#ten years since I've seen anyone with that last name other than my brother anyway

[alatus-k]

Happy father’s day! I spent mine filling out the paperwork to legally change my last name lmao

#ten years since I've seen anyone with that last name other than my brother anyway #I guess it's great they went through the legal process of having my stepfather adopt me #or I guess it would have been great if he wasn't a garbage father who didn't like me #but I am super annoyed that they got my birth certificate changed #I don't want his fucking name on my birth certificate #and I've seen one with no listed father #I think my mother still has it #but that would require me to ask her about it and I don't wanna do that either lol

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

All right, this is my post about John Oliver’s appearance on Russell Howard’s podcast that’s going to get way more detailed about the Chocolate Milk Gang than anyone wants (I can already picture @lastweeksshirttonight reply to this to say they care, so I should amend that to say there is one person who wants that, but they have already listened to the episode and don't really need to be told what's in it, leaving this post still of interest to no people). So here is a cut.

It's been just a little bit over a year now since the couple of months I spent doing constant posts to update everyone on my progress through the rabbit hole of understanding the meaning of "Chocolate Milk Gang". A journey that started with an effort to just explain the name, but grew much bigger than that. Consider this post a continuation of those ones.

Okay. Okay. In order to find all the things I wanted to reference for this post, I decided to make one folder on my hard drive called Chocolate Milk Gang, where I collect all the video, audio, and PDF files that relate to the intersection of CMG members, and I've got to admit I had a moment of looking at the whole folder and saying, "This is all starting to feel a bit Beautiful Mind." But anyway, it is convenient to have it all in one place.

Anyway. Here are the couple of clips I cut out of that podcast for that folder:

There's a lot to unpack here, comedian gossip-wise. Football stories that I'm always happy to hear again. Between Kitson's radio shows, Russell Howard/Jon Richardson's radio show, and The Bugle, I've heard enough different stories to suggest that apparently Al Pitcher's wedding was a hell of a time.

There's also some stuff in that Edinburgh clip that isn't specifically relevant the the CMG, but is relevant to some other stuff I've been posting about in the last few months. Stuff about the difference between British and American comedy, and how I'm pretty sure those differences are largely shaped by the Edinburgh Festival. Specifically by the fact that anyone can go to the Edinburgh Festival, making it very different from something like Just For Laughs that we have here, which is invite only (plus a few spots that can be won in auditions). And I think this is what makes British comedy much more similar to Australia/NZ comedy than it is to North American comedy, because they have MICF over there that's similar to Edinburgh.

John Oliver sums it up well here:

You can kind of finish your ‘bulletproof’ – to the extent that that was true, which it wasn’t – but as close to a solid set of comedy that you can produce. At that point, you’re finished, really, right? So what are you going to do? Are you going to keep doing that? There’s probably many cautionary tales that will show you that’s not the way to human happiness. So then you start to break it. And that was where Edinburgh, for me, was so massively important, that you throw away that safety blanket, and then the next year you come back with a brand new hour. You spent a number of years making that twenty minutes, now you have to spend eleven months making an hour.

I wish he'd expanded a bit on the "not the way to human happiness" part, because that interests me. Starting comedy around here, I've seen how different it is from what I hear from British stuff, and obviously there are lots of reasons for that, mainly that I'm comparing low-level stuff that's local to me against great comedians from Britain. I know that Britain also has low-level club comedians, I just don't hear from them all the way over here.

But I have heard a little bit of fairly low-level comedy in Britain, and it's still notably different from what I hear here. Also, some of the comedians I hear around here have been doing it a long time (including my brother, who's been doing it 13 years, doing regular pro spots for over ten, makes enough money off comedy each year so he could probably almost live off his comedy income alone if he didn't mind being extremely poor), have done quite well. I've tried to see what their ambitions are, what the path is that they're trying to get on to the next thing. And there just doesn't really seem to be one. There are occasional spots on CBC that people would like, but those are so rare, so few compared to the number of panel show spots that comedians can try for in Britain, if they want to go that way. And obviously, in Britain, the new comedians are all trying to put together something good enough to take to Edinburgh, even if at first it's just the twenty-minute set that John Oliver was talking about in that clip for the Comedy Zone or something like that. No one here is doing that. They're pretty much doing the exact thing that John Oliver described as "not the way to human happiness", perfecting their 20-minute set so they can impress increasingly important club promoters for years and years and years.

It seems to me like a bad idea to dedicate your whole life to the thing that John Oliver accurately described as "not the way to human happiness", but I'm interested in how many other options there are. You can try for TV and radio spots, I guess, but there aren't many of those here. Some comedians around here try to audition for the Winnipeg Comedy Festival and Just For Laughs, but not many get in because there's not nearly as much to to those festivals as there is to Edinburgh. A couple of people around here have started podcasts, but contrary to what the front page of Chortle each week might suggest, surely not everyone in the entire world can start a podcast. You could sell your soul to social media, obviously - that's always an option no matter what your field is. But if you want to do comedy and don't want that, what else are you supposed to do? I don't ask that question facetiously, I would genuinely like to know and I wish John Oliver would answer it. Which I guess he did, and the answer was to go to Edinburgh until you get good enough to do your own tours. Or, in his case, you make some connections at Footlights, have Ricky Gervais happen to know who you are, then for some reason he mentions your name to Jon Stewart when The Daily Show is looking for a British correspondent. Also you start a podcast.

Anyway. That's the part where John Oliver explained some interesting stuff about the intersections between the comedy industry and the comedy craft, but that's not what we're here for, is it? We're here for some comedian gossip! And this podcast episode provided on that front.

Okay. To explain the significance of one part of that clip, I have to go back a bit. To summer 2022, when I spent ages looking things up to try to find the explanation for the name “Chocolate Milk Gang”. I’d found that it had to do with them being sober when all the other comedians were drunk, to them being considered vaguely nerdy compared to other comedians who were more shouty or smooth or alcoholics. So I got the gist, but this wasn’t enough to fully make sense. I kept coming back to asking: But why chocolate milk, though? Do they drink the chocolate milk? Do they talk about chocolate milk on stage? Do they regularly sacrifice cows in the middle of the night and steal their milk? Or was that just that one time?

The clearest explanation I'd found came from a 2007 article that said:

Part of a new breed of stand-up dubbed the Chocolate Milk Gang for rejecting a hard-living ethos, they include the likes of Daniel Kitson, Demetri Martin, John Oliver, David O’Doherty, Josie Long and Alun Cochrane, and can be characterised by their romantic sensibility, intelligence, geekiness, love of indie music and passive-aggressive, alpha male competitiveness.

But that doesn't explain the name. Sure, chocolate milk is a sort of nerdy drink, but there had to be a reason why that specific drink got used in their nickname. I remember at one point saying in a frustrated Tumblr post that in the early 00s, I was hanging out with my high school friends, and we were nerdy and sober and liked to imagine ourselves as romantic and intelligent, but we never named ourselves after chocolate milk, because that is not a thing that just automatically happens to everyone who’s a nerd.

So I kept searching. There were just barely enough references to the term on the internet for me to be pretty sure it was really used, but few enough for me to occasionally doubt that. There are really very, very few direct references to the actual name “Chocolate Milk Gang” out there.

They are so rare that I once listened to an entire Comedian’s Comedian podcast episode featuring the worst person in the entire world, just because I’d read that he mentions the words “Chocolate Milk Gang” in it, which turned out to not even be true. Actually, he just talked a bunch of shit about David O’Doherty in the ComCom episode, and then on a different podcast months later, he talked to a different guy about how DO’D had (shockingly) disliked the comments he'd made on the ComCom podcast, and it’s there that he mentions that DO'D was in a Chocolate Milk Gang. And I listened to both episodes. To two hours of the worst person in the fucking world talking, just so I could hear someone say “Chocolate Milk Gang”, because instances of that were so rare. And he didn’t even actually say “Chocolate Milk Gang” – got the name wrong and called them the “Chocolate Milk Brigade”. And listening to those two hours pissed me off so much that I lost respect for Stuart Goldsmith just because he was able to be in a room with that guy and not punch him in the fucking face.

I hate to focus on him and normally when I complain about that on this blog I just refer to him as the worst person in the world rather than getting specific, but in the interests of laying this all out in one place, the Chocolate Milk Brigade reference is about 15:30 into this:

I get into the McSavage stuff because me listening to all that bullshit really shows just how incredibly rare direct mentions of the term "Chocolate Milk" in relation to those comedians are, how hard they were to find so I'd listen to anything. I did, however, find a number of things that described the phenomenon, but just didn't use the name. Notably, this clip from Stewart Lee's Alternative Comedy Experience TV show:

Or this clip from Russell Howard and Jon Richardson's radio show, recorded live from the Edinburgh Festival in 2007, looking back at Edinburgh 2006 with guest Richard Herring:

Interesting that both Lee and Herring identify them specifically as being strange and different for not spending the entire month of August drunk. That probably says more about Lee and Herring than about anything else.

So they go by many names, apparently. The Chocolate Milk Brigade, in the words of David McSavage. The Hanging Around Gang, in the words of Stewart Lee. The annoyingly sober nerds of the circuit, according to Richard Herring. The Guys with the Bags, in the words of Andrew Maxwell. The International Crime Syndicate that Sometimes Organizes Soccer Matches, in the words of John Oliver (okay, he was talking about FIFA when he said those words, but I think they also apply to the CMG).

That Stewart Lee clip has them come so close to using their actual name, but they still don't quite say it. The very rare instances of the actual name being referenced include that bullshit McSavage saga, that extremely weird article I quoted above, and this clip from David O'Doherty's episode of the Comedian's Comedian podcast that I finally - finally found after searching for so long (I consider it very lucky that David O'Doherty went on the ComCom podcast before the worst person in the world did, because otherwise we wouldn't have gotten his brilliant episode at all, since it's my understanding that for some time after that horrible episode he wasn't on speaking terms with David McSavage or Stuart Goldsmith, fucking understandably):

God, re-listening to that is reminding me of how exciting it was to find it for the first time last year, after searching for so long. Actually, to illustrate how exciting it was, I still need to get a cat and name it Stuart Goldsmith. Early in the episode, DO'D talked a bit about his early Edinburgh days, and I paused the recording to make a post on Tumblr about that discussion, and how close they came to discussing the Chocolate Milk Gang, and how much I wanted my answer. In that post, I said something like: "Stuart Goldsmith, if you can get an explanation out of David O'Doherty for the Chocolate Milk Gang, I will name my first cat after you." As a joke about how I do not want kids but felt that this was important enough to offer something on the same level as letting him have my firstborn. A bit later in the same episode, when he delivered on that, I made a follow-up post to 1) share the above clip, which I deemed the Holy Grail of audio clips, as I'd looked for it for so long, and 2) admit that I do need to name a cat after Stuart Goldsmith now.

I've just dug up the post that I made after I first heard that clip - a post from August 19, 2022 - and in it, I transcribe what DO'D said. I shall copy/paste some of it:

David O’Doherty: ’02 was the year where I came [to Edinburgh] with a show, I’d been a bit sad and tried to write a show… and I met just a bunch of people. I met Kitson, I met Conchords, I met Taika Waititi, who’s a movie director now, I met Zaltzman, I met John Oliver, I met Josie Long – I’d met her before but, we were all just trying to figure out a kind of a thing that we wanted to do. And it didn’t quite fit with what was successful around then, because none of us were… I guess you could categorize it as quite low-status individuals. As in, we didn’t walk out with smoke machines, and if we did shout from off stage it was something ironic, about, like, “Get ready to try and stay awake for an hour, because this room is bullshit. Ladies and gentlemen!” You know, and that was… whereas before, that was the start of shiny floor comedy that we see on TV now. So it was like people in tailored suits and bowing, and getting the adulation – that was just never a thing I wanted to do. My father’s a jazz musician, and jazz is like the opposite of that.” Stuart Goldsmith: In those comedians that we’ve named, do you see a sort of reflection of your styles in each other’s work? Because there are sort of similarities, like a common trope of that kind of gang is to treat something gentle and meandering and whimsical as if it’s, you know, like a rap battle or something. To kind of pretend like you’re Notorious B.I.G., talking about a unicorn. David O’Doherty: Oh, that. Yeah, I mean, that’s… that’s pretty low, what you’ve just said. Stuart Goldsmith: [laughter] Well it’s something that’s copied a lot now, and I think it originated with Kitson and with you doing Late ‘n Live. That whole thing of going, “strap in, buckle up.” But now, every idiot in tight jeans is going, “Strap in,” but without a sense of why. David O’Doherty: Right, yeah. Yeah, I guess we were… yeah, that’s a good point. I mean, I’ve always felt that I’m trying to say something reasonably profound. I’ve never done a show that was just a load of jokes, and was just trying to fill the time with talking about, you know, fairy lights and bunting, which was sort of the perception, I think, people who never came to the shows, or some people who reviewed it, would have had around the time. Of like, “Where is he from? I don’t know, but I’d like to visit it.” You know, I’ve always tried to talk about the things that were important. It’s just that those things manifested themselves as the tale of a suicidal lobster, which was the first show here, or whatever it was then. So, you know, none of that was very tough. I remember once, we were referred to as… Me: Oh shit. Oh shit. Please, for the love of God, tell me what you were referred to as. David O’Doherty: …because everyone else was getting really drunk backstage at Late ‘n Live, and we used to go over and get, to [inaudible, I assume it’s the name of a shop that sells milkshakes but I can’t tell what he said, it’s not important] and get milkshakes, we were called the Chocolate Milk Gang. Which isn’t something you see… Stuart Goldsmith: By who? David O’Doherty: I think Glenn Wool, or something like that. Stuart Goldsmith: Okay, for people who don’t know Glenn Wool, he very much typifies the… David O’Doherty: Well, he was certainly then, he was like a party, a mega-party dude then. I remember Andrew Maxwell… Stuart Goldsmith: [laughing] Sorry, even your use of the phrase “mega party dude” firmly establishes you as a chocolate milk guy. David O’Doherty: I remember Maxwell, who’s a friend of mine – Andrew Maxwell is such a much more alpha character – brackets, shorter – than me, and he once said to John Oliver, “You lads, you’ve always got bags.” Because we had, as in a backpack or a satchel. And we probably had, like jokes, or like, books, and he was always like, “What’s in your bag?” Like there was something going on, just… we have effigies of you, and we have ceremonies that you’re not allowed to come to.

In that copy-paste of that my old post, I would like to draw your attention to this quote: "…because everyone else was getting really drunk backstage at Late ‘n Live, and we used to go over and get, to [inaudible, I assume it’s the name of a shop that sells milkshakes but I can’t tell what he said, it’s not important] and get milkshakes, we were called the Chocolate Milk Gang."

I said at the time that it didn't matter, because of course I was so happy to have the central mystery answered that I could overlook one little confusing bit. But of course, I still tried for a while to look it up. I couldn't quite understand what DO'D was saying - it sounded to me like "favorait", or maybe "fav-o'rait"?

I Googled all these things, but it was hard when I didn't even know what type of place it was. I was picturing a sort of 7/11-style corner store, a place that was open late and sold milkshakes. But I didn't know what it actually was. So I was just Googling a word that I didn't know how to spell, and I didn't know what context to add. Throwing in the word "Edinburgh" didn't help.

At some point I took to Google Maps, and then Google Earth. He said the went "over" to get milkshakes after Late 'n' Live, which suggested to me that it couldn't be far from the Gilded Balloon. They wouldn't travel all that far in the middle of the night when they'd just done a whole big comedy show. So I looked around the map to see if I could find anything by that name, but nothing came up. I eventually gave up on finding it.

However. However. Here's a shortened version of the clip I posted earlier, of John Oliver on the recent Russell Howard podcast episode, talking about Edinburgh. Here's a short clip of just the part that's relevant to this post, where he talks about the CMG days:

He said it! He said it! That's the same word DO'D said, the name of the store, but John Oliver said it more clearly so I was inspired to try Googling again.

I tried Googling potential spellings with the word "Edinburgh" for a while, but nothing came up. Then I realized something (and this part isn't going to make this post sound less Beautiful Mind-y): this is a tradition that started in 2002. The Gilded Balloon burned down in December 2002, and was rebuilt nearby. So in August 2002, when the CMG started, the Gilded Balloon was in a different place to where it is now. All that searching on Google Maps/Earth, I was looking in the wrong spot.

So I did some Googling to try to find the original address for the Gilded Balloon. My CMG research from the last year has led me to know a hell of a lot about the Gilded Balloon. I even know its layout and backstage quite well, since it was heavily featured in that Tim Minchin documentary (I even know more than I need to about how the dressing rooms look, by which I mean there were more shots than I needed of Tim Minchin with his clothes off). But I couldn't find its original exact address. I knew that it was originally in a place called Cowgate, which is a neighbourhood and/or street and/or square (this is why I've named the cow sacrificing event Cowgate, even though that occurred at the new location in 2003). I learned today that it was supposed to become a casino but Karen Koren made it a comedy club instead. I learned that its original building used to be a J. & R. Allan's department store. But I couldn't find its specific address.

However, I did find that the fire that burned down the original Gilded Balloon started in something called Hastie's Close. So I went to that place on Google Earth, figuring the fire couldn't have spread all that far. I set the year to 2005, which was the closest year to 2002 for which Google Earth had archive data around there. And I just explored the area.

I didn't actually expect to find anything, really. But then, suddenly, it appeared before me:

So... mystery solved. Look, to be honest, most of this post has just been to give context to try to explain why the fuck I was so excited to find an Edinburgh diner that, as I now know because once I knew exactly what I was looking for I was able to look the place up, closed down years ago. It's exciting because it's the last little piece of the answer that I was so excited to find last year.

That's what David O'Doherty actually said: "…because everyone else was getting really drunk backstage at Late ‘n Live, and we used to go over and get, to Favorit and get milkshakes, we were called the Chocolate Milk Gang." And Favoirt is not a 7/11-style corner store, it's a diner that even had a license to sell alcohol late (according to its front window), but is clearly the sort of place that's more about the milkshakes than it is about being a bar. And it is, in fact, very near the original Gilded Balloon. Or at least, it's very near the place where the fire that burned down the original Gilded Balloon started.

I am so pleased to have found a spelling, description, and even picture to go with the [inaudible] word that David O'Doherty said in that Holy Grail audio clip, tying up that one loose end over a year later.

Why does that matter? Look, I'm not quite sure, but it definitely seemed important. It definitely seemed sweet to hear John Oliver in 2023 reminisce about going for milkshakes in Edinburgh, and hanging out with "Jermaine [Clement] and Brett [McKenzie] and Demetri [Martin] at Favorit" - he came so close to using the actual CMG name, despite not quite specifically saying it.

Like I said, a lot to unpack in that podcast episode. I have now unpacked one tiny, tiny part of it, and it was the least important part. But I did unpack it. It's unpacked now. You're welcome.

...As I keep saying, there are worse things I could have gotten deeply obsessed with as a way to cope with the changing world in pandemic times. I could have gotten really into Jordan Peterson, like some ex-CMG members/hosts of podcasts about a box for things people like, that I could name. At least I didn't do that. I just occasionally spend two hours on Google Earth to find a long-closed diner in Edinburgh. I'm doing fine.

[theewritingroomm]

Cliché

Summary: Being best friends with the Weasley twins meant constant adventure. However, Y/N’s biggest adventure is coming to terms with her feelings for her best friend. Pairing: Fred Weasley x Reader Word Count: 1,882 Warnings: Unrequited feelings, swearing, A/N: Text divider by: @firefly-graphics

Y/N could not exactly remember when she became friends with the Weasley twins, but she does remember a lot of the things that they pulled her into. She remembers when they first started dragging her along through the hidden tunnels throughout Hogwarts, she remembers when she would stay at the Borrow for the summer and she would watch them prank Percy and Ron, and she remembers exactly when she started having developing feelings towards Fred.

It was completely cliche for her to fall for her best friend, but despite others saying he was childish and could not keep his attention on anything for longer than ten seconds she didn't care. She did not care what people said about her and her two best friends, they were inseparable, and were known around the school as the Three Musketeers: a name given to them by Hermione. The name followed them around as did the gossip and rumors started by fellow classmates.

But now the Tri-Wizard Tournament and the Yule Ball was all anyone could seem to talk about. Instead of O.W.L.S, the house cup, and the quidditch cup there was talk about who everyone thought was going to win the tournament and who was going to the ball with who.

Now Y/N really did not care who was going with who, or who she thought was going to win the tournament; well, that's what she had told Fred and George. To be honest she would like to go to the ball but with Fred and George always around no one would attempt to talk to her, but that would not matter since the only person she wanted to go with only saw her as a friend. It was such a cliché scenario, falling for your best friend.

"So, Y/N, has anyone asked you to the ball?" Hermione asked her over breakfast. Now Y/N could not lie and say someone has because them Fred and George will ask who and then they'll turn into overprotective blokes, and no one really wants that. So, she just shook her head pouring herself some more pumpkin juice. Hermione just stared wide eyed and open mouthed at her.

"Bloody hell. If Y/N can’t get a date, then how can we Harry?" She heard Ron mumble. Y/N wanted to say something or throw something at him but fought against it and stood up to walk out of the Great Hall. No one tried to stop her, and since they were on holiday, she couldn't go to class so she settled for the Gryffindor common room.

Sitting in front of the fire Y/N thought back to one of her first summers at the Borrow.

She was nervous, not only was it the first time she would be meeting the entire Weasley family, but it was right about the time that she started discovering her true feelings for Fred. She ended up staying in Ginny's room and becoming fast friends with the youngest Weasley. It was about halfway through the summer when Y/N was confronted by Ginny; for someone so young she had seen the way Y/N looked at her brother.

"Hey Y/N..." Hermione's voice startled her out of her memories, making her face the younger girl. "I'm sorry for what Ron said earlier, he doesn't really watch what he's saying."

"It's ok Hermione. Fred and George are the same way. Can't really remember how many times I've scolded them for saying things they shouldn't have" Y/N chuckled at this, but Hermione stayed silent.

"But that's not way I'm here actually." She looked at the fire avoiding looking Y/N in the eye. "Now please don't be mad at Ginny, I forced her to tell me."

"Hermione, what did she tell you?" Y/N's voice was hard and cold, but she isn't one to tell others what she's feeling so for Ginny to know about how she felt about Fred and now for Hermione to know was more than she could take.

"It's not that bad. I mean there's still time for you to ask him if you really want to go with him..."

"No Hermione, there isn't any time left. He asked Angelia yesterday in front of me. So, what am I supposed to do? Walk up to him and tell him that I have feelings for him, and I have since third year?"

It was a lot for her to admit out loud, and especially in front of another person. Now Y/N waited for Hermione to say something, anything but the only thing she heard was a gasp then a chuckle. Not two seconds after she heard that did George step into the common room. Now some people can't tell the twins apart, but she could, and she could also tell that this was bad, unbelievably bad.

"George, what the hell are you doing here?" Y/N asked staring wide eyed at him. She was panicking, there wasn't much the twins kept from each other and she didn't know if he would keep this to himself.

"Well, I came to check on my friend, see if she was okay after storming out of breakfast." He was teasing her; she could tell by the mischievous grin on his lips that nothing good was going to come out of this. "But I come up here to hear that she's got a crush on my brother."

Now Y/N liked to believe she was able to keep calm under stress, she had to be able to with as much trouble the twins dragged her into. But right now, with Hermione and George looking at her and knowing what she felt for her friend nearly pushed her over the edge. So, there she sat, in front of the fire her jaw tight and eyes watering with her secret coming out that she realized it was pointless to try and hide it anymore, it was all falling apart anyway.

"Hermione, can you let me, and George talk alone for a minute." It was less of a question than a request, so when the portrait closed behind her Y/N looked over at him to see the grin hadn't left his face.

"You know Y/N, I've always questioned the guys you've gone out with and what you saw in them. But now I know that you've been trying to get over dear old Fred."

"Shut up George, just shut up." Y/N tried her hardest not to cry, she tried to keep from breaking down, but she wasn't successful; she had reached her breaking point. "Just forget this every happened and promise me you won't tell Fred."

"But let me just...."

"No George, promise me."

"I promise."

Y/N just nodded and left the common room. She had a feeling that something was going to go wrong, something was going to come back and bite her in the ass. But at this moment she didn't care, she just wanted to be left alone, to get away from everyone.

Christmas at Hogwarts was Y/N's favorite time, the feast, and the alone time when most everyone was gone was something she looked forward to. But this Christmas was different, there were more people staying at Hogwarts this year and the Yule Ball was happening on Christmas day. Now she wasn't to down about the amount of people staying nor was she still upset about Hermione and George knowing about how she felt for Fred, she was nervous about the ball and how she would handle it.

After talking with Ginny and some other of her not so close friends, she realized that the ball was a once and a lifetime opportunity and she couldn't let it slip through her fingers. So, with a little planning Y/N and Lee Jordan were going together. It wasn't too bad, Y/N and Lee were friends, and Lee owed her a favor anyway.

"You know I don't think I've ever seen you in a dress before." Hermione tried to calm Y/N's nerves as they walked towards the Great Hall.

"I know." After that half-assed, awkward attempt at a conversation no one else spoke until after they met up with their dates.

It was after everyone watched the champions dance with their partners and Y/N made one to many unnecessary trips to the punch bowl, did her and Lee dance. It was not the perfect slow dance, they were stumbling over each other’s feet and laughing at stories, in all it was a good night.

"You know Fred's been looking at you all night." Lee whispered to her before twirling her. She snuck a quick glance over to him to see him dancing with Angeila, but his eyes were trained on her. She could not read what he was feeling but by the look he was sending her it wasn't too good.

"Guess he's shocked that I'm in a dress." Y/N shrugged looking away from Fred to flash Lee a smile.

They stayed at the ball for what felt like hours, they stayed until they were the last ones in the Great Hall. For a night that started out full of nerves and doubt it ended as close to perfect as Y/N would get.

"Good night Lee. I'll see you tomorrow." Y/N told him, waving him off as he walked to his room.

She smiled to herself and sat in an armchair in front of the fire thinking over the night. I mean sure she did not go with the guy she wanted to, but she did go with someone she could have fun with; and maybe the night went better than she thought it would. Overall, she would not do anything different to change tonight.

"You look happy." She jumped at the voice, about to yell at the person for scaring the shit out of her but she turned and saw George looking at her with a smug grin.

"It was a good night." She told him simply looking back at the fire.

"You know if you wanted Fred and I wouldn't oppose to you going out with Lee."

"Lee's a great guy, but I couldn't. It wouldn't go anywhere; I'd be leading him along."

"Because of how you feel about Fred." Y/N just nodded, not looking at him. "Maybe that's what you need. Someone to get your mind off him."

"That's the thing George, I can't get him out of my mind. He's been my friend since our first year and I had to be the one to fall for her best friend." She ranted, trying not to wake everyone in the tower.

Before George could say anything, his twin stepped into the common room, a shell-shocked expression on his face.

'Shit, shit, son of a bitch' ran through Y/N's mind. He had heard them, heard how she felt about him.

"Y/N...." he started, but he could not finish there were to many emotions running through his head. Fred took a breath before nodding towards his brother, who quickly left the two of them alone. "Look I'm sorry but Angeila and I..."

"No, you don't have to explain Fred. I knew you wouldn't feel the same way." She gave him a small sad smile before grabbing her heels and walking to her dorm.

"Good night Fred,” she told him before turning away, trying to hide her tears from him; but he had seen them.

#fred weasley imagines #harry potter imagines #hp imagines #fred weasley one shot #harry potter one shot #hp one shot #fred weasley fanfic #harry potter fanfic #hp fanfnic #fred weasley x reader #fred weasley drabble #harry potter drabble #hp drabble #fred weasley angst #fred weasley #harry potter #hp

[9tzuyu]

my guitar is slightly out of tune, but i’m eternally yours.

[reuploaded and revised from my old blog.]

↠ prompt: you have a terminal illness but you have a chance with treatment but you deny it, then you meet wanda and you feel alive again.

↠ warnings: kinda angsty, but worth the read :>.

requests are always open!

masterlist

∘∴∙*⋆∙∴⋆∘∙*. ∘

“Oh–” was all you managed to say. “I recommend we start radiation treatments-” You zoned out and watched your feet dangle from the edge of the exam table. Was this it? Was this really all there was for you? It seemed hopeless to even do anything at this point. You figured if this was affecting you again, it was for a reason. 

"No. I don't want treatment." The doctor looked at you and his gaze faltered. "You do understand that if you refuse treatment this will inevitably kill you?" You nodded. The words felt empty, they carried no weight behind them anymore. Nonetheless, the doctor continued to try and persuade you. 

"I said I don't want the treatment. I'm refusing medical advice. I don't want to have to go through this again, it's obviously not going away. Now where the hell do I sign the papers?" You exasperated. The doctor gave you one last look before getting the papers for you to embark your signature on.

“You’re one-hundred percent sure about this?”

You shrugged your shoulders, “I've got nothin' left for me here anyways. Might as well just let nature take its course.”

"Well surely you've got someone, a friend maybe?" You shook your head.

 "Nope." You replied, popping the P at the end. The doctor seemed to finally grasp the situation when you handed the papers back to him as if you were turning in a job application.

He pursed his lips, "I'm going to give prescribe medication for the pain. Based on the size of the tumor I'd say you have about eight months to live, but only about half of those months will be enjoyable." You nodded your head in reply and gathered your stuff together. 

So how were you going to spend your last months on earth? That was the question you asked yourself. You walked out of the building and found yourself in a coffee shop. It was busy, but you found yourself a seat next to a window in the back of the shop. Your eyes gazed out the window as you pondered your question from earlier.

'I could move to New York and see broadway shows I've never wanted to see'

'There's always casinos–'

'–Or what about splurging your money on dumb things that you'll quite literally never need?'

You laughed at your thoughts. You made up your mind right there, you were going to live the rest of your life just the way it was. It’d be easier that way. You didn't have friends, no longer had parents, so it's not like anyone would really miss you really. All you had was your pet cat and your guitar. And truth be told, that's all you needed. 

Coffee.

"Hello?" You snapped out of your gaze to see a beautiful brunette standing in front of you. The second thing you noticed was her accent, you'd never heard it before. “I was wondering if this seat was taken?” She softly smiled at you. You returned the gesture and shook your head no. "The place is cram packed and you seemed trustworthy. I hope I'm not disturbing you or anything, you seemed to be pretty deep in thought." The young woman blushed a crimson color, "I'm sorry I probably seem weird or something, I'll go."

Normally you would have cared, but at this point in time you didn't mind the company. So, with the slightest bit of hesitation, you called out for her.

“Wait! It’s fine, don’t worry. I-I’m all alone.” The woman’s smile widened as she took a seat across from you. “Thanks. I'm Wanda, what's your name?”

"Y/N." 

"Y/N..." She flexed your name on her tongue, "That's a beautiful name."

"I'm stuck with it for life, so I sure hope it's at least a decent name." You narrowed your eyes at her as you joked. A giggle escaped the gap between her lips, causing a small flutter to emit in your stomach.

"So what do you do?" She asked, intrigued by your presence.

"Well I do a lot of things, I walk, I talk, I breathe-"

"Oh shut up! You know what I meant." Wanda’s eyes gleamed with friendliness and warmth. She seemed like the type you'd be friends with if you weren't dying. "Okay, okay, I play guitar and sing while my cat eats her food." Wanda's eyes lit up at the mention of a cat. 

"You have a cat? What's her name?" Her elbows were propped up on the table with her head resting in her hands, showing just how actually interested she was in you.

“Her name is Nala. You know, from The Lion King?”

Wanda’s brows furrowed together. She’d never seen The Lion King, much less heard of it.

Your jaw dropped at her confusion. “You mean to tell me you’ve never seen The Lion King?”

“I’m Sokovian, what do you expect?” 

“Ahh, I see. Well, do you at least have any pets?”

"My apartment doesn't allow pets."

"So? Sneak one in." You replied nonchalantly, crushing ice between your teeth. Wanda looked at you in shock. "No way! Knowing me I'd get my ass caught on the first day." You shrugged in reply and the conversation quickly went dead.

Wanda checked her phone, moving abruptly to get up from her seat. "I'm so sorry, I have to go now. I'll see you around, okay?"

“Sure.”

After another half hour of waiting on nothing and thinking about everything, you finally decided it was time to leave. A feeling of regret washed over you. The woman was kind, very friendly, something that you craved.

But you couldn’t allow yourself these things now, especially given the direction you were heading.

_____

Over the next few weeks you'd spent your time songwriting, journaling and a midst of other lonely, boring things. Sometimes you'd catch yourself thinking about the woman in the coffee shop, but you tended not to dwell too much on the past. 

You thought about your tumor and all the different ways it was growing inside you. It grossed you out more than anything, but you weren't afraid. At least not now you weren't. 

A heavy sigh slipped from your lips, and the sudden urge to go to the park overtook the need to do anything else. You’d never really visited the park in your area before, so you decided now was the time. 

The beige acoustic guitar rest heavily on your shoulders, similarly to the weight of the world. It was bitter, no taste of sweetness was left over in the aftermath.

Leaves crunched under your feet as you made your way into the park. The smell of pine and bark surrounded you, just as the pinch of cold air that struck your face. It was tranquil.

You marched your way over to a nearby tree secluded from everyone else. Setting your guitar down, you nested cozily against the wood. Your journal rest aside your hip as did the pen that exchanged your thoughts into words.

Humming quietly, your fingertips grazed the instrument’s delicate strings. Music filled the air around you, but it came to a quick stop nearly ten minutes after you’d begun.

"Hey, I know you. Y/N, right?" You heard a familiar accented voice behind you. You turned around to find Wand standing above you. "Uh yeah, that's me. What's up?" She sat down beside you, making you a little uncomfortable, but you figured you could deal with it for the sake of being nice. 

"Nothing. I just saw you and thought I’d say hi. What about you? I see you have your guitar."

“Just singing,” you mumbled quietly.

She smiled and pushed a strand of hair out of your face that was blown in from the wind. "You’re really pretty." You bit your lip and you could feel the heat rise to you face. "Thanks."

"Mhm. So last time I didn't get your number, maybe I will this time?" She asked (although her eyes were begging). You couldn’t help but feel something while she bit her lip, her doe eyes unintentionally focusing on your lips.

"I'll have to give you mine, I didn't bring my phone with me – don’t use it much." You replied. She handed her phone to you and you typed your number in.

"Do you not have family or friends you keep up with?" Her brow quirked in curiosity.

"Parents died, no siblings, and no friends. I don't have many people to worry about."

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have-"

"It's fine, I don't mind." She looked down in her lap before asking another question. "What about a job? Do you work?" Wanda was definitely a curious one, but each question she asked carried you in a way you’d never felt before. It was refreshing to have someone interested in you, and not your disease. 

"Nope, when my parents died they left all their life savings to me. It's plenty enough for me to live on." Your fingers began lightly playing the chords of a song. It was often that you unknowingly played when you were scared or nervous. You'd only realize afterwards. 

"That's good– not that your parents died, but you know, you have money and stuff. Even if it's– oh my god- " 

You cracked out a laugh, causing her to look at you in terror. Noticing this, you rest a hand on her shoulder. "Wanda, it's okay. You're fine, I know what you mean." She nodded shyly and looked up to the sky. 

"Hey, it's sunset! I love sunsets, I used to watch them all the time with my brother back in Sokovia." Her voice wavered at the end of her sentence, and you easily picked up on it.

"Something wrong?" You asked. She laid her head on your lap and you stiffened, but quickly relaxed. This is fine. This is okay. You set your guitar aside and began to play with her hair.

"I miss him. Pietro..." She paused for a second before continuing. "He died a couple of years ago from cancer." You felt your heart drop for the first time at the mention of the horrid disease that stripped you away from most of your life. "Oh." The word seemed to become your go-to for whenever you didn't know how to accept information you were given.

"He was the other half of me. We were twins, I felt like my whole world fell apart. After he died I moved out of my country and moved here. Since then I've made some good friends. You might like them." 

“I’m sorry about your brother. I’m sure he was wonderful, Wanda.” You whispered, bringing a piece of her hair to the end of a braid. “I'm happy you've made some friends." Wanda nodded and snuggled closer in your lap. "Maybe I can be your friend?" You gave it a thought. You weren't sure you could do that to her, not with your illness anyway. Guilt nawed at you already. She’d already lost someone so beloved and close to her from it, how awful you began to feel if you had to put her through that again.

"Y/N?"

You stared at her for a few moments before answering. "I don't know, maybe." She turned over to face you, but you avoided her gaze. "I'm going to figure you out you know." You stifled a laugh, "And you'll be sorry you ever did."

"Whatever."

____

Four months passed and you thought they would be empty, meaningless months, but with Wanda nuzzling her way into your life you began to feel alive for the first time. When she came around it was like a switch you couldn't turn off. 

Right now, you sat at your desk strumming your guitar while watching Nala play with a toy dinosaur you’d bought her just weeks ago. This life was good too, you thought. But it was lonely.

You weren't quite sure what Wanda meant to you yet, but you were slowly discovering that whatever the two of you had, blossomed into something more each second you spent together.

Popping a Vicodin in your mouth, your phone buzzed. It would be no one else but Wanda.

be there in a few, it's urgent. 

Panic set in your body as you worried for the safety of your friend. What could possibly be the matter? Normally Wanda talked about what was bothering her.

A knock at your door brought you out of your gaze and you stumbled to answer it. Wanda was distressed, her hair a mess and her eyes red.

“Whats wro-” You were cut off By Wanda smashing her lips onto yours. 

She pulled back in shock. "Oh my god, I'm so sorry! I-"

You shut her up by pushing her into the wall, door closing behind you. Her lips tasted of strawberry and her hands began to roam your body.

One thing led to another and you both ended up naked on your bed. How amazing it must be to wake up and know that you won’t be dead in the next few months.

"You're good. Almost too good. Where did you learn all that from having no friends?" She smirked at you. You gave her a smile and kissed her again. Your arms wrapped around her nude body and together you felt the utter bliss and excitement radiating from one another.

. . . . 

Three weeks later yoy began to shake. It was hardly noticeable, and it just so happened to occur when you were playing

It’s downhill from here and you know that.

"Can you fix it? Can you fix this?" You yelled at him, despite knowing it was all your fault. If you would've just taken the treatments you wouldn't be in this place. But back then your life had no real meaning, it was just you and your cat.

You hadn't planned on falling in love with someone. 

"There's nothing I can do now. Treatments won't work, it's too far gone. I'm surprised it took this long to start showing symptoms."

For the first time in years, you felt tears beginning to build in your eyes. "You don't understand, I love her and now I'm just going to leave her? This can't be happening, you have to do something!" You pleaded, but the doctor’s eyes were solemn, giving you the only reply you needed. 

You stormed out of the hospital and made your way to Wanda. Silence rang through your ears.

Tell her. You have to tell her.

It will be over.

Sobs wrecked your body as you fumbled with the keys to your shared apartment. The door opened to a sight you wanted to live forever.

There she was, perched on the couch while massaging Napa’s scruffy fur. She was content, happy, and here you were to ruin it.

"Y/N? Baby what's wrong?" She got up from her spot and rushed over to you, worry etched on her face. You clung onto her for more life than you had left. And god, You weren't scared before, but you sure as hell were now. 

"I have terminal cancer."

Wanda froze.

"That's not funny, Y/N. You know how I feel about this topic." Her glare was hasty, burning into your skin.

"I was diagnosed almost five months ago, please Wanda you have to believe me. I have tremors, don't you see?" You raised your hand up to show her, but she slapped it away. "You're making yourself do that, Y/N. Stop joking, or I'm leaving." She crossed her arms

"W-What?" Your chest tightened.

"I said stop joking."

"I'm not joking, Wanda!"

"I'm leaving," She huffed, snatching her jacket before slamming the door shut.

And it was true, she did leave. However, Wanda didn't leave for the reasons she gave you.

She loved you, but she couldn’t handle another loss like this.

. . . . 

During the next two months you experienced the most heartache you'd ever felt before. The combination of vomiting, body aches, and dizziness didn't help. If anything, it made it worse. You missed Wanda. Everything about her gave you a reason to live.

You were on your seventh month and the pain was unbearable. It hurt to reach out for a cup of water, your hands shook uncontrollably all while sending jolts of scorching pain throughout the entirety of your arm.

Undoubtedly, the hospital bed became your next best friend (although it was the worst one you’d ever had. But it somehow managed to weasel its way back in your life).

Wanda was nowhere to be seen, and if anything that only progressed your disease. The only thing that kept you sane was your guitar, and the fact that Nala was being taken care of by a sweet, old nurse (who sometimes snuck her in so you could see her).

It was about the small things now. 

More days passed and each one was getting worse. By now you just wanted to end it all on your own, but you were physically too weak to do that.

There was a knock on your door, but you ignored it thinking it was just another nurse. "Y/N?" The voice was soft, it felt like it'd been years since you last heard it. You turned your head slightly to see Wanda standing in the doorway. A weak smile formed on your face.

"Hey you." 

Wanda quickly dropped her things and ran to your side. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry." She mumbled over and over again as you calmly stroked her hair.

"It's okay, you know it is." You whispered in her ear. She looked up at you and shook her head, "But it's not okay, I left you when you needed me the most." You stared at her adoringly and the tips of your fingers gently rubbed away the tears from her face. "But I'm still here, aren't I?" She laughed through her cries, "Yeah... you're still here."

Both of you knew you didn't have much time left, but you ignored that other than the fact that you made her promise to take care of Nala when you were gone. She held your hand and got you everything you needed.

And you love her so deeply for that.

One night you had the feeling that your time was coming soon, so you woke Wanda up from her sleep. "Sweetheart?" She stirred a little before finally sitting up. 

"Yeah?"

"Hand me my guitar?" She tilted her head, "But your shakes?" You ignored her and asked for it again. 

When she handed you your beloved guitar you took it with grace. "Come help me, I wanna play a song." She nodded and came to your side.

Your fingers struggled as they strummed the delicate strings on the instrument. You picked one of Wanda's favorite, and when you were done you spoke lightly.

"My guitar is slightly out of tune, but I'm eternally yours."

#wanda maximoff x reader #scarlet witch x reader #elizabeth olsen x reader #avengers x reader #avengers imagine

[londonfog-chan]

Abbacchi x Reader: Sudoh Buck AU

The coffee shop Abbacchio THIRST everyone keeps losing their collective shit over on AO3 and admittedly the chapter where I decided I was one thirsty ass bitch. All characters aged up.

...

"Ok, fucking Darth Vader over here, whoever has their headset on turn it the fuck off! Sounds like you're doing something gross!"

Darth Vader is an understatement. Whenever someone leaves their headset on and does any task, your ears are assaulted with what sounds like some mouth breather huffing directly into your ear canal.

Not even two shifts into Passione and you're already showing your coworkers that you have the capacity to look innocent, but have the mouth of a sailor. In a fitting turn of events you've been put on customer support, free to fuck off wherever you wish and cuss all you want on the headset. No one at your store appreciates your humor, in fact any time you make a joke they conveniently pretend they don't hear you or they grimace until the situation becomes awkward and you have to shut your mouth before you make an even bigger ass of yourself. Here at this location, the boys eat it up with a spoon. They can't get enough of your jokes, encouraging you whenever they force a headset on your head the minute you clock in. Even the new girl Trish, a pretty thing with dyed pink hair and a smile that goes for miles, joins in on the never ending train of dirty jokes, profanities, and general riff raff that makes Bruno bitch at everyone involved like a single mother.

But at the moment, the breathing most certainly does not belong to Bruno. Usually he's the one who always casually reminds people when they leave their headsets on.

"Mista!" you growl, "Turn it off or breathe less!"

"It's not me." he insists, the beep of the warming oven being cut off as he mutes himself.

"Narancia, I love you but I don't need to hear what it's like for you to get laid!"

"Negative babe~... I'm on drive bar." Narancia replies.

"Trish?"

"Not me hunty." she answers, and the sound of the wind in her headset confirms this.

"Fugo, I swear to fuck-..."

"It's me. Fugo doesn't have a headset."

Immediately you press on the sprayer head a little too hard and the back splash soaks the entire front of your apron and your uniform shirt. The voice you're greeted with on the headset is totally foreign, and unmistakably sexy. A low hum, almost like Bruno's baritone, and much like the rest of the crew you've come to love it's colored with the slightest hue of an accent that makes your knees start to knock together. Admittedly you're bad with voices and just as worse with names. You can't put a face to this voice no matter how hard you try, and it's no wonder considering that out of all the stores in the district, Passione has more employees than any of them, including H. Green and S. Platinum locations which are always overstaffed because of the sheer amount of business compared to the meager crowds you get at Ogre Street.

But... With that voice... if you were a customer you'd fucking live at that drive thru just to hear him read back your order to you.

"Woah..." you're nearly moaning the words "I'm wet in more ways than one, who the fuck is this?"

"It's Leone." he replies, voice low and sultry, "Sorry about that, I was eating a bagel."

Leone... who the fuck is Leone? Surely he has to be one of the other baristas whose names you never bothered to learn... doesn't really matter to you when you have constant attention of the store's man candy. But suddenly this is a whole new person with the sexiest voice you've ever heard giving you attention like everyone else. For very obvious reasons, this piques your interest.

"I don't recognize your voice." you said, putting down the whisk you were rinsing. "What's your last name?"

"Abbacchio." he responds. "We haven't met face to face yet, but I've seen you before. You're the beanie from Ogre Street right? It's nice to finally talk to you. I think you're really pretty."

... Oh sweet baby Jesus why aren't you taking the wheel yet!?

"Aww, and aren't you just a sweetheart?" you murmur, leaning over the sink as your voice drops to a near whisper. "Wait... Aren't you the one with the pretty handwriting in the book?"

His chuckle makes you honest to god swoon, and even Bruno peeks his head in to check on you when you make that kind of a noise.

"Yes, that's me." he confirms. "And you're the one with the great customer service. I haven't gotten a chance to talk to you, but I've been listening for a while. I really like your attitude. You're much more fun than your coworkers."

“Really?" you ask, taking up more dirty dishes, "Big shocker there, I'm surprised no one at this store is drooling over Ogre Street's heartthrob one miss Kimmy."

"Meh. I think the consensus is that you're the favorite barista out of everyone from your store if we're being honest."

That's Narancia, and even Abbacchio agrees with the rest of the crew. They all start complimenting you, how you never ask stupid questions, you try to help out any way you can. They honestly can't go two minutes without berating the other coworkers. It's all things you'd normally do to try and be helpful, but you're not sure exactly why it's so endearing to all of them. You're just another barista? It's never mattered to anyone this much before. Especially when you always come home in tears at your other location. It must be that you're not used to receiving compliments in such abundance.

"Agreed." reaffirms Abbacchio. "You're really agreeable, and I like your jokes. Your laugh is really sexy."

"Well aren't you a flatterer." you smile, putting the dishes to soak in the sani solution before throwing them for another go in the dish washer. "But I like having my ego stroked. Tell me more about how I'm wonderful, Abbacchio."

You can tell he's about to reply, until you hear the mournful "ding" from the drive thru sensors indicate that someone wants to order. You hear him tell you "hold that thought" before he turns his charms the customer.

"Hello there..." he purrs into the headset, "Welcome to Sudoh Buck, what can I get started for you today?"

The customer murmurs an "oh wow" before she remembers why she came here in the first place.

"Um yes hi can I please get a..."

It doesn't take much for you to zone out and return to your task. As soon as you finish up this set of dishes, you'll be able to take your last ten before you go home for the day. Customer Support is one of those coveted positions because you have little to no interactions with customers at a busy store. Bruno sets you to work with a task list, you work to the limit on the timer on your apron. Whenever it goes off, you have to drop what you're doing and come back to front to brew coffee. If anyone needs anything, like if Mista runs out of warming bags or Narancia needs more cups or milk, all they have to do is press the button on the headset and set you forth to do their bidding. Admittedly, you don't find yourself going straight home anymore. Even your brother, stoic and nonchalant, makes comments about it whenever you come home an hour or two later than the time you're supposed to. Mom, well, she's a worrier, and thinks you're getting up to no good shenanigans. But let's be real, when you live in the house you live in any trysts with potential suitors goes out the window. Your brother is in college and his schedule is unpredictable, and your mom is a homemaker.

The minute Abbacchio tells the flustered woman to pull up to the window, he returns to shower you with compliments over the headset, calling you the prettiest thing he's ever seen to put on an apron, how cute your angry face looks when you're totally focused on bar, even busting out some cutesy nicknames that make you squirm as you try to finish up your dishes. Strangely enough, everyone else is silent on the headset, letting you and Abbacchio get acquainted with one another to your heart's content, the lull in the conversation only happening when a customer pulls up. Eventually, like all good things, the compliments come to an end and the conversation turns to other topics.

"So you said you live with your mom?" Abbacchio asks after taking an order of five different fraps. You can hear Narancia cussing softly as he has to make each individual drink.

"Yeah, my mom and my big brother." you affirm. "It's the most I can afford in this town. Everything's so goddamn expensive, I couldn't even afford to make the first and last month's rent on the cheapest place in town, and my brother can't move in with me yet since he's doing school full time. But enough about me, what about you?"

"Mm? What about me?" he asks, flirt evident in his voice.

"Which country do I have to thank for that blessed ass accent you have?"

"That's Italy." he laughs. "I've been with the company for over six years, I started out at the reserve roastery in Milan and came here when Buccellati offered me a job. I came on a work visa, and now you can't get rid of me. I'm one of your shift supervisors."

"Well, temp supervisor anyway." you respond rather sadly. "It's too bad this store hadn't been opened before I got hired. Otherwise I would have loved to start here."

"I still think you should transfer." interjects Trish. "No one likes Ogre Street anyways."

"I... I'd have to think about it."

"What's there to think about anyway?" Abbacchio asks, and you stop scrubbing the chocolate pump for a minute. "If you transfer here, I'd get to talk to you every single day. Tips are shit but you can move up if you'd like."

"And the best part is if you transfer here, we can see your huge ass every time you bend over." Mista chimes in.

"MISTA! WE ARE AT WORK!" Bruno sounds exasperated over the headset.

"Oh yeah, my bad boss. I mean to say we can see your venti ass every time you bend over."

Everyone loses their shit for a minute to laugh as Bruno begins to berate the very bad and naughty warming man off headset. Before he mutes, you can hear him threaten disciplinary action, and you can't stop howling in the back. Nearly falling over just thinking about it.

"So how about it cuteness?" Abbacchio asks, and his voice is so warm and inviting you can't help but smile. "Think it's worth us stealing you away to stay here?"

"Yeah... I dunno. Like I said, I'd have to think about it. Besides, I think working here would just give my mommy an excuse to show up more often..."

A shrill sound assaults your ears, the timer, and you sigh.

"Now the age old question..." you wonder aloud, "What the fuck did I brew last?"

"I know we've been selling a lot of medium and dark." Abbacchio replies. "And it's already ten thirty, just cut the blonde and do full batches. Narancia can do pour overs."

"Ah yes," you can hear the mischief in Narancia's voice. "My special americano pour overs."

"You know Narancia, one of these days corporate is gonna walk in and see all the shit you do and your ass is going to get canned." you respond, laughing as you wash your hands in the employee sink before going back out to front.

"Fuck it." he laughs. "It won't bother me none, Buccellati can take care of me with all that Mama Daddy money he's got."

"Oh hey, cara mia, when you come up to front, come to drive. I've got something for you."

That was Abbacchio, and for a hot minute you're almost nervous, like a first date, at the prospect of seeing him face to face.

"Oh yeah? And what would that be?"

"Well," you hear the rustle of the bag, "It's cat shaped, and really cute, like a certain barista I know..."

"OOOOOOOOH DADDY!" you squeal. "You've just made me the happiest girl on earth!"

He's found your weakness. The quickest way for any man to get to your heart is to dangle some motherfucking food in your face, no lie. Even your brother has commented on more than one occasion that if anyone wanted to take you all they had to do was dangle a fucking cupcake in your face and you were toast. And it doesn't help that you called your mom squealing about the cute little kitty shaped cake pops they had out for the season.

“Well? What are you waiting for? Come and get this and we can meet in person."

Ever the one to be lured in with the prospect of free food, you run your ass to the front, nearly bowling over Mista as you skid to a halt at the nook where the drive thru window is located. To your ever lasting shock, you come face to face with the last person you'd ever expect to be flirting with you so boldly.

"Holy shit..." you breathe. "Abbacchio?"

It's the dude who gang faced you the first day you came in, and ironically the one who got fed up with your friend's bar time. Silver hair pulled into a pony tail, glistening purple lips, snatched makeup that's too perfect for a barista... All put together in a black apron. His glare never leaves his face, but maybe... Just maybe, he's like your brother and just has a very bad case of resting bitch face. Because you get a little hopeful when he sees you and his lipstick mouth smiles, beckoning you over with a warming bag in his hand. When Abbacchio reaches in, he pulls out the very treat you've been craving all day since you've seen it. This is the best part of the job. Sometimes some customers forget they get food and never come back, and it just sits there for hours until someone has to throw it away, or they'll change their mind last minute about the food, or worse yet someone on warming (Mista) will fuck up an order and get the wrong sandwich. If it's a sandwich, nine times out of ten you have to toss it, but if it's a sweet treat it's usually fair game for anyone to enjoy since it will just go in the trash. You love to have the mistake foods, sometimes you'll take them to your brother at the college, or more often than not you'll take them home to share with your mother. She loves sweets, and working for a coffee chain she normally can't afford to frequent is such a rare treat that you love to spoil her.

"Oh my god!" you coo, "Is that a kitty cat cake poop just for me??"

"Just for you." he chuckles. "Why do you call it that anyway?"

"I dunno. For some reason the feral part of my brain activates whenever I see words and I just like to play around with them and mutter weird things to myself. I tried telling it to my SM at Ogre Street and he told me I better not call it that, otherwise I might slip and call it a cock pop or something."

He can't help the smile that spreads over his face, and he suddenly gets a very naughty glint in his eye as he twirls the cake pop in your direction.

"So?" he asks. "You made such a big to do about being friendly on the headset. Be a good girl and take a bite of the treat I worked so hard to get for you. Come on, take a big nom nom out of this cock pop~."

You hope and pray that by some stroke of bad luck that no one you know outside of work just heard that. Not one to be shown up when it comes to flirting, you don't miss a beat as you step forward. With a look in your face that would make your mother faint if she knew how filthy you were being, you waste no time in licking a stripe slowly up the cake pop before taking a fat ass bite out of the head. Abbacchio's grin could split his entire face in half, and even more so when you use your teeth to pull the pop stick out of his hand.

"Hey... hunty, question?" it's Trish interrupting the positively predatory stares you and Abbacchio are giving each other. She's been listening in this whole time.

"Yes Trisha my love?" you respond, not taking your eyes off Abbacchio.

"Just one question... Can you eat pussy like that?"

A cacophony of screams and your screech of "NASTY WOMAN" makes Trish lose her shit outside, and Bruno swears up and down from the back office that he's going to write up the next person who says something filthy over headset during his shifts.

#jojo’s bizzare adventure vento aureo #jojo’s bizzare adventure #leone abbacchio x reader #leone abbacchio #coffee shop au #reader instertjojo’s bizarre adventure reader insert

[a-secondhand-sorrow]

but lately I've been feeling strange

(read on ao3)

For as long as she could remember, Dina had been able to see the future.

Okay, well, no. Not see the future. Sense the future, if you could even call it that. Or sense like, three seconds ahead. But maybe that gave it more credit than it was worth.

Whenever Dina woke up in a bad mood for no reason, which was pretty rare, bad things happened that would totally justify a bad mood. She’d told her mother this when she was younger, on the day she broke her collarbone. Her mother said that her attitude was the reason the bad things happened; believing it to be true made it true. If you’re happy all the time, her mother said, then happy things will happen to you. And ten-year-old Dina, like a moth to a flame, took to that idea.

Most days, it seemed to work. She wasn’t exactly the cheeriest person around, but no one could deny her happiness. Her father took to calling her a “little ray of sunshine” while her sister took to kicking her out of her room when she got a little too positive. She may not have had pep, but she made up for it with a genuity no one could doubt. And the days where she woke up with that sinking, gnawing feeling that something bad would happen - well, she pretended it didn’t. She had to be happy all the time, or bad things would happen. She wouldn’t bring misfortune upon herself.

Most days, it seemed to work.

One day, when she’d tried to act happy, her (former) best friend told her she was too cheery all the time. She didn’t listen, she said, only thought about herself. She wasn’t real enough. And that best friend became her former best friend.

And one night, she awoke with a jolt like she’d begun falling in her dreams, but her stomach never picked itself up again. She could hear voices in the kitchen, so in an attempt to calm her nerves, she eased out past her bedroom door just in time to hear her father whisper to his mother that he’d lost his job.

And when her mother picked her up from school, she knew a second before her mother told her that that was her last year at the school, that they were moving, and she knew that that’s what the dark feeling in her gut had been trying to tell her since she woke up.

Upon their move to Brownsville, she found she liked sports. Basketball, soccer, tennis, any team that would take her. Her advisor had suggested them as a way to burn off energy, but she wasn’t too bad at them, either. It helped that she knew exactly where every opponent was at every moment and could guess with an eerie accuracy every move they were about to make. She always felt a little...odd when playing. It didn’t feel quite right. It felt like she was doing something wrong, even though all she was doing was sending her environment.

She had a dream before her first day of school in Brownsville that at the lunch for new students, there’d be a girl sitting there with hair cropped into a pixie cut and no one to talk to. They’d be the only sophomores there at the relatively small lunch, and she’d slide across the seat from her and say…something. And sure enough, with a bright, bubbly feeling just behind her eyes, Dina’s eyes locked onto the girl from her dream at the lunch, and her feet carried her there of their own accord.

“What type of sacrifice do you think I’d need to make for a milkshake?” She said, dropping her tray down at the table and allowing her body to follow. The girl furrowed her brow.

“Like, ritual sacrifice?”

“Sure,” Dina replied. “Do you think it’d be a nice, tame, Percy Jackson-esque scraping food into a fire? Or would it require slow-roasting a freshman over a Bunsen burner?”

The girl took a bite of her sandwich - peanut butter, as far as Dina could tell. “Maybe like, that lizard in the advanced bio teacher’s room?”

“I like the way you think,” she replied. She stuck out her hand a moment later. “I’m Dina.”

Her companion took her hand in a surprisingly fine handshake, voice dropping a few notes from where it had been before. “Sydney. Or Syd.”

“Always good to know the names of your accomplices in sacrifice.”

Sydney shook her head. “You really want a milkshake, don’t you?”

“I’d kill a classroom lizard for one.”

“Seems gratuitously violent.”

“I take my milkshakes seriously.”

Syd shook her head again, incredulity taking over her features. Her nose scrunched up just a little, and Dina could suddenly see all of the freckles on her face. She’d noticed them before, but they’d all blurred together. Now, she could see each tiny dot in perfect detail. She wrenched her eyes away as Syd began to say something else. “I mean, my mom works at a diner that sells milkshakes if you want one that badly.” She backtracked, cheeks flushing a little. “But you’d probably have to, like, wait for after school?” She took another bite of the apple.

“God, it sounds perfect.”

And so she and Syd sat at a booth in her mom’s place of work, splitting a milkshake as they’d do so many times in the future. Dina didn’t know how she knew they would - it was just something she could tell. Just like she could tell that a defender was going to cut in front of her a moment before they did, she knew that she and Syd would end up right there time and time again, and just the thought of that made her smile like Syd smiled when she thought Dina wasn’t looking.

Sophomore year passed in a blur of essays and all-nighters and milkshakes, and then she and Syd were free to roam the streets of Brownsville as they pleased. Sometimes Syd’s little brother Liam joined them, and Dina secretly loved those times. She’d always been good with kids, since she seemed to know what they wanted to do or talk about, and Liam was no exception. He was a cute kid, always happy to chatter on about armor on superheroes or the benefits of mac n cheese or any other topic that interested him that day.

“Grown-ups are so boring, you know?” He said to her one day. “They just like the same thing day after day, like they have to pick one thing only. They can like lots of things! And one person, too! I think you and Syd are already getting to be like that. You spend all of your time together, just one person. It’s weird.”

Dina choked out a laugh. She was glad Syd was checking out freeze pops for them while they waited outside; Dina got the feeling she got embarrassed when Liam said stuff like that around her.

“Maybe you’re right, Liam,” she said, dropping her hand to his head. His curls always felt smooth and soft under her palm, making her weirdly nostalgic for when she used to do her hair with her mom all the time. “But wouldn’t you like to be stuck with your sister if you had to be stuck with anyone?”

“Definitely,” he said, and Dina felt her heart warm a little at his honest admission. Syd appeared a moment later and he was quickly distracted by the blue freeze pop in his hand.

She’d be lying if she said that Syd’s reaction to having Liam around, her tone of voice as she said “Goob” and her gentle hand on Liam’s back and the smile she smiled while looking down at him, didn’t have something to do with her enjoyment of their time with him.

Their time together sans Liam, though, was more than nice, too. They’d truly just started hanging out because they were the new kids, but Dina had a feeling that they would have been friends anyway. They were too close to not have some kind of innate connection.

Junior year was a harsher year in general. Even Dina’s normal happiness was tested day after day, just from the course load and social stratosphere.

Of course, there was a day when she woke up with a terrible feeling in the pit of her stomach, but she tried to mask it. Syd could tell something was wrong. After school, they walked in the direction of the supermarket, but Dina had a sudden tingle of pain run up her spine. She grabbed Syd’s arm and dragged her towards the closest bench, the heavy feeling in her stomach growing so that she wondered if she’d throw up for a moment. She could feel her arm vibrate slightly like it might when her phone was underneath it, but her phone was in her backpack. Syd followed her and sat when Dina tugged her down.

“Are you okay?” she said.

“Yeah,” Dina said. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just kind of...lightheaded...”

She trailed off as Syd’s phone began to ring. She got a sudden, unbidden mental image of a dark basement, but it was gone and forgotten as soon as she’d seen it. Sydney looked away from Dina, still frowning slightly, and swiped the call open.

“Hello?” Syd said, and suddenly Dina knew what the person on the other end would say before they said it. Her hand found Syd’s arm, trying to instill her with some kind of strength, as though she could protect her from the contents of the call.

And as Syd learned that her father had hung himself in her basement, Dina took her hand and watched as her expression shifted from neutral to panicked to shocked. Dina would learn, later, that there was no note when Mrs. Novak found him, that her best friend would have no closure whatsoever. She didn’t know how she knew Mr. Novak had even died before the caller had said it; she just knew that she had to keep her touch on Syd, to make sure she was still alive and physically okay. And when Syd hung up on the call finally and her expression shifted, Dina felt the despair reflected on her face. When Syd turned her rapidly tear-filling eyes to Dina, her own eyes become teary. She didn’t pull her in for a hug since she didn’t know if that would be the right thing. She just tried to be there and hold her hand and she cried a little bit herself. She didn’t want Syd to feel alone like Dina knew her friend felt at so many times; she wanted her to know that she was feeling similar things and that she was allowed to show her sadness. She didn’t think Syd always knew that.

That overshadowed most of everything in Junior year, but eventually, summer came and went again. It felt weird without Mr. Novak there to push puzzles on them and tell wandering jokes with no punchline, but she knew it wasn’t as weird for her as it was for Syd. Her best friend became even more withdrawn around everyone, but she took comfort in the fact that she knew when to pull her out of her shell and when to leave her in. She got Syd to dance with her on the empty streets one day as school started again, putting one foot after another and another laugh after another, and that felt pretty nice. More than nice, even. A feeling she didn’t have a word for.

She’d never had a boy be interested in her, is all. And Brad Lewis...he was interested in her and her sudden lack of braces and growing of boobs.

She’d recount it all to Syd later. In the diner, over a milkshake, of course. “And he’s all like,” in a bad imitation of a male voice, “‘who’s the new girl in town?’ And I was like, ‘shut up. It’s me, Dina.’”

“Right, this is Brad...Lewis?”

Dina shouldn’t have been surprised that Syd was skeptical. She was skeptical of most people. And she didn’t need to have her improved hearing to hear the skepticism in Syd’s tone. “Yeah,” she breathed, thinking of the night before. “He’s sort of sweet, you know?” She continued, ignoring Syd’s quirked eyebrow.

Bradley - Brad - well, he really was very sweet. Not nice, exactly, but sweet all the same. An absolute knock-out, too. She almost considered calling Syd to moon over him, but Syd had never once shown an interest in talking about boys and she doubted she’d start then.

One of her friends from her old school told her on Instagram that football boys liked it when you came to their practices. She did, one day. It wasn’t really her cup of tea - she’d given up on playing sports after sophomore year. They took too much time and the intuition was beginning to scare her a little bit - but she definitely enjoyed watching Brad run around in tight pants. He caught her eye a few times and smiled at her laughter.

She met him at his car after practice, greeting him with a kiss.

“Come to homecoming with me?” He breathed before she could even say anything about the practice.

“What?” She laughed, letting her hands rest on his chest. “That was a non sequitur.”

“I know, I know,” he mimicked her laugh. “It’s just, well, this may sound kind of dumb.”

“I’m sure it won’t.”

“I’ve been wanting to ask you. And seeing you there today - well, I’ve never had someone come to my practices. And I wanted to ask you before I lost the high of seeing you there.”

Her smile grew. “Well, I’ve never been asked to homecoming before.”

“I guess it’s a night of firsts.”

“Yeah,” she said, moving to hold his head more firmly between her hands. “It is.”

She opened the backseat of his car door and fell back into it, dragging him with her. Some small voice at the back of her head, that feeling she sometimes got, said night of firsts again. She kissed him, only pulling back to whisper “of course I’ll go with you.” She could feel the curve of his smile against her mouth, and she felt it there for quite a while after Brad shut the door to his car, locking them into their own little world.

It was almost surreal to think of it the next day, sitting across from Syd at her mom’s diner, sharing a milkshake as they always did.

“And then…he asked me to homecoming,” Dina said.

She opened her mouth as though to say something, but nothing came out. She found her voice half a second later. “Wait… and you accepted?”

“No, I told him to take his washboard abs and chiseled jawline and get out of my face.” For someone who was sarcastic almost every time something came out of her mouth, it seemed to take Syd a second to process the fact that Dina meant the opposite of what she’d just said. Dina laughed, trying to force her way through the feeling that Syd’s disappointed face gave her. ”Yeah. Of course, I said yes.”

She could feel, literally feel, Syd’s eyes on her face as she looked back down. She realized why Syd was studying her so intently a moment later. “Oh my God. You had sex with him, didn’t you?”

Dina just smiled in response, another laugh building. She couldn’t seem to get the words past her lips, but Syd didn’t have the same problem.

“Holy shit. Holy shit, you gave Bradley Lewis your v-card??” Syd practically spluttered in an undertone. Which, admittedly, was exactly what she’d done, but hearing it laid so plainly out like that was a bit unsettling. She...wanted it, though, didn’t she? She liked Brad, and she liked what he did to her. But she could still feel Syd’s eyes on her face. Damn Syd for always being able to read her like an open book. She kept laughing through Syd’s questions, but eventually, something in her eyes made Dina crack.

“I really like him, okay?” She finally said. She wanted Syd to believe her. She wanted herself to believe it.

“No, yeah, sure. I get it.”

“Just give him a chance! Now, c’mon. There’s gotta be someone you sorta like. Just a little.”

She felt a response on the tip of Syd’s tongue, as though she were bursting with the fact, as though she almost planned on saying it. She could feel it, but it rolled away. Syd’s eyes, widened like a deer in the headlights, might have betrayed the answer, but Dina was distracted by the “I dunno. I haven’t really thought about it.”

“Well, think about it,” she said firmly. “And maybe we can all go to Homecoming. Like a double date.”

When Brad slid into their booth, bringing with him an air of superiority and several kisses, she knew that Syd wasn’t happy. It didn’t take a superhero to sense it. And with whatever transpired between Syd and Bradley while Dina got ketchup, the air at the table was so stiff and dry that she couldn’t be surprised when Brad’s nose started bleeding. That was just what they needed; an injury.

Of course, she and Syd would sit at the table again. Between shallow breaths, Syd would breathe “I sort of...hadsexwithStanleyBarber?” and God, didn't that hurt. She wondered if that’s how Syd had felt, and then she realized she should have been happy for her best friend, but what she felt was mostly shock. She told herself it was because she’d fucked Stanley Barber of all people, rather than any feelings she might’ve had herself.

When the topic of Stan’s sexual prowess (or lack thereof - Syd was never a great liar) exhausted itself, Dina frowned down at her phone.

“What?”

“Oh, it’s just - it’s just Brad. We were going to go to the party tonight, but he’s not sure if he’s feeling up to it. With his ankle and all.”

“Oh, well, we, um, we could go? Together?” Dina looked up for her phone, locking eyes with Syd. “If you still wanted to go, you know. I know you were...looking forward to it.”

Dina finally shrugged. “Yeah. Sure. Why not?”

Syd finally allowed herself to smile. “Great. Cool.”

It seemed like the next thing she knew, she and Syd were at the party. Brad had been in a terrible mood, bitching about every little thing all day. She told herself he was worth it, a bad mood and all, but it was honestly nice to be at a party with Syd. Just to have some...friend time. Gals being pals. They hadn’t hung out just the two of them in too long, even if Syd had brushed it off earlier in the day.

And, when doing her makeup, she knew she didn’t imagine the hitch in Syd’s breath as she applied the cherry chapstick to her lips.

Weirdness with Stan aside, she was having a fantastic time. Syd seemed to actually be happy, which was a feat those days, and the drink in her hand was starting to numb her mind and make her fingertips tingly in a pleasant way. Their chat on the couch with drinks in hand was awkward enough that Syd didn’t seem to mind when Dina pulled her away to the dance floor.

“This is my favorite,” she’d said by way of an explanation and apology for Stan. Although discomfort practically radiated off of Syd when Dina stopped them in the middle of the crowd, she didn’t object.

“C’mon,” she said, basically shouting over the noise. Syd laughed, and Dina would’ve been surprised that she could hear her laughter over the music, but she’d realized before that she could always hear what Syd did, so she didn’t waste too much time dwelling on it. Syd just shook her head and laughed. Dina could feel Syd’s pulse in her fingertips as she grabbed lightly at her wrists.

She couldn’t seem to stop laughing, and the funny faces Dina was making as she got into the music certainly didn’t help. But eventually, persuaded by the music and her best friend, Syd acquiesced and shuffled a bit, which Dina figured was probably the most she’d get.

She didn’t know if it was the alcohol muddling her brain, but as Sydney started to move more, she found her eyes tracing her every move. They both moved close together, ignoring the ways that one was supposed to dance at a party. With a jolt, Dina realized they were much closer than everyone else. If she’d tried, she could easily pull Syd flush against her body. But of course, she didn’t. Syd’s breath blew across her chin in short, warm puffs. Dina could see the peaks of goosebumps on Syd’s arms even though the room was sweltering.

The music stopped, but they stood together for a moment, breathing in the same breath.

And then, of fucking course, Brad arrived. Of course he was the source of the music discontinuing. She was torn between annoyance and fondness at the sight of him; one part of her wanted to go back to the moment before, but the other was desperately glad he was there.

(She might’ve been afraid to go back to that feeling of dancing with Sydney rather than actually being glad to go back to Brad, but she pushed the thought away.)

He was angry. Unbelievably angry, and for what she didn’t know. He dragged her away - well, he didn’t exactly drag her away. He sunk his claws into the air around her and tugged, bringing any of the high of before and the flush of alcohol away from her. So she followed as though she were a puppy on a leash, leaving Syd behind with a heavy heart.

He was so goddamn angry she was half surprised he didn’t hit her. He only hit the wall, but that seemed to hurt, and he was “already injured enough.” Brad, his voice low and steady like it had been when he’d breathed out an invitation to homecoming, asked for his jacket back. Dina’s eyes found the moose on the ceiling just as he asked, but her eyes snapped back on him.

His voice had been just as low, but it held none of the affection, none of the gentle tone.

“Fine,” she said, managing to keep her voice cool even as her eyes welled with tears. The jacket slipped off her shoulders easily, and he snatched it from her hands as though disgusted by the thought of touching her. Only when he was gone, the door slammed behind him, did she allow herself fall back onto the bed and let the tears fall past her eyelashes.

She could tell it was Sydney as soon as the door peeked open. Her breaths were shallower than anyone else she’d met, but surprisingly steady considering the circumstances. One quick glance to her right, even with tear-filled eyes, confirmed that it was Syd. She had a gentle way of moving that made quiet little sounds across the carpet. Every nerve in her body seemed to recognize the moment that Syd’s body came in contact with the mattress. Heat radiated from her thighs and shoulder, comforting and unprecedented. She must have put her sweatshirt back on.

“Hey,” Syd whispered, her voice catching on nothing in particular.

Dina didn’t remove her eyes from the ceiling. She sniffed.

“You’re crying because...there’s a dead animal hanging over your head?”

She’d honestly begun to tune out the taxidermy moose, but she wasn’t quite ready for one of Syd’s jokes.

“Hey, talk to me,” she whispered. Dina felt the barest shift of Syd’s forearm closer to hers. “What happened?”

Music pounded from the main party, echoing in Dina’s head like a dull headache. She sniffed, lifting her shoulders in a half shrug. She hated how her voice still wobbled. “It’s just Brad,” she finally said, not moving her eyes from their point on the ceiling. “We got in this - this huge fight, I honestly don’t even know what it was about.”

Syd’s face was tilted on its side, angled closer to hers. When she spoke, Dina could feel her breath against her tearstained cheek. “That happens with me and my mom a lot.”

She sounded almost - almost eager. Like she was excited that she could finally try and help Dina rather than the other way around. Like she was glad that she could relate to whatever Dina was feeling. The thought made something bloom in her stomach. She swallowed harshly against the feeling. She could tell that Syd’s eyes were at the corner of her jawline and the bob of her throat before they turned back to the ceiling.

“And then he-” her voice broke. “He asked me for his jacket back.” She angled her head towards Syd, the movement making the pillow crinkle under her. Syd did the same and met her eye barely a second later.

Dina turned onto her side, far past the point of caring about her hair or makeup, and cradled the pillow between her head and arm without breaking that eye contact. Syd mirrored her, lowering herself so that they were face-to-face, barely any space between them. Warm breath blew onto her own lips. “Well, look on the bright side. At least you won’t have to wear that hideous jacket ever again.”

The corners of her lips quirked up a bit at Syd’s joke, some kind of squeaky laugh escaping her throat, and Syd’s followed suit.

“Guess you’re stuck with me.”

She felt very lips curl into a smile. “I wanna be stuck with you,” Dina admitted, her voice low and catching on the unshed tears making a home in her throat. Syd’s mouth mirrored her own.

Dina knew it was coming a moment before it did. She didn’t know how she knew, just like she didn’t know how she knew anything else. But she didn’t pull away or sit up. She was content to wait for it to happen, to monitor the shift in Syd’s expression and to get distracted by the warm chestnut color of her eyes. She’d never noticed that color before. She had thought they were brown like her own, but they were warmer, a little more golden. Her smile deepened, muscles in her face pulling tight.

Syd’s breath hitched a bit, but she was still smiling, even as her head jerked up almost involuntarily as though she’d moved innately. Then Syd leaned over with the support of one arm braced across the bed and pressed her lips to Dina’s. The sudden, warm pressure of them set a contrast in Dina’s brain, like a flint against a stone. The sudden fire in her brain almost got her to reciprocate. She had not sensed before that she would have wanted to reciprocate. Some new, sudden part of her wanted to do more than smile against Syd’s lips; it wanted her to move, to part her lips and keep kissing her, kiss her back, to press Syd against the cushions like Brad had done to her not so long ago. But that sudden part of her brain scared her. She pulled back, instead, and sat up. Her drinks had muddled her head; she knew she was still dating Brad, even though they’d fought. It was...wrong, wasn’t it? To want to kiss her best friend? Especially when dating golden boy Bradley Lewis.

“Syd, we’re just drunk,” she said, her voice too loud for the eerie silence of the room. Syd sat up as well. Even with the drinks and the low light, Dina could see every freckle on Syd’s cheeks.

“Oh, yeah,” Syd said, her cheeks rapidly flushing. Her voice had pitched upwards, an expression Dina couldn’t decipher on her face. “Sure, I didn’t mean, um.”

Panic flaring in her gut, Dina attempted to keep it out of her voice “Um, it’s just not-”

Syd sat for another moment before she was all motion. Dina could swear she felt the ground vibrate for a moment as Syd stood.”Yeah, no, totally, it’s fine! It’s fine, really, I’m just, I’m, uh,” it was almost painful watching Syd try to come up with an excuse. She gestured vaguely outdoors. “I’m just, uh, getting a ride home with Stan, so, um.”

“Okay?” Dina said, trying to clear her own head with a shake, but Syd was out the door with a shaky smile. It began to close behind her. “Wait, Syd-” but she was already gone, and the unsteady ground went with her.

When she walked out of Chem class on Monday, tracing the same unsteady ground as before that it seemed like only she could feel, she felt the heavy weight of Brad’s jacket once again around her shoulders. She’d almost forgotten about it all morning, even though a few of her sort-of friends had commented on it by her locker in the morning. The only thought she was really capable of thinking was of how the floor had seemed unsteady as Syd rushed out. She’d felt it; she was sure of it. As sure of it as she was sure that Syd was carefully pulling her glances away from Dina. She traced the feeling of the unsteadiness, like the world’s worst earthquake, into the girl’s bathroom.

Knocking on the only occupied stall door, Dina prayed that it really was Syd and not some random freshman. That would be awkward.

“Syd? Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” she replied. Her voice was pulled tight.

“Well, look, I wanted to. Um, to talk to you?”

“...Okay?”

“Uh. Brad and I talked. He gave me his jacket back.”

“That’s...nice.”

It was clearly sarcastic, but Dina didn’t really care. She had something else on her mind.

“Look, about the party…”

“Dina, it’s fine,” Syd replied. Dina could see her feet angled awkwardly under the stall door. She frowned.

“So...we’re cool?”

“Yeah. We’re good.”

“Okay,” she said. She almost turned to go, but at the last moment she reached into her pocket and pulled out a tampon. She slid it under the stall door, bright against the plain and gross tile of the bathroom. “Feel better.”

She could’ve sworn she heard Syd laugh, a slight exhalation of nervous energy she’d held inside of her up until she finally let it out. Dina smiled a little as she left.

In detention, when Stan and Syd approached her - or pulled her away from Brad, quite rudely, too - she knew they weren’t telling the truth. They were each forcing the words about their “sexcapade” out of their lips like it was something foul to think about (which it, admittedly, was).

In fact, as she’d been pushed against the wall by Brad, she could’ve sworn she felt something low in her gut just before they came to get her. Something like the bottoming out of your stomach when you drop a glass of water and know it’s going to collide with a harsh tile floor, but distant and larger. That lingering feeling was part of why she pulled away at all; nothing would’ve been able pull her away if she’d really been into it.

Stan’s plan was, admittedly, ridiculous. But so was the whole, faux-honest situation. She was preparing to have to pull some sort of save, and as her ears picked up a faraway clacking of dress shoes on tile, she poised herself to sneak down the hallway. Summoning several years of former ballet classes that she’d quit when the hobby had become too time-intensive, she tiptoed down the hallway, praying to every deity she could for the principal to not hear her. It came in handy; she made a crashing noise just before he could reach the door.

It was odd to feel victorious when the deed was done. But she did. She felt...victorious. Like she’d done something, stupid as it was. And so she said “oh, fine,” to Stan and Syd’s offer of a joint. With smoke curling around her fingers like a fond snake, she found it difficult to worry about much of anything. She was high on victory and about one-twelfth of a joint, and she was happy with that.

When Syd and Stan had dispersed, for the bathroom and fuck knows where, respectively, Dina rested her head back against the lockers and took a deep breath. She could hear, distantly, low voices. Panicked, really. But resigned. Syd’s voice mingled with Jenny’s and Brad’s. She grimaced, resigning herself to retrieval duty.

Syd was really much more loyal than anyone gave her credit for. She barely hesitated before telling Dina everything about Brad’s betrayal. She’d expected fury to overtake her, or overwhelming sorrow, or something. And she surely felt angry, and maybe a little sad. But mostly she felt like her relationship with Brad was fated to end with him not caring about her and doing something insensitive.

Somehow, seeing the library in ruins made her even angrier than Brad cheating on her had. Even though she’d known something bad had happened completely unrelated to Stanley Barber ever 69ing, the extent of the damage made something harsh and angry rise in her throat so that she thought she might choke. It might’ve been the sudden knowledge that she and Syd weren’t really best friends anymore win the way that they should be, just like her former best friend had once told her. She’d been too self-involved, or maybe Syd had been too self-involved. It just hurt to know that Syd couldn’t bother to tell her the truth. Went out of her way to tell lies with the help of Stanley Barber.

“What happened, Syd?” she demanded the next day, pulling to a stop in front of the bench where Syd sat. She’d been scribbling away in something but looked up as soon as Dina started to speak.

“What?”

“I saw the library. I’m not stupid. What really happened?”

It almost seemed to pain Syd - she choked for a moment. “I can’t tell you?”

Dina just looked at her for a long moment. “You asked me to help you steal something and you can’t even tell me?”

“...Yes.”

She knew Syd could read her like an open book, so she didn’t try to explain her feelings. She just turned and walked away. But before she fully could, she turned on her heel again.

“We’re best friends, Syd. Or at least, we’re supposed to be. Best friends talk. They’re supposed to tell each other everything. But we don’t! We haven’t spoken about anything. We don’t tell each other anything. I just - you should be able to tell me.”

Syd swallowed hard. She looked down at the book in her lap. “I know. I’m sorry. I just - I can’t. I can’t tell you.”

Dina’s eyes roved over Sydney’s face. She nodded after a moment, a small, exasperated sigh leaving her. “Right.” And she finally turned on her heel in favor of heading to class.

Syd shouted after her, but she pretended she hadn’t heard.

She never could keep a grudge against Syd, though. And Syd knew it.

So she shouldn’t have been surprised when she turned up outside of Syd’s house in time for homecoming, as planned. She was weak for Syd. But she did have to blink in surprise as Liam opened the door.

“Ah, Dina,” he said. “Come in, come in. Syd is still getting ready. Girls, you know?”

“I...do know, yes,” Dina said, fighting back a smile. The kid had always been able to make her smile, she’d give him that.

He was in rare form, talking on and on. He’d gotten into a fight, apparently, which made Dina’s lips tug downwards, but he wasted no time in assuring her that he was happy with the outcome as his (very tall) crush was now interested in him. She just nodded through his commentary, sending half-hearted glances up the stairs. When she finally saw Syd coming down, she thought her heart might stop for a moment.

She wasn’t sure if it was the dress or the necklace or the sudden flare of confidence that filled her like a balloon, but Syd looked beautiful. Dina had always known that her best friend was pretty, and what was more, she knew that she was pretty inside. Which sounded a little creepy and either serial-killer-esque or like a Hallmark card. But whatever it was, she was painfully reminded of that feeling that twirled inside of her stomach and refused to stop, that warmth growing in her chest, and her darkening cheeks.

She smiled at Syd, and Syd smiled back.

And later, when she and Syd swayed together on the dance floor, she could’ve sworn that another kiss was coming. She wanted another one. Dina desperately wanted another kiss, which was a little terrifying and a little thrilling at the same time.

“You know, that kiss at the party…”

Syd’s brow furrowed preemptively, as though she anticipated something bad.

“I didn’t...dislike it.”

And slowly, ever so slowly, Syd appeared to let herself hope. That same confidence she had standing on her stairs came back, filling her up. “Yeah?” She said, words slipping out between a rapidly growing grin.

Dina smiled back. “Yeah.”

She thought there was another kiss coming, but before there could be she heard (felt?) distant footsteps. They had the same pattern she’d heard stomp away at the party - Brad’s gait had become somewhat unique with his injury. Turning to watch homecoming king and queen be announced, she could only swallow the sudden crop of anxiousness that exploded in her stomach. He couldn’t do anything then, right? Right.

Oh, how wrong she was.

And just a moment before it happened, she felt a pressure bomb tick. It was that horrible moment before glass makes contact with a tile floor when you know that a crash is going to happen but can do nothing to stop it. Like that feeling at the diner, when Brad’s nose started bleeding, but five times closer and a thousand times more powerful. She saw the moment in painful detail. Brad’s hand coming too close to his body, his eyes a little more bloodshot than a moment before, his lips parting where the microphone began to hide them. A curve of glass the second it reached the floor, destruction when it was nothing but beauty, eerily reminiscent of Stanley Barber’s body hitting the polished gym floor. Thunder before lighting.

Still, in her ears, she could hear the vitriol he’d spat. Kissing my girlfriend. As though he knew anything about Syd, about her, about them. As though he deserved a tenth of what Dina ever gave him. She could hear Syd’s tiny, soft sniffle. Dina’s own thousand thoughts praying for some teacher to intervene. Syd’s confidence leaching out of her, sucked away in a second, no smile in sight. She could almost hear her embarrassment, her anger, her sadness. Her hatred of Brad for taking over everything else at that moment, and Dina had to admit that she felt the same way.

She sensed it, just as she had been able to for years.

She heard, right in front of her, Brad’s head explode just before it really did.

(A minute later, her only thought would be of Syd. Where did she go? Was she okay? What did she think happened? Maybe she and Stan would try to find out together. She had a feeling that they would.)

But right then, all she could do was press her hand to her mouth and try to ignore the warm feeling of blood on her skin. She didn’t believe what she saw; she thought her brain had made it up.

A minute passed, and Brad still had no head, and blood was seeping her dress and pooling on the polished floor, a liquified version of broken glass reflecting the fluorescent lights of the gym.

For the first time, Dina really fucking wished she could see the future. Sense it. Sense even a few seconds forward, past the overwhelming overload of activity in the gym - feet against floors, screaming, all kinds of emotions hanging in the air but mostly terror and horror.

She lifted her head, just slightly, and locked eyes with Stanley Barber. He cocked his head to the side, and she stared back.

They had something to do, right?

#i am not okay with this #ianowt #dina/syd #dina #sydney novak #bradley lewis #stanley barber #syd/dina

[rainywritingsx]

Torn • BNHA X OC • Chapter 1

You can find the prologue here. I thought posting the first chapter would be fun too and I’m thinking of updating the fanfiction weekly if people really like it. Please let me know what you think! Leave a like or reblog if you enjoyed it please. I think that’s it, enjoy reading and I hope you have a wonderful day!!

xxx admin rainbow

Words: 1622

“I don’t think you realise how dangerous you could be.” My twin brother smirked as we made our way to school.

"Seventy percent of the human body consist of water, and you have the ability to control any fluid in the universe! You can basically make the whole world your slaves if you train your quirk enough." I sighed softly, not feeling the need to reply to his boring words that I'd probably heard a million times already. I was born with this power, did he think I wouldn't have figured that out after fourteen years?

I mean how couldn't I, when my father, despite my mother's protests, had been training me since I was four up until this year, because according to him training at school would be enough.

"Mom and dad will be so proud when you can finally go into the field too, Janie." He said, his voice dripping with pride and

excitement for my future. I, however, wasn't as interested in that, I must say. But I didn't say that out loud of course, due to the fact that I know that's not what he'd like to hear and I wasn't in the mood to argue with him right now. Not like I ever was in the mood to do that.

You see, unlike my younger siblings, I had the big responsibility which would be given to me as soon as I became the new leader of the so-called 'villain world', which would most likely happen as soon as my parents decided to stop - that would take a while considering they found their job absolutely lovely. Any villain would've been stoked for something like this, but me? I despised it from the day I was born.

Yes, there was a very small proportion of 'villains' that actually had some rational ideals, like them not agreeing with some situations though they were seen as 'right'. For example: Stain, the hero killer, didn't have the worst ideas in my opinion. He didn't agree with the fact that some heroes didn't become heroes with the intent of helping people. All they wanted was fame and glory. He decided to kill anyone he deemed unworthy of being a hero and kept the worthy ones alive. So, yes, his way of handling them was a completely different case but he had some decent morals.

However, the majority of this community was filled with people who just wanted to inflict pain on others, see their terrified faces before taking away possessions or sometimes even their lives. I did not want to associate myself with people like that.

And those were the exact kind of villains my parents were. As parents, they were just normal people but everyone knew both went ballistic during fights against heroes. There were some stories of heroes who could still hear my mother's psychotic laugh as she killed their allies. My dad would always look his victims right in the eye as he did whatever he wanted to do. I can't even imagine the amount of sins that they must've committed.

They expected me to be at least as crazy as them when I took over, but I wasn't even planning on becoming a villain at all. Even if some villains had ideas that seemed okay, it didn't make up for their actions. I wanted to become a hero and whether I'd become famous or not didn't matter to me. Helping people was all I wanted to do. However, we should put the emphasis on "wanted". I couldn't become a hero, my whole family would consider me absolutely insane.

We entered the school and parted our ways since we had different classes until lunch break. I never minded that, to be completely honest. We weren't the type of siblings that couldn't live without each other. I didn't have that relationship with any of my siblings. (I've got three younger brothers, I'm thirteen minutes older than my twin brother so yes I'd consider myself older, the others are twelve and ten.) Sure, we all cared about each other but we didn't have the tight bond some siblings do have. I thought that that was partly due to my parents, who never really let us do things together to get closer to each other. It was only when we got older that we started doing some things together. Maybe it was also due to our ideals being different but of course he didn't know that.

As for my two other younger siblings, they were a lot closer to each other so there never really was a need for them to have this really tight bond with my brother and I. Those two were completely fine as a duo.

I entered the classroom, not saying a word as I walked over to my seat. I also never really bonded with my class either. It didn't have to do with what I though, but more because of the fact that I was the daughter of the two most notorious villains ever. Nobody would ever talk to me and I had the tendency to be quite shy at first, so I never took the first step either.

"Alright everyone! Please open your books, classes will start now!" Our English and homeroom teacher, miss Deceit said with a bright smile on her face in the same annoyingly high tone she always used. "Today's lesson will be really exciting!" Maybe her name gave it away already, but she was a teacher who was great at creating illusions. After training for years and years, she could make someone's biggest fear and taunt people with those images. And people tend to do strange things when they're absolutely terrified... Sometimes a slightly less deathly version of that is used as a punishment for students, but only in very extreme cases. Now that she had reached an older age, she mostly used her quirk to make classes more fun than they actually are and the majority falls for it, but my parents taught me how to deal with quirks like that so it almost became like a reflex that I saw right through it.

And if you were wondering how on earth some of these villains were able to even set a foot in the outside world, there were two answers: serving in jail and fake identities. Some villains were able to get away with certain crimes and that way they got a shorter sentence, so after they served in jail they could just return to society. Other villains made fake identities and at my school they never turned people to the police. 'Villain code' is what they call it. You help other villains when they need it but you never ever call the cops on them.

The day seemed to last forever, but after villain training I could finally go home. I almost ran out of class, not wanting to spend another second with these people. My brother finished early today and went away to hang out with some of his friends, so I was on my own. It wasn't like I missed much though, no offence to him.

I frowned when I noticed a big sign set on the usual path I took to my home. It said that work was being done on the road, which meant I had to take a different road, a longer one sadly. I sighed quietly and then continued walking again. Before I could think my feet stopped on their own, making me almost fall in surprise. I looked up and gasped when I noticed it.

UA high.

The school I had admired since I was a small child, because that was the school where heroes were made. If you wanted to become a hero, you knew you just had to attend UA.

My eyes became wide when I noticed huge banners hanging. Today, and only today, they would let potential new students in and take a look in the building, like classrooms etc so they could see what to expect. I tilted my head in slight confusion. Why was this done though? UA wasn't a very open school at all, barely letting any students in. I wasn't complaining though..

Then a thought struck me. Wouldn't it be strange if I came home late? I usually got home at the same time every day so it would seem odd... But then again, I was usually the first in my family to arrive since my parents' "working hours" varied and my siblings usually hung out in places after school. I'd just go to look at the school and find an excuse later.

My excitement grew with each step I took, realising I was getting closer to the school I could only dream of even seeing. The school was huge and from the start the whole atmosphere was just completely different from what I was used to in my school. It felt like one community, whereas my school was just a mix of small groups who didn't really bother to talk to other people, let alone make other friends. Maybe I could actually make some friends here...if I was even able to attend the school at all. My parents wouldn't ever approve of this in a million years of course.

Okay, I'd just take a look. Nothing more or less. Looking wasn't a bad thing for sure so why was I worried about them not approving of it? I wouldn't attend the school anyway, nope. It was totally fine, I'd be there for a few minutes and then gone before anyone could notice. Yes. I'd do that.

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#boku no hero academia #my hero academia #bakugo #katsuki bakugou #midoriya #midoriya izuku #todoroki #todoroki shouto #bnha #mha #bnha fanfiction #fanfiction #anime fanfiction #bnha x oc #dabi x oc #todoroki x oc #mha fanfiction #Torn

[existentialstatesofmind]

Weekend Fun

Clare: smiled encouragingly at Stacy too. Song writing might not be easy but she didn't think it would take much for Dakota and Stacy to impress Peter. She giggled when Dakota kissed the side of her head. She was going to get spoiled with all of this affection. "I know but Josephine's not really your sister and you're not dating her. I just don't want my mom jumping to crazy conclusions. Especially since I am going to tell her the truth eventually. So not the kind of false first impression I want her to have of my boyfriend." Clare crinkled up her nose. "You really don't mind? I feel bad about dragging you and Josephine into this." Clare told Stacy. She barely knew Stacy and hadn't even met Josephine yet and here she was insisting she had to introduce them to her mom to keep a cover story going. "I'll make sure Dad isn't home when Josephine comes over. He's at work ninety percent of the time anyway and doesn't really care about meeting my friends as long as Mom knows who they are." Clare sighed. "Yeah, they believe teen parents who keep their kids are selfish. So I doubt they're going to be too thrilled with your situation either, at first. They'll come around." She knew kids with more rigid parents than hers. Her mom and dad just needed to learn how to stop making broad (untrue) generalizations. "Okay it would be better to wait until we're serious." Clare agreed. They'd just started dating. She finally quieted down when Kelly mentioned putting it off until they got engaged and everyone agreed that Kelly was good at predicting these things. Clare smiled a bit and went back to eating her salad, blushing a little. She nodded about Josephine. "It's really good she has you for a friend." She'd just finished her salad and started eating her coconut shrimp when she realized everyone else was closer to being done than her. Clare listened to Dakota talk without commenting much until she was through eating. "Emi will be a huge help, we can read the signs out loud and ask her what they mean." She grinned at the mention of summer festivals. "Do they have fireworks, or singing and dancing at them?" Clare asked excitedly. She'd love going to a festival. She was sure they had food booths and souvenirs to buy too. "Those are the really pretty colorful dress-like robes with the bows right?" Clare had seen pictures of Japanese women and children wearing them. Men too, just a different version. She listened Dakota describe who in his family had gone where. "I'd love to hear all about New York later. I dream about moving there sometimes but I've never been." Clare smiled at Dakota. "Uh-huh." She agreed not wanting to expose Emi to her mom anymore than he did. "We will have to set up. My own cheering section, yay!" Clare said pleased. "Perfect. Exactly what I was thinking." She leaned over and kissed Dakota's cheek. "I'd love to go on a date to the aquarium. True but it won't be a problem." She watched Dakota interact with Emi. When the chocolate cake arrived boxed up to go, the waiter brought the check too.

Kota: listened as Clare mentioned her parents and them lying to them too much and nodded. "I agree we shouldn't do more damage than we have to and we'll tell them about Emi when the time comes." he smiled and looked at Stacy. "I'm not really dragged into this. Kota is like my brother so to me I'm helping him. I really don't mind at all as long as it's beneficial in the long run and I don't think Jose will mind as long as your dad isn't around." Stacy assured and Kota smiled at Clare. "See no worries." he added. "You can say Jos is your sister. I'm going to adopt her one day." his mom said grabbing his attention. "What?" he asked. "I am, I've been trying to and I finally got an answer. They'll talk to Jos tomorrow night and see. I know she said no last time, but I think that's because she was here and less exposed to her dad. I mean I know more than you do, Kota, her mom is just afraid to tell you and Jos is too scared to. Don't worry she's alright. It's just the school can't keep her dad from calling and often makes her talk to him which is why she calls you at weird hours." she explained. "Yea I have my phone off during school because of that." he nodded. "Is that why the guest room is blocked off?" Ash asked. "Well the guest room needs to be built. I guess guests can sleep in my mom's room." their mom trailed off. "Clare, you're sleeping in my room when you stay, Emi will sleep in with Kelly." Kota stated. "Same with Stacy." Dallas said. "Grandmother's room is one place I'm not setting foot in. I like her and all, but she kind of creeps me out now." Stacy stated. "She creeps us all out like we'll go in there, water her plants and boom there she is demanding we do something about her cold feet." Dallas said and Kota laughed. "Yes, lets plan to exhume her and cover her feet up. Right up on the top of my to-do list along for going to jail for breaking and entering." Kota laughed sarcastically. "Not to mention, her TV works. I walked by the door was open for a change, Jeopardy was on and her rocking chair was moving. I said good night, heard her tell me she loves me and closed the door for her. I'm pretty sure if I can see her rocking chair move from her sitting in it, she can pick up a shoe. Beware of pissing her off. And I'm pretty sure Clare doesn't want to get woken up in the middle of the night by anyone let alone an old lady who haunts her bedroom." he added. "She gives me candy." Emi said softly. "Ew, Emi don't eat that." Kota stated. "You could get sick." he added. "No the candy's fresh. I refill it when it runs out." Ash added. "Right, like you have extra money to splurge on candy for a candy dish owned by a woman who died a few years ago and haunts her own room?" Kota asked. "I don't look at it like extra money, I look at is as helping the dead. Besides, she gets pissed when you lay in her bed and sleep without leaving her room. I fell asleep in there." Ash stated. "Me, too by accident. I went to dust and fell asleep on the chair. Grandmother woke me up though by running her hands through my hair." Kota shrugged and listened to Clare mention them reading the signs. "We can't read Kanji." everyone said at the same time and Kota looked at what Emi was drawing with a crayon the waiter left and the activity page for her. "Thank you." he whispered to her and took the page. "See this.." he said pointing to symbols that Emi drew on the page. "That's Emi's name in Kanji. I know because when I get her papers back from school, her name is at the top of the page in Kanji. They're fine with it because none of the other kids know how to write their name yet and since Emi likes to write her name they allow it. Besides no one else knows what that means. I didn't know it was called Kanji until Emi told me it was in Kanji." he chuckled a bit. "And I only know the sounds. I was learning the sounds in school back home. We don't get to learn how to write until second grade. Preschool is where we learn how to read sounds because they're our alphabet. I'm only able to write my name because it's in the alphabet, e and mi. I just put them together to get my name. It's written with about 30 strokes in Kanji." she explained and Kota looked at her, then to Clare. "Believe it or not the Japanese alphabet is 40ish letters and based off the vowels since they're the only thing in the alphabet by themselves." he shrugged and listened as Clare mentioned the festivals. "I want to go to the Fireworks Festival. They have games, booths, and food. Emi said during the festivals they have grilled octopus which I'm not eating." he said honestly. "But they do have other foods, grilled octopus seems to be a delicacy." he added. "There's no dancing at the Fireworks Festival, but I'll look up other ones tomorrow." he promised knowing he was curious about them too and listened when she asked about the Yukata. "Yes, they're the ones with the bows. I like wearing them too." Emi answered for Kota, she knew more about the clothing than he did. Hearing Clare ask about New York caused Kota to bite his lip. "I really don't remember it much, I was ten. What I do remember is going to Time Square and going to the massive Toys R Us, Disney Store, and bookstore and getting lost in them." he admitted. "They had to call my name over the speaker in each store." he added. Hearing Clare mention the robot wars caused him to chuckle a bit. "I'm not using pom-poms." he chuckled out. "But yes, essentially we will be your cheering section, minus the pom-poms, but we'll hold up a big banner with your name on it." he smiled and looked at her when she agreed to go on the date with him. "Great, I already have the tickets." he said honestly and kissed her chastely. Once the waiters walked out with desserts in boxes located inside bags, Kota took his bag along with Emi's and Clare's and put them inside his bag. Once the check was paid, Kota helped Clare up and watched Emi jump off the chair. "Off to home." he smiled and picked Emi up as she yawned. "Someone's tired." he said and kissed the top of her head as she rested it against his shoulder and wrapped her arms around him. Once everyone filed in the van, Kota put Emi in her car seat and looked at Clare. "Can you carry our desserts inside when we get home?" he asked curiously.

#wf