Monomania // hunter x hunter ff, au

title: monomania
fandom: hxh
character: pokkle, hanzo; pokkle/ponzu
notes: au sampah

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“So,” begins Hanzo, leaning back casually against the metal shoe lockers, “made any progress with that girl yet?”

Pokkle frowns, glancing at the ground before returning his eyes back to the other boy. “Not much,” he sighs out, “but it’s something.”

“Oh,” Hanzo mouths, framing his jaw with his hand thoughtfully, “so basically — you chickened out before you could ask her out, ran away and decided to call it progress to make yourself feel better.” He chuckles, and then offers him a smile that ends up looking more condescending than sympathetic (then again, that was probably his intention). “Come on, man, did you listen to any of my advice? Be more confident for once!”

“Did you think I didn’t try,” Pokkle says, hating how frustrated his voice sounds because he knows Hanzo is right. His grip tighten around the strap of his bag.

The other boy purses his mouth, running his fingers through his (lack of) hair. “Too bad,” he says, not sounding apologetic in the least, “but yesterday was the last chance you had to ask her out.”

“What do you mean?” he asks, genuinely confused and the slightest bit worried. “She’s still single.”

Hanzo ignores his question. “Also, I won’t be giving you any help after this.”

“What do you mean by that?” he repeats, his voice sounding pathetically desperate. “I can’t do without your advice.”

“Tough break. You had your chance.” Hanzo exhales heavily, glancing at the empty courtyard up ahead. “Also, that girl? You’re right, she is kind of hot. I’m calling dibs on her.”

“What,” Pokkle says, tone flat before he fully registers the deadly sentence in his brain. When he does, any sort of calmness he has left on his face collapses, kind of like his willingness to live right now, and his jaw drops, expression twisting into an abomination of pain and desperation and love-struck depression. “You can’t do that! I called dibs on her first!”

“I’m kidding.” Hanzo’s voice is level, stoic, but his face looks like he’s about to break into cruel laughter any moment now (which is basically true about 65% of the time, but at this very moment his shit-eating grin is at its most potent). “Only a weirdo like you could ever consider that freaky, insect-loving chick as attractive, anyway.”

Pokkle, still recovering from the earlier emotional outburst, is suddenly overwhelmed by the strong urge to sock him in the jaw. Not that he would. Hanzo would just kick his ass all the way back home before his fist could land. He still totally wants to, though. He’ll probably do the literary equivalent once he gets home, in the form of venting about it on his personal blog. But right now, he just balls his hands into fists and shoves them into his pockets, remaining silent in fear of saying something Hanzo wouldn’t let him take back.

“Nice reaction, though,” he snorts, bending down to pick up his bag on the floor. “Just confess to her already, Pokkle. Before you know it, some other weirdo might come around and steal her away. Or something.” He settles the bag behind his shoulder, grabbing onto the strap. “Either way,” he continues, “you’ll probably never gonna get over it, and I don’t want to deal with you calling me at ungodly hours to force me to listen to your pitiful whining.” The boy turns at his heel and walks away, gesturing for him to follow.

Pokkle grumbles, indignant, but ends up trailing behind him all the way to the gate anyway.

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a/n: this is what i wrote instead of the continuation to that pokémon au lol. also my characterization of pokkle/ponzu is ridiculously inconsistent i don’t even know anymore 

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anime/fandom tumblr @roseavinca.tumblr.com

Morning Mist // hunter x hunter fanfiction, pkmn au

title: morning mist
fandom: hunter x hunter
characters: pokkle/ponzu
notes: lmoa pkmn au

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Her arrival is preceded by no reason or rhyme; he wakes up one Sunday morning to be greeted by the sight of two large trucks and multiple machamps huddled around the deserted old house next door, moving back and forth and in and out, effortlessly lugging around cardboard boxes and heavy furniture upon their four bulky arms, creating an organized sort of chaos just outside the view of his bedroom window.

He makes his way quickly downstairs, his hair a mess and his eyes still heavy and lidded from sleep. Outside, it’s still early, and the sunlight filters in through the spotless window and into the busy kitchen; from somewhere, he hears the sound of Einar, his tail already busy with cleaning even at this time of day. Pokkle flinches uncomfortably at the bright light trapped between his eyelashes, trying hard to suppress the compulsion to rub at them with his fingers. “What’s going on?”

His mother doesn’t turn away from the stove. “We have a new neighbor,” she says, stirring the scrambled eggs carefully with a wooden spatula. The smell that wafts from the heated pan is positively mouthwatering; Pokkle swallows and presses his mouth shut, mustering as much defiance as a ten-year-old boy possibly could when confronted with his mother’s cooking. “They’ve just about finished packing,” his mother continues. “They have a daughter who’s about your age, you know. Why don’t you go and say hi to her, Pokkle?”

“Okay,” Pokkle says. He’d wished that his new friend would be another boy — but, well, he can’t exactly complain, can he? There’s barely anybody for him to play with in this tiny port town. The other boys who are here are mostly either obnoxious or too old, anyway, never even letting him take a peek at their pokémon — so it’s not like he can afford to not keep an open mind about the prospects of having a friend who also, you know, happens to be a girl.

“After you shower and eat breakfast,” says his mother, very sternly, derailing his train of thought and bringing him back to the kitchen, the sizzling scrambled eggs still cooking on the pan. “What would they say if they saw you going out looking like that, hmm?” She taps her foot sharply against the floor, and Pokkle feels himself tensing up before he could stop himself.

“Okay, mom,” he replies, with a roll of his eyes, and then makes his dutiful way to the bathroom.

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The girl’s mother lets him inside the house with a friendly nod, leading him away from the machamps still busily carrying one heavy object after and into the living room. “Sorry it’s still such a mess,” the woman says, smile apologetic, and Pokkle just nods understandingly because that’s what his mother taught him to be.

The woman excuses herself politely to tend to the machamps, and Pokkle takes a seat on the couch propped up at one corner as he waits for the girl to come down. The wall is still a bland, faded beige; the color reminds him of his father, somehow, and he swallows down the urge to be rude and purse his mouth up in distaste. His attention is quickly diverted when he hears the sound of footsteps, though; Pokkle flicks his eyes away from the wall and to the source of the noise, to the set of stairs and the green-haired girl descending down from it.

“Hi,” he greets, managing his brightest smile. He’s wearing his favorite hat, today; first impressions last forever, after all, and he doesn’t intend to disappoint.

“Hi,” says the girl. Her smile is smaller, thinner, a minute upturn of her mouth — maybe she’s a shy one, Pokkle thinks, beaming all the harder to compensate.

“I’m Pokkle!” He outstretches a hand for her to shake. “What’s your name?”

“I’m Ponzu.” Her grip is neither firm nor loose; her fingers are small and soft and so very unlike a boy’s, and Pokkle isn’t quite sure of what to make of this information, but she lets go of his hand quickly, before he can properly ruminate on it. “Nice to meet you,” she says, tone polite and proper like his mother always is. He wonders if all girls are like that.

“Nice to meet you, Ponzu,” he says, cheerfully; their names kind of match, too, he realizes, and the syllables roll out somewhat awkwardly out of his mouth, but he doesn’t let that deter him. “I hope we can be good friends!”

Ponzu nods, a little shyly, blinking her bright green eyes at him. “Yeah,” she replies, “me too.”

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“So, where did you come from?” he asks off-handedly, the first time she visits his house. In the kitchen, his mother bakes welcoming cookies, and in the living room, their fathers sit and exchange boring pleasantries about the weather, work and whatever works; the children are splayed out on the rug, a rerun of an animated film he’s seen five times already playing on television.

Ponzu doesn’t look up from the book she’s reading — thick, hardcover, pages glossy and imprinted with words and pictures (but mostly words) about various bug-type pokémon from faraway lands. “Another region,” she says, thumbing absently through the pages as if she’d read the book twice already. She pauses on a page brandishing the image of a leafy pokémon he’s never seen before — leavanny, the caption proclaims, in crisp black and white. “Dentora, to be exact.”

“Huh,” he says, trying to recall its location; he thinks he might’ve heard that place mentioned in a news article once, somewhere. “That’s pretty far away. Why’d you move?”

“Something to do with my father’s job.” Her voice is dismissive. “He got transferred to work at a city in this region, so we decided to move here to make things easier.”

“Oh,” he says, deciding not to indulge in his curiosity and ask her further about her father. “What’s it like, in Dentora? I’ve never really been anywhere outside of Dolle before!”

“It’s pretty good,” Ponzu remarks. “Awfully cold sometimes, though; I like it better here, near the sea.”

Pokkle begs to differ; he’d always hated the sea, always disliked the way the waves push forward and back in continuous movement, almost threatening to rise up and swallow the whole town whole, drowning him in its placidity, in its suffocating irregularity, its persistent unwillingness to change closing in around him like tall concrete walls, trapping him inside.

“Yeah,” he says instead, smiling thinly. “I guess that’s true.”

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“Ooh,” Pokkle mouths in awe at the yellow, three-headed insect flying before him, “what kind of pokémon is that? I’ve never seen one of those before!”

“A combee,” says Ponzu. She rolls the small, white-and-red pokéball in her hand idly, her back leaned against the bark of a sturdy tree. They’re hanging around at the park, talking about pokémon and the piling homework and whatever works; Pokkle’s still getting used to the jeers and mocking looks that the other boys keep giving him, but Ponzu is a kind girl — if she doesn’t mind, then he doesn’t either, so he doesn’t bring it up.

“Cool,” he says. “It looks rare. Where’d you get it?” She’s not twelve, yet; not old enough for her to officially go out and actually catch a pokémon for herself, so she must’ve gotten it from someone, just like himself.

“It’s a female, too — those are especially hard to come by, you know,” she elaborates, her smile a little smug despite herself. “I got her as an egg, from a research center back at my old hometown. The owner didn’t want to keep it, so I agreed to take care of the egg for him. My mother didn’t agree much about it, though,” she pauses to chuckle, “but she relented eventually. Her name’s Astrid, by the way.”

“You look like you’ve taken care of her well,” Pokkle comments, smiling at the pokémon’s elaborate gestures in the air. “You’ve never seen my pokémon, have you? I brought him with me today.”

Ponzu nods. “Sure.”

Pokkle fishes quickly inside a pocket of his backpack for a pokéball; he picks the object up, pressing the small button in the middle. The green grass around them lights up with a bright red flash as the pokéball unlocks, fading away to reveal a small, gray mammal standing proud in front of them, bushy tail poised up as if ready to strike.

“A minccino!” Ponzu exclaims, smiling enthusiastically. “Oh, I’ve always wanted to see one in real life!”

Pokkle smiles at her loud reaction; not many people seem to be impressed with Einar, knowing the fact that his prized pokémon also happen to be a popular choice for coordinators and little girls to own. Then again, Ponzu is a girl, too. “His name’s Einar,” he says. “I’ve had him since forever. My mother gave him to me — well, actually, she got him from a pokémon breeder because she wanted some extra help with cleaning up, but I had other plans.” He chuckles lightheartedly before he continues, one fist already pumped up in punctuation, “I’m gonna train and then evolve him ‘till he’s the strongest cinccino in the world.”

Ponzu looks up at him, something that he can’t quite pinpoint flashing in her round, grass-green eyes. “You want to be a pokémon trainer?”

“Ah, um,” he begins, feeling a strange discomfort being pinned down under her gaze, before he remembers that he’s a boy and he’s not supposed to feel the slightest bit intimidated by anyone, especially not if he’s going to become, like, the bestest trainer ever. “Yeah.” He nods, chest puffed in confidence. “Once I hit twelve, I’m gonna go on a journey.”

“Huh,” she replies, petting an unwilling Einar absently, her eyes staring at the grass like she’s contemplating something. Ponzu is fond of doing that, he’s noticed; always deep in thought, always looking like she’s ruminating over a question that has no answer, a puzzle that can’t be solved. An eleven-year-old like her should be more carefree, really. “So do I.”

His ears perk up in interest, his absent train of thought derailed. “Really? You want to be a pokémon trainer, too?”

Ponzu nods, but he manages to catch the slight shift in her expression. “Yeah. I do.”

“That’s great!” He grins broadly at her. “How come you’ve never told me, Ponzu? Once we’re old enough, we could finally get out of Dolle Town and explore the world together!”

He watches a thin smile spreading across her face. Astrid flutters close by, before finally perching herself atop Ponzu’s round hat. It’s a comical sight, but the look on her face is anything but, and it’s then that he realizes that his carefree attitude isn’t really helping much in trying to improve her mood. Pokkle’s grin collapses, and he settles down on the grass, knees crossed, all of a sudden unsure of what to say.  

“I’ve always wanted to,” she admits, then, tilting her head to look at him. “I want to be something.”

“I want to be something, too,” he says, and then continues, “You should be more sure of yourself, Ponzu. You’re a smart girl; I know you can be a great trainer. Well, not as great as me, but…” he lets his voice trail off, ending the sentence with a smile. “… just, don’t beat yourself up so much, okay?”

“I’ll try,” replies Ponzu.

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“You seem to like bug-type pokémon the most,” says Pokkle, peering over the picture encyclopedia she’s reading. “Why is that?”

“I think they’re interesting,” replies Ponzu, inching away so that they’re just slightly further apart. The sunlight reflects against the color of her hair, the cool shade of her eyes; Pokkle blinks and he tells himself it’s just the light trapped between his eyelashes again. “I’ve always taken a shine in them, ever since I was a child.”

He laughs. “Well, combees are cute, but most girls I know probably wouldn’t share your opinion.” Not that he knows much about girls in the first place, anyway; other than that they’re unpredictable and complicated and prone to hiding things when they shouldn’t. Ponzu is honest most of the time, but sometimes he can’t help but suspect otherwise. “I’m just saying…”

“I don’t care.” The girl scrunches up her nose in distaste. “Besides, you’ve got a minccino. You don’t really have a right to tease me about liking bugs.”

“You’ve got a point.” Pokkle rubs the back of his neck. “I still think you need some more type variety if you want to succeed, though. Unless you’re aiming to be a gym leader, that is.”

“Well, of course! Just because I have an affinity for bugs doesn’t mean I have to limit myself to just that type. Now,” and she pauses, looking impressive, “I think a vileplume would suit me just fine.”

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“Once I’m a fully-fledged trainer, I’m going to teach you a lot of cool attacks,” he says, smiling brightly at Einar. “Like Hyper Beam! Or, or… Focus Punch, yeah!”

“Cinccino can’t learn either of those attacks, dummy,” Ponzu comments from where she’s sitting, flipping a page of the thick book propped up on her lap. She’s been borrowing more books from the library, these days. 

“Their evolved forms are able to re-learn a wide variety of multi-hit moves through the use of heart scales, though,” she resumes. “You should try gearing Einar to accommodate for his natural talents. That’s what makes a good trainer, after all.”

“What a database,” Pokkle remarks huffily.

“This is important information,” she defends, with a tired sigh. “Learning is crucial for success. Just having aspirations isn’t enough.”

“I don’t like books.” He crosses his arms, stubborn. “They’re stuffy and boring and, just — why do you like them so much, anyway?”

Ponzu turns to look at him, gaze piercing. “Do you want to be a good trainer or not?”

“Y-yeah.” He nods, feeling strangely intimidated by her for the second time since they’ve met. Beside him, Einar whimpers as if he understands.

(The next day, Ponzu drags him to the library to go and stuff himself full with thick books full of complicated subjects; but despite the dreariness of the library and the yawn-inducing amount of text she forces him to study with her, Pokkle ends up finding the trip a much better experience than he’d anticipated it to be. He doesn’t know why, and he’d much rather keep it that way, too.)

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“When is your birthday?” he asks, off-hand, when they’re just sitting around at the park. Above them, the sky is a dull bluish-gray, just like always; will it rain soon, he wonders, absently, even though it barely ever rains in Dolle. Pokkle leans his back against the bark of the tree and stares frowningly at the wispy clouds drifting by, trying to trace abstract shapes in them with his fingers.

He wonders how it’d feel like to watch the clouds from the wetlands of Numere, from the top of the Tower of Trickery, from the shady depths of the Visca Forest, with dirt underneath his nails and the feeling of victory swelling up his chest. He does a lot of wondering, nowadays, as he waits for the days to pass by, for his life to truly begin. Does Ponzu do the same? Nah; she’ll probably just drown herself in more encyclopedias to pass the time.

“May third,” Ponzu replies, tilting her head so that they’re eye-to-eye. “When’s yours?”

“March fourteenth.”

She pauses, for a moment. “Are you going to wait for me?”

“Only once,” he says after some deliberation.

Ponzu quirks an eyebrow, looking perplexed for once. “What do you mean by that?”

“What I mean is,” he says with a smirk. “If we’re going to start our journey for the league at the same time, won’t that make us rivals?”

“I guess so …” she says, her voice lacking the surprised tone he’d somehow expected. Her mouth opens, for a second, like she’s planning to finish her sentence, but in the end, she doesn’t.

Pokkle decides not to press on. “Well, anyway, don’t worry! I’ll wait for you. A journey’s no fun if you don’t have a friend to accompany you, right?”

“It’s true,” she says, sounding amused for some reason, and then they return to silence, return to counting for the days before the beginning.

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Pokkle’s birthday is celebrated with a modest party. His mother bakes a small chocolate cake that tastes heavenly, his father leaves a note and some money to buy himself a toy or something, a few of his friends congratulate him on another passed year, and Ponzu greets him with an expectant smile when he opens the door to let her in.

“When are you going to take the test?”

“In a week’s time.” He takes another bite of his cake; Ponzu sticks a fork in hers, preferring to take her decadence in small, careful chunks. “I need some time to prepare first, of course.”

“I’ll help you,” she tells him. “Starting now. You need all the time you can get.”

“Lead the way,” he says, already mentally preparing himself for six agonizing days of physical and academic exercise, but not before finishing the last of his slice.

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In the end, he passes. His mother bakes congratulatory cookies and sheds away tears that he’s not quite sure is happy or sad, but Pokkle hugs her anyway, acceptance letter in hand. He gets his official trainer card, a license to finally start training Einar some actual attack moves. He gets a badge case and even a starter pack to help him out in the beginning: a bag of five pokéballs, five potions, an assorted amount of berries and even a soothe bell to tie around Einar’s neck. He has everything he needs to start his journey, but he’s promised to wait, and wait is what he will do.

“He looks cute in it,” comments Ponzu. The minccino looks very, very unimpressed. “Almost too cute, even. Are you sure you’re not signing him up for a cute contest?”

“No, but I might as well be,” he says. “And that’s the point: victory will just feel even better if the loser doesn’t expect to be defeated, right?”

“Right,” she says and nods, glancing at Astrid with a small smile tugging at her lips.

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Two months pass by in a breeze and soon enough, Ponzu comes home running with her acceptance letter grasped in one hand.

“Now you don’t have to wait for me anymore.” A pause, a smile spreading across her face. “…rival.”

“Rivals, huh,” he says and chuckles, almost hoping there could be a way for them to succeed in the league without having to go against each other. “Rival Pokkle. That sounds kind of nice.”

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“Are you ready?”

“Ready.”

They take the first step to the first route together, and Pokkle feels as though a great burden has been lifted from his chest.

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a/n: this fic is literally all just buildup what the hell is wrong with me…? i need to write the continuation asap… goddamnit i feel so unsatisfied but i’m posting this anyway

i suck at writing long fics, god, my attention span is pathetic. i’ll probably end up getting someone to beta this or something if i don’t loath this even more by the time i get to it

Reflective // Rune Factory; Rusk/Collette

title: reflective
fandom: rune factory
characters: rusk, collette; rusk/collette
notes: tw for unwholesome familial relations

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The first thing you want to know is — Rusk isn’t stupid, or anything.

Well, yeah, sure, it’s an unstated thing, something that people just automatically assume, probably because he’s short and doesn’t eat his greens and is siblings with the biggest klutz in the whole village — really, just what kind of deity did he offend in his previous life to warrant a punishment like this, anyway.

He doesn’t think about the last part as much as the first two, and that’s if he even thinks about any of them at all, because people expect him to be too preoccupied with sweets and confectionaries to really care much about the bigger picture, things that really matter in life, like exercising and going out and eating healthier food. He delivers well on it, for the most part, and he’s a good boy, too, so it’s not like he doesn’t try.

Having other people expect you to be someone you’re not necessarily is off-putting, kind of, but he’s used to it. It’s simple, and makes things easier for everyone. He can’t see what’s so wrong with it; he’s a flexible enough person.

Take his family, for example: His sister is the clumsy, well-meaning girl with a big appetite and a big heart, figuratively speaking (hopefully). His father is serious, hardworking and does weird things when he gets drunk. And him — Rusk — he’s the kid who hates vegetables and likes sweets and not much else. That’s it. It’s not like he can be bothered to be anything else, anyway, even if he could — no, precisely because of it.

So Rusk isn’t stupid, or anything — that’s the first thing you want to know, and probably the only one you really need to, because he’s a simple boy at heart, really, for what reason would you possibly try to understand him?

Now, the second thing you want to know is — and listen carefully here — he thinks he’d rather be.

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He talks about his sister a lot, mostly to Micah, who seems to listen just to laugh about it discreetly behind his back, but what he doesn’t tell people is that she’s the sole exception to the rule.

What rule? He doesn’t know. He doesn’t want to. All he understands is that no matter how many ground rules he sets up, no matter how many walls he builds, she manages to break every single one of them without even trying, faster than she can swallow down a bowl full of rice — faster than he can make a snide quip about it on the sidelines. It’s a worryingly impressive feat.

He doesn’t tell a lot of things, come to think of it. Maybe it’s his lack of motivation, or maybe it’s because he feels this sick emotion choking at him every time he feels inclined to open his mouth and spill it out. It’s unpleasant. He half-expects his sister to be spying from a corner, in the middle of his blind spot, as if waiting for him to say something totally personal and totally embarrassing, face perplexed and eyes unfocused like the oblivious fool she is.

She’s not, but he still turns his head to check, just to make sure.

And that’s what’s wrong with it. See, this is why he’d much rather be stupid: he notices things like these, little things, tiny details he’d rather not see. Like that one time, when he’s tasting a cake fresh out of the oven and it’s half-decent and all is well, except then he realizes that he forgot to put this dash of one ingredient and that mistake totally ruins everything the second time he takes a bite. If he hadn’t noticed the cake would’ve stayed good — not perfect, maybe, but good enough; not like he’s all that skilled, anyway — and he’s willing to settle for mediocrity if that’s the best option he’s got.

Except that there is no option B. She won’t let him.

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She will always be “his sister” in his head, because he won’t let her be anything else, because the word is simple and clean and so much easier to denote than first names and crafted epithets. She is his sister when their father is away and the kitchen is quiet and she’s lounging upstairs in her room, fresh out of the shower, her hair undone; when they’re sitting on the pier and he’s looking into her water and her cheeks are rosy from the sun; when she’s laughing with Marian and he’s watching distractedly at something and Karina is looking at him, sleepy eyes too narrowed and too precise for his comfort.

She is his sister now.

“You think I’m getting taller?” she asks him, voice fluttery, sizing herself up expectantly. The light shines through the pale curtains and finds the shade of her hair, the color of her skin, tinting her figure with warm colors that make him think of autumn’s cool air, even when it’s the middle of summer and he would kill for a parfait right now.

He realizes that he’s lost yet again a moment too late, and quietly concedes defeat, watching as she destroys his barries into debris. He’s looking at her, really looking, not even futilely deluding himself into believing otherwise.

He blinks.

“You’re getting fatter, that’s for sure,” he remarks out of impulse, a hand on his chin, his throat drying out. He tries to slip back into his assumed stance, defiant and steely and indifferent, his favorite one of all, but the twitch of his mouth betrays him and the knot in his chest even more so. The fact that this is a routine he’s known for ages doesn’t escape him; he imagines that feeling of normalcy being taken away, and the thought cuts at him. Smoothly, like a hot knife through butter, but that does nothing to console him.

His train of thought stops when she screeches indignantly at him, her mouth taut, playing her part well. He considers doing his share of the routine for a moment, before deciding that the self-infliction isn’t worth half the relief he’ll be getting out of it.

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So, Rusk isn’t stupid — honestly, he’d much rather be — and the third thing you want to know is that he can be stupid sometimes, if he tries enough.

“Huh,” he says, a low mumble, and moves further away, head still light from the aftermath. The feeling isn’t pleasant, but it’s not horrible either, and it’s better than whatever it is that catches in his throat whenever he tries to stop running away from his emotions.

Collette just — stares at him, wide-eyed and a little flushed. She looks like a monster caught at the wrong end of a blade (…as Micah would undoubtedly put it), and the expression makes him feel like he’s won something, maybe, a prize for a phyrric victory, because that’s the only victory he deserves to get in this game.

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She doesn’t talk to him for five days.

It doesn’t bother him as much as he thinks it should; this is an expected reaction, after all. He locks himself up in his room before bedtime, flipping through the pages of his father’s cookbook, reading every line again and again until his eyes are too heavy with sleep to continue, until he’s too tired to remind himself of the ambiguous way she keeps looking at him every time they run into one another.

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On the sixth day, her sister knocks on the door of his bedroom. She’s calling him for breakfast, in this sorry tone of voice that sounds a little contrived (but he’ll take it; that’s what he’s all about, after all). She asks him if he’s okay, and knocks again, calling his name softly, pronouncing the syllable like an apology.

“I’m fine,” he replies, as he’s getting up. His voice is just loud enough for her to hear through the door.

He presses his hand on the copper knob for a while with his eyes on the floor, his breath steady and recollecting. Trying not to let his relief shine through. Not to her; he knows his sister well, more than well enough to understand the way she solves her problems through sheer cold denial, the way that trait runs in the family (bad genes, probably). He’s not going to give her the other half of the resolve if she’s not willing to give away hers. And she won’t.

He opens the door, and she’s smack dab in front of him, giving him a look. Not in that way — this is a face he’s used to seeing, one that he hasn’t seen for the past five days, and he can’t help but feel a little disappointed despite the fact that he’s come out fully prepared for it. He wonders what his face looks like, but he doesn’t see the same emotions mirrored in her eyes, so he just figures he’s either dense or she’s just that much of a better actress than he is.

“I’m going downstairs,” he yawns, walking past her, ignoring the brush of her warm hand against her cool one. Her footsteps don’t follow until a beat later, and he takes a breath during the vacant second, relishing in the last moment before normalcy is granted back to them.

untitled ff

fandom: legend of the galactic heroes
characters: yang, dusty; implied yang/frederica
notes: high school au eyyy

i. (of x)

“—salutatorian of her middle school, also well-known for her photographic memory.” Dusty pauses, stills from his writing to press a contemplative finger against his cheek, only briefly, before he returns his attention back to the half-filled page of his notebook. “That’s only as far as I know, though,” he admits, between scratches of ink against lined paper.

“Hmm,” begins Yang, a low and noncommittal mumble as he leans back further against his chair. He doesn’t continue and Dusty hadn’t expected him to; he turns another page, lamenting silently over what little ink he still has left and the sudden price hike in stationery recently.

“Why are you even asking me this?” he presses, without looking up; spins the plastic pen idly between his fingers as he debates between using one word or the other. Both are equally good, and they serve the same purpose. A dilemma. The pen continues to twirl, blurring into a flash of bright red. It’s late; the classroom is empty, the main building quiet, and yet Yang still looks around to check for eavesdroppers before he opens his mouth to answer. Dusty wonders. “This is Poplan’s department, not mine,” he adds. Then, a sigh, short yet weary, and for a second he almost feels like he’s just celebrated his thirtieth birthday again, half-melted candles and all. “I don’t do creepy.”

“Yeah,” Yang avoids the question, flicking his eyes towards a spot of chipped paint on the wall. Dusty’s hand slips and so does his pen; the ink smears and smudges over the paper before he can stop it, a vivid shade of red against the creased white surface, spilling over the dark blue of his jacket. “…Just forget it.”

“Mm,” he replies after a beat, offering an absent nod. Yang’s expression relaxes, minutely; from the corner of his eye, Dusty notices, but he’s too busy grumbling about pesky ink stains to really care.

tba

Cerpen Tugas Bahasa Inggris (Draft #1)

Once upon a time in a big city, there lived a merchant named Wang Yao. He was an expert at his profession and was extremely wealthy. However, his personality made him unpopular with a lot of people. Wang Yao was sneaky, shrewd, and greedy too. During the day, he spent most of his time selling fruits at a busy marketplace in the city; however, as what could be called a side-job, he also frequently dabbled in some of the city’s shadier (yet much more lucrative) businesses.

Wang Yao only ever made one true friend during his whole life— that unlucky friend was a man named Syamsul. Syamsul was, by all accounts, a rather ordinary person; in fact, the only majorly unusual about him was his almost undying devotion to the notoriously guileful Wang Yao. No one really knew how or when he started to become close acquaintances with the merchant; some might say that there was no beginning to their relationship— that Syamsul had always been standing beside Wang Yao from the very beginning. Both Wang Yao and Syamsul were secretive people; they were in no hurry to spill their life stories to other people.

Wang Yao and his best friend frequently met up with each other on weekends. In Wang Yao’s luxurious mansion they sat around and made idle talks over gourmet breakfast; common subjects to discuss were the weather and politics. Occasionally, however, they delved into the category of certain, more serious topics as well. That category mainly included things relating to their respective occupations and all the hazards associated with them— whenever they weren’t complaining about how utterly horrible the conditions at their workplaces were, they were talking about a certain business.

It was always obvious to both of them exactly which business was being referred to when one of them brought the two words up; it was the business, as they said, one which both Wang Yao and Syamsul were deeply involved (one might say “entangled”) in. The business— because they never dared to call it by its actual name— was permanently shrouded in dark enigmas, puzzling riddles and poorly-conceived codenames, akin to the sudden and mysterious emergence of flying pigs in the neighboring city; needless to say, they were not referring to any particularly wholesome family-run affair.

Neither Wang Yao nor Syamsul brought the topic up very often, and truth be told, neither of them wanted to either. Talking about the business always ended with sour tastes lingering in their mouths and uneasy predictions crawling underneath their skins; it became unbearable sometimes, thought Syamsul, shouldering the burden of being involved in the grand scheme that was the business. Syamsul was relieved at the fact that he at least had a friend to help him haul the weight, and though Wang Yao rarely revealed it, he felt the same way. Most people in the business didn’t have the luxury of trusted associates, a disadvantage which often led to their downfalls; Syamsul considered himself lucky for having Wang Yao to hang onto, disregarding the fact that Wang Yao had been the person who had dragged him into this mess of a business in the first place. Syamsul liked to make up justifications for his friend’s actions; though not perfect, he was a rather good liar.

Anyway— the whole point of their weekend meetings was to get away from the tension and anxiety they’d accumulated during the weekdays. Because of that, they rarely breached sensitive subjects and instead focused on whatever simple joys they could scrape from the bottom of the dingy metal barrels representing the respective lives they led. This habit didn’t change even when the situation they were in was extraordinarily dire; Syamsul told himself that this was the only way they could accomplish a compromise with the reality they’d chosen for themselves. Syamsul often told himself that with Wang Yao on his side, he was a man with no regrets; most of the time, he was only half-right.

One Sunday morning, Wang Yao opened the conversation with a disgruntled remark about the dismal state of their branch of the business. Syamsul looked up from his plate of breakfast, ears perking up as an uncertain feeling began to rise steadily up his throat. They were breaching the subject of the business up more and more often, these days; Syamsul was already beginning to worry. This meant that the situation they were in was becoming increasingly difficult.

Wang Yao began talking about a certain man interfering with his recent activities. Syamsul knew who that man was; he was Kasibun, a beggar stationed underneath the shade of a tree near Wang Yao’s famous fruit stall. Wang Yao had been keeping an eye on him since the very first day he came around from the not-too-distant neighboring city— a horde of flying pigs came around out of nowhere one day and took up all my usual spaces, Kasibun would explain to anyone willing to listen— but it wasn’t until recently that the merchant began harboring serious suspicion towards the beggar.

He was worried, he told his friend, that Kasibun might just be catching up to his after-hours activities. The only safe bet to take, he continued, was to get rid of Kasibun in some way or another in order to continue maintaining his branch of the business. Then, Wang Yao suggested that they work together to accuse Kasibun of a crime he didn’t commit— a crime which would inevitably land him in jail long enough for them to cover up any tracks they might’ve carelessly left visible for him to have seen.

Syamsul knew, from the devious expression plainly written across Wang Yao’s face, what exactly this meant: they were going to set Kasibun up as a mugger. Syamsul knew, because he’d heard similar propositions coming from his friend’s mouth lots of times before, in the same room, with the same look on his face and all. Anyone daring to interfere with the business was to be disposed of; that was the unwritten rule they abided to at the workplace. Syamsul knew, because he’d done the same thing before, more times than he could count. Syamsul knew perfectly— though he’d honestly rather not— and he nodded silently, meekly, outstretching a stiff hand for Wang Yao to shake.

It took weeks for them to formulate a plan, and another one to prepare for it. Wang Yao was the one who composed the songs and wrote the script; Syamsul’s job was to play the right instruments and perform his roles to the best of his abilities.

The stage was set on a Sunday. As Kasibun sat down underneath the shade of the tree, Syamsul hid in his designated spot (a dingy public toilet) as he waited for an opportunity to enter the set. Wang Yao, meanwhile, created a distraction for the crowd of passing customers by (very deliberately) accidentally dropping a whole cart of fruits onto the ground. While the crowd struggled to both avoid the rolling melons and pick up complimentary products, Syamsul (dressed in an outfit identical to the sleeping Kasibun) leapt from the unlocked toilet, merged himself seamlessly with the mass of people, grabbed the purse of an unsuspecting old woman, and was gone before anyone could notice. Of course, he didn’t escape without slipping the old woman’s purse— chock-full of valuable gold coins— inside Kasibun’s satchel.

After the fog of chaos had been lifted, the old woman realized that her purse was gone. The following events happened almost exactly according to the plan: the lost purse was found in Kasibun’s possession, the poor beggar was caught by the police, and a police investigation led by a man named Marwanshah followed shortly after.

The law enforcement didn’t need more than a tiny bit of bribing to ensure (in their own words) that they would never be placed at a disadvantage. For a while, both Syamsul and Wang Yao could allow themselves to breathe a sigh of relief.

The peace and tranquility didn’t last long; a few weeks later, the police ordered the residencies of both Syamsul and Wang Yao to be searched. Kasibun had done the unthinkable: he’d wagered everything on spilling his findings about the business to the detectives. The law enforcements had betrayed them; any information they could find about the business was, in the end, worth more to them than any amount of money.

Wang Yao’s nerves remained steely until the very end. The policemen turned their attention to his closest associate— a particularly unlucky friend of his named Syamsul. Without Wang Yao to support him, Syamsul visibly crumbled under the pressure, but still he refused to say anything. His devotion to Wang Yao wouldn’t let him. After a thorough search of his house, wooden cases full of various highly addictive narcotics and drugs were found hidden in a secret underground cellar. Panicked and backed into a corner, Syamsul concluded that the only thing he could do to avoid being forced to betray Wang Yao was to end his own life.

Syamsul flung himself out of the window of his two-story house before anyone could catch him; he was subsequently ran over by a passing truck which failed to brake in time. Later autopsy results show that though he (barely) survived the initial fall and ended up in critical condition, the further injuries he sustained after being crushed under the truck were too much for his body to handle.

Only a mere few hours later, as if he’d somehow sensed his friend’s death, Wang Yao attempted to hang himself using his belt inside his prison cell. However, he was swiftly stopped when the prison guards heard the ruckus he was making. Wang Yao was then interrogated about the business which he was part of; the disgraced merchant proceeded to cooperate fully, disregarding the business’ unforgiving policy on betrayals. The sheer amount of information Wang Yao provided to the authorities was more than enough for them to uncover the secrets of the organization that had long since evaded them. It took a year for the police to close down the business once and for all, along with arresting nearly all of the involved men and women.

After further investigations on the matter, Kasibun’s innocence was ultimately proven. With the help of a friendly judge named Mr. Hawking, he managed to escape the whole event mostly unscathed, and ended up moving along to another city. He was never told much about the details surrounding his false accusations; truthfully, he preferred it to be that way, because he considered himself a simple beggar who wished to lead a simple life. Until the day of his death, he was never informed of his pivotal role in bringing down one of the biggest drug organizations ever to exist in the country, just as Syamsul had never been warned that his first encounter with the merchant calling himself Wang Yao would end up being the beginning of his steady downward spiral and eventual demise.

Kasibun died a simple beggar, with no bigger aspirations than to earn enough to eat for tomorrow, and Syamsul died an equally simple man, believing that his sacrifice on the behalf of his close friend was ultimately just a matter of time anyway. Perhaps a poetic comparison could have been made regarding the eventual fates of these two unlucky men, despite the stark differences which set them apart from one another.

the end

Perkenalan Diri

Nama saya Nadhira Lua Zhafira. Saya bersekolah di SMPN 1 Bandar Lampung. Saya anak pertama dari tiga bersaudara. Hobi saya termasuk main laptop, nonton film, dan tidur siang.