Fandoms 9 and 10
[Title] First Dream of the New Year
[Fandom] Detective Academy Q
[Rating] PG
[Notes/Summary] Megu/Kinta fluff. The two meet up for New Year's Eve.
It's been ages since all of Q-class were together for New Year's. Since they finished school, they all find themselves on different continents, or having flying visits back to family and missing each other.
“Ryu’s still consulting for the police in London,” Megu says to Kinta, and he laughs: “So he basically has become Sherlock Holmes?”
“Yeah, I suppose he has. Oh, we should point that out to him.”
“Ask him to get the hat!”
They both start laughing at that, more than they really need to, but they’re sharing a bottle of sake and all around them are happy people and the air waiting for fireworks.
“And where’s Kyuu got to?” Kinta says. “Not like him not to come back to see his mum for New Year.”
“He’s investigating a series of ritual snow-themed murders in Svalbard. Um. Or possibly Seattle. The line wasn’t very good. He said we should cheer and have another drink on his behalf.”
“We can make that happen.” Kinta pours her another drink. Megu thanks him and hears her voice sounding soft and shy, as if she hasn’t spent years laughing at Kinta for goofing around, or sharing packed lunches and water bottles with him, or letting him see her cry.
***
“We should’ve made Kazuma come out with us,” Kinta says, later. “I mean, twenty-four-hour codeathon? On New Year’s Eve? Who even does that?” He doesn’t mean it. Kazuma is always going to be the kind of person with a laptop in their bag filled with windows of impenetrable gibberish, and it kind of makes Kinta happy that that’s not going to change. Megu’s changed, though. He was only in Australia for a couple of years, but Megu is taller, and she wears her hair loose instead of the two pigtails, and wow, okay, he shouldn’t be thinking about how she’s hot. She’s like his oldest friend. But she’s sitting opposite him resting her chin on her hand, smiling like she’s really happy to be talking to him, eyes bright, and he keeps trying to make her laugh.
***
There are fireworks for about half an hour and if Megu hugs Kinta when it turns midnight, well, there’s nothing wrong with hugging your friend and wishing them a happy new year, is there? He feels taller, stronger than she remembers, like he could lift her off her feet and swing her round if he wanted. If something amazing happened. Like solving a case together. They talk about cases, about Australia and Japan and America and what they miss from each of them and where they’d like to live and they talk and then Megu looks at her watch and somehow it’s three a.m.
***
“Oh, man,” Kinta says, trying to make the words line up - which they more or less do, until he stands up and it’s like being in an elevator that stopped too quick. “This is bad. I'm doing family stuff tomorrow.” He rubs his temples with the palms of his hands, “Get sober. Get sober...” His hands are hot so it doesn’t help much, but Megu laughs like he’s doing it for her. She’s stood up, she’s clearly a little giddy too, and she puts a hand on his arm to steady herself and it’s because Kinta wasn’t expecting it, suddenly having the pressure of her fingers against his sleeve, that it jolts him, doesn’t exactly sober him up but cuts through the tipsy haze he’s surrounded himself in.
***
Megu knows she should be embarrassed at having drunk so much she has to keep hold of his arm. But, first off, it’s late enough at night and early enough in the year that it feels like nothing she does right now will count. Everything is just something that is happening, something that’s true, like the patches of half-melted snow in the gutters, the icy air on her wrists and the back of her neck, music playing somewhere far away.
And second, she doesn’t actually need to keep holding onto him. But she is anyway. He smells of smoke from the bar but underneath he smells of hot sun and sand and Q-class, DDS, ten years ago.
***
“I’ll get you a taxi,” Kinta says. It doesn’t feel necessary, it feels like they could just stay walking arm in arm (how did that happen?) for the rest of the night, but sooner or later he figures tiredness will kick in, and, not to mention, he has to get up at a reasonable time tomorrow. Today. Oh, man, the family lunch with all the relatives is going to be rough.
“Won’t you need one too?”
“Yeah, but you’ll be heading back to your folks, right? I’m round the corner in the Sunroute hotel. I didn’t want to be doing the two-hour commute every time I went into the city centre.”
“Right, I forgot they live that far out.”
“Exactly.”
They’re just standing on the corner. Kinta’s pretending to look round for a taxi but really he’s thinking that he doesn’t want to put Megu in a taxi and send her home, he wants to stay walking with her and…
And he was going to hail a taxi for her all the same but she sighs, her breath clouding in the night, and leans a little closer to him, and it seems like the air was waiting for him to slide his arm round her shoulders. And she’s huddling against him, and when he glances at her, he sees that she’s smiling.
***
“You know,” Kinta says, “if you'd rather, you can just... come back with me. Uh. I mean, it's a pretty fancy room. They've got a sofa. So you’d have somewhere to sleep. If that was what you wanted. Or we could… stay up. Talk. Or.” He’s turned away, he’s delivering all this to a patch of snow. Megu is suddenly so happy that she almost laughs just from the joy of it all.
“I’d…” And she’s a little nervous, but only a little, because it’s Kinta and she knows him - he is in a million photographs of memory, laughing or joking or telling them it’s gonna be okay - “I’d like that.”
She feels him tense, and then sigh as if he's relieved, as if he was nervous too.
***
They clamber into the taxi. Thick car smell, numbers in the darkness. They sit each looking out of one of the windows, holding hands across the seat. Kinta’s finding himself stroking the shape of her fingers and thinking that it’s Megu, Megu from DDS, and yet it feels like he’s never seen her face to face before. And then he’s thinking that it’s Megu from DDS and if he can make her happy by holding her hand and maybe kissing her and maybe stuff (he shuts his mind down quick ‘cause it still feels a little weird thinking that kind of thing about her) then that’s fine with him. Megu still can’t stop smiling and she thinks that although, yesterday, if you’d asked, she’d have never predicted the night ending like this, that actually it feels like this drive through the snow and the streetlights had always been there, waiting for the two of them to catch up to it.
[Title] All I Ever Learnt
[Fandom] Akira
[Rating] G
[Notes/Summary] Kaneda doesn't like school much, and it seems like Tetsuo won't either.
Kaneda’s never been so good at school. Like most of it is boring. Either he doesn’t understand it or he just doesn’t care. And then if you don’t get something, the teacher yells at you like it’s your fault, when maybe they should be better at explaining. Kaneda doesn’t see why he needs to act all respectful to someone who can’t even explain things properly. Or who figures you already know everything like you’re a genius. He never said he was a genius.
Tetsuo doesn’t seem to like much stuff right now, like he cries at night when he thinks everyone’s asleep and he gets worried if any of the grown-ups sound snappy and a lot of the time he’s just pushing food round his plate rather than eating, so Kaneda isn’t surprised that he doesn’t seem to like school much either. Tetsuo knows more stuff than he does, like a loser (he was just kidding when he said that but Tetsuo looked scared at him like Kaneda was going to turn into one of the mean big kids). But the other kids don’t like him, like they don’t like Kaneda because they know both of them are children’s home kids, and Kaneda sees them do stuff like jogging Tetsuo’s elbows on purpose or tripping him up or starting up rumours like that he’s got nits. They did this kind of stuff to Kaneda and he mostly didn’t care and if anyone was a real jerk then he told them so and then they had a fight but Tetsuo does care, Tetsuo gets really scared if people are mean. Several times he runs out of the classroom and hides. Kaneda goes after him and sometimes the teacher catches up with them and yells at them to come back, or tells them not to bother coming back, or Kaneda doesn’t see why they should come back ‘cause it’s only going to be him failing another maths test. After a bit, the teachers start not even bothering to ask either of them if they know stuff, or don’t even hold out their hand for homework. Stupid, Kaneda says, when they start getting sent to the principal. Who cares what they think about us anyway? We’re much cooler than they’ll ever be. Tetsuo laughs, and says, Yeah, and then, Me, too? Kaneda doesn’t know why Tetsuo still needs to ask this kind of stuff. Course you too, he says. That’s why you’re my friend.
[Fandom] Detective Academy Q
[Rating] PG
[Notes/Summary] Megu/Kinta fluff. The two meet up for New Year's Eve.
It's been ages since all of Q-class were together for New Year's. Since they finished school, they all find themselves on different continents, or having flying visits back to family and missing each other.
“Ryu’s still consulting for the police in London,” Megu says to Kinta, and he laughs: “So he basically has become Sherlock Holmes?”
“Yeah, I suppose he has. Oh, we should point that out to him.”
“Ask him to get the hat!”
They both start laughing at that, more than they really need to, but they’re sharing a bottle of sake and all around them are happy people and the air waiting for fireworks.
“And where’s Kyuu got to?” Kinta says. “Not like him not to come back to see his mum for New Year.”
“He’s investigating a series of ritual snow-themed murders in Svalbard. Um. Or possibly Seattle. The line wasn’t very good. He said we should cheer and have another drink on his behalf.”
“We can make that happen.” Kinta pours her another drink. Megu thanks him and hears her voice sounding soft and shy, as if she hasn’t spent years laughing at Kinta for goofing around, or sharing packed lunches and water bottles with him, or letting him see her cry.
***
“We should’ve made Kazuma come out with us,” Kinta says, later. “I mean, twenty-four-hour codeathon? On New Year’s Eve? Who even does that?” He doesn’t mean it. Kazuma is always going to be the kind of person with a laptop in their bag filled with windows of impenetrable gibberish, and it kind of makes Kinta happy that that’s not going to change. Megu’s changed, though. He was only in Australia for a couple of years, but Megu is taller, and she wears her hair loose instead of the two pigtails, and wow, okay, he shouldn’t be thinking about how she’s hot. She’s like his oldest friend. But she’s sitting opposite him resting her chin on her hand, smiling like she’s really happy to be talking to him, eyes bright, and he keeps trying to make her laugh.
***
There are fireworks for about half an hour and if Megu hugs Kinta when it turns midnight, well, there’s nothing wrong with hugging your friend and wishing them a happy new year, is there? He feels taller, stronger than she remembers, like he could lift her off her feet and swing her round if he wanted. If something amazing happened. Like solving a case together. They talk about cases, about Australia and Japan and America and what they miss from each of them and where they’d like to live and they talk and then Megu looks at her watch and somehow it’s three a.m.
***
“Oh, man,” Kinta says, trying to make the words line up - which they more or less do, until he stands up and it’s like being in an elevator that stopped too quick. “This is bad. I'm doing family stuff tomorrow.” He rubs his temples with the palms of his hands, “Get sober. Get sober...” His hands are hot so it doesn’t help much, but Megu laughs like he’s doing it for her. She’s stood up, she’s clearly a little giddy too, and she puts a hand on his arm to steady herself and it’s because Kinta wasn’t expecting it, suddenly having the pressure of her fingers against his sleeve, that it jolts him, doesn’t exactly sober him up but cuts through the tipsy haze he’s surrounded himself in.
***
Megu knows she should be embarrassed at having drunk so much she has to keep hold of his arm. But, first off, it’s late enough at night and early enough in the year that it feels like nothing she does right now will count. Everything is just something that is happening, something that’s true, like the patches of half-melted snow in the gutters, the icy air on her wrists and the back of her neck, music playing somewhere far away.
And second, she doesn’t actually need to keep holding onto him. But she is anyway. He smells of smoke from the bar but underneath he smells of hot sun and sand and Q-class, DDS, ten years ago.
***
“I’ll get you a taxi,” Kinta says. It doesn’t feel necessary, it feels like they could just stay walking arm in arm (how did that happen?) for the rest of the night, but sooner or later he figures tiredness will kick in, and, not to mention, he has to get up at a reasonable time tomorrow. Today. Oh, man, the family lunch with all the relatives is going to be rough.
“Won’t you need one too?”
“Yeah, but you’ll be heading back to your folks, right? I’m round the corner in the Sunroute hotel. I didn’t want to be doing the two-hour commute every time I went into the city centre.”
“Right, I forgot they live that far out.”
“Exactly.”
They’re just standing on the corner. Kinta’s pretending to look round for a taxi but really he’s thinking that he doesn’t want to put Megu in a taxi and send her home, he wants to stay walking with her and…
And he was going to hail a taxi for her all the same but she sighs, her breath clouding in the night, and leans a little closer to him, and it seems like the air was waiting for him to slide his arm round her shoulders. And she’s huddling against him, and when he glances at her, he sees that she’s smiling.
***
“You know,” Kinta says, “if you'd rather, you can just... come back with me. Uh. I mean, it's a pretty fancy room. They've got a sofa. So you’d have somewhere to sleep. If that was what you wanted. Or we could… stay up. Talk. Or.” He’s turned away, he’s delivering all this to a patch of snow. Megu is suddenly so happy that she almost laughs just from the joy of it all.
“I’d…” And she’s a little nervous, but only a little, because it’s Kinta and she knows him - he is in a million photographs of memory, laughing or joking or telling them it’s gonna be okay - “I’d like that.”
She feels him tense, and then sigh as if he's relieved, as if he was nervous too.
***
They clamber into the taxi. Thick car smell, numbers in the darkness. They sit each looking out of one of the windows, holding hands across the seat. Kinta’s finding himself stroking the shape of her fingers and thinking that it’s Megu, Megu from DDS, and yet it feels like he’s never seen her face to face before. And then he’s thinking that it’s Megu from DDS and if he can make her happy by holding her hand and maybe kissing her and maybe stuff (he shuts his mind down quick ‘cause it still feels a little weird thinking that kind of thing about her) then that’s fine with him. Megu still can’t stop smiling and she thinks that although, yesterday, if you’d asked, she’d have never predicted the night ending like this, that actually it feels like this drive through the snow and the streetlights had always been there, waiting for the two of them to catch up to it.
[Title] All I Ever Learnt
[Fandom] Akira
[Rating] G
[Notes/Summary] Kaneda doesn't like school much, and it seems like Tetsuo won't either.
Kaneda’s never been so good at school. Like most of it is boring. Either he doesn’t understand it or he just doesn’t care. And then if you don’t get something, the teacher yells at you like it’s your fault, when maybe they should be better at explaining. Kaneda doesn’t see why he needs to act all respectful to someone who can’t even explain things properly. Or who figures you already know everything like you’re a genius. He never said he was a genius.
Tetsuo doesn’t seem to like much stuff right now, like he cries at night when he thinks everyone’s asleep and he gets worried if any of the grown-ups sound snappy and a lot of the time he’s just pushing food round his plate rather than eating, so Kaneda isn’t surprised that he doesn’t seem to like school much either. Tetsuo knows more stuff than he does, like a loser (he was just kidding when he said that but Tetsuo looked scared at him like Kaneda was going to turn into one of the mean big kids). But the other kids don’t like him, like they don’t like Kaneda because they know both of them are children’s home kids, and Kaneda sees them do stuff like jogging Tetsuo’s elbows on purpose or tripping him up or starting up rumours like that he’s got nits. They did this kind of stuff to Kaneda and he mostly didn’t care and if anyone was a real jerk then he told them so and then they had a fight but Tetsuo does care, Tetsuo gets really scared if people are mean. Several times he runs out of the classroom and hides. Kaneda goes after him and sometimes the teacher catches up with them and yells at them to come back, or tells them not to bother coming back, or Kaneda doesn’t see why they should come back ‘cause it’s only going to be him failing another maths test. After a bit, the teachers start not even bothering to ask either of them if they know stuff, or don’t even hold out their hand for homework. Stupid, Kaneda says, when they start getting sent to the principal. Who cares what they think about us anyway? We’re much cooler than they’ll ever be. Tetsuo laughs, and says, Yeah, and then, Me, too? Kaneda doesn’t know why Tetsuo still needs to ask this kind of stuff. Course you too, he says. That’s why you’re my friend.