato fight in the rain, Seiya catches a cold and is overall very distracted, enough to mistake Kaito’s bow for his own and use it instead. Kaito asks him how he managed the feat because one would normally be able to tell the difference, to which Seiya responds that he “did think it felt sort of tougher”.

I will not turn this into innuendo. I shan’t.

Kaito then notices Seiya looks red and places a hand on his forehead, confirming that he has a fever, like any good shoujo protagonist would do with the heroine. And this is where the author begins to hint that Kaito treats Seiya differently from the other club members. Kaito is overall gentler with him for no given motive. Even though he’s the type to care for everyone, he normally scolds those he looks after and makes clear that they should be able to look after themselves, but he doesn’t do this with Seiya at all. And the best of it is that Seiya responds to his awkward kindness.

When he realizes that Seiya is sick, the first thing he does is tell him that he should take a break because he’s busy with other matters aside from club activities and Seiya brushes him off, but then closes his eyes and says that Kaito’s cold hand feels good against his hot face and goddamn. What a low sweep. Goddamn.

Basically, all Kaito can do is frown and he doesn’t manage to come up with much of a response. By the time Seiya leaves, Kaito is still staring at him, and he gets visibly annoyed when Seiya isn’t there anymore. Again, for no given reason.

Kaito confronts Minato two days later about joining the club, acting as Seiya’s spokesperson on his own accord and telling Minato that he shouldn’t upset Seiya or raise his hopes fruitlessly. He gets angry when Minato argues that Seiya wouldn’t forgive him for butting into their affairs, and maintains that Seiya would be going to the individual competitions with him, not to the team competitions.

Right before the training camp, when Kaito and Seiya are cleaning up the targets together, Kaito finally confronts Seiya about his stance regarding Minato. He calls Seiya out for being like an overprotective father around Minato, and makes observations that even Seiya himself admits to be right:

“About your good point of nicely taking care of everyone, it seems that it’s because you’re following the rules. Like, you go forward at the green light and stop at the red light ‘cause you were taught to do so. Still, you’re different around Narumiya. You do with him what you really wanna do. But I’m not saying that you’re black-hearted. Your good quality is fairness ‘cause you have enough brains and ability to take action to properly make use of what you’ve learned. Many people are relying on you. Your guiding principles were misled ‘cause you, the club president, got too engrossed with one person. I mean, you shouldn’t have forced everyone to go for team competitions this time.”

Seiya is predictably displeased that Kaito hit bull’s-eye, and tells him that he should be focusing more into practice if he has time to be observing him. And sure, I get that he would want to tell Kaito to hop off his shit because this little fucker has a lot of secrets............ but he certainly didn’t have to hold Kaito’s hand while doing it. And he most certainly didn’t have to hold it so tight that the arrow on Kaito’s hand creaked a little.

Kaito says to Seiya’s face that a lot of what he spouts sounds fishy, and Seiya changes the subject by claiming that all he wants is for Minato to draw the bow like he used to once again. Kaito can tell that there’s more to his motives than this, but as Seiya leaves as fast as he can, he’s unable to ask. The arrow that remained on his hand was Seiya’s, and the emphasis on the fact that it was a wornout one probably stems from the long-standing burdens that Seiya has been carrying.

Yeah, this debunkes the anime’s stupid excuse that Seiya is in the archery club because of Minato. He’s depicted in the novel as being his own person and having his own will, so he does have a mind outside of Minato. Even if Minato had never joined the club, Seiya would have stayed in it.

Anyway, fast forward to the day before the training camp, Kaito confronts Seiya about not signing up for the individuals. Seiya ignores him, which pisses him off.

Once Kaito finds out that Seiya and Minato went to Kirisaki in middle school, he bitches to Seiya about keeping it a secret. Seiya argues that he hadn’t told anyone because he didn’t want everybody digging up on them and retorts that Kaito could have simply looked them up if he’d really wanted to know, but after Kaio leaves, Seiya admits that he should have properly talked about it when Kaito had asked. He resigns to the fact that finding out about it way after people of other clubs probably made Kaito feel awful and says he has no right to be the club president. Yet he’s cheered up by Ryouhei and decides to discuss the subject properly with Kaito when he gets a chance.

Kaito is so thrown-off by the fresh frustrations that he loses the improvement he had acquired during the training camp on the spot (no, he didn’t fail because of a stupid obsession with making his bow turn, KyoAni). He actually made it through the first round, but fell short in the second, together with Nanao (yes, he participated), Yuuna and Noa (yes, the girls didn’t fuck up right from the get-go and none of them had zero hits).

Kaito continues acting off during club activities and gets into an argument with the girls and Minato, but he’s immediately shut down by Seiya because this bitch weak.

Later on, in order to help the boys enhance their teamwork and to distract them from the stress of having to face Kirisaki, Tomio bought them sports fishing passes and sent them to a fishing spot. Since fishing alone was forbidden, the five boys split into two groups. Ryouhei and Nanao went with Minato, leaving Kaito to work together with Seiya, who had brought Kuma along. The two of them caught river bugs to serve as bait together and sat at opposite sides of the shore.

I think it’s worth mentioning that Kaito was being his usual sharp self with the others, but with Seiya, he acted completely tame. There wasn’t any trace of his frustration in his attitude.

Seiya went back to Kaito after having caught one salmon, and found that Kaito’s fishing line had become entangled on a tree. After Seiya sent a picture of what he had gotten to Minato and the others, he and Kaito sat down...... really close together under a shaded area. Seiya took a tomato curry bread out of his backpack and shared half of it with Kaito, and after they were done, they chatted idly, with Seiya commenting that Kuma seemed to be showing respect for Kaito. Kaito then stroked him and Kuma sat down next to Kaito as if to nestle close to him.

Once Kaito gets the Kuma Seal of Approval, he and Seiya have the following conversation:

“About the whole deal with Kirisaki’s Shuu, it was wrong of me to keep it all a secret; I’m sorry. I’ll discuss things properly from now on.” “Ah, no, you don’t have to talk about it. There’s nothing you have to apologize for. You had something you didn’t want anyone else to know about, and it was wrong of me to get curious over it. Even if I knew, it doesn’t really mean I could be of help to you guys, either.” “That’s not true. I’m counting on you, Kacchan.” “You…even though I was talking seriously… Can I punch you?” “Well, the competition is over, after all. I think Tommy-sensei gave us this mission not to acquire stamina and patience through fishing, but to make us step away from the bow once in a while and relax. Minato seems to be conscious of Shuu and getting flustered by him too.” “Rather than him, I’m a little worried about you.” “Me? Why?” “Aren’t you fretting over Narumiya’s target panic more than he is? Other than that, how can I put it? Uh… Anyways, you’re also a disappointment.” “I don’t quite get it, but well, I’m thankful that you’re worried about me.” “You’re nice to everyone, and yet you act sassy with me.”

Kaito had actually wanted to ask Seiya if he felt some sort of guilt regarding Minato, but the question was too insensitive even for him. He also acknowledged that he might not be able to find the right words to reply with if Seiya said yes, and didn’t want to seem like he was criticizing Seiya for it. So, instead, he goes with this:

“Seiya, when I first saw you at the information session, I thought that you were a guy who was well-composed and really good at archery. I’d been watching you for a while, and I thought maybe you were similar to me in some way. You have passion, some kind of conviction, don’t you? I want to respect it. I respect you for working hard to earn a calm and collected self.” “You praising me feels unpleasant. Should I say that you should go practice if you have the time to observe me?” “I want to win the prefectural tournament - with all five of us.” “Yeah… that’s right.”

The author then describes the maple trees overhead, and just to put it out there, maple stands for reserve, which might be an allusion to Kaito holding back from digging further into the matter (even though he was right, like he always is about Seiya). They also mean strength and endurance, and that matches Kaito’s comments on Seiya.

A few days later, during a softball tournament of their school, Minato and Seiya’s class was playing against Kaito’s. Seiya teases Kaito when they spot each other about how the soccer field is somewhere else, since Kaito was being recurrently summoned to be part of the soccer team by the school’s soccer club at the beginning of the semester, to which Kaito responds with, “Seiyaaa, not you too”.

When the game begins, Kaito is the first batter and Seiya is the baseman. Kaito gets a hit in the second try, and gives Seiya a “how’s that” look when passing him by.

On the first day of club activities after Masaki was hospitalized, Kaito was the one to announce that everyone should continue practice like normal in order not to waste what they’d been taught. Before doing so, he gazes at Seiya for a brief moment as if to ask for permission to speak on his behalf.

After Kazemai’s tiebreaking match with Kubo high school, while everyone was having lunch, Seiya and Kaito were checking the competition’s program and discussing the formalities for the exiting of the next round, which would be slightly different from the others.

At the tournament, when Seiya diagnoses and treats Minato’s ganglion, Kaito is visibly impressed by the fact he carries first-aid items around with him, and Seiya merely responds that he shouldn’t underestimate a son of orthopedic surgeons who used to play with medical tape instead of building blocks.

Keep on roasting him with care, you four-eyed witch.

In other words, Seiya and Kaito interact a lot. Onogi “hands off my man” Kaito is often on the role of looking out for Seiya, who in turn looks out for everyone. Just like Masaki with Minato, Kaito is always spot-on about Seiya and gets really damn close to finding out his heaviest secret, and prods into Seiya’s business enough to shake even a careful planner like him. Meanwhile, Seiya is sharp as a knife with him, but recognizes he shouldn’t be, and resorts to sassing Kaito when he gets too sappy. He also acts somewhat tsun when Kaito is too gentle, and not-so-subtly starts hanging around Kaito most of the time after he starts acting like a normal best friend to Minato once again.

Seiya and Minato

It all obviously starts right on the first part of the first chapter, because Ayano Kotoko wastes no time. When Minato and Seiya meet during the morning of their high school entrance ceremony, Minato hinted that he might have been getting sick, and Seiya teases him about it. Then he says that if this did end up happening, he would offer to “faithfully nurse” Minato in the special hospital room of his parents’ clinic, to which Minato retorts that he would turn Seiya down because “who knows what you’d do”. Seiya claims he wouldn’t do anything, but the feigned innocence is so evident here that you don’t even have to guess what kind of face he’s making.

When Minato, Seiya and Ryouhei are approached by Tomio, Seiya bluffs that he knows Minato is “carrying his treasure around” and smirks when he falls for it. After Minato fails magnificently at the demonstration shooting and scurries to leave, Seiya says he’d be waiting for him to join the club, holding Minato’s place in the boys’ team for as long as it was necessary.

When Minato comes back home late in his third night visiting Yata no Mori, he finds Seiya waiting for him in front of his house. Seiya already knew that Minato had sneaked out somewhere the previous night, and as he questions Minato about it, he finds one of Fuu’s feathers on his hair. Minato does nothing but give roundabout answers, and then straight-up lies that he was just wandering around on his bike, which Seiya is far from believing but lets slide. This whole moment sort of feels like a father questioning his teenage daughter about sneaking out of home to see her boyfriend.

Seiya then confronts Minato about joining the club, competitions and target panic. He reveals that he doesn’t feel their loss in middle school was only Minato’s fault, since he got caught up with the whole situation and lost control of himself as well. Minato happens to hate this whole talk, and ends up saying he doesn’t want to do archery with Seiya, which isn’t true. He simply doesn’t want to keep causing trouble, but doesn’t know how to convey it. Although Seiya does understand what Minato means, he’s still hurt by his words because Minato being able to rely on him is his anchor. He then responds in the way he always does when he’s upset.

By being a stone-cold bitch.

The anime is trying to paint Seiya as meek and passive, but he’s an icy little fucker when his mood swings for the worse. He stares at Minato as if looking down on him, and this is when he throws the “Actually, would you be able to endure it if I did blame you? Or not? It’s easy to make you cry.” bomb on Minato’s lap. And instead of leaving it as that like he did in the anime, Minato grabs Seiya by the collar and pushes him to the ground, then Seiya pushes him onto a tree.

The following day at school, Minato found himself looking for Seiya during his absence, even though he had been avoiding him before they fought. A day later, Minato leaves a box of Pucky in Seiya’s mailbox as a sign of apology. No, he doesn’t write that he would be waiting for Seiya. He didn’t have to, since novel!Seiya never once doubted his love for archery. What he did was draw a dog on the box, which is something that Seiya used to do to display an intent of reconciliation. Seiya also leaves a box of (premium) Pucky for him as reply.

The next morning, Minato contacts Seiya, who welcomes him to the archery club, and he almost tears up at it.

Misplaced gay ensues in a non-canon scene of the five boys bathing together at the training camp. Nanao’s comment about Seiya’s “love” for Minato never happened in the novel. Seiya also wasn’t around when Minato retrieved Nanao’s hat from the river, so he wasn’t even there to help, although he was worried when he saw Minato coming back all soaked.

During the softball game, Seiya yet again shows exaggerated worry as the pitcher aims at Minato’s left flank. He attempts to get someone else to be the batter even though Minato had dodged the ball and was unharmed.

Even as the game ends, Seiya asks if Minato hadn’t been grazed even a little, and despite being reassured that he hadn’t, Seiya asks if Minato had been going to his yearly check-ups. When Minato answers that he hadn’t, as already four years had passed since the accident, Seiya yells that he shouldn’t neglet his check-ups because his wound still throbs from time to time, loud enough for Minato to flinch. Seiya then comes up with suggestions to motivate Minato to go, like asking his parents to drive Minato there (no, he doesn’t do check-ups with Seiya’s father) or offering to tag along in case Minato feels bored while waiting. Minato feels extremely uncomfortable and declines it all, asking Seiya why he worries so much. Seiya responds that he has the “responsibility to worry for Minato’s health”, and Minato jokes that he sounds like he feels guilty for something. Seiya says nothing back, and when Minato prods for an answer, he replies that it’s part of his responsibility as club president. That isn’t the whole truth and Minato can tell as much. In fact, he had only joked because he had been hoping to hear Seiya ask back “what are you even talking about”.

Minato had felt for a while that Seiya seemed to wish for his improvement at archery even more than his own, as if he were trying to compensate for something. He recognizes that some aspects of Seiya’s worry are unnatural and can’t be explained with the word “meddling”. As Seiya’s sense of guilt became gradually clearer, Minato grew scared.

At this point, in the anime, all of this was replaced with flashbacks from Minato and Seiya’s childhood that never happened in the novel, like the day Minato’s family went to greet Seiya’s, their multiple discussions about entering the archery club when they become middle scholars, Minato saying that he asked Saionji to include Seiya in their class but was denied (yes, he kept it a secret even from Seiya in canon), Minato introducing Seiya to Shuu, Minato saying he didn’t want to do archery anymore after he got hit, and Seiya convincing him to do it.

The next day, when Minato and Seiya come home from school, Minato asks to talk and the two of them go under a nearby tree. He starts off reporting that he booked a check-up, and announces that what he has to discuss is serious talk and that he was bracing himself for it and that he wanted Seiya to answer without teasing him. Seiya asks if he has to talk about it right away, and Minato says that things might end up just like the last tournament of middle school if he doesn’t. Basically, his built-up anxiety over their unresolved matter might cause his target panic to act up again. It’s finally then that Minato asks Seiya why he didn’t go to Kirisaki even though his parents could pay for it and why he kept trying so hard to get Minato back into archery.

This entire conversation was replaced in the anime with the scene of them on the street, and although some things are similar, most of it is wholly different:

“I swore that I would protect you on behalf of your mother. Creating an environment where you can draw a bow is my duty.” “Could it be that you spoke with Mom at the hospital she was transported to? Did you make that promise there?” “No. It was my fault that your mother died. That you suffered a wound that won’t disappear for the rest of your life.” “What are you talking about? That was an accident. An accident where a runaway vehicle ran over people walking on the sidewalk. The police took this conclusion too, and there were lots of witnesses so there was no doubt about it. Why are you saying something like that? Didn’t you just happen to be at the scene by chance?” “Don’t you remember? On that day, you were walking with your mother. I stopped you two to talk on that road. I said goodbye and left, heading in the opposite direction. And then, an awfully fast car passed by me… If I had turned around, if I had turned around… ‘If’…It’s all suppositions now. If, at that time, I hadn’t stopped you, the two of you would have passed that place sooner, and then you wouldn’t have been involved in the accident. I was the one who injured you and snatched your mother away from you. So I swore that I’d fully atone for the sin of hurting you. I will protect you…”

It’s kind of impossible to tell that Seiya sounds exactly like a mom at this point, just like in everything he does for Minato. Minato resents not realizing that Seiya had burdened himself with something so heavy and had been in pain ever since the accident which I think says a lot about the fact that Kaito noticed something was wrong with Seiya in the way he acted around Minato and in the things he would say from the very beginning. Minato feels like the problems resolving around his target panic are dust next to what Seiya was dealing with and that he wants to accept Seiya’s troubles. Seiya had always been protecting him, and now he thinks he wants to protect Seiya in return.

Yeah, he never really said that he had managed to get back into archery because Seiya waited for him, or that it was his turn to wait for Seiya. That’s misplaced gay, and unsurprisingly, it’s watered-down. Their exchange in the novel is actually pretty calm in spite of all the tension that had built up until then:

“I’ve always thought that you were smart, Seiya, but you’re actually surprisingly dumb.” “Huh?” “Am I wrong? It was you who kept me on the earth. Because you stopped us at that time, I only got injured. I’m here thanks to you. Thank you, Seiya. I think I really am a lucky guy.” “Minato… I’m a sneaky person. Maybe I said all that because I knew that you would forgive me, y’know?” “Uh-huh, that’s fine. Even if you become a vicious criminal who shakes up the world, or even if you get a contagious disease without cure that leads to death, I don’t plan on ever stopping to be your friend. Even if it’s at a prison at the farthest ends of the north, even if it’s at an isolation ward, I’ll go see you.” “What’s with all that…? Were you planning on putting up a cool façade by saying all that?” “Of course.”

Seiya then smiles and places his head on Minato’s shoulder without any lame excuses, while Minato thinks about how Seiya can lean on him sometimes, for he won’t collapse. About how he wanted to stand firm on the ground, not too stiffly or too limply, but flexibly. And then Seiya throws in the golden line that the anime shouldn’t have cut out, because doing so ruined his character and painted his obsession as something positive and justified:

“Minato, I just want you to believe this. I love archery too. I’m not drawing the bow for someone else’s sake, but because I love it.”

Catch me stanning this eternal friendship until I die. Yeah, that’s as far as the “gay” goes for them. Of course, they’re still shown together in as many scenes as possible, but the ambiguousness is no longer present as soon as Seiya stops treating Minato like his own child and actually gives him the space any normal friend would. Literally everything that happened in the anime between them beyond this point (and I do mean everything, even just their conversations) is KyoAni’s original content.

Long live these unapologetically healthy best friends. Fuck KyoAni’s fanservicey ass.

Shuu and Minato

The way Shuu is being depicted in the anime is underwhelming at best. He might be quiet and calm on the outside, but on the inside, he’s extremely passionate about archery and about Minato, though not in this clichéd and overused way that the anime is portraying.

Even though Seiya also used to be on their team, Shuu considers Minato his only rival and bow friend. The two of them know each other well and are actually pretty close, since they literally attended the same middle school.

None of this actually shows in the anime at all. One may argue that it’s easy to notice he’s interested in Minato more than anyone else, and it really is, but their rivalry isn’t nearly as fiery and there seems to be no trace of their friendship. Shuu simply keeps spouting been-there-done-that catchphrases that any rival of any sports animanga has said to the protagonist, and that’s it.

In the novel, Shuu is rather obsessed with Minato in different ways. He doesn’t only crave for Minato in competitions, he also craves for him outside of the dojo. He misses him since they’re attending different schools, but ever since they were little, he had always wanted to spend way more time with Minato than he actually had in his hands. He hates having to part ways with Minato when business is over and is unforgiving of anyone who might “steal” Minato from him. KyoAni for some reason has made Seiya hostile towards Masaki, but Shuu is the one who resents Masaki for becoming Minato’s goal rather than himself.

The flashbacks also aren’t helping. When they were kids, they acted... well, like kids, and not like mini versions of how they are now. They were loud, openly competitive, and would fight for Saionji’s side because he had bad hearing, so they had to talk close to his ears. They were also like older brothers to Saionji’s grandson, which the anime didn’t show.

Their first meeting was different. Minato usually came around the dojo to peek at practice, and Saionji took him as pupil along with Shuu because he believed that teaching the two of them was his fate.

Minato had always annoyed Shuu and was always the only one capable of instigating fiery emotions in him, starting with the fact that he made Shuu realize that someone else his age was as talented as himself. Shuu was extremely irritated when Minato suddenly stopped coming to their practice, having no idea that the motive had been the car accident. He was irritated yet again when they met by chance in middle school, and all the while, he keeps thinking, “who do you think you are to irritate me”.

When Hiroki comments that Shuu must be so elegant and skilled with his shooting because he was taught by a former imperial guard, Shuu responds that he’s actually like that because there’s someone whose heart he wants to shoot through. He credits Minato for his own prowess because his desire to be better than Minato is what got him so far. The twins ask if there was someone who managed to charm him that much and if the saying “the greatest hate springs from the greatest love” has anything to do with it. Shuu responds with nothing but a daring smile and an “I wonder”.

Other interactions between them that the anime watered down are their greetings during the beginning of the tournament and Shuu’s words before he left. In the novel, Minato froze at the sight of him and held his breath when he got close. Shuu reminisces to memories of when they were kids, which is why he goes to Minato’s side and whispers into his ear. Then he puts a hand over Minato’s scar and asks if it still hurts, and Minato answers that it doesn’t.

Just a heads-up: everyone is watching this unfold. Kazemai and the twins are staring at this bullshit but everyone feels they can’t get close because the gay atmosphere around them is too intense.

Minato says that he knows Shuu turned his back on him for getting target panic while he got a full score during the individual competitions at the middle school championship (because of the “cold look” that Shuu had given him in after their loss), and claims that he can’t face Shuu at all. Shuu responds that he hadn’t turned his back on Minato even once, and that he had only not comforted or admonished Minato at that time because he didn’t think there were words for Minato’s situation.

He reveals that he had no idea Minato had suddenly stopped coming to their secret practice because of a serious injury, and that he had realized just how eagerly he had been waiting for Minato when they met again in middle school. He had believed that Minato would definitely come back in high school as well, and asked Minato to “show his archery again”. Minato seems a little touched by it, and Shuu comments that Saionji actually never taught anyone personally, and that Saionji apparently believed Shuu and Minato to be the last duty entrusted to him. Shuu believes that their meeting was a “gift from the God of the bow”, and after saying so, he leaves.

Many things didn’t happen, though. Like the two of them meeting after the tournament and at the shrine. Shuu never asks Minato to take responsibility for changing his life, never acts like a total dick with Seiya and never tells Minato that one can’t do archery for someone else’s sake.

The day before the first team competitions, Minato had barely slept because of his meeting with Shuu. He was glad that Shuu hadn’t given up on him and felt strongly that he didn’t want to lose face in front of him. He was extremely impatient after seeing Shuu’s shooting, and their difference in skill was ever so present even in the next days, as he wanted to become the kind of archer who could be a match for Shuu as fast as possible.

During the second phase of the tournament, Minato and Shuu meet again, and the dialogue they have is way different from the anime:

“Minato, it’s been a while. How are you feeling today?” “Not bad at all, Shuu. A lot of cheering squads came for us today, so I’m fired-up.” “I’m surprised to hear you say such a thing. You said before that you weren’t drawing for the sake of other people watching you. You thought spectators were annoying.” “I’m honestly happy to be supported now. Besides, I’ve just always loved doing archery, be it before or now. So why is someone like you drawing a bow, Shuu? Aren’t you doing it for the same reasons as me?”

Instead of replying, Shuu just smiled brightly, and this ticked off the twins, who started attacking Minato and had to be stopped by Shuu. He apologized on their behalf, which yet again spiked jealousy, and left with them.

Right before the tiebreaking match, Minato wondered if Shuu was watching from somewhere. Minato had never participated in one of them before, and it was all thanks to Shuu. Having someone as skilled as him to be the ochi was reassuring, and Minato entrusted him and Seiya with his back in their middle school days. However, unlike how the anime goes, the novel explicitly states that Minato’s state of mind being at ease during competitions was Shuu’s merit, specifically. He knew that Shuu would always hit, and so he could remain calm, knowing that someone could cover up for him if he made any mistakes.

Similar to this scene, right before the final match between Kazemai and Kirisaki, Shuu yet again comes to talk to Minato as he was being bothered by the twins:

“I’m deeply moved to face you in competition again, Minato. Did you hurt your wrist?” “No, it’s already fine. I can’t help but feel happy to take on the strongest member.” “I’m looking forward to it.”

During the duo’s last shot, the clouds opened up, and the grains of dust illuminated by the sunlight formed the shape of wings on their backs. As Shuu misses his last shot, he mouths the word, “congratulations” to Minato while the Kazemai boys are hugging him.

In short, Shuu and Minato’s relationship is originally complex and tridimensional, and the anime is reducing it to something dry, commonplace and boring.

Masaki and Minato

Here comes the bible that you asked for, you heathens.

First off, this duo is ridiculous. Their relationship literally has absolutely no business being as good as it is. You just know that it’s the most important one of the story from the fact that it begins when chapter one ends and appears on the very first illustration (other than the one in the cover).

I’m gonna start from the start: the character relationship chart from the official site. It says that what Minato borders for Masaki is “reverence”. That’s pretty heavy for a high school student.

A number of things ensue right before Masaki and Minato’s first meeting, which the anime didn’t show:

When Minato hears Masaki’s tsurune for the first time, his heart starts racing.

While he’s approaching the dojo, he’s praying in his head for Masaki not to disappear until he gets there. He was already thinking that maybe Masaki might be a ghost that haunted the shrine, but he didn’t care if this was the case.

Minato watched Masaki’s shooting for waaay longer in the novel. He stood hidden behind a fence as Masaki fired six shots and then did the finishing formalities.

While Masaki was collecting the arrows, Minato was sighing heavily, rubbing his sweaty palms against his uniform and wondering if he should go talk to him. But it’s totally not a crush. Totally not.

I hate these two so much.

Just to put it out there, it feels like Yamamura Takuya (the anime’s director) is fanboying over Masaki. Or more like over an ideal version of him. In canon, Masaki is an absolute dork and not nearly as composed and mature as the anime tries to sell him. He’s usually clumsy and vulgar, and jokes around a lot.

That being said, he gets friendly with Minato overly quickly. Although he’s confused as to why a random kid would be in the woods watching him, their first conversation is about anything but that, and suddenly Fuu is the topic. It escalates from Masaki offering to nurse the scratch on Minato’s hand to Minato volunteering to replace the lamps of the shrine’s waiting room, and then to the two of them drinking canned coffee together at the shajo. In-between this, we have Masaki joking about Minato being suspicious of him and that he wouldn’t charge for the medicine, knocking over a drawer and sending the contents flying, throwing unnoticed sarcasm at Minato while he changes the lamps and Minato mistaking the can of coffee for alcohol. Masaki then resumes shooting the rest of the arrows after that and Minato stays as audience. Once he’s done, Minato questions him about his shooting routine, and Masaki answers every question even though they literally just met.

All of this in just one night.

To add up, the novel has a veil of supernatural in it, and Minato and Masaki’s encounters in the shrine are portrayed with an atmosphere of mystery. They feel somewhat fantasious since there’s a lot of symbolism and ellusive language involved, like the shrine is a separate world that belongs just to the two of them, where both Minato and Masaki find not only each other but also themselves, renewing their love for the bow. And this is where I myself started becoming inspired while reading this novel. I, too, felt like praticing archery for once, so that I could point the bow at my head and shoot an arrow right into my face because I can’t take this bullshit.

But I digress.

Minato goes home without asking Masaki’s name, then proceeds to search for information regarding him on the internet like some stalkerish middle school girl. He finds nothing and berates himself for not asking, but also wouldn’t know what to do if he had really asked. 100% not a high school chick flick.

The next evening, Minato visits the shrine again. It’s raining, and when he finds Masaki shooting just like in the previous night, he notices that it feels like Masaki is performing a prayer when he does so. Minato watches hidden behind the fence yet again and wonders what Masaki could be wishing for in a night where the stars aren’t visible, because apparently Masaki’s presence increases Minato’s poetic tendencies by a hundred.

When Masaki spots him, he gives a peace sign and beckons him, but Minato’s brain has bluescreened at that point, so being the little shit he is, Masaki crouches and gestures to Minato as if he’s calling over a dog or a cat. This predictably has Minato flustered, and Masaki jokes that seeing him under the rain in a dark spot is scary. Minato comes to the shajo dripping wet and Masaki lends him a beginner’s uniform, telling him that he doesn’t have to be so formal.

By the time Minato returns, the floor that he had dirtied is completely clean, even though Masaki had asked Minato to mop it once he finished changing. The two of them have canned coffee together again, this time with oyaki. Fuu hadn’t showed up because of the rain, and that’s when Masaki jokes that Minato’s shoulder is the perfect perch for him. While arguing that he isn’t an ornament, Minato asks about the hours of activity in the dojo, and finds out that it was supposed to be used until 9pm but is currently only used during daytime, so the only one who is there at night is Masaki, except for couples that sneak inside occasionally. Minato is taken aback at the fact that couple come to a sacred place to make out and whatnot, and for some godforsaken reason, the author seemed to think it was a good idea for Masaki to retort with, “You don’t seem to have much experience in that area. Shall I teach you the basics?”

*high-pitched screaming*

One might argue that this isn’t as suggestive as it seems, but Minato responds with, “You perverted old man” and Masaki just... freaking grins. And then this bitch hits jackpot when he tries to get Minato to fire an arrow because he can tell that Minato has experience with archery and that he wants to shoot. Minato is exasperated and wants to run away from it, but Masaki coaxes him into opening up, assuring him that not even telephone lines pass through the dojo, so whatever Minato would say would be heard by no one but him. This is when he throws the infamous “I’m not someone who exists in your reality” line, and Minato ends up squeezing out everything that had been burdening him. It’s then that they finally introduce themselves to each other and Minato finds out that Masaki used to have target panic.

The next day, Minato doesn’t attend club activities despite Seiya and Ryouhei’s insistence to get him to join, and goes to visit the shrine again. He finds Masaki dressed in formal hakama instead of kyuudougi for the first time and stops on his tracks unintentionally at the sight of Masaki’s muscles glowing in the evening lights.

This is not homoerotic fanfiction. This is not homoerotic fanfiction. This is n

You kind of can’t ignore at this point that Masaki grins every time he sees Minato. Meanwhile, Minato shudders at the sound of Masaki’s arrows piercing the air, which is unlike any he had heard before, and thinks about how he never gets tired of seeing Masaki shoot. There is joy in the fact that such ideal shots are being executed right in front of him, and cheesy as it may be, this makes him happy to have been born. And since Minato already knows about Masaki’s goal of scoring ten thousand shots, this thirsty motherfucker is already wondering if he’ll ever see him shooting again after he accomplishes it.

Minato is, in fact, just as much of a sports nerd as any sports animanga protagonist. It just so happens that he’s less showy about it, and basically the only one who gets it out of him is Masaki.

Masaki carried out proper practice with Minato, unlike in the anime, where Minato only shoots once. They start with practice at close range, and it’s then that Masaki starts using his ridiculously improper tips, like “push your hips forwards more, like you’re peeing standing up” and “look at my armpit hair”. For better or worse, his advice is easy to grasp and Minato makes the most out of it.

By that point, he’s also already grasped Masaki’s personality. When they’re done, Masaki calls Fuu over while they’re having coffee. He also shares with Minato all the material he had about archery, which ranged from students’ books to exclusive publications to old magazines, and the two of them have a priceless dialogue that the anime cut out:

“It’s amazing that you collected all of these books so thoroughly.” “I didn’t; they were a gift.” “I knew it.” “What do you mean by ‘I knew it’?” “It’s because that kind of detailed work doesn’t suit you, Masa-san.” “Don’t you feel like treating your seniors with even a bit of respect?” “Not at all.” “Good grief, does that mean I have to teach you by praising you?”

Masaki then hands him a rubber mascot and recommends him the muscle training that he learned from his grandfather. The two of them speculate on the reasons why Minato might have gotten target panic and discuss methods to cure it. Then Minato finds out about Masaki’s powder container and the bikini pattern on it, and they have yet another beautiful exchange that KyoAni has ruined:

“What kind of drawing is that?” “Oh, Minato is a healthy young man too, eh?” “No way, this is…” “Yep, it’s a bikini.” “You have some rare items here, old man.” “I’m honored to receive a compliment from you.” “It wasn’t a compliment—!”

Harold, they’re bi.

The following evening, Minato goes to the shrine not realizing that his back had been injured when he and Seiya fought, but Masaki notices it and insists on treating it. This results in Minato taking off his shirt so that Masaki could stick a bandage to it, and honestly, Minato could have been thinking about anything at that moment and I would have been okay with it. He could have thought about Seiya, about the club, about what to have for dinner that night even. Any crap would have sufficed. But nah.

Nah.

He’s thinking about the cold touch of Masaki’s hands on his skin and shivering at it. Because. You know. That’s what straight boys do.

Minato’s shooting is horrible that night and he’s sullen because of the lack of the smell of coffee, since Masaki had brought tea instead. He asks to see Fuu, but Masaki reveals that Fuu had only been with him because he was feeding it and healing its wound, and after it got better, it left his hands. This leads to an exchange that somewhat feels like foreshadowing:

“So it dumped you after you healed it?” “Any problem with that?” “Noooope.”

And it causes Masaki to notice that Minato is feeling anxious, so he tries to confort him, and Minato confides to him about the whole issue with the club and Seiya. Masaki tells him that he’s probably conveying to Seiya he has lingering attachments, and suggests that he takes upon Seiya’s offer. Minato counter-argues that he has no confidence for it, and Masaki asks if he’d be just drawing a bow all alone from that point onward. Minato questions what he means by “all alone”, and it’s only then that Masaki says, “Don’t think that I’ll be here forever. You shouldn’t keep coming to this place.” Minato is confused by his words but doesn’t ask for clarification because they sound like Masaki had grown tired of him. He compares it to something like what a child would say to a stray animal that they’d picked out of pity but then grew bored of.

Masaki is completely unaware of the effect this had on Minato and casually asks him to put away his powder container, tossing it to him. And my God, my sweet lordly goodness gracious, there’s a really odd emphasis on the bikini pattern when Minato catches it. THE DOUBLE ENTENDREE IS TOO STRONG, KIDS. Minato is clearly scared of being dumped by him like he was dumped by Fuu, but it's almost like the author tries to hint that Masaki being into women has something to do with Minato’s insecurity. Y’all may think Minato was actually not that affected by it, but after he left the dojo, he did everything robotically and had a restless night, with the mascot that Masaki gave him appearing in his dreams all the while.

The next afternoon, Minato goes to the shrine to return Masaki’s powder container, which he had accidentally brought home with him, and then the whole misunderstanding about Masaki being dead happens. When Minato returns in the evening, Masaki’s tsurune sounds like a funeral march to him. He finds Masaki in nousha clothing and two shots short of achieving ten thousand, and thinks that the scene as a whole looks just like a skillful stage production. He’s also oddly fixated on Masaki’s “exposed skin” and “fascinating profile”.

It’s here that Minato shows the first signs of selfishness towards Masaki. One would think that being excessively cared for by Seiya would mean that he’d be more of a free-spirited person, and his discomfort at Seiya’s meddling might seem like a sign of that. And indeed, Minato is like that with everyone else, except Masaki.

With Masaki, he’s the greediest little bitch.

He starts begging that the night would never end. He literally wishes that time would stop so that he could be there with Masaki forever. Like, screw his dad, screw Seiya, screw the entire rest of his life; he just wants Masaki to remain there.

Masaki was, of course, oblivious to this. He decides to recreate a scene from Zen in the Art of Archery that he had once mentioned to Minato with his last two shots. He lights up sage and positions it at the target bank, and after he shoots, he thanks Minato and says he has no more regrets. This makes Minato feel like he might disappear at any moment, and that’s when we get the iconic “don’t pass on” scene.

I must point out that one of the things I find really interesting in character dynamics is when a character has set rules of conduct and ideals for themselves but they break all of them willingly for the sake of only one other character, and that’s exactly what happens between these two. This trope is used by the author in a very obviously intentional way, which is even better.

Before Minato runs to Masaki and begs him not to leave, there’s a series of ironies to consider:

Minato dislikes being clingy with people on default.

He doesn’t do things like wishing upon stars, but if he were to, he’d wish for Masaki to stay with him.

The night before, Masaki had told him: “In the future, if you find someone that you like very much and you have to part ways with that person, will you give up without doing anything when that time comes just because you have no confidence? There are things people can’t beat no matter how much they wish to be strong. But if you do meet something that you truly don’t want to lose, it should be able to make you cling to it and shout.” Of course, Masaki had absolutely no idea that this “person” could be himself. Since he was talking about the future, he probably meant a lover.

Minato’s response is that he’d never so something so embarrassing in his life.

Yeah, boi played himself.

When Minato holds onto Masaki and shouts at him not to go anywhere, a lot is different from the anime version. For starters, since Masaki had his sleeve down, Minato basically shoved himself onto his bare chest. He also grabbed Masaki roughly with both hands, only, it’s not said where he grabbed. I............ kinda hope he didn’t grab the same spot as he did in the anime. ‘Cause. Well. Titty out.

Anyway. Minato was half-crying back there, and his words to Masaki during this moment are an absolute treasure and I have no idea why KyoAni would cut so much of it out, so here go his original lines:

“Are you a ghost? No, wait, a zombie? You’re so cold… But I’m never letting you go! You’re still my master, after all. Until the master passes on all his skills to the disciple, he has the responsibility to watch over him. No, wait, you don’t have to be my master. I just want you to stay here, Masa-san. If you’re a ghost, you can possess me; if you’re a vampire, I’ll give you my blood; and if you’re a zombie, huum, well… I’ll try to not mind even if you stink a little!”

Read this again. Digest it. Or at least try, because there’s just too much going on. Sure it’s all really damn funny, but Minato’s possessiveness is peaking here. He’s basically declaring that, supposing Masaki were actually a ghost, Minato wouldn’t let him rest and wouldn’t hand him over to even death itself. At first, Minato tries to argue that there should be still something chaining Masaki to the world of the living, since he hasn’t fulfilled his role as mentor yet. But then he thinks it over and decides that he wouldn’t want Masaki to leave him even after having taught him everything he knows. And the solutions that he comes up with are not only over-the-top but also risky.

“If you’re a ghost, you can possess me.” What the fuck, kid? “If you’re a vampire, I’ll give you my blood.” What the actual everloving fuck, kid?

So, yeah, he’s known Masaki for less than a week and is already willing to give his flesh and blood and overall control of his life for the sake of keeping him at a reachable distance. Bonus for actually picturing Masaki taking possession of his physical form and biting his neck to suck the life out of him.

How very straight.

The fact that Masaki’s jaw drops and he lets his bow fall to the floor is an icing on the cake. After he laughs his ass off once the misunderstanding is solved, he comments how “it’s really true that the sillier the kid is, the cuter” and then teases by asking if Minato was relieved that he wasn’t a ghost. This chapter section is just glorious.

Masaki then asks if Minato hadn’t been showing up because he thought he was a ghost, and Minato answers that he was merely doing as told after Masaki said that he shouldn’t come to the place. As if him being a ghost would stop this relentless little fucker. Masaki reveals that since Fuu had returned to the forest, he believed Minato should return to where he belonged as well. However, Minato had immediately come back to him, and he couldn’t do anything about that.

The two of them then went to collect the arrows and sat next to each other for their usual coffee time. Masaki explains that the powder container was a present from his grandfather, who was also his former master, and tells him the meaning behind his ten thousand shots. Yes, the one he opens up to about his grandfather being a good archer but a shitty teacher is Minato, not Tommy-sensei.

The thing is: his grandfather never asked if he liked archery. He simply thought that Masaki was fooling around because his form was messed up, so Masaki was cast away by him as someone who should be ignored due to apparently not taking archery seriously enough. The truth was that Masaki was actually trying his best, which is why he was so deeply hurt by his grandfather’s attitude that he quit archery and didn’t join the archery club in college. However, he undoubtedly loved it, and had always been thinking of ways of reconciling with his grandfather, but to no avail.

His grandfather was still estranged from him when he passed away, so Masaki came up with the idea of shooting ten thousand arrows in order to communicate with him from the other side. After he overcame target panic and fixed his form, he was able to become the exemplary archer that his grandfather wished he would be, so he set the task upon himself to get rid of his burdens and send his grandfather’s soul to rest.

No, KyoAni, it wasn’t for petty revenge against a dead person, omg.

It’s also clear by this point that Masaki and Minato are parallels of each other. Masaki, too, ended up returning to the forest, to his family’s shrine and to its dojo, and troublesome as it could be, he found himself unable to stop drawing the bow. While he talks about this to Minato, there’s a quick emphasis on the azaleas blooming nearby, and their flower language surely has something to do with the scene. Amongst other things, they mean “remembering your home with fondness or wishing to return to it”, “caring for yourself and your family”, “temperance and emotional evenness”, and “delicate passion”. All of this emphasizes how awesome a character Masaki is, and the way the anime ignores every single one of his best points is just appalling.

When Masaki finishes speaking, Minato decides to shoot at the targets instead of the close-range practice he had been doing until that point. Masaki lets him, and he goes as far as getting dressed up in the uniform in order to do it. He hits for the first time ever since his target panic started acting up, at the edge of the target. Overcome with nostalgia and feeling so happy that he could die, Minato shoots again and manages to hit the center. Minato then realizes how hungry he had been for the bow and realizes that there’s actually still hope for him as an archer. Masaki asks if he had also recovered, and he declares he’ll join the archery club.

After he joins and Masaki comes in as the coach, Seiya sees his reaction and asks Masaki if he owned a pet bird. Masaki is confused and answers no, because he really doesn’t. Minato, on the other hand, wants to run the fuck away because shit, Dad found out who he’d been with all those nights.

Training camp starts shortly after this, and it’s wildly different from the anime. Starting from the fact that the whole servant thing never happened. Masaki never made the boys serve the girls, never tried to coax them into doing his priest work, never wakes them up at 4am, never barges in on them taking a bath and never keeps them from practicing. I’m trying to figure out why KyoAni made him do all of this, not just because it wasn’t in the books, but also because literally none of that made any sense and served no purpose other than for painting Masaki as an irresponsible asshole.

In the novel’s training camp, the boys and the girls share the load. They all do the chores and are made to help around the shrine alongside practicing because they were staying there. They would cook their own meals, and Masaki and Tommy-sensei did them the favor of taking them to hot springs at some point. There was training aside from practice, and the kids would gather in the boys’ room right before sleep time simply to hang out.

Masaki had also done thorough research on the tournament results and tried to get the kids to reach them with a cautious and slow start. All the way up to this point, through the training camp and until the tournament, Masaki coaches the kids properly, giving really helpful tips, fixing their quirks and being overall a good observation example, never casting pressure on them and never poking his nose where he shouldn’t.

This is all very important to everyone, but above them, it is to Minato. He’s by far the one who benefits the most off the training, and Masaki’s careful supervision is everything he needs while his target panic isn’t cured.

There is some misplaced gay in the anime for the two of them in the training camp, though, as the scene of Masaki helping Minato get dressed doesn’t happen. But in the novel, the clothes Minato wore were Masaki’s, not his grandfather’s. And after the yawatashi, Minato comments on how it was an honor to serve as Masaki’s kaizoe.

Ren was introduced differently in the novel as well. In it, he went straight for Minato at first sight, played a prank on him, and then asked if he was “Minato-kun”. Meaning that Masaki gushed so much about Minato to his brother that he already knew exactly who Minato was and what he looked like. Minato almost doesn’t believe that Ren and Masaki are related because Ren seemed like he was mischievous in his younger years.

After Minato falls in the river getting back Nanao’s hat, Masaki lends him his jacket and takes him back to the shrine for a bath. Not because he was “stinking of river”, but because he wanted Minato to warm himself up as fast as possible. Minato argues that Seiya might worry if he doesn’t return soon, and Masaki tells him not to fret about it as he should prioritize his own health.

Once Minato is done, he meets with Masaki in the dining room and Masaki pours him hot coffee. Since he usually only ever saw Masaki in a hakama, Minato thinks it’s refreshing to have a glimpse on his everyday life.

Not just the warm drink but being there with Masaki makes Minato feel relieved and relaxed, and he opens up about maybe being a bother to everyone. Masaki brushes it off, and so, he ends up also venting about Seiya and how he acts like a meddlesome family member. He reveals that Seiya unintentionally pressures him into meeting his expectations, but what Minato thinks wouldn’t worry him often has the opposite effect. Masaki asks when he’d started acting that way, and Minato tells him about his car accident and that Seiya had witnessed it. Masaki suggests that Seiya might have earned his protectiveness from the event, but Minato feels like Seiya harbors some sort of guilt towards him. When he says he feels like repenting for it, and this leads to the two of them being little shits like they usually are around each other:

“‘Repenting’? I’m a Shinto priest, not Christian. I can perform exorcism rites and blessings, though.” “Eeeh, you don’t seem very holy, Masa-san.” “What did you say? Well, then do you want to ask Ren? Unlike me, he has some kind of ability to sense the supernatural, and he has a priest certificate anyway. But there may be surprises, so people with weak hearts should take caution.”

And then these two bastards just look at each other and start laughing.

Minato takes the opportunity to ask about what Masaki had been teaching Kaito and Masaki explains it.......... sort of differently than how he had done with Kaito:

Masa-san held Minato’s arm so lightly that he almost wasn’t touching him at all. His faintly transmitted body temperature was warm. And then, he let go of his arm just as gently as when he touched it. Minato desperately chased after the feeling left on his skin so he wouldn’t forget it.

The last sentence fucks me up immensely, fam. The rest goes on unlike in the anime too:

“Why do you think you’re the ochi for this time’s shooting order?” “To watch over my teammates’ backs?” “You’re on the right track; that’s half-correct. You have to protect Seiya’s back in particular.” “Me, protect Seiya?” “It’s a role that only you can take. I’m also happy to pass on the teachings that my master left to me. I can’t express the feeling of his palm with things like words and pictures. Thank you, Minato.”

This renders Minato speechless, and makes him think that he also can’t help but long for the day to come when he would pass the warmth of Masaki’s hand on to people who will share their wishes and ambitions with him.

After the sports tournament in which Seiya’s protective dad vibes started getting more serious, Minato went to the shrine to pray, wishing to be able to laugh the whole thing off but having no idea who to talk to about the topic. Masaki shows up as if on cue, just in time to also warn him not to lean too much to look into the shrine’s pond, or else he might fall down.

Turns out that Masaki had been taking lessons to improve his knowledge so that he’d be able to coach the kids better, and as he came back from it, he decided to review what he had learned in order not to forget it, and allowed Minato to stay and watch. Some of the material had to do with target panic, and he let Minato in on it as he shot.

Once he’s done, they have their usual canned coffee, since Masaki always has enough for himself and Minato for some reason. While drinking, Minato stares at Masaki’s hand because he’s just as straight as his arrows. He analyzes Masaki’s shooting as something like a forest in a tree, combining strength and generosity, and becomes disheartened at his own lack of skill.

Masaki offers to call Fuu upon hearing Minato sigh, and Minato dismisses it since he had been able to hear Fuu’s cry, and then comments to Masaki that he had seen a karp with an injured eye at the pond. Before Masaki had arrived, Minato had met Ren there and Ren had told him about a creepy legend involving the fish. Minato had heard from Masaki that Ren had more disposition than him to feel the supernatural, so he’s successfully freaked out, but Masaki reveals that the legend is Ren’s own invention as Ren is a writer of children’s literature in addition to being a photographer and illustrator.

Masaki laughs his ass off at the fact Minato actually believed in a scary story made up for little kids, and although Minato is utterly embarrassed, he’s also happy, since it feels like Masaki is laughing his worries away. After Masaki unknowingly serves as emotional support for Minato as always, Minato earns some determination and decides to properly question Seiya on the matter.

Even when he’s facing Seiya and his issues finally come to light, Minato is thinking about Masaki. When Minato opened up to Masaki for the first time, Masaki had commented on how painful it must have been for him. They weren’t words of pity or consolation, but they resonated with Minato because they were truthful which means Shuu has to step up his game and get on that level. To Minato, truthful things were good, and good things were beautiful, just like the tsurune that had captivated him in the forest. Therefore, Minato wanted to convey honest feelings with his own words to Seiya as well.

So, yeah, Masaki grows to be an ideal for Minato even outside of archery.

Along the course of all this, there’s a fair amount of hints of latent bisexuality other things about Minato that the anime hasn’t displayed, which come mostly in the form of narration, thoughts and silent actions. And unsurprisingly, they’re always related to Masaki:

Minato thinks Masaki’s eyes are bewitching.

He’s weak to Masaki’s smile.

He has mixed feelings when Masaki treats him like a child and when he sees Kaito acting familiar with Masaki.

He hates not being able to see Masaki. Above that, he really hates not having alone time with Masaki, specifically.

He often stares at Masaki and observes details in him, like how long his fingers are and how well-built his body is. The moment he started thinking that “those fingers had the ability to produce a beautiful tsurune”, I cry-laughed because this is just too much bullshit.

He actually, non-ironically sees sensuality in older men when they look suspicious of something, and he notices this in Ren. But the first thing he does is compare him to Masaki in that aspect and conclude that Masaki still has some childishness in him and that he’s gentler than Ren.

God help this boy. Ayano Kotoko is merciless.

I don’t even care if he’s never confirmed as bi, but I refuse to believe that Minato is heterosexual. But of course KyoAni isn’t making any of this clear. Of course.

Anyway, moving on. Episode 11 was a disgrace. Literally none of it happens in the novel.

What goes on after Minato settles things up with Seiya is that Masaki takes the boys to an equipment store to buy stuff for the club. There, Masaki and Minato have a talk about Masaki’s grandfather, and Minato finds out that he was actually a famous archer. Minato then becomes convinced of why Masaki was so into archery, as anyone would want to draw a bow having a master that great so near them, but Masaki retorts that he’d been holding a bow before even knowing anything very well (which brings us back to the fact he started archery when he was a toddler). As a matter of course, Masaki asks why Minato started archery, and Minato answers it was because he once watched a competition ten years before with his mother and never forgot it. He also comments that the tsurune of the archer that won and Masaki’s were exactly alike. And that’s where we get the second obvious hint that fate is one of this duo’s main elements.

After they’re done, Seiya and Masaki stay behind at a café to do accounting work and the other four left first. Minato remained outside while the others decided to go into a bookstore, and after a creepy encounter with an injured cat that reminded him of the injured fish, Minato was almost killed in a truck accident. A truck driver lost control of the wheel and the timbers that the truck was carrying flew out. Minato was almost fatally hit but Masaki saved him at the cost of a head injury that sent him straight to the hospital.

Minato and Seiya went with Masaki in the ambulance and waited outside the surgery room for him. Seiya was used to it after having gone through the same thing during Minato’s accident, so he remained calm, but Minato was a ball of nerves. His sense of reality was impaired, and he was asking himself what would happen if Masaki never woke up.

When Ren arrives, Minato apologizes for being the reason why Masaki was in such condition, but Ren dismisses him and tells the boys that they’re free to go home. Minato insists he'd stay, and the boys end up staying as well. Masaki regains consciousness not much after that, and asks about Minato immediately after finding out where he is.

Ren leaves to call a nurse, Seiya leaves to contact Tomio and Minato stays by Masaki’s bedside. Minato doesn’t know what to say; neither how to apologize nor how to thank Masaki. He had gotten nine stitches and seeing the bandage on his head caused Minato to feel pained.

Read this one more time, and then read the in-betweens. Masaki has earned himself a scar. Minato wasn’t taken away by the gods, but now the two of them are “separated from everyone else”.

While Minato is hanging his head in guilt and gripping the bedsheets, this dialogue ensues:

“What’s wrong, Minato? You’re making such an ugly face. I’m perfectly alive.” “Masa-san, if you had died, I’d have followed after you.” “Hey, hey, don’t say such disturbing things.” “I really mean it.” “Good grief.”

And what I love about this is that Minato says the literal most drastic shit that he’s thinking, out of fucking nowhere, for no goddamn reason. Neither thanking nor apologizing was quite right; he just had to declare that not even death can do them part, again.

Because fuck you, that’s why.

Masaki then stretched out his hand (which had an IV in it because why not add more pain to this clusterfuck) and ruffled Minato’s hair. Minato started crying, unable to stop even if he willed it, thinking to himself that he knew the weight of Masaki’s hand, and that it was still warm. He wanted to thank everyone who had helped Masaki survive, but could only keep crying until Ren and Seiya came back.

Next day at school, Minato was approached by a classmate who had heard rumors about the accident. When the boy mentions that Masaki would be publicly acknowledged for his deed and that he became a local hero, Minato glares daggers at him because he hates the idea of Masaki being treated as a martyr at the cost of almost throwing his life away to protect him.

Minato and Seiya were consoled by Tomio when he saw them, and Minato once again felt like crying his eyes out. He knew that Masaki would have laughed at him if he were there, but the tears were welling up in his eyes all the same.

When they all go visit Masaki after school, Masaki wastes no time to give the boys advice. He finishes by giving Minato a pep talk: “Enjoy the state of the draw. If you keep stretching to open left and right from the center line of your body, your arrow will naturally be let go of along with the triggering of your spirit. That’s what the ‘release’ is about. Drive target panic and delayed hold away.”

After that, Masaki told them that they didn’t have to visit him anymore, but Minato refused it and went to visit him every single day.

The day before the tournament, Minato went to the shrine. He saw the surrounding cherry trees without any flowers and thought about how different they were in comparison to when he and Masaki had first met. He then prayed for everyone in the club to to their best at the tournament and for Masaki to get better as fast as possible.

After lunch, Minato went to the lobby of the building by himself, still plagued by his anxiety over not knowing when his target panic could start up again. He then sees coffee in a vending machine and walks towards it “as if drawn to it”. He buys a can, drinks the contents, and when he’s throwng it away, he notices someone standing under the shadow of the pillar behind the vending machine. The person was drinking the same brand of coffee as Minato had drunk, and he got a deja-vu from the sight, so he peeked into the man’s face.

Really feeling the Red String of Fate vibes in this Chili’s once more, and it was, of course, all on purpose. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg in this chapter. As Minato’s eyes met with Masaki’s, they have their usual comedy routine:

“Masa-san!?” “S’up, Minato.” “Don’t you ‘s’up’ me!? Why are you here? Today’s not the day you’ll be discharged from the hospital, right?” “I escaped from the hospital. It’d be a bother if Tommy-sensei and the others hear about this, so keep quiet.” “‘Keep quiet’, you say…” “Yeah, yeah, you hide too, Minato.”

Masaki pulls Minato into the shadow of the pillar and explains that Ren helped him flee from the hospital by pretending to be him. On top of that, he was wearing a cap to hide the bandage around his head.

When Masaki expresses his wish to watch his students, Minato argues that they were recording the matches for him, but Masaki shoots back that he can’t see the details on camera and comments that Minato had forgotten to tighten his left pinky during the draw. He clarifies that the rubber dormouse was meant to train his muscles of the hand and help him control them, and asks if Minato had been worrying over something. As always, he hits jackpot, and also as always, Minato doesn’t hide it from him. Masaki then assures him that he’d shot well either way, that it was fine to be nervous and that it was okay not to hit. His attitude is too easygoing for Minato, who asks himself how Masaki can afford to be drinking coffee so carefreely at such a timing. It all makes his worries seem foolish, and he soon starts feeling better. Masaki informs him that he’d leave as soon as the last round ended and leaves Minato to fight back a smile before he goes back to the venue.

This scene is probably the one that makes most obvious how Masaki is always there for Minato, almost like it’s a rule. He’s conveniently placed at a distance where Minato can find him, is able to realize that Minato is distressed, and easily makes him feel better. It’s undebatably intentional from the author’s part.

Fast forward to right before the final round, Tomio gives the boys their headbands. They’re yellowish green, which is Minato’s assigned color, and that’s obviously intentional as well. Tomio calls them “treasure items” and reveals that they’d been “blessed by a certain priest”.

While the boys take on Kirisaki, Masaki is in the audience, wondering if Minato realizes how much he attracts those around him. He reminisces to his 10,000 shots, and how he had decided on that absurd number because he intended to let go of the bow permanently after he was done with them. He found extreme joy in archery, but he was tired of pursuing abstract goals with it, so he had decided to give it up. But on the night he completed the 10,000 shots, Minato had extended his hands to him, and his eyes had told Masaki that he could still draw his bow. Minato is described as the one who sent his smouldering soul into the wind, his “fire-starter”.

This is also valid for Minato, who is, at the very same moment, reflecting on how he wouldn’t have arrived at that place if he hadn’t heard Masaki’s tsurune on that night. He then has a long monologue about life and meetings, both between people and between humans and gods, all related to archery one way or another.

Right upon finishing the formalities, Minato looked at the audience, and found Masaki standing in the wind. As always, his eyes are drawn to him, and also as always, Masaki grins at him when spotted.

Later on, while Kazemai prepared for the regional tournament, Masaki was discharged from the hospital, and the first thing he and Minato do after meeting again is check on each other’s codition. Then, Minato reveals to Masaki that he and the boys had contacted an acquaintace of his grandfather’s and learned the words he had expressed about Masaki before dying. Masaki is confused, and Minato says that his grandfather had regretted becoming estranged from him. When Masaki argues that his grandfather would never say something so admirable, Minato tells him the words directly: “I look forward to Masaki becoming a fine archer”. Masaki almost cried right then, and so, the boys’ practice started. Masaki joined them, and I think it’s very obvious that he was going to shoot the target next to Minato’s.

There were also these sentences in the narration as Masaki holds back tears: “‘Fortune’ might have been a word that referred to all meetings. A gift named coincidence, as though someone had devised it.”

Of course someone fucking deviced it, Ayano. It was fucking fate. We fucking get it, Ayano. Fucking thank you. Unironically.