Willow
Author: evil_queen369
Genre: Crack, Angst, Fluff, Smut
Fandom: the GazettE, alicenine,Kagrra, Screw, Acid Black Cherry
Pairings: Aoi/Uruha, Reita/Ruki, Kai/Shin, Shou/Hiroto
Rating: NC-17 (overall)
Warnings: Overall - sex, masturbation, language, stupid Akira
Chapter: 5/?
Synopsis: Neither one, Kouyou or Yuu really remembered them, but Shinji and Naoyuki still kept an eye on them when they had nothing else to do. Kouyou had lost his fairies when he turned ten because he no longer needed his magical fairies to help him. In other words, he had gotten too old and they had to be assigned to another child. The most they could do for Kouyou was watch him from afar and use limited magic to help him, but only in situations when he was in danger. He wasn’t in danger too often --at least not since Takashi’s memory was erased so he didn’t remember how he managed to break his arm, and Kouyou had no idea either.
Comment: I have no idea where this chapter came from... xD I can't make an update tomorrow because I have to baby sit in the morning and then I'm going to a party with some friends. :)
“Yuu, take these drinks to table five.” Yuu smiled and took a tray of drinks from his cousin and proceeded to walk to the table. All evening he had been going from table to table giving people their orders and exchanging tickets for prizes at the prize booth. When he first decided to work at the arcade he thought he would have more fun. What would be more fun than spending the day around video games? It would have been more fun if he were actually allowed to play the video games, but he only have a fifteen minute break and that wasn’t enough time to play a game and enjoy it at the same time. Today was even less fun than normal because he had to work into the night, which mean he wouldn’t get home until early in the morning and he would never make it through school.
The arcade was packed with kids and teenagers who were standing in front of the games clicking away at buttons. Every night it was the same thing: loud voices of video game characters fighting and falling to the ground, and kids yelling as they won. To be honest it was a bit annoying to deal with, but at least the pay was somewhat good so Yuu couldn’t really complain.
Upon reaching table five, Yuu began placing the drinks in front of the customers who were talking animatedly to each other. Their voices were loud: one teasing and the other embarrassed. Yuu couldn’t help but laugh to himself as he caught a bit of their conversation, but then again it wasn’t anything that should have surprised him considering he had to hear it every day.
“Do you two ever stop?” He tucked the empty tray under his arm, moving his fringe from his eyes.
“Why stop when it’s so fun to make him blush? You have to admit that he looks pretty cute when he’s embarrassed.” Yuu laughed and shook his head as he looked down at the two blonde men sitting at the table.
“I’ll just take your word for it, ‘Kira.” Takanori was too vicious at times to be considered anything near cute. Cute people didn’t lung over tables at people because they complimented someone else. Cute people didn’t try to pull someone’s eyes out because they were pretty. And cute people definitely didn’t chase small children down the street for their ice cream because he didn’t get to the ice cream truck before it drove away.
“Whatever you say, man.” Yuu rolled his eyes and turned around to go back to his cousin. There were more tables to go around to and he didn’t have any time to be talking to his friends even if he would rather take a short break. But that wasn’t an option and by the time he had gotten back to the counter his cousin was already holding another tray of drinks.
He spent the next couple of hours going from table to table. The only time he was able to work the prize booth was when a group of girls walked in and his cousin decided to take over Yuu’s job. So Yuu spent the remainder of his night giving stuffed animals to little kids until there were only young adults lefts in the arcade and that was when things always got worse.
Young adults were careless. Most of the time they would come in in groups, and as most people know from experience, they had to act like complete jackasses to make themselves look cool. That was how the arcade floor was covered in dumped drinks and food. That meant Yuu had to spend even more time at work to clean it all up before morning.
Once the arcade was finally closed, Yuu went in the back room to get a mop and broom so he could begin cleaning. His cousin had gone off somewhere in the back leaving Yuu alone in the empty room. The closed sign was put on the door and the lights were dimmed as Yuu began sweeping up the food and dirt on the floor. He was exhausted, but he had to work whenever he was told to because how else would he get money?
“Mm. Mm. Mm. What a mess.” Yuu kneeled down with a dustpan in hand as he heard feet walking across the floor. He raised an eyebrow as the man crossed his arms and twisted his face up in disgust. The door clearly said they were closed, so why in the hell did the man bother to walk in?
“We’re closed.” Yuu muttered as he swept the food into the dustpan before he stood up to deposit it in a nearby trashcan. “That means you can’t be in here.”
“Such a smartass. What happened to the cute little kid you used to be?” There was a pout and tapping of feet that made Yuu laugh quietly to himself.
“People grow up.” He shrugged, leaning the broom and dustpan against the counter and reached for the mop.
“And?“
“And you don’t have to ask any other questions. I know who you are.” He stopped what he was doing and leaned on the mop as an eyebrow was rose. “Earlier I was talking to Kouyou and I remembered I would just get into his house somehow. I though ‘isn’t that weird?’ so I just assumed it hand to do with magic, but Kouyou said magic wasn’t real. So I thought about it for awhile and then it hit me. Kouyou had two fairies that constantly got in trouble. Then I remembered the Crazy Kouyou thing.”
“So someone does remember us!” Naoyuki jumped up with a huge smile across his face. “I swear, I didn’t think anyone would remember us because I tried to talk to Kouyou today but he thought it was just the fever talking.” The bubbly fairy shook his head with a frown. Of all people he wanted to remember him, it was Kouyou. Kouyou was his godchild after all, and he had a connection with him. Kouyou was like his own child in a way: he did his hair and helped him get dressed, sometimes he helped with his homework. But Kouyou didn’t seem to remember him.
“Don’t take it personally. You have to understand a few things: Kouyou says he thinks ‘realistically’. You and I both know he doesn’t do that because he has an overactive imagination. He’s not going to believe there are such things as fairies if you just appear and tell him. When he’s sick he’s way worse. Don’t you remember the time he had the flu during the summer after the first grade? He thought Akira’s nosedress was talking to him.” Yuu chuckled as he began moping again. He could remember that day perfectly: Kouyou had gotten sick and wasn’t allowed to go out and play. Yuu and the rest of their friends decided to sneak into the Takashima home one by one so they could all spend time with Kouyou. It would have been mean of them to just let him stay up there all alone, but Yuu knew Kouyou was never really alone. So Yuu, Shin, Takanori, Akira, and Yutaka all snuck through the front door and quietly ran up the stairs until they were in the blonde’s room. Kouyou swore up and down that Akira’s nosedress was speaking to him. She was going on and on about how she didn’t like sitting on Akira’s nose all day because he would sneeze and never move her out of the way or clean her when she got snot on her. Akira said he knew how to treat his women right and told Kouyou to shut up, which resulted in a sick Kouyou rolling around on the floor with Akira, his nose dripping snot all over Akira’s face, and in the end Akira was the next to get the flu. Actually, all the little boys got the flu for being near Kouyou in the first place. Akira was the only one to make a big deal out of it.
“So what do I do?” Naoyuki took a seat on the counter top. “I have to be really careful about what I do. Shinji and I have been assigned to a new godchild and we can’t be anywhere near our former godchildren unless they’re associated with our current godchild. If we try to get back into Kouyou’s life and we’re caught, Shinji and I won’t be fairies anymore. Instead we’ll become…” he leaned forward with a look of pure fear as he whispered “gremlins!”
“Gremlins?” Yuu burst out laughing. “So instead of being all cute and granting wishes you’ll become ugly and start ruining machinery?” Now, he could already picture Shinji as a gremlin because sometimes he wasn’t very pleasant, but Naoyuki was just too cute.
“Don’t even make me think of what the fairy council will do to my looks!” Naoyuki leaned his head back with a sigh. “I can’t get caught, Yuu! If I’m not cute anymore, I won’t have anything going for me! I’ll be ugly with an even uglier boyfriend: Shinji isn’t as cute as me as it is. He’s good looking, yes, but he’s no Hello Kitty.”
“So what you’re saying is… you’re conceited.” It was a statement moreover a question.
“Yes.”
“And that’s the reason you can’t get caught…”
“No! Once we turn into gremlins we won’t have wings or powers. How am I to do anything without waving a wand?” Did anyone really know how hard it would be for a fairy to try to live as anything other than a fairy? It would be a disaster because they heavily depended on magic and nothing else. Without magic how would he and Shinji survive?
“Ever think about getting up and doing it yourself?” Wasn’t that common sense? Normal people didn’t have powers so they had to do everything themselves. How hard could it possibly be? Maybe Yuu just didn’t understand, or maybe Naoyuki was just being dramatic again.
“You’re kidding, right?” Naoyuki deadpanned. How could he possibly do something on his own? He didn’t even know how to do something as simple as making a sandwich without waving a wand around.
“I always thought you were smarter than that.” Yuu shrugged as Naoyuki stuck his tongue out childishly. “But if you want, I’ll help Kouyou remember you. I just don’t understand how he wouldn’t remember you but I would.”
“Maybe something went wrong when your memory was erased.”
“Maybe.”
---
“Oh, I know~” Kouyou spoke into his phone as he shoved another chocolate chip Yuu cookie into his mouth. After Yuu had left for work, Kouyou had been wide awake. There was nothing for him to do besides stay in his room and eat cookies. He was watching some show about criminals until he got tired of the same old plot. Instead he decided to call the one person he could talk to about absolutely nothing but everything at the same time: Takanori.
Takanori was telling him how he was at the arcade talking to Akira and how he was just trying to embarrass him for no reason at all. That led to a rant about how mean the ‘noseless freak of nature’ could be, and that led to how stupid he could be.
“Isn’t it just annoying? I mean, every time he goes to describe something he always says ‘look at that big dummy’ insert whatever he’s talking about here. I mean, yeah we used to say it when we were kids, but he says it all the time! It’s so annoying and totally not attractive.“
“By saying that, he makes himself look like a big dummy. It was much cuter when we were kids, y’know? Kids can make the dumbest of things look cute. Akira, now that’s another story. He can’t make anything cute these days. Ugh, don’t even get me started.”
“I wouldn’t exactly say that, but he does some of the most unattractive and stupid things. Okay, so the other night I stayed at his house because I was too lazy to walk home.” Takanori sounded like he was getting worked up, and he was. On the other end of the line he was sitting on the edge of his bed with excited eyes.
“You? Lazy? Never~” Kouyou teased.
“Shut up. Okay, so like I was saying, I stayed the night. So Akira took a shower and I waited in his room and then I heard the water turn off and the blow dryer turn on. Wouldn’t you think he was blow drying his hair?“ Kouyou hummed on the other end. “But he wasn’t! He was blow drying his damn body! Who does that?! Seriously? He has the strangest habits.“
“You should have known what you were getting yourself into when you decided it was a good idea to marry him. Not everyone can have a normal husband like me.” Kouyou licked his lips clean of chocolate. While Akira ran around claiming he lacked a nose, Yuu displayed his proudly. While Akira ran around trying to impress people by acting smart, Yuu actually as smart and got good grades. While Akira went around embarrassing his lover, Yuu always made people jealous because they didn’t have Kouyou.
“Kouyou…“ Takanori closed his eyes and sighed heavily. Sometimes he just didn’t understand his best friend. Sometimes he thought he didn’t pay attention or he took things too seriously. “You’re not actually married to Yuu.“
There was silence as Kouyou stopped mid-chew. Takanori was biting his plump bottom lip as he waited for a response. Did Kouyou seriously think he and Yuu were married? Their damn rings had Hello Kitty on them! How serious of a marriage could that have possibly been?
“Are you telling me my marriage is a sham?!” Kouyou squealed. “And why was I never informed of this? Does Yuu know?”
“We just kind of figured you would figure it out after awhile. I mean, Yutaka ended up telling me he wasn’t able to actually marry people and that was when we were still little! I just thought you would realize by now since… y’know… you’re seventeen.“ Takanori laughed nervously.
“Oh~ no you don’t!” Kouyou suddenly spoke. “Don’t try to switch the topic! We’re talking about how stupid Akira is, remember?”
“You brought up the marriage, not me.“ Takanori defended himself by holding his free hand up even if Kouyou couldn’t see it. “But yeah, Akira is pretty stupid at times. Do you remember the time we had to dissect those frogs in biology and Akira decided he wanted to be Akira Frogpants?“
“You mean when he shoved all the frogs down his pants and ran around the classroom ribitting and croaking?” Takanori giggled to himself.
“And then he ended up getting frog guts in his pants because one of them had already been cut open?“
“Talk about a big dummy.” Kouyou snorted.
“Uhm, guys?“ They both froze in mid-laugh as Akira’s voice sounded through their speakers. “Remember, this was a three-way call…“
Genre: Crack, Angst, Fluff, Smut
Fandom: the GazettE, alicenine,Kagrra, Screw, Acid Black Cherry
Pairings: Aoi/Uruha, Reita/Ruki, Kai/Shin, Shou/Hiroto
Rating: NC-17 (overall)
Warnings: Overall - sex, masturbation, language, stupid Akira
Chapter: 5/?
Synopsis: Neither one, Kouyou or Yuu really remembered them, but Shinji and Naoyuki still kept an eye on them when they had nothing else to do. Kouyou had lost his fairies when he turned ten because he no longer needed his magical fairies to help him. In other words, he had gotten too old and they had to be assigned to another child. The most they could do for Kouyou was watch him from afar and use limited magic to help him, but only in situations when he was in danger. He wasn’t in danger too often --at least not since Takashi’s memory was erased so he didn’t remember how he managed to break his arm, and Kouyou had no idea either.
Comment: I have no idea where this chapter came from... xD I can't make an update tomorrow because I have to baby sit in the morning and then I'm going to a party with some friends. :)
“Yuu, take these drinks to table five.” Yuu smiled and took a tray of drinks from his cousin and proceeded to walk to the table. All evening he had been going from table to table giving people their orders and exchanging tickets for prizes at the prize booth. When he first decided to work at the arcade he thought he would have more fun. What would be more fun than spending the day around video games? It would have been more fun if he were actually allowed to play the video games, but he only have a fifteen minute break and that wasn’t enough time to play a game and enjoy it at the same time. Today was even less fun than normal because he had to work into the night, which mean he wouldn’t get home until early in the morning and he would never make it through school.
The arcade was packed with kids and teenagers who were standing in front of the games clicking away at buttons. Every night it was the same thing: loud voices of video game characters fighting and falling to the ground, and kids yelling as they won. To be honest it was a bit annoying to deal with, but at least the pay was somewhat good so Yuu couldn’t really complain.
Upon reaching table five, Yuu began placing the drinks in front of the customers who were talking animatedly to each other. Their voices were loud: one teasing and the other embarrassed. Yuu couldn’t help but laugh to himself as he caught a bit of their conversation, but then again it wasn’t anything that should have surprised him considering he had to hear it every day.
“Do you two ever stop?” He tucked the empty tray under his arm, moving his fringe from his eyes.
“Why stop when it’s so fun to make him blush? You have to admit that he looks pretty cute when he’s embarrassed.” Yuu laughed and shook his head as he looked down at the two blonde men sitting at the table.
“I’ll just take your word for it, ‘Kira.” Takanori was too vicious at times to be considered anything near cute. Cute people didn’t lung over tables at people because they complimented someone else. Cute people didn’t try to pull someone’s eyes out because they were pretty. And cute people definitely didn’t chase small children down the street for their ice cream because he didn’t get to the ice cream truck before it drove away.
“Whatever you say, man.” Yuu rolled his eyes and turned around to go back to his cousin. There were more tables to go around to and he didn’t have any time to be talking to his friends even if he would rather take a short break. But that wasn’t an option and by the time he had gotten back to the counter his cousin was already holding another tray of drinks.
He spent the next couple of hours going from table to table. The only time he was able to work the prize booth was when a group of girls walked in and his cousin decided to take over Yuu’s job. So Yuu spent the remainder of his night giving stuffed animals to little kids until there were only young adults lefts in the arcade and that was when things always got worse.
Young adults were careless. Most of the time they would come in in groups, and as most people know from experience, they had to act like complete jackasses to make themselves look cool. That was how the arcade floor was covered in dumped drinks and food. That meant Yuu had to spend even more time at work to clean it all up before morning.
Once the arcade was finally closed, Yuu went in the back room to get a mop and broom so he could begin cleaning. His cousin had gone off somewhere in the back leaving Yuu alone in the empty room. The closed sign was put on the door and the lights were dimmed as Yuu began sweeping up the food and dirt on the floor. He was exhausted, but he had to work whenever he was told to because how else would he get money?
“Mm. Mm. Mm. What a mess.” Yuu kneeled down with a dustpan in hand as he heard feet walking across the floor. He raised an eyebrow as the man crossed his arms and twisted his face up in disgust. The door clearly said they were closed, so why in the hell did the man bother to walk in?
“We’re closed.” Yuu muttered as he swept the food into the dustpan before he stood up to deposit it in a nearby trashcan. “That means you can’t be in here.”
“Such a smartass. What happened to the cute little kid you used to be?” There was a pout and tapping of feet that made Yuu laugh quietly to himself.
“People grow up.” He shrugged, leaning the broom and dustpan against the counter and reached for the mop.
“And?“
“And you don’t have to ask any other questions. I know who you are.” He stopped what he was doing and leaned on the mop as an eyebrow was rose. “Earlier I was talking to Kouyou and I remembered I would just get into his house somehow. I though ‘isn’t that weird?’ so I just assumed it hand to do with magic, but Kouyou said magic wasn’t real. So I thought about it for awhile and then it hit me. Kouyou had two fairies that constantly got in trouble. Then I remembered the Crazy Kouyou thing.”
“So someone does remember us!” Naoyuki jumped up with a huge smile across his face. “I swear, I didn’t think anyone would remember us because I tried to talk to Kouyou today but he thought it was just the fever talking.” The bubbly fairy shook his head with a frown. Of all people he wanted to remember him, it was Kouyou. Kouyou was his godchild after all, and he had a connection with him. Kouyou was like his own child in a way: he did his hair and helped him get dressed, sometimes he helped with his homework. But Kouyou didn’t seem to remember him.
“Don’t take it personally. You have to understand a few things: Kouyou says he thinks ‘realistically’. You and I both know he doesn’t do that because he has an overactive imagination. He’s not going to believe there are such things as fairies if you just appear and tell him. When he’s sick he’s way worse. Don’t you remember the time he had the flu during the summer after the first grade? He thought Akira’s nosedress was talking to him.” Yuu chuckled as he began moping again. He could remember that day perfectly: Kouyou had gotten sick and wasn’t allowed to go out and play. Yuu and the rest of their friends decided to sneak into the Takashima home one by one so they could all spend time with Kouyou. It would have been mean of them to just let him stay up there all alone, but Yuu knew Kouyou was never really alone. So Yuu, Shin, Takanori, Akira, and Yutaka all snuck through the front door and quietly ran up the stairs until they were in the blonde’s room. Kouyou swore up and down that Akira’s nosedress was speaking to him. She was going on and on about how she didn’t like sitting on Akira’s nose all day because he would sneeze and never move her out of the way or clean her when she got snot on her. Akira said he knew how to treat his women right and told Kouyou to shut up, which resulted in a sick Kouyou rolling around on the floor with Akira, his nose dripping snot all over Akira’s face, and in the end Akira was the next to get the flu. Actually, all the little boys got the flu for being near Kouyou in the first place. Akira was the only one to make a big deal out of it.
“So what do I do?” Naoyuki took a seat on the counter top. “I have to be really careful about what I do. Shinji and I have been assigned to a new godchild and we can’t be anywhere near our former godchildren unless they’re associated with our current godchild. If we try to get back into Kouyou’s life and we’re caught, Shinji and I won’t be fairies anymore. Instead we’ll become…” he leaned forward with a look of pure fear as he whispered “gremlins!”
“Gremlins?” Yuu burst out laughing. “So instead of being all cute and granting wishes you’ll become ugly and start ruining machinery?” Now, he could already picture Shinji as a gremlin because sometimes he wasn’t very pleasant, but Naoyuki was just too cute.
“Don’t even make me think of what the fairy council will do to my looks!” Naoyuki leaned his head back with a sigh. “I can’t get caught, Yuu! If I’m not cute anymore, I won’t have anything going for me! I’ll be ugly with an even uglier boyfriend: Shinji isn’t as cute as me as it is. He’s good looking, yes, but he’s no Hello Kitty.”
“So what you’re saying is… you’re conceited.” It was a statement moreover a question.
“Yes.”
“And that’s the reason you can’t get caught…”
“No! Once we turn into gremlins we won’t have wings or powers. How am I to do anything without waving a wand?” Did anyone really know how hard it would be for a fairy to try to live as anything other than a fairy? It would be a disaster because they heavily depended on magic and nothing else. Without magic how would he and Shinji survive?
“Ever think about getting up and doing it yourself?” Wasn’t that common sense? Normal people didn’t have powers so they had to do everything themselves. How hard could it possibly be? Maybe Yuu just didn’t understand, or maybe Naoyuki was just being dramatic again.
“You’re kidding, right?” Naoyuki deadpanned. How could he possibly do something on his own? He didn’t even know how to do something as simple as making a sandwich without waving a wand around.
“I always thought you were smarter than that.” Yuu shrugged as Naoyuki stuck his tongue out childishly. “But if you want, I’ll help Kouyou remember you. I just don’t understand how he wouldn’t remember you but I would.”
“Maybe something went wrong when your memory was erased.”
“Maybe.”
---
“Oh, I know~” Kouyou spoke into his phone as he shoved another chocolate chip Yuu cookie into his mouth. After Yuu had left for work, Kouyou had been wide awake. There was nothing for him to do besides stay in his room and eat cookies. He was watching some show about criminals until he got tired of the same old plot. Instead he decided to call the one person he could talk to about absolutely nothing but everything at the same time: Takanori.
Takanori was telling him how he was at the arcade talking to Akira and how he was just trying to embarrass him for no reason at all. That led to a rant about how mean the ‘noseless freak of nature’ could be, and that led to how stupid he could be.
“Isn’t it just annoying? I mean, every time he goes to describe something he always says ‘look at that big dummy’ insert whatever he’s talking about here. I mean, yeah we used to say it when we were kids, but he says it all the time! It’s so annoying and totally not attractive.“
“By saying that, he makes himself look like a big dummy. It was much cuter when we were kids, y’know? Kids can make the dumbest of things look cute. Akira, now that’s another story. He can’t make anything cute these days. Ugh, don’t even get me started.”
“I wouldn’t exactly say that, but he does some of the most unattractive and stupid things. Okay, so the other night I stayed at his house because I was too lazy to walk home.” Takanori sounded like he was getting worked up, and he was. On the other end of the line he was sitting on the edge of his bed with excited eyes.
“You? Lazy? Never~” Kouyou teased.
“Shut up. Okay, so like I was saying, I stayed the night. So Akira took a shower and I waited in his room and then I heard the water turn off and the blow dryer turn on. Wouldn’t you think he was blow drying his hair?“ Kouyou hummed on the other end. “But he wasn’t! He was blow drying his damn body! Who does that?! Seriously? He has the strangest habits.“
“You should have known what you were getting yourself into when you decided it was a good idea to marry him. Not everyone can have a normal husband like me.” Kouyou licked his lips clean of chocolate. While Akira ran around claiming he lacked a nose, Yuu displayed his proudly. While Akira ran around trying to impress people by acting smart, Yuu actually as smart and got good grades. While Akira went around embarrassing his lover, Yuu always made people jealous because they didn’t have Kouyou.
“Kouyou…“ Takanori closed his eyes and sighed heavily. Sometimes he just didn’t understand his best friend. Sometimes he thought he didn’t pay attention or he took things too seriously. “You’re not actually married to Yuu.“
There was silence as Kouyou stopped mid-chew. Takanori was biting his plump bottom lip as he waited for a response. Did Kouyou seriously think he and Yuu were married? Their damn rings had Hello Kitty on them! How serious of a marriage could that have possibly been?
“Are you telling me my marriage is a sham?!” Kouyou squealed. “And why was I never informed of this? Does Yuu know?”
“We just kind of figured you would figure it out after awhile. I mean, Yutaka ended up telling me he wasn’t able to actually marry people and that was when we were still little! I just thought you would realize by now since… y’know… you’re seventeen.“ Takanori laughed nervously.
“Oh~ no you don’t!” Kouyou suddenly spoke. “Don’t try to switch the topic! We’re talking about how stupid Akira is, remember?”
“You brought up the marriage, not me.“ Takanori defended himself by holding his free hand up even if Kouyou couldn’t see it. “But yeah, Akira is pretty stupid at times. Do you remember the time we had to dissect those frogs in biology and Akira decided he wanted to be Akira Frogpants?“
“You mean when he shoved all the frogs down his pants and ran around the classroom ribitting and croaking?” Takanori giggled to himself.
“And then he ended up getting frog guts in his pants because one of them had already been cut open?“
“Talk about a big dummy.” Kouyou snorted.
“Uhm, guys?“ They both froze in mid-laugh as Akira’s voice sounded through their speakers. “Remember, this was a three-way call…“