L.A. lights never shined quite as bright as in the movies / still wanna go?
(Side note: If I thought the Castle season finale was lsdkgjlaksjdglkjdg!!!, then The Mentalist's...is that x100. No joke. Holy fuck.)
Now in China. (Yeah, I've globehopped 4 continents in the past week. Kill me now. At least I've adjusted on the first day every single time. O_o; ) Happy to take a break from the world. Oh my god I have a real drum set again you do not understand. Trying to play Revolutionary (an etude with ridiculously fast notes by Chopin) on piano and...ahaha? And playing way too much of an mmo.
Yanked a fic meme from renaliner: Go to your desktop. Find all the documents you've been working on, and post a snippet to your livejournal!
...ahahaha so there are totally more fics than these, but uh...yeah. Uh.
Untitled fiction project - A metropolis in a crapsack world where everyone has familiars called Mists, a Mist assassin's perhaps on the prowl, and things may or may not explode. See tag here.
the dangers of normative behavior - Fairy Tail - Gray/Lucy - Wherein Lluvia stalks, Gray hides out at Lucy’s place, and Lucy is understandably not happy about it. …understandably, right?
Posted already somewhere over here.
Untitled - Persona 3 Portable - Shinjiro/Minako - Like a dead and dying moth still attracted to a bright and burning flame.
He attempts to brush her off the day after, but she stubbornly hangs around anyway - sits in the spot at the kitchen table that best faces his corner, spreading out her homework in an arc of contained madness and pointedly looking his way after what must be every problem she half-completes.
So he sighs, and walks over. “What is that, math?”
“Physics, close enough. Least it’s better than literature.” She scowls, but flips that textbook open too.
“Oh, is it still that one grouch of a teacher?” That man had always hated him, pegging him for a delinquent the first day of high school. Another one of the things he didn’t miss about the place.
She launches into a story - how he’d been covering up for all the bullying that Fuuka faced, how unrepentant he was, how Mitsuru-senpai dealt with him - but too bad they never got to hear what his punishment actually was, ‘cause that had to have been good.
He ends up laughing and smiling wryly, with the minutes passing by like quicksand. An hour or three later he finds that he’s in the seat across from hers, his fingers wandering precariously close to the worn corners of her textbooks and her multicolored pens. So he pulls back, starts to get up.
She gives him a questioning glance.
“I’m getting in the way of your studying. I should leave you be.”
She frowns, and jabs him under the table with her foot.
“Is that really how you should be treating your senpai?”
She does not dignify him with a response. “If I really wanted to be all that focused, I’d have gone up to my room ages ago, Senpai. Maybe I want a distraction.”
He feels himself getting flustered - just slightly, okay? - and narrows his eyes at her.
She scrunches up the corner of her lip. “I mean, c’mon, it’s Classic Lit. With Ekoda. You can’t blame me.”
“…All right,” he sighs. “But you can’t blame me if you fail your next exam.”
“Don’t worry, Senpai.” She grins. “I’ve got it covered.”
He leans back in his seat, even if he shouldn’t.
(But it’s just so easy - )
Untitled - Persona 3 Portable - Akihiko/Mitsuru, Akihiko/Minako, post-game - A happy ending without the ever after.
Out of them, Shinji’s the first to die.
No, that’s not true - Minako was. And if he wants to get technical, then Miki came before either of them. Miki - Miki was the start of everything.
But it’s Shinji right now, Shinji pale and bleak on the hospital bed thrice over, Shinji with a vacant clockwork countdown pallor right in front of him, and -
“Hey. Toughen up, Aki. We all knew this was going to happen.”
He resists the impulse to punch the wall and leave cracks of red behind, but only by that much.
---------------
(No, he should take a step back.)
Untitled multipart - The World Ends With You - Neku/Shiki, Joshua, post-game - Wherein Neku knows nothing about the realities of the game and Joshua’s a jerk who's possibly using him again. Wait, what else is new?
“Nice day, isn’t it?”
He’s standing next to Hachiko - it was just him and Shiki today, as Beat and Rhyme had some family obligation or another to attend - and his mind clicks into a state of tense readiness before he can catch up with the reason why. Silver hair and a gleaming grin; polished shoes and a crisp, clean shirt.
Joshua.
He just - he doesn’t. Is it really him? How long has it been?
He doesn’t know what to think.
“Nothing to say to your old partner, Neku?”
“Why are you here?” he manages, skipping the how have you been geez you could’ve been dead for all I knew…oh wait pleasantries. “I didn’t think you’d ever show up again.”
“Ooh, that stings.” He doesn’t look fazed, though; on the contrary, his smirk widens. “I thought we’d been partners?”
“You’ve been out of the picture for - how long has it been?” Neku counters. Even if he’d wanted to see him during the past year - maybe - that cocky grin reminds him just how damnably hard it had been to get along with him.
“Ah, well. Had things to tend to here and there, you know.” He gives a wave of his hand, and Neku remembers just how aggravating the kid always had been. Has he forgotten that much? “It’s been a year, hasn’t it? Think I missed your birthday, sorry about that.”
Shove it, Neku thinks, but says nothing. That feeling’s creeping up his spine again like a warning sign, the one that he felt all too often during Week 2. What are you here for?
No, he still doesn’t - he trusts him, yes, but trusts him not to use him or mess with him for his own gain, whatever the outcome may be - a resounding no.
Joshua looks at him for one long moment, then sighs, palms upturned. “But Neku, I thought you trusted your partners.”
“At least Beat and Shiki didn’t kill me twice, no.”
“Hm, your wit’s gotten sharper. I’m impressed.” A wide grin. “And, well. We know very well what the outcome could have been if I hadn’t done that, right? Face it, Neku. You don’t really regret it.”
He says nothing.
the yellow sundress hypothesis - Black Cat - Train/Rinslet, mangaverse - In which Train actively pursues various members of the female population. And then the world explodes. Crackity crack crack crack.
The first time, Rinslet doubts her hearing and decides it’s a figment of her imagination.
She and Train are at a café - in order to get him to consider any business proposal of hers, she has to put free food on the table first - and they’re discussing the details. Or rather, he’s still sort of sulking because he ended up agreeing against, he says, his will, while she’s happy that she got what she came for.
“Okay! Glad that’s settled.” She grins. “It’s next Friday, so you’d better not forget! It’s important!”
“Yeah, yeah,” he grumbles. “Should I just meet you there or - ooh, pretty girl! - do I need to pick you up, or - ”
…
Wait.
“………,” Rinslet manages. Did he just - did he say - well, there had been a young blonde woman walking by wearing a flattering sundress, but…
“Rins?”
Yeah. No. She’s totally hearing things. This is Train, after all.
“Rins? Hello? Rins?”
“I heard you the first time,” she says. “…So, right. Ride. Uh, sure?”
Untitled multipart - Harvest Moon: SI/IoH - Vaughn/Chelsea - A story about a standoffish loner and a social Stepford smiler, without the soap opera b-plots and ff.net clichés. (And without the use of the word ‘orbs’ for ‘eyes’. I win.)
Vaughn hears the store’s front door swing open, looks up as a reflex.
“Hey Mirabelle, how are things going?” the new rancher says as she walks in.
He’s surprised. Hadn’t seen her in a while.
Mirabelle responds with the expected pleasantries and inquiries about the farm while the girl continues the conversation with ease. Vaughn, relaxing in the corner, completely tunes her out and strongly considers cutting his break short. He hates chitchat, and he’s sure she’ll try to chat him up, too.
“…Vaughn? You there?”
He looks up.
“Hey.” She smiles.
He gives her a blank stare.
“…Sorry, did I do something to offend?”
“No. I just don’t have time for meaningless chatter. So if you’re not here for anything…don’t bother me.”
“Is that so.” She’s still smiling; he wonders if she’s one of those insufferably positive types. Hell, she took up this ranch - doesn’t that just about confirm it?
“Don’t mind him - he’s like that with everyone who tries to greet him,” Julia says as she strides through the door. “Though I think that secretly, he doesn’t mind the attention just fine. Right, Vaughn?”
He settles for a glare.
“Like I said.” She laughs, and so does Chelsea.
“I’m outta here. If you need anything, you know where to find me,” he says in a huff, and leaves.
---------------
“I could tell you all kinds of stories,” Julia continues in his wake. “When Lanna first got here? Oh, she swooned all right. Most forward girl I’ve ever seen. Might be the pop star persona in her.”
“I could see that,” Chelsea manages, stifling her laughter.
“Yeah, it took her a while before she eased up, but she’s still soft on him. I think he flees at the sight of her if he can, haha.” Pause. “But she’s not alone. I think all the newcomers to the island have tried to befriend him at some point or another.”
“Because it’s such a small community?”
“Well, that too, but…” Julia pauses in thought. “When you see someone like Vaughn, you want to break his shell a little. Ease him into interaction with the outside world. I think most people felt like that - like they wanted to warm him up, just a bit.”
“Huh, is that so…”
“You don’t look so convinced, Chelsea. What, you’ve never felt like trying to defrost those kinds of guys?”
“You read too many books.”
Pleasant grin on her face or no, Julia doesn’t relent. “Really, though.”
“It’s not my thing. I mean.” She gives a little shrug, scratches her head. “Sometimes it’s just better to leave them alone if they really want to be left alone, wouldn’t you say?”
“Hm…” She gives her a long glance. “Guess you’ve never been one for the aloof type, huh?”
“I’m for any type.” And with her clear eyes and large smile, it’s easy to see that she’s good with people. “I just, you know. If it’s an annoyance for him, it’s good to let him be. Not everyone’s the same.”
“I guess.” Still, the girl presses the issue. “You have to admit, loners don’t fit well on an island as small as this.”
“Haha, well. If he wants space from me, he can have it. I have my hands full with the farm, anyway.”
Julia shakes her head. “You say everything with that smile, Chelsea.”
The corner of her mouth tugs. “It’s just habit. Better than a frown, right?”
Finally, Julia cracks. “All right, you’ve got me there.”
Untitled - Ever17 - the obvious pairing (and massive post-game spoilers just by naming it) - The hardest part of being virtually immortal: when your children aren't.
Before she turns 42, Tsugumi has her first real serious fight with Takeshi.
In the instant it takes the corners of her mouth to fall just so, Tsugumi remembers what cold detachment feels like all over again. Cold and bitter and empty.
“Everyone fights,” You’haru says the next day, when she comes over for lunch while Takeshi is at work. “It would be kind of weird if you two never fought, actually.”
“Really?” Tsugumi is skeptical - but she keeps listening, because she’s not good with people the way that You is. Never had to interact normally with many before all of this, anyway.
Takeshi comes home in the evening, and her expression steels on reflex.
He rubs at the back of his head and looks down.
“I’m sorry,” he says.
She unfolds her arms. They both know she can’t stay mad at him for very long.
“I’m still sorry,” he says anyway, coming closer and pulling her in.
“I’m sorry too,” she manages, not really managing to look up.
And then he’s tilting her chin up and kissing her and it’ll be all right it’s okay not letting anything slip away ever again.
She kisses him back, and for a moment, there is no such thing as lost time.
It only lasts a moment.
---------------
---------------
When Hokuto and Sara are 45 and starting to wrinkle a bit at the edges, Tsugumi knows it’s time to leave.
“We’ve been here too long,” she says. And then, “Someone might find out,” she says.
Our children aren’t children any more.
Takeshi knows what she isn’t saying, nods anyway. “I think You’haru has been thinking about this for a while, too. And Kaburaki. They’ll have something figured out.”
She doesn’t know what kind of an expression she’s making, but Takeshi interlaces his fingers with hers and she remembers that she should focus, and breathe.
“Let’s go far away,” she whispers.
Now in China. (Yeah, I've globehopped 4 continents in the past week. Kill me now. At least I've adjusted on the first day every single time. O_o; ) Happy to take a break from the world. Oh my god I have a real drum set again you do not understand. Trying to play Revolutionary (an etude with ridiculously fast notes by Chopin) on piano and...ahaha? And playing way too much of an mmo.
Yanked a fic meme from renaliner: Go to your desktop. Find all the documents you've been working on, and post a snippet to your livejournal!
...ahahaha so there are totally more fics than these, but uh...yeah. Uh.
Untitled fiction project - A metropolis in a crapsack world where everyone has familiars called Mists, a Mist assassin's perhaps on the prowl, and things may or may not explode. See tag here.
the dangers of normative behavior - Fairy Tail - Gray/Lucy - Wherein Lluvia stalks, Gray hides out at Lucy’s place, and Lucy is understandably not happy about it. …understandably, right?
Posted already somewhere over here.
Untitled - Persona 3 Portable - Shinjiro/Minako - Like a dead and dying moth still attracted to a bright and burning flame.
He attempts to brush her off the day after, but she stubbornly hangs around anyway - sits in the spot at the kitchen table that best faces his corner, spreading out her homework in an arc of contained madness and pointedly looking his way after what must be every problem she half-completes.
So he sighs, and walks over. “What is that, math?”
“Physics, close enough. Least it’s better than literature.” She scowls, but flips that textbook open too.
“Oh, is it still that one grouch of a teacher?” That man had always hated him, pegging him for a delinquent the first day of high school. Another one of the things he didn’t miss about the place.
She launches into a story - how he’d been covering up for all the bullying that Fuuka faced, how unrepentant he was, how Mitsuru-senpai dealt with him - but too bad they never got to hear what his punishment actually was, ‘cause that had to have been good.
He ends up laughing and smiling wryly, with the minutes passing by like quicksand. An hour or three later he finds that he’s in the seat across from hers, his fingers wandering precariously close to the worn corners of her textbooks and her multicolored pens. So he pulls back, starts to get up.
She gives him a questioning glance.
“I’m getting in the way of your studying. I should leave you be.”
She frowns, and jabs him under the table with her foot.
“Is that really how you should be treating your senpai?”
She does not dignify him with a response. “If I really wanted to be all that focused, I’d have gone up to my room ages ago, Senpai. Maybe I want a distraction.”
He feels himself getting flustered - just slightly, okay? - and narrows his eyes at her.
She scrunches up the corner of her lip. “I mean, c’mon, it’s Classic Lit. With Ekoda. You can’t blame me.”
“…All right,” he sighs. “But you can’t blame me if you fail your next exam.”
“Don’t worry, Senpai.” She grins. “I’ve got it covered.”
He leans back in his seat, even if he shouldn’t.
(But it’s just so easy - )
Untitled - Persona 3 Portable - Akihiko/Mitsuru, Akihiko/Minako, post-game - A happy ending without the ever after.
Out of them, Shinji’s the first to die.
No, that’s not true - Minako was. And if he wants to get technical, then Miki came before either of them. Miki - Miki was the start of everything.
But it’s Shinji right now, Shinji pale and bleak on the hospital bed thrice over, Shinji with a vacant clockwork countdown pallor right in front of him, and -
“Hey. Toughen up, Aki. We all knew this was going to happen.”
He resists the impulse to punch the wall and leave cracks of red behind, but only by that much.
---------------
(No, he should take a step back.)
Untitled multipart - The World Ends With You - Neku/Shiki, Joshua, post-game - Wherein Neku knows nothing about the realities of the game and Joshua’s a jerk who's possibly using him again. Wait, what else is new?
“Nice day, isn’t it?”
He’s standing next to Hachiko - it was just him and Shiki today, as Beat and Rhyme had some family obligation or another to attend - and his mind clicks into a state of tense readiness before he can catch up with the reason why. Silver hair and a gleaming grin; polished shoes and a crisp, clean shirt.
Joshua.
He just - he doesn’t. Is it really him? How long has it been?
He doesn’t know what to think.
“Nothing to say to your old partner, Neku?”
“Why are you here?” he manages, skipping the how have you been geez you could’ve been dead for all I knew…oh wait pleasantries. “I didn’t think you’d ever show up again.”
“Ooh, that stings.” He doesn’t look fazed, though; on the contrary, his smirk widens. “I thought we’d been partners?”
“You’ve been out of the picture for - how long has it been?” Neku counters. Even if he’d wanted to see him during the past year - maybe - that cocky grin reminds him just how damnably hard it had been to get along with him.
“Ah, well. Had things to tend to here and there, you know.” He gives a wave of his hand, and Neku remembers just how aggravating the kid always had been. Has he forgotten that much? “It’s been a year, hasn’t it? Think I missed your birthday, sorry about that.”
Shove it, Neku thinks, but says nothing. That feeling’s creeping up his spine again like a warning sign, the one that he felt all too often during Week 2. What are you here for?
No, he still doesn’t - he trusts him, yes, but trusts him not to use him or mess with him for his own gain, whatever the outcome may be - a resounding no.
Joshua looks at him for one long moment, then sighs, palms upturned. “But Neku, I thought you trusted your partners.”
“At least Beat and Shiki didn’t kill me twice, no.”
“Hm, your wit’s gotten sharper. I’m impressed.” A wide grin. “And, well. We know very well what the outcome could have been if I hadn’t done that, right? Face it, Neku. You don’t really regret it.”
He says nothing.
the yellow sundress hypothesis - Black Cat - Train/Rinslet, mangaverse - In which Train actively pursues various members of the female population. And then the world explodes. Crackity crack crack crack.
The first time, Rinslet doubts her hearing and decides it’s a figment of her imagination.
She and Train are at a café - in order to get him to consider any business proposal of hers, she has to put free food on the table first - and they’re discussing the details. Or rather, he’s still sort of sulking because he ended up agreeing against, he says, his will, while she’s happy that she got what she came for.
“Okay! Glad that’s settled.” She grins. “It’s next Friday, so you’d better not forget! It’s important!”
“Yeah, yeah,” he grumbles. “Should I just meet you there or - ooh, pretty girl! - do I need to pick you up, or - ”
…
Wait.
“………,” Rinslet manages. Did he just - did he say - well, there had been a young blonde woman walking by wearing a flattering sundress, but…
“Rins?”
Yeah. No. She’s totally hearing things. This is Train, after all.
“Rins? Hello? Rins?”
“I heard you the first time,” she says. “…So, right. Ride. Uh, sure?”
Untitled multipart - Harvest Moon: SI/IoH - Vaughn/Chelsea - A story about a standoffish loner and a social Stepford smiler, without the soap opera b-plots and ff.net clichés. (And without the use of the word ‘orbs’ for ‘eyes’. I win.)
Vaughn hears the store’s front door swing open, looks up as a reflex.
“Hey Mirabelle, how are things going?” the new rancher says as she walks in.
He’s surprised. Hadn’t seen her in a while.
Mirabelle responds with the expected pleasantries and inquiries about the farm while the girl continues the conversation with ease. Vaughn, relaxing in the corner, completely tunes her out and strongly considers cutting his break short. He hates chitchat, and he’s sure she’ll try to chat him up, too.
“…Vaughn? You there?”
He looks up.
“Hey.” She smiles.
He gives her a blank stare.
“…Sorry, did I do something to offend?”
“No. I just don’t have time for meaningless chatter. So if you’re not here for anything…don’t bother me.”
“Is that so.” She’s still smiling; he wonders if she’s one of those insufferably positive types. Hell, she took up this ranch - doesn’t that just about confirm it?
“Don’t mind him - he’s like that with everyone who tries to greet him,” Julia says as she strides through the door. “Though I think that secretly, he doesn’t mind the attention just fine. Right, Vaughn?”
He settles for a glare.
“Like I said.” She laughs, and so does Chelsea.
“I’m outta here. If you need anything, you know where to find me,” he says in a huff, and leaves.
---------------
“I could tell you all kinds of stories,” Julia continues in his wake. “When Lanna first got here? Oh, she swooned all right. Most forward girl I’ve ever seen. Might be the pop star persona in her.”
“I could see that,” Chelsea manages, stifling her laughter.
“Yeah, it took her a while before she eased up, but she’s still soft on him. I think he flees at the sight of her if he can, haha.” Pause. “But she’s not alone. I think all the newcomers to the island have tried to befriend him at some point or another.”
“Because it’s such a small community?”
“Well, that too, but…” Julia pauses in thought. “When you see someone like Vaughn, you want to break his shell a little. Ease him into interaction with the outside world. I think most people felt like that - like they wanted to warm him up, just a bit.”
“Huh, is that so…”
“You don’t look so convinced, Chelsea. What, you’ve never felt like trying to defrost those kinds of guys?”
“You read too many books.”
Pleasant grin on her face or no, Julia doesn’t relent. “Really, though.”
“It’s not my thing. I mean.” She gives a little shrug, scratches her head. “Sometimes it’s just better to leave them alone if they really want to be left alone, wouldn’t you say?”
“Hm…” She gives her a long glance. “Guess you’ve never been one for the aloof type, huh?”
“I’m for any type.” And with her clear eyes and large smile, it’s easy to see that she’s good with people. “I just, you know. If it’s an annoyance for him, it’s good to let him be. Not everyone’s the same.”
“I guess.” Still, the girl presses the issue. “You have to admit, loners don’t fit well on an island as small as this.”
“Haha, well. If he wants space from me, he can have it. I have my hands full with the farm, anyway.”
Julia shakes her head. “You say everything with that smile, Chelsea.”
The corner of her mouth tugs. “It’s just habit. Better than a frown, right?”
Finally, Julia cracks. “All right, you’ve got me there.”
Untitled - Ever17 - the obvious pairing (and massive post-game spoilers just by naming it) - The hardest part of being virtually immortal: when your children aren't.
Before she turns 42, Tsugumi has her first real serious fight with Takeshi.
In the instant it takes the corners of her mouth to fall just so, Tsugumi remembers what cold detachment feels like all over again. Cold and bitter and empty.
“Everyone fights,” You’haru says the next day, when she comes over for lunch while Takeshi is at work. “It would be kind of weird if you two never fought, actually.”
“Really?” Tsugumi is skeptical - but she keeps listening, because she’s not good with people the way that You is. Never had to interact normally with many before all of this, anyway.
Takeshi comes home in the evening, and her expression steels on reflex.
He rubs at the back of his head and looks down.
“I’m sorry,” he says.
She unfolds her arms. They both know she can’t stay mad at him for very long.
“I’m still sorry,” he says anyway, coming closer and pulling her in.
“I’m sorry too,” she manages, not really managing to look up.
And then he’s tilting her chin up and kissing her and it’ll be all right it’s okay not letting anything slip away ever again.
She kisses him back, and for a moment, there is no such thing as lost time.
It only lasts a moment.
---------------
---------------
When Hokuto and Sara are 45 and starting to wrinkle a bit at the edges, Tsugumi knows it’s time to leave.
“We’ve been here too long,” she says. And then, “Someone might find out,” she says.
Our children aren’t children any more.
Takeshi knows what she isn’t saying, nods anyway. “I think You’haru has been thinking about this for a while, too. And Kaburaki. They’ll have something figured out.”
She doesn’t know what kind of an expression she’s making, but Takeshi interlaces his fingers with hers and she remembers that she should focus, and breathe.
“Let’s go far away,” she whispers.