On the sixth day of Christmas
my true love sent to me
six full backpacks
Happy New Year :)
[Title] Five-finger Discount
[Fandom] Battle Royale
[Rating] G
[Notes/Summary] Shinji went through a stupid phase, like many kids do.
[Link] "Kind of the reason he hasn’t told anyone"
[Title] Best Foot Forward
[Fandom] Jet Set Radio
[Rating] G
[Notes/Summary] Gum hates the first day of school.
Gum always hates first day of the new school year. You’re wearing a new uniform and no matter how many times you’ve been told it’s your size, it feels like it fits wrong. You’ve got a week ahead of you of not knowing your timetable and handing in the wrong homework on the wrong day and probably in the wrong place. Either you’re the new kid in the class and everyone’s going to think you’re weird, or you’ve got new kids coming into your class and they’re for sure going to be popular from the start and pick on you. And you’ve got the entire freakin’ year ahead of you and the summer holiday already feels like it was ages away.
And this is the first day of junior high, so it’s a completely new uniform with a dumb pleated skirt and there’s going to be a bunch of new kids who are going to think she’s weird.
Tab knows how much she hates the first day back, so at least he’s not going to expect her to be, like, excited about any of this. The only bearable thing about school is that he’s at the same one as her, but it isn’t like they don’t hang out together in the holidays all the time, and at school everyone is always like, oh, is he your boyfriend?
He’s at the bus stop already, and despite the fact his uniform looks too big for him, he’s wearing a definitely non-regulation hat pulled down low over his eyes, and he’s bobbing about like a pigeon to the music on his earphones - so basically he’s marked as a weirdo from the get-go - he seems to be in a good mood. Gum scowls at him just to underline that she isn’t.
“You look like you’re gonna hit me with your satchel,” he says.
“I want to hit everyone with my satchel.”
“It’ll fall apart.”
This is true, she’s had this bag since she can’t remember how long, it’s patched up with duct tape and string, but she sticks out her tongue at him: “Yeah, well, yours isn’t much better.”
Tab glances at the backpack at his feet. It’s maybe less beat-up than hers but it’s bulging at the seams. “Mine would be a better melee weapon, I think. More blunt destructive power.”
“Why do you even have all those books? It’s literally the first day at a new school. We don’t have any stuff yet. We aren’t even listed on their system as having turned up.” One of these days, she reckons, she just won’t turn up, but then she reckons Mum will kick her out of the house and she needs to get better at skating if that’s going to happen so she can go join a gang.
“In case I need something to read. I mean, I know it’s a new school, but I don’t reckon it’s gonna be any less boring.”
“Everyone’s gonna think you’re a dork,” Gum says. She knows she’s being mean, but she’s feeling mean. Anyway, Tab doesn’t mind. He just shrugs: “Yeah, but they’d think that anyway. And if anyone really got in my face about it, you’d hit ‘em with your satchel, right?”
Gum wants to keep scowling at him, but she figures it’s going to be the last time today anyone talks to her like they know and like her personality. And also, it’s kind of nice to be reminded that no matter how many people think she’s weird, at least she and Tab can be weird together.
“Yeah,” she says, grudgingly. “If I have to.”
“Cool. Want to listen to my radio? I’ll read til the bus comes.”
It’s still a rubbish day, but at least it hasn’t started too badly.
[Title] Don't Keep What You Don't Need
[Fandom] Death Note
[Rating] G (non-specific mentions of bullying)
[Notes/Summary] Mikami has reasons for keeping his possessions organised.
Mikami once heard Nakajima chatting with Tamura-san’s secretary, who was laughing about how Tamura was constantly followed by a stream of papers and post-it notes and half-finished snacks and coffees. “He may have passed the bar exam on the first try, but honestly, if he didn’t have me, I’m sure he’d never turn up to court with anything close to the right case notes!”
Nakajima said that Mikami-san wasn’t like that, that he was always prepared for whatever the day might hold, “I wouldn’t dare touch the paperwork on his desk! He does all that himself.”
Mikami realised that he was eavesdropping and it was inappropriate so he walked away, he went to another coffee shop. He wasn’t surprised by what Tamura-san’s secretary said. Tamura’s desk was covered in piles of paper and books and miscellaneous items. Mikami tried not to look at it if he walked past the man’s office.
He thinks that probably Tamura, and people like him, never had the sort of difficult time at school that he had had. In high school, he very quickly got out of the habit of taking anything to school that he didn’t need, or even that he did need, because it was only going to get broken. It was far better to go without lunch than to bring food and have it knocked off the table and trodden on. Walking into school with a backpack brimful of items he wanted or needed or cared about only gave the evil ones tangible ways to hurt you. If he could have gone without his glasses, he would have.
That was a long time ago, and now things are better. He could be as messy as Tamura, or he could pile up stationery that pleases him like Nakajima does, or he could store snacks in his desk, or dress in clothes as expensive as he wishes without fear that any of it would be smashed and stolen and ruined. But he does not. He prepares carefully for each day, he takes what he needs and not more, he follows his routine. For his home, he has bought things that he values, things he would be sorry to lose. But they stay safe and hidden. Some people are followed by a trail of their possessions, because it never occurs to them how easy it is to lose things.
[Title] Semester Schedule
[Fandom] Thunderbirds
[Rating] G
[Notes/Summary] Scott knows how to get ready for the new school year. Requested by
still_lycoris.
Dad’s working late again, but Scott thinks he’s got the day before the first day of the new semester down pat by now. The light’s still on under Virgil’s bedroom door, so he knocks and sticks his head round: “You know, you should really go to bed.”
Virgil rolls his eyes, but without any real annoyance: “I mean, you’re not Dad.”
“I mean,” Scott says, rolling his eyes back, “I’m the one who has to put up with you sulking tomorrow when the alarm goes off at seven and you stayed up til two. Isn’t the light bad for drawing anyway?”
“Like you know anything about art,” Virgil says, but he puts his pencil down, pushes his chair back. “You better go lecture John too, though. He’s been stargazing for literally hours.”
“I’ll go drag him out of the attic, I promise.”
“And then you should go to bed. When you’re tired you get that face.”
“What face?” Scott says, glowering at him.
“Your deadly serious, I’m my father’s oldest son, what if a serial killer tries to kidnap Alan on the way to school face.”
“Ha ha. No serial killer would try and kidnap Alan. He’d annoy them to death within a week.” Scott says it by rote, because it’s what you say about your little brother. He did sometimes worry about that kind of stuff, like after Mom died. As in, what he would do if something like that did happen, if one of his brothers got into a car accident or kidnapped or all the stuff grown-ups warn you about. He thought, why do they warn you about it if it’s not going to happen? After all, it had happened to Mom. He made plans about it, what he would need to do, how soon he would know that something had gone wrong. That got a bit out of hand, in the end, and Dad had Had A Talk with him, and said he didn’t need to do all that stuff. Even so, Scott’s still drilled Alan on making sure he knows his address and who to go to if he ever gets lost and what to do if someone ever tries to drag him away.
Virgil knows about that, and Virgil is kind of smart for a younger brother, because he doesn’t carry on the joke, he just says, “You should probably check Gordon’s backpack. Pretty sure he got a joke shop delivery today.”
“Oh, like I didn’t already think of that,” Scott says. “Pretty sure I could open my own shop with the stuff I got out of it. I told him if he snuck any of it back into school I’d forge a note from Dad saying he was off swimming all semester because of a skin infection.”
“Sounds like you’ve got it all under control, then,” Virgil says. “So why don’t you go kick back and watch TV like a normal person?”
“Are you just saying that so I’ll get off your back and let you stay up drawing all night?”
“Yes,” says Virgil, “but also, like, you’re going into junior high tomorrow, and it’s only going to make you even more grown-up and bossy than you already are. So, you should try and relax tonight. Watch something dumb. Eat some junk food.”
Scott hadn’t really thought about it being a new school. He thinks about it for a moment now and then decides there isn’t much to think about. “It’s fine. I know what I’m doing. I’ll go get John to step away from the telescope, and then - I’ll chill out.” He smiles. “Maybe.”
[Title] Working Holiday
[Fandom] Detective Academy Q
[Rating] G
[Notes/Summary] Ryu and Kyuu enjoy a break, even if it's while they're meant to be mystery-solving.
A detective always remembers that he’s there to solve the mystery, but even so, Kyuu has to admit it’s been a nice day. The walking tour took them over winding mountain paths with views deep into lush green valleys, and he stood in the sun and breathed in the fresh air and kind of wanted to sing with the joy of it all. Ryu stood on the path and waited for him, and if he didn’t look as bowled over by it all, he was smiling, the small smile he had when his friends were happy about stuff.
They’ve walked all day and their backpacks were heavy and Kyuu’s feet ache a lot but the inn they’re staying in had a proper bathhouse, all polished wood and open-air, so he soaked in a tub and now he’s in a cotton bathrobe, in their room, watching the sun set.
“Maybe there won’t actually be any murders this time,” he says to Ryu, who’s making tea at the little table. “Maybe we’ll just have a nice holiday.”
“Do we tell Dan-sensei that?” Ryu says. “Or do we make something up so he doesn’t think we wasted our time?”
“I reckon there’s no way could we pull that off. He’d spot all the holes in whatever story we came up with. But, I mean, seeing as he’s pulled us in on summer vacation and we’re the only two of Q-class who could actually make it, maybe we’re owed a holiday, right?”
Ryu carries over two cups of tea, comes to sit next to him, by the window. “Indeed. And the anonymous letters said the killer would strike when we got to Kuroyamamachi. That’s still two days away. All we can do is observe and gather clues.”
“And relax and enjoy the countryside?” Kyuu grins at him, and Ryu smiles back. They sit in silence and drink the tea for a bit. Solving mysteries is, of course, Kyuu’s number-one favourite activity, and he’s pretty sure that no matter how nice everyone else on the trip seems, it’s all going to go wrong later, because it always does - but for now, everything is all right.
[Title] Escape Plan
[Fandom] Jet Set Radio
[Rating] PG (brief, non-specific mentions of abusive/damaging home life)
[Notes/Summary] Beat coordinates a plan to get out of town.
They always told Beat he was hopeless at organising things or planning stuff or getting anything right at all, but when it comes to it, Operation Get Out Of Home Free actually went off pretty well. You have to tell yourself this when you’re in an empty train station with a full backpack by your feet trying to catch your breath because two hours ago someone threw a plate at your head and you ducked and ran and you haven’t stopped running since.
He breathes in and breathes out and tangles his fingers together - his hands are only shaking a bit, which is good, if you’re going to run away from home and try and make it in the big city you need to be able to keep a cool head. He reminds himself he actually really got his shit together. He’d been saving cash from his shop job for ages, and keeping his promotion to floor manager secret so he could pocket the extra without anyone noticing. In the computer lab at school he’d researched how much train tickets to here or there might cost. He’d taken a long hard look at all the stuff he owned one night, when everyone else was out or asleep, and worked out what he could cope with leaving behind. And then all the stuff he didn’t want to lose he smuggled out bit by bit to his friend’s house, he picked someone who lived close enough to run to, and tonight he hammered on the door and was like, I’m done, I’m out of there, give me the backpack. Backpack, skates, boom. And he was off. It isn’t the first time he’s left home in the middle of the night - he’s fetched up in this station before, pretending he was just super-early for a train, or he’s skated and jump and ground til he’s found a place high off the ground to hide and catch his breath - but he knew if he was going to go for good, he was going to get out of town. So for the first time, he’s actually got a ticket, and he’s waiting for the fast train. The backpack’s comfortingly heavy against his legs.
six full backpacks
Happy New Year :)
[Title] Five-finger Discount
[Fandom] Battle Royale
[Rating] G
[Notes/Summary] Shinji went through a stupid phase, like many kids do.
[Link] "Kind of the reason he hasn’t told anyone"
[Title] Best Foot Forward
[Fandom] Jet Set Radio
[Rating] G
[Notes/Summary] Gum hates the first day of school.
Gum always hates first day of the new school year. You’re wearing a new uniform and no matter how many times you’ve been told it’s your size, it feels like it fits wrong. You’ve got a week ahead of you of not knowing your timetable and handing in the wrong homework on the wrong day and probably in the wrong place. Either you’re the new kid in the class and everyone’s going to think you’re weird, or you’ve got new kids coming into your class and they’re for sure going to be popular from the start and pick on you. And you’ve got the entire freakin’ year ahead of you and the summer holiday already feels like it was ages away.
And this is the first day of junior high, so it’s a completely new uniform with a dumb pleated skirt and there’s going to be a bunch of new kids who are going to think she’s weird.
Tab knows how much she hates the first day back, so at least he’s not going to expect her to be, like, excited about any of this. The only bearable thing about school is that he’s at the same one as her, but it isn’t like they don’t hang out together in the holidays all the time, and at school everyone is always like, oh, is he your boyfriend?
He’s at the bus stop already, and despite the fact his uniform looks too big for him, he’s wearing a definitely non-regulation hat pulled down low over his eyes, and he’s bobbing about like a pigeon to the music on his earphones - so basically he’s marked as a weirdo from the get-go - he seems to be in a good mood. Gum scowls at him just to underline that she isn’t.
“You look like you’re gonna hit me with your satchel,” he says.
“I want to hit everyone with my satchel.”
“It’ll fall apart.”
This is true, she’s had this bag since she can’t remember how long, it’s patched up with duct tape and string, but she sticks out her tongue at him: “Yeah, well, yours isn’t much better.”
Tab glances at the backpack at his feet. It’s maybe less beat-up than hers but it’s bulging at the seams. “Mine would be a better melee weapon, I think. More blunt destructive power.”
“Why do you even have all those books? It’s literally the first day at a new school. We don’t have any stuff yet. We aren’t even listed on their system as having turned up.” One of these days, she reckons, she just won’t turn up, but then she reckons Mum will kick her out of the house and she needs to get better at skating if that’s going to happen so she can go join a gang.
“In case I need something to read. I mean, I know it’s a new school, but I don’t reckon it’s gonna be any less boring.”
“Everyone’s gonna think you’re a dork,” Gum says. She knows she’s being mean, but she’s feeling mean. Anyway, Tab doesn’t mind. He just shrugs: “Yeah, but they’d think that anyway. And if anyone really got in my face about it, you’d hit ‘em with your satchel, right?”
Gum wants to keep scowling at him, but she figures it’s going to be the last time today anyone talks to her like they know and like her personality. And also, it’s kind of nice to be reminded that no matter how many people think she’s weird, at least she and Tab can be weird together.
“Yeah,” she says, grudgingly. “If I have to.”
“Cool. Want to listen to my radio? I’ll read til the bus comes.”
It’s still a rubbish day, but at least it hasn’t started too badly.
[Title] Don't Keep What You Don't Need
[Fandom] Death Note
[Rating] G (non-specific mentions of bullying)
[Notes/Summary] Mikami has reasons for keeping his possessions organised.
Mikami once heard Nakajima chatting with Tamura-san’s secretary, who was laughing about how Tamura was constantly followed by a stream of papers and post-it notes and half-finished snacks and coffees. “He may have passed the bar exam on the first try, but honestly, if he didn’t have me, I’m sure he’d never turn up to court with anything close to the right case notes!”
Nakajima said that Mikami-san wasn’t like that, that he was always prepared for whatever the day might hold, “I wouldn’t dare touch the paperwork on his desk! He does all that himself.”
Mikami realised that he was eavesdropping and it was inappropriate so he walked away, he went to another coffee shop. He wasn’t surprised by what Tamura-san’s secretary said. Tamura’s desk was covered in piles of paper and books and miscellaneous items. Mikami tried not to look at it if he walked past the man’s office.
He thinks that probably Tamura, and people like him, never had the sort of difficult time at school that he had had. In high school, he very quickly got out of the habit of taking anything to school that he didn’t need, or even that he did need, because it was only going to get broken. It was far better to go without lunch than to bring food and have it knocked off the table and trodden on. Walking into school with a backpack brimful of items he wanted or needed or cared about only gave the evil ones tangible ways to hurt you. If he could have gone without his glasses, he would have.
That was a long time ago, and now things are better. He could be as messy as Tamura, or he could pile up stationery that pleases him like Nakajima does, or he could store snacks in his desk, or dress in clothes as expensive as he wishes without fear that any of it would be smashed and stolen and ruined. But he does not. He prepares carefully for each day, he takes what he needs and not more, he follows his routine. For his home, he has bought things that he values, things he would be sorry to lose. But they stay safe and hidden. Some people are followed by a trail of their possessions, because it never occurs to them how easy it is to lose things.
[Title] Semester Schedule
[Fandom] Thunderbirds
[Rating] G
[Notes/Summary] Scott knows how to get ready for the new school year. Requested by
still_lycoris.
Dad’s working late again, but Scott thinks he’s got the day before the first day of the new semester down pat by now. The light’s still on under Virgil’s bedroom door, so he knocks and sticks his head round: “You know, you should really go to bed.”
Virgil rolls his eyes, but without any real annoyance: “I mean, you’re not Dad.”
“I mean,” Scott says, rolling his eyes back, “I’m the one who has to put up with you sulking tomorrow when the alarm goes off at seven and you stayed up til two. Isn’t the light bad for drawing anyway?”
“Like you know anything about art,” Virgil says, but he puts his pencil down, pushes his chair back. “You better go lecture John too, though. He’s been stargazing for literally hours.”
“I’ll go drag him out of the attic, I promise.”
“And then you should go to bed. When you’re tired you get that face.”
“What face?” Scott says, glowering at him.
“Your deadly serious, I’m my father’s oldest son, what if a serial killer tries to kidnap Alan on the way to school face.”
“Ha ha. No serial killer would try and kidnap Alan. He’d annoy them to death within a week.” Scott says it by rote, because it’s what you say about your little brother. He did sometimes worry about that kind of stuff, like after Mom died. As in, what he would do if something like that did happen, if one of his brothers got into a car accident or kidnapped or all the stuff grown-ups warn you about. He thought, why do they warn you about it if it’s not going to happen? After all, it had happened to Mom. He made plans about it, what he would need to do, how soon he would know that something had gone wrong. That got a bit out of hand, in the end, and Dad had Had A Talk with him, and said he didn’t need to do all that stuff. Even so, Scott’s still drilled Alan on making sure he knows his address and who to go to if he ever gets lost and what to do if someone ever tries to drag him away.
Virgil knows about that, and Virgil is kind of smart for a younger brother, because he doesn’t carry on the joke, he just says, “You should probably check Gordon’s backpack. Pretty sure he got a joke shop delivery today.”
“Oh, like I didn’t already think of that,” Scott says. “Pretty sure I could open my own shop with the stuff I got out of it. I told him if he snuck any of it back into school I’d forge a note from Dad saying he was off swimming all semester because of a skin infection.”
“Sounds like you’ve got it all under control, then,” Virgil says. “So why don’t you go kick back and watch TV like a normal person?”
“Are you just saying that so I’ll get off your back and let you stay up drawing all night?”
“Yes,” says Virgil, “but also, like, you’re going into junior high tomorrow, and it’s only going to make you even more grown-up and bossy than you already are. So, you should try and relax tonight. Watch something dumb. Eat some junk food.”
Scott hadn’t really thought about it being a new school. He thinks about it for a moment now and then decides there isn’t much to think about. “It’s fine. I know what I’m doing. I’ll go get John to step away from the telescope, and then - I’ll chill out.” He smiles. “Maybe.”
[Title] Working Holiday
[Fandom] Detective Academy Q
[Rating] G
[Notes/Summary] Ryu and Kyuu enjoy a break, even if it's while they're meant to be mystery-solving.
A detective always remembers that he’s there to solve the mystery, but even so, Kyuu has to admit it’s been a nice day. The walking tour took them over winding mountain paths with views deep into lush green valleys, and he stood in the sun and breathed in the fresh air and kind of wanted to sing with the joy of it all. Ryu stood on the path and waited for him, and if he didn’t look as bowled over by it all, he was smiling, the small smile he had when his friends were happy about stuff.
They’ve walked all day and their backpacks were heavy and Kyuu’s feet ache a lot but the inn they’re staying in had a proper bathhouse, all polished wood and open-air, so he soaked in a tub and now he’s in a cotton bathrobe, in their room, watching the sun set.
“Maybe there won’t actually be any murders this time,” he says to Ryu, who’s making tea at the little table. “Maybe we’ll just have a nice holiday.”
“Do we tell Dan-sensei that?” Ryu says. “Or do we make something up so he doesn’t think we wasted our time?”
“I reckon there’s no way could we pull that off. He’d spot all the holes in whatever story we came up with. But, I mean, seeing as he’s pulled us in on summer vacation and we’re the only two of Q-class who could actually make it, maybe we’re owed a holiday, right?”
Ryu carries over two cups of tea, comes to sit next to him, by the window. “Indeed. And the anonymous letters said the killer would strike when we got to Kuroyamamachi. That’s still two days away. All we can do is observe and gather clues.”
“And relax and enjoy the countryside?” Kyuu grins at him, and Ryu smiles back. They sit in silence and drink the tea for a bit. Solving mysteries is, of course, Kyuu’s number-one favourite activity, and he’s pretty sure that no matter how nice everyone else on the trip seems, it’s all going to go wrong later, because it always does - but for now, everything is all right.
[Title] Escape Plan
[Fandom] Jet Set Radio
[Rating] PG (brief, non-specific mentions of abusive/damaging home life)
[Notes/Summary] Beat coordinates a plan to get out of town.
They always told Beat he was hopeless at organising things or planning stuff or getting anything right at all, but when it comes to it, Operation Get Out Of Home Free actually went off pretty well. You have to tell yourself this when you’re in an empty train station with a full backpack by your feet trying to catch your breath because two hours ago someone threw a plate at your head and you ducked and ran and you haven’t stopped running since.
He breathes in and breathes out and tangles his fingers together - his hands are only shaking a bit, which is good, if you’re going to run away from home and try and make it in the big city you need to be able to keep a cool head. He reminds himself he actually really got his shit together. He’d been saving cash from his shop job for ages, and keeping his promotion to floor manager secret so he could pocket the extra without anyone noticing. In the computer lab at school he’d researched how much train tickets to here or there might cost. He’d taken a long hard look at all the stuff he owned one night, when everyone else was out or asleep, and worked out what he could cope with leaving behind. And then all the stuff he didn’t want to lose he smuggled out bit by bit to his friend’s house, he picked someone who lived close enough to run to, and tonight he hammered on the door and was like, I’m done, I’m out of there, give me the backpack. Backpack, skates, boom. And he was off. It isn’t the first time he’s left home in the middle of the night - he’s fetched up in this station before, pretending he was just super-early for a train, or he’s skated and jump and ground til he’s found a place high off the ground to hide and catch his breath - but he knew if he was going to go for good, he was going to get out of town. So for the first time, he’s actually got a ticket, and he’s waiting for the fast train. The backpack’s comfortingly heavy against his legs.