bringing dust to life

nothing you see will amount to anything at all for the rest

[bloodmoonscall]

zhan // they/them lesbian or somesuch // medium powered fandom hag // self-appointed rhiyo captain // overclocked word anarchist // annoying motherfucker

ao3 \\ bluesky \\ main blog

kayfabe compliant // wrestlingverse AU // full AU // tumblr exclusive

[thevulturesquadron]

text: [ “Some of you have forgotten that only three years ago you were perfectly capable of writing an essay, writing a eulogy, telling a bedtime story to a child, and it should worry you that powerful companies have convinced us we can’t do things we’ve been doing for 5000 years.” ]

[rudjedet]

And they're absolutely specifically pushing it, make no mistake. It's not just a matter of "it's there, it's convenient, so people are going to take the path of the least resistance", it is a legitimate and concerted effort on the part of these companies to get people to outsource all these things to their models.

They're preying on insecurities to do it. Yes, you can write an essay - but can you write a good essay, they ask you. Do you not want to improve your output? Do you not want people to think of you as competent and very clever? Why go through the mortifying process of failing and failing and failing until you succeed if you can just skip the "learning" part of doing, and simply generate a ready-made product?

I'm preaching to the choir here obviously but it's a concerning thing to witness nonetheless. My kid is 6 next week and I've been teaching her that failing at things is morally neutral and in fact necessary even before the advent of AI, but it's becoming ever more important that we teach the kids that criticism and failure and discomfort aren't necessarily bad things, but just a part of the growth process.

AI companies are heavily invested in making themselves relevant. They want people to believe they can't do the things they have done unaided before and to make them become reliant on the AI models, so the AI models' existence is artificially justified.

[bloodmoonscall]

i'd like to apologize to my high school english teacher. you were fucking insane sometimes, but you were right.

[writingdose]

Source

[bloodmoonscall]

Thank you for answering! I see the correlation to iyo’s guilt and her reaction to Jennifer’s Body

absolutely! i try to make even the fun/fluffy scenes tie back into the themes in my work, so all three of the movies (resident evil, the woman in black, jennifers body) and their corn field investigations all mirror in some way whats going on emotionally for iyo (and rhea, to a lesser extent)

[bloodmoonscall]

Hi! Really enjoying White Crosses and I was so rxcited seeing an update for it. The inner turmoil brings me back to being that age and in the closet, you capture it so well. I’m a little confused on what happened between Liv x Rhea x Dom and the note from Iyo ? What was the note about or is that something we’ll find out later?

Also Asuka taking the journals has me on the edge of my seat. Looking forward to more

to clarify a bit, since the letter will come back up later, but the explanations mostly complete in bits and pieces across the timeline:

14 y/o iyo forged a letter to dom, supposedly from liv which confessed liv's feelings for him. dom read it, and instantly decided to publicly dump rhea for liv.

liv didn't know about the letter at first, or why dom suddenly was pursuing her, and initially turned dom down. but after a few weeks she and dom started dating anyway, which ended liv and rhea's friendship.

then a year into liv and dom's relationship, dom presents liv with the forged letter as an anniversary gift, which is when liv realizes their entire relationship only started bc of iyos meddling. liv brings the letter back to rhea, and they get fighting.

for the next two years, rhea decides not to mention that she knows iyo intentionally broke her and dom up.

[bloodmoonscall]

White Crosses 2

Rating: Teen Pairing: Rhea Ripley/Iyo Sky CW: High School AU, Closeted Characters, Homophobia, Abusive Family Dynamics Wordcount: 6.8k

playlist / AO3 Crosspost

Authour's Note: Happy birthday, Em.

Asuka sees Iyo driving the truck on the way back home from school.

She and Rhea see her see them, too, the younger girl hissing in a breath and going, “Oh, fuck,” as is appropriate for a situation they know is going to result in Iyo being grounded for at least a month. Maybe more, since she’s just been freed of the two week punishment she got for staying over at Rhea’s abruptly.

Rhea’s been counting down the hours dramatically until their next sleepover. Not that there’s any purpose for it, anymore, since she’s declared she’s over the Liv and Dom situation. Or, no good purpose in Iyo’s books. To Rhea, a Halloween movie marathon is the most important thing in the world. While the idea should terrify Iyo for multiple reasons, her skin’s been singing out to touch Rhea ever since they woke up that Saturday morning chest to chest, Rhea’s chin digging into Iyo’s scalp.

So even outside of the absolute shit show Iyo’s bound to go home to, anxiety stabs through her viciously. The worst of it isn’t the secret truck. It’s the questions that will come with it.

“You can hide out here if you want,” Rhea offers once Iyo’s parked the truck in the garage.

Iyo shakes her head, and shoves her keys into Rhea’s hand. Better they stay in her possession for now, so they can’t be confiscated forever. Her denial does have a point to it. For one, it’s a Tuesday, and if she doesn’t appear at home before sunset, her mother’s bound to be worried sick. For two, it will make Asuka’s case all the stronger.

Rhea looks pitifully sad, like she’s sending Iyo off to her own funeral, which maybe she is. Her fingers grip down over the cool metal and rough leather, squeezing the keychain twice.

“It’s okay. I’ve been practising for this,” Iyo does her best to reassure. She’s gone through almost all the worst-case scenarios. All but one, which surely won’t be brought up, since Asuka has sworn up and down it would kill their parents to find out. While she’ll always lord it over Iyo’s head, that secret is about as safe as it would be if no one knew at all.

Still. It might be a while before she’s allowed to see Rhea in private again, so before she goes, she makes sure to make the most of it.

The taller girl’s hugs are soft, and strong, and smell like all of Iyo’s best dreams.

-ˋˏ ༻⋆⋅❁𖤓❀⋅⋆༺ ˎˊ-

The execution takes place at the dinner table after an excruciating fifteen minutes of idle talk. Kairi refuses to look at anyone while Asuka bores a hole in the side of Iyo’s head. It takes long enough that Iyo foolishly starts to believe that maybe it won’t be mentioned, and sets into her second serving of rice and stew.

Then her father finishes eating, and folds his hands onto the table’s edge to wait the rest of them out. That’s when Asuka springs.

“I didn’t know Iyo’s been driving to school, did you, Kairi?” She says casually, slipping into the rest of the quiet back and forth easily.

Their mother stills in the midst of clearing down their father’s plate, glancing down the line of the three daughters.

Kairi doesn’t respond verbally. As though magnetized, she looks up at Asuka, then turns toward their parents and shakes her head silently, brows ticking up. Expertly puppetted.

“Is that so?” Their father says, looking over at Iyo, his face scrunching down to read the truth before she’s said a thing.

Her mouth feels tacky with spit, flipping through the script in her head frantically to find this exact tactic filed away. Where, oh where, did the words go? The practiced calm starts to evaporate. Iyo sets her bowl down before her hands start to shake, tucking them beneath the table’s edge to smooth clammy palms over her jeans.

That moment of hesitation is enough. Asuka widens her eyes, then dips her head apologetically, sounding perfectly rehearsed herself when she says, “You didn’t tell mom and dad, Iyo?” then to their father, “I’m sorry. I just saw her with Rhea today, I would have said something earlier if I knew.” Her voice is gentle towards everyone else, though it sounds like a rumbling, coarse-edged rebuke to Iyo all the same.

At Rhea’s name, their mother sits back down, dark eyes twinkling in silent worry, offsetting the heavy, drawn look of her husband. The version of the story Asuka fed them about Rhea years ago is very different from the truth in many ways - powerful enough to sew a rift, without being dramatic enough to garner suspicion. Their father opens his mouth, about to make some judgment.

It’s then Kairi speaks, her first and only statement, trying vainly to broker peace. “It might’ve just been a one time thing, as a favour.”

An olive branch, and the perfect jump-off point. Without keys in her pocket, or anyone having seen anything more, Iyo could agree. Make the excuse that Rhea was driven to school by someone else, then left high and dry. It would track with their impression of her: an irresponsible girl with a tumultuous, troubled circle of friends who Iyo had taken her distance from just in time. They’d assume that all the trouble was caused by Rhea’s insistence and Iyo’s bleeding heart.

No one would fault her for having some compassion, but they’d warn her away from it again. Asuka would gnaw hard on the bone, driving in the point that she should be focusing on more important things than a hopeless girl’s troubles, that she’ll only be taken advantage of.

Iyo can’t scapegoat Rhea. That’s not the story; none of her decisions regarding her best friend have ever been anything but Iyo’s own.

For that matter, she’s not about to stroll willingly down a road that will lead her to never experiencing the oasis of morning-and-afternoons alone with Rhea: sitting in the school parking lot talking about nothing; fighting over music; taking pit stops at the corner store; climbing the rocky hilltop overlooking the church; sprinting through the stolen minutes before they’re counting down the hours til they get to do it again.

“No, it’s been all year,” Iyo says, the words she’s mouthed to herself in the shower each night flooding back into her. “It’s a lot quicker than the bus is. I’ve been using the extra time to study.”

She’s careful not to mention Rhea, steering the conversation instead in the direction of the benefits. She also makes certain it doesn’t sound like an apology - on one hand, the deference might help, but on the other, it’s an expression of guilt, and would be halfway to volunteering herself for punishment.

It’s those things that Asuka latches onto. “You didn’t tell anyone - what if something happened?” she feigns saccharine concern first, then pushes hard, lowering her voice just enough to make it seem like she’s saying this for Iyo’s benefit alone, “Did Rhea try to make you think telling us wasn’t okay?”

The least respectful thing to do is to laugh, which is what Iyo does, purely on instinct. That prospect is ridiculous. Her Rhea is an anxious mess. If not for Iyo’s insistence to stay away from her family, she would’ve already appeared at their doorstep ten times over to beg for their permission to spirit Iyo away any-and-everywhere. God’s sake, at the age of twelve, she was still knocking at Iyo’s door and asking her mother if Iyo could come over to her house, even though they already spent every spare scrap of time together.

On the upside, the unintended mockery catches Asuka off guard enough that she shuts up. But it does make her father clear his throat once, hard.

“Be kind to your sister, Iyo. She’s only worried. You have been acting differently lately,” he stresses, gesturing unkindly to her hair, though that’s the only thing they can concretely pinpoint has changed. “She’s right. If there were an accident, would anyone have known where you were?”

Aside from the whole of the town, considering there’s only one road into it? Iyo swallows back the instinct to sass. If it were just Asuka, she would. Back to the script though. Careful. “Rhea’s parents.” She still doesn’t apologize for keeping her family in the dark, or explain why, but she does bow her head to Asuka obediently. “Sorry.”

Asuka can’t glare at her in front of everyone, but she can fix her with one of her scary smiles. “You never used to lie to us, Iyo-chan.”

Bullshit. However far back ‘used to’ stretched, that’s provably not the case. There’s things Iyo’s kept secret since before she knew there were secrets to keep. Feelings on a page, locked far away where they can’t be read by prying eyes anymore, standing in stark contrast to rules on a page that they all follow to a T, vying to fit in with a town that will never see them as equals.

Their mother hides away, remote work insulating her from the sharp edges of would-be-community. Their father never complains about being overqualified but undercompensated. Kairi drives to a college two towns over to evade scrutiny. And Asuka barks them into submission so no one has a scrap of ammunition against their family, who has already made existence itself a secret.

Failing to keep their secrets is the only problem there is.

“I would tell you if I wasn’t scared of you,” Iyo tells the truth that they’re so afraid of, since the veil is already worn through.

Kairi and their mother go still, backs as straight as lightning rods.

“Iyo.” Her father narrows his eyes, speaking sternly before Asuka can rebuke her. He works his jaw like he’s ruminating over what to say. But he can’t find his words, the same way Iyo couldn’t.

None of them can, not even Asuka, eyes flashing dangerously but mouth coiling into a false warmth, like she might decide to soothe. The only reason she doesn’t speak is because it seems like their father might, and any interruption would be deeply disrespectful.

“You’re grounded.” He says, finally, empty of any emotion but dismay.

Iyo shrugs, leaving her uneaten seconds where they are. By the time Asuka thinks to follow her to her room and berate her properly, she’s gone: slipped across the roof, down the gutter, and away. They’re all too afraid of what Rhea’s folks might think of them to give chase.

-ˋˏ ༻⋆⋅❁𖤓❀⋅⋆༺ ˎˊ-

On paper, within her home, Iyo is indeed grounded. It starts out as a month, but is continually extended each time she sneaks out. Asuka takes it upon herself to remind Iyo of the ways she’s a screwup every moment they’re alone together, as though that’s a key aspect of the punishment. She also makes sure that Kairi steers clear of Iyo in case her specific brand of disappointment is contagious.

Aside from that, it’s the typical fare. No TV, no computer (except to type up assignments under Asuka’s supervision), no phone. Only the last part actually matters, since they otherwise don’t do anything about the afternoons she spends missing. So much for caring about her safety. Even without a check-in, her parents don’t flinch when she stays gone through entire weekends.

For their sake, Iyo doesn’t crash at Rhea’s on school nights. That way there’s less questions, and Rhea’s family assumes everything has clicked back into the old normalcy. In some ways, it has.

Halloween falls on a Friday. Iyo’s drawer at Rhea’s place is back to being stuffed full with everything she needs, and some things that just make it feel more like a second home. Plushies that Rhea rolls her eyes at, a film camera and scrapbook that have long been neglected, and her current journal. From beneath them, Iyo grabs out a spare blanket: three stripes of pink and yellow and blue. She scurries back out to the living room, where Rhea’s got the blinds drawn, lights off, bowl of popcorn and pile of pillows illuminated by the tv screen.

There’s basically zero chance of them being disturbed. Aside from one another’s houses, there’s nobody around except for aging farmers. Since there’s no trick-or-treaters to worry about, Rhea’s folks have left them to their own devices, taking her younger sister into town to make the most of its tiny, cramped streets. Three hours of peace. Maybe four, max.

“Blood factor?” Iyo questions, folding herself up next to Rhea. The tail of her blanket drapes over the taller girl’s knee, her nose crinkling at the too-bright colours next to her own black-and-purple one. As if Rhea’s doesn’t literally feature a cartoon skeleton man. Just to bug her, Iyo squirms closer, wrapping her blanket-covered arms around Rhea’s middle. She presses a big, dramatic kiss to Rhea’s cheek.

All Rhea does is flop back pliantly, pressing play. “Four.”

Out of what, Iyo wonders, when half an hour later, someone is diced into pieces by lasers. Twenty-year-old special effects are still fearsome to her. She squeaks uncomfortably and turns away from the sight, burrowing her face into Rhea’s shirt.

“Too much?” she asks, the low sound of her voice so much more gripping than the frantic yelling and over-acting coming from the movie.

Iyo stays quiet, waiting until Rhea’s worry grows a little. Fingers card through Iyo’s hair, scratching lightly across her scalp. Frankly, it does completely offset Iyo’s discomfort, and Rhea should keep it up.

Rhea presses her lips to the crown of her head when she doesn’t respond. “Iyo?”

“I’m ok. I’m… just going to stay here a bit,” she peeks at the screen, happy to see the violence is over for the moment. The best part of the movie is back onscreen - a badass, dark-haired woman who makes Iyo realize she has a thing for that.

“She’s about to get bit,” Rhea spoils, leading Iyo right back into the safe fold of her arms. To their mutual embarrassment, Iyo cries a little when the lady dies in the end despite the heroes’ best efforts.

-ˋˏ ༻⋆⋅❁𖤓❀⋅⋆༺ ˎˊ-

They wind the gore back to what Rhea would probably describe as absolute baby levels, once Iyo’s been re-calmed by a bowl of ice cream and Rhea rubbing soothingly along the stubble at Iyo’s nape.

Ghosts are far less scary than zombies. They can't rip your guts out, or chase you from place to place. They're just sad, or angry, and condemned to protect their final resting places forever. All it takes is leaving, or communicating with them in the right way to fix matters. Only the truly foolish end up possessed. There’s rules, after all, and in Iyo’s book, ghost rules are much more reliable than slasher movie rules.

Rhea tugs on Iyo’s sleeve halfway through the grand unravelling of the mystery: a vengeful woman, separated from her child, torturing all other happy families in the village to soothe herself of her loss.

To Iyo, it’s cathartic. To Rhea, who is shaking like a leaf, it’s too much to sit through, even though Iyo has managed countless scary movies that were her best friend’s idea of fun.

“Fine.” Iyo grabs the remote and flicks them back towards Netflix’s questionable selection. No slashers, no zombies, no ghosts, no elevated horror. Halloween gets weirder and weirder every year. “What else is there?”

-ˋˏ ༻⋆⋅❁𖤓❀⋅⋆༺ ˎˊ-

They land on something both gorier and brighter than their first attempt, featuring some level of demonic possession, eating people alive, and metaphor. Somehow it’s tolerable to both of them. Iyo knows why it’s alright for her: pretty women who don’t immediately die are always a perk, even if some of the interactions between the leads leaves half of her wanting to wriggle away from Rhea, the other half too scared to move at all.

Why Rhea suggested it fondly, Iyo’s not so sure, but she mouths along to the words from time to time. Then, suddenly, just as it seems things are nearing a cliff’s edge, a break.

“I need to go to the bathroom,” Rhea says, fingertips pushing gently against Iyo’s ribcage where they align. It seems like it’s getting to the good part, but Rhea’s apparently seen it before, so doesn’t care about missing it.

Normally Rhea likes seeing Iyo’s reactions, though. So as Iyo lets her up, she grabs the remote to pause it.

“No, keep it going.” Rhea’s words tumble out tersely. Iyo’s so shocked by the tone she drops the remote right there, blink-blinking up at her best friend until she rushes away, leaving a cold void on the couch.

It doesn’t take long for Iyo to figure out why, attention torn from the empty place beside her to the tv by a flood of warm colours and motion and then - kissing. Backlit pink tongues, and falling atop one another. It lasts maybe a minute, but in Iyo’s mind it loops for so much longer. She feels herself flush, warming the very air around her. Mind spinning, Iyo imagines long hair cascades of hair, soft skin, a quiet sound just for her. Again and again, tempted to replay it properly, half-aware of the story going on, injustices and cruelties spilled in such a blasé manner it would’ve maddened her any other time.

Iyo touches her own mouth, thinking. Stays like that, staring at the screen, until Rhea returns a full ten minutes later, fresh bag of popcorn in hand.

She clears her throat. “Refill?”

Iyo drops her hand, licks her dry lips. “Yeah. Okay.” She scoots over to give Rhea room to sit, though she hadn’t needed any extra before she left.

They stay like that until the movie’s over, a beautiful badass dying for the second time that night. This time Iyo doesn’t cry, because Jennifer’s the villain. She deserves it.

Rhea picks at her bowl of popcorn pensively. She hasn’t said much, if anything, since returning, but Iyo feels a weight in the air settling over their shoulders. Any minute now, Rhea’s parents will be home, and whatever it is will disappear, all opportunities to unravel the damp, sad feeling hidden away again.

“If I were her, I would feel sorry for killing Chip,” Iyo says, unsure as to why she does until Rhea’s looking up at her through her lashes, eyes clear enough she can see the past through them.

There it is. Lines of ink comprising a love letter that contains anything but it. Hate, jealousy, bitterness and worse, possessiveness. Iyo’s lying. She wouldn’t feel sorry, because she doesn’t. She feels guilty, because things could have been different, but that’s not the same.

“It’s okay… Needy didn’t love him anyway,” Rhea knows what Iyo’s getting at, and excuses it out of loyalty, even though she doesn’t actually understand why Iyo’s done anything. “Besides, I don’t think she did it to hurt her?”

No, she didn’t. Never had dreamed of it, even when her whole world was at risk. “She wanted to keep Needy to herself. That’s still not right.” Iyo twists her fingers together, realizing where this path leads.

Rhea reaches out to her through the dark, fingertips brushing Iyo’s knee. As of late, every mundane touch feels bigger than it ought to. They stay there, holding their breath for what might be coming until headlights flash through the window, and the sound of tires over gravel rushes in to buy Iyo yet another night of safe deception.

-ˋˏ ༻⋆⋅❁𖤓❀⋅⋆༺ ˎˊ-

“Rhea?” Iyo mumbles into her pillow later on, unable to sleep for the guilt roiling through her. Their fingers are interlaced over Rhea’s stomach, but in the pitch black, Iyo can pretend she’s in her own room instead, merely fantasizing about how this kind of talk might go.

“Hm?” The other girl mumbles back, hand squeezing slowly enough it must be mere moments before Rhea falls unconscious.

If Iyo waits long enough, Rhea might remember this as just some vague dream come morning. Would that be better or worse as an outcome?

“I am sorry.” Iyo’s still not brave enough to say what for, in case this suddenly wheels around into a conversation about why. While Rhea would never push her like that, it wouldn’t take much right now to get her to spill far too much of the truth.

“Mm. I love you.” Rhea responds sleepily, pulling Iyo’s arms even tighter around herself.

All sins forgiven, but the words twist like an awful injury in Iyo’s chest. Not quite right, not quite true. “I love you too.” Iyo means that in so many ways. It will never die.

-ˋˏ ༻⋆⋅❁𖤓❀⋅⋆༺ ˎˊ-

In the morning, before Rhea awakens, Iyo writes of the dreams that torment her.

My world becomes you. With every helpless moment I hear the thudding of your heart beneath me, more of my ends unraveling and yours winding in to replace my defenses.

It doesn’t feel so scary like that. I’m as protected as I ever was, buttoned up safely behind words I don’t say anywhere but here, on paper. These lines, spirited away into a bookbag destined to travel anywhere but home, where no one else cares to hear my voice.

You’ve asked me twice now, what I write about. ‘Things that scare me,’ was my answer three years ago. ‘What I need to say but can’t yet,’ I said this year when you asked me again, both of us sitting as hermits atop our hillside, watching the town squirm around in agony at its self-imposed isolation.

Both things are true, even if it is all a poor excuse for poetry. It’s the only way to work the feelings out of my chest so they won’t overflow at the wrong time, too syrupy to be of use. Better to make a mess here, so when it comes time, I can say what I mean properly.

-ˋˏ ༻⋆⋅❁𖤓❀⋅⋆༺ ˎˊ-

They explore the cornfield that day. Though they cut through it on the way to one another often enough, it’s as close to a mythological figure there is in town, something as strange as them. Once past the highway, it’s all farmland, but beyond this one field is mostly wheat, canola, hay, barley. Lines all clear, service roads and fences chasing back towards farmhouses making obvious who owns what. Not so for this one section.

Iyo tried figuring it out once, going crosseyed looking at surveys she didn’t really understand how to read. All it got her was the name of the owner back in 1970, when the last survey held in the library was done. Turns out city hall keeps everything from the last 50 years there, and it’s not that interesting to pester officials over. Rhea did some googling of the owner’s name and found an obituary, and a list of his family members, none of whom were familiar to them, oddly enough.

That’s when they stopped caring about really solving the mystery properly - since it seemed tedious and boring to do - and started revelling in the idea of the mystery instead.

Maybe one of their houses is an old farmhouse, burnt down and rebuilt again sometime during the 80s, with this field forgotten about, tended to still by the farmer ghost. Or, the tending of it is a tandem responsibility of all the surrounding farmers, seeking to hide something hidden below the field itself. Rhea thinks it’s a government study regarding small-town nosiness, which they’re failing. Iyo’s personal leaning is that the corn is alive - like, sentient. She swears the stalks change height, moving around in the middle of the night to reorganize themselves.

Bright as it is, every chill breeze that rustles the stalks leaves Iyo’s hair standing on edge.

Rhea experimentally taps her fingers along the back of Iyo’s hand when she shivers. Iyo cedes, weaving her fingers between Rhea’s. The tall girl’s palms feel colder than the air itself.

They stop at a little clearing where some of the stalks have been flattened down. Probably a few deer trampling through, since the ground is also free of the corn itself.

“Aliens,” Rhea says. It’s too small to be a crop circle. Like, smaller than Iyo’s wingspan.

Iyo kicks the fallen stalks away to expose the damp soil below, where there are definitely hoof marks. She nods in agreement. “Baby aliens. Look at those feet.”

They investigate for an hour more. Then, because they’re a little turned around, Rhea lifts Iyo up onto her shoulders to peek up over the top of the stalks and find their way back. It sort of works, except for Rhea’s grip on Iyo’s thighs being equal parts distracting and ticklish. She also sees a strange shape in the distance, and Rhea decides they ought to investigate. It turns out to be an old, rusted out tractor, overgrown by the very fields it used to serve. Rhea rifles around in it, and concludes it's an '83 model, somehow.

After that discovery, Rhea lifts Iyo up onto the hood, and pushes up next to her. The tractor’s not far from Rhea's house, but there's no windows facing it, which explains why neither of them ever noticed it before. There’s so many more theories they can craft over this.

“Do you think the aliens would be mad if we had a picnic in their corn field?” Iyo muses, chipping bits of red paint off with the toe of her boot.

“Yes,” Rhea confirms with zero hesitation. Her head tilts back, surveying the bright blue sky that's completely cloudless.

The forecast calls for snow within the next couple of weeks, but for now, it’s still the slightest bit warm whenever the wind stops blowing. These types of outings will soon be much more of a pain in the ass, since getting stuck in a field up to their waists in snow is never ideal. "Do you want to do it anyway?"

Rhea grins.

-ˋˏ ༻⋆⋅❁𖤓❀⋅⋆༺ ˎˊ-

One afternoon, waiting for her heart to join her on the bench next to the parking lot, Iyo confesses even worse in her cowards’ journal, hands shaking all the while.

Maybe that’s not the real, full reason either. I like letting myself be taken over by these feelings, actually. Openly thinking about things I shouldn’t entertain.

It’s like scratching at an itch beneath a bandage. Satisfying, but risky.

If anyone ever sees any of this, it will be a million times worse than the last time. I got away with confessing a confused crush to the page, all fleeting thoughts of kissing you that I couldn’t even be confident in writing out in full.

I can’t escape now. Month after month, going on about your soft mouth, sharp eyes, freckle-speckled nose, broad shoulders, damp breath cooling my warm skin in the morning before you stir. How maddening it feels when I’m standing there, between a line of lockers and you: the image of you pushing me to them, damning us both so I don’t have to do it first.

Making it all sound dreamy and unreal keeps it safe from my own scrutiny. Otherwise, there’s no way I could write every day about all the ways I love you, and have it feel okay.

No matter how politely you pry, none of these words have ever been meant for you.

Tucked under that page is another that she’s torn out from three years ago, ready to hand over to its final home and judge. Iyo already confessed, in a way, and was forgiven. But maybe if Rhea hears everything well and truly in her own words, all that clemency will be erased and replaced with the condemnation Iyo’s well-earned.

Her breath puffs out shakily ahead of her once Rhea appears, the last bits of cool sunshine haloing her. An angel, come to judge her at last.

-ˋˏ ༻⋆⋅❁𖤓❀⋅⋆༺ ˎˊ-

It’s done. I didn’t think it would be that easy, so on one hand I’m relieved, because that has to mean Dom was seriously the wrong guy for Rhea, but… he didn’t even wait a full day.

I dropped the letter into his locker first thing in the morning, and by lunch he was sitting with Liv. I wasn’t there, so I don’t know fully what happened. It’s all just a bunch of rumours and one video someone took of the tail end of it, right before Rhea ran out.

If I had known it was going to happen like that, I would’ve made sure to invite her to eat lunch with me first, so she wouldn’t have had to walk right into it. It might’ve been suspicious, since we haven’t done more than say hi in the hallways for two weeks now, but she would’ve still said yes to me, I think.

What kind of guy breaks up with someone in public like that?

I should give Liv a little bit of credit. She didn’t immediately say yes to Dom. She even chased Rhea out to see if she was okay. I’m not really sure how Rhea feels about anything yet. I mean, I can guess. But I do want to hear it from her directly.

Everything will fall fully into place soon, but I need to find out if Liv knows about the letter. While the way Liv looks at Dom is obvious enough, if she finds out too soon, then all I’ve actually accomplished is outing Dom as a scumbag and driving Rhea even closer to Liv. As much as I’m glad she’s not completely awful, I still can’t stand seeing Rhea follow her around like a shadow.

I’ll invite Rhea over after school to talk. I’m sure with just a little bit of nudging, she’ll stay far away from both of them from now on. Then we can get back to normal.

-ˋˏ ༻⋆⋅❁𖤓❀⋅⋆༺ ˎˊ-

“How did you know?” Iyo asks once Rhea’s done reading. She doesn’t react at all, aside from folding the entry up and handing it back.

They’re sitting atop their hill, watching the sunset. It was hell to climb in the snow, but they needed a modicum of privacy for this, and some kind of neutral territory not too far from home in case Rhea reacted poorly.

A part of Iyo wants to tear the paper up and cast it into the bitter wind, but she tucks it safely into her pocket. There, it burns.

“Dom kept the letter and had it framed for their first anniversary,” Rhea explains, tugging the too-small gloves she’s borrowed from Iyo back on.

She stops to blow a puff of air along them, tempting Iyo to grab Rhea’s hands, folding them under the lower edge of Iyo’s coat. The younger girl never dresses appropriately for the start of winter, forever mistaking the slight warmth of midday for a permanent fixture. Jeans, a hoodie, and a flannel aren’t going to cut it for long out here once it’s dark.

“Liv realized,” Iyo surmises.

Rhea nods. Her hands shake a bit against Iyo, but she soldiers on, voice steady. “That’s why they broke up the first time. She recognized your writing and went nuts, threw it in my locker like a scarlet letter. Like it was my fault their relationship started on a lie, when -... sorry,” she cuts herself off suddenly as Iyo’s face betrays her, mouth going sour.

The shadow of guilt behind Rhea’s eyes just makes the feeling worse, regret and self-loathing punching holes in Iyo’s stomach. Why Rhea thinks she needs to apologize to Iyo for acknowledging what she’s done is beyond her, but maybe that’s part and parcel with the consequences. Some part of her must think Iyo’s still a flight risk, willing to leave her behind over the slightest rebuke. All Iyo wanted - and wants - is for Rhea to look at her full of the obsession Iyo feels. Too late, she’s realized that Rhea can’t, because she’s a good person.

Iyo shakes her head, dismissing the need for clemency. Rhea might not think Iyo deserves to hang, but she does.

The younger girl shifts her gaze away, sweeping over the town. Her hands slip from Iyo’s weak grip, folding up instead between her own thighs to re-warm. “Anyway. She thought it was a prank.”

A bit of this does surprise Iyo. Over the last couple of years, Liv’s never been directly hostile to Iyo. They don’t interact much by habit, but … not even a glare. If Iyo cared more about Liv, she might decide to dwell on it, unravelling why Rhea took all the ire in her stead.

Some parts are easy enough to guess at without much thought, at least. “Did she think you were in on it?”

Rhea shrugs. “Guess so. I don’t know why I would get my own boyfriend to break up with me, but, whatever. She blames me.”

Iyo doesn’t recall Rhea acting particularly wounded in a way that matches up to what she’s saying. By that point, she and Rhea were distant again, Liv and Dom’s absences not enough to stave off Iyo’s own hurts. Even so, she should’ve been able to tell from a distance if something like this happened. And yet.

“It was tough not to ask you about it back then, but, well. I was scared of everything getting worse.”

She had hidden away precisely because she knew Iyo might still be watching.

It vexes Iyo. All the terrible things she’s done to Rhea’s heart, and still she cares. Even now, she doesn’t ask why any of it happened. Why Iyo hated Dom that much, why things took a turn for the worse even with him and Liv gone, why everything had started to mend now, without any of the pains properly acknowledged.

Guilt stabs again at Iyo, even worse now that she’s handed one careful segment of the truth over. Her eyes sting. Her chest aches. It’s not fair to Rhea to keep hiding.

Iyo tries to speak and finds her voice broken. “I - I’m so sorry,” she sniffles stupidly, teary where Rhea ought to be. “I can’t, I’m still not -,”

Rhea looks back at her. Only then does the stony exterior fall, the guarded lines of her best friend’s face morphing into the sweet, caring, nervous girl Iyo loves. She loves the stubborn and withdrawn Rhea too, Iyo realizes with a start, for all she’s done to keep them both going through this. It’s only because of her that Iyo can say they're still friends at all.

Whatever fear Iyo feels, she needs to be able to carry some of the burden for once. She sniffs back all the turmoil, swallowing away the word ready, in favour of a new start. “It’s not about me, though.”

That seems to be enough to bolster Rhea’s confidence, justifying her upset, because she stands and brushes herself off.

“I don't care that you broke us up,” she clarifies, tone strained. “I’ve had a long time to think about it, and you were right. He didn't take much convincing, and Liv didn't wait for me to be okay before going back after him, either.”

Rhea doesn't pause there long, shaking her head. The long, dark hair around her face shadows her disconcertingly. Iyo scrambles up to follow as she starts to make her way down the ragged hillscape. Every step down feels as dangerous as Rhea’s words.

“I needed my friend. But I cried my eyes out in your room that night, and that was the last time you ever let me into your house.”

Rhea makes her way down a tall, steep outcropping of rock. For her, it’s just a step down. For Iyo it’s a whole thing. Afraid to ask Rhea to stop and give her a steadying hand, Iyo instead scurries the long way around. It takes her a minute to catch back up, Rhea not waiting in the least. She moves like she’s about to leave Iyo behind entirely; Iyo’s got the truck keys in her pocket, right beside the confession.

Once they get near, Iyo unlocks it. Rhea stands there, shifting her weight from foot to foot like she’s debating whether she should even get in.

She is.

“It’s cold and dark. Let me drive you home.” All Iyo wants is to make sure Rhea is safe. Besides, what’s she going to do, drive it back alone to Rhea’s house, shrugging her shoulders at her liveaway parents and going Dunno where your daughter is, exactly, she didn't trust me enough to bring her back.

There she goes again, thinking about herself - her dignity, the impression she has on Rhea’s family.

Rhea just keeps staring at the truck, so Iyo locks it again and walks around to the tailgate, popping it open instead and sitting herself down on the freezing metal.

“You know how I don't let you read my journals?” Iyo says. Let you is a weird way to go about saying it though, when Rhea’s never pestered. She corrects herself. “How I don't show you my journals?”

Iyo doesn't look over her shoulder to see whether Rhea’s moved at this point. She might lose her nerve if she does, and set about crying full-tilt.

“To be honest, I don't fucking care what’s in them,” Rhea replies, the first truly honest thing she’s said to Iyo in ages. It stings like nothing else. “All I want to know is what I did to make you hate me.”

Correction: that stings like nothing else.

Iyo wheels around, finding Rhea right there, hovering over the wheelwell. She doesn't look angry. In fact, she looks the same as ever, which is far more terrifying. How many times had Rhea looked at her like that, while holding back terrible thoughts that Iyo kept feeding?

“I don’t!” Iyo pleads, and there goes her voice, breaking again pathetically.

Rhea shrugs, and starts walking.

-ˋˏ ༻⋆⋅❁𖤓❀⋅⋆༺ ˎˊ-

It’s tense the whole bus ride home. Rhea doesn't feel like talking, which is fair enough, but she hasn't given any indication as to whether she’s going home with Iyo, either. When Iyo asked, all she got was a blank, red-rimmed stare, and a shrug.

It’s been four hours since Dom broke up with her publicly, so she’s entitled to some emotion. When Iyo sits herself down next to the heartbroken girl, she doesn't try to strike up a conversation, in case Rhea finds it easier to cope in silence like Iyo does.

When they get off at their stop, Iyo does hold her hand up at shoulder height, helping Rhea down the drop from the last step to the dusty ground. The driver has never gotten the hand of letting them off on level ground.

Rhea takes her hand in silence, hopping down. She’s less sure on her feet than Iyo is, more like a baby moose than a girl.

“My princess,” Iyo gives a little bow and a grin.

Rhea rolls her eyes, but she does smile a little, and starts walking in the direction of Iyo’s place.

Iyo skips after her. All is going according to plan.

-ˋˏ ༻⋆⋅❁𖤓❀⋅⋆༺ ˎˊ-

At least, that’s the case all through the night, while Rhea stains Iyo’s sheets and pillowcases with eyeliner she hasn't figured out how to remove properly yet, hiccuping insecurities out to Iyo that only she has ever heard.

Liv is the type of girl that people want. Rhea’s been trying to imitate her but knows everyone can tell she’s different anyway, and Iyo’s the only one who makes Rhea feel like she can be herself. No one will ever love her.

Iyo dissuades some, but not all of those concerns. She loves Rhea’s differences, after all. Every bit from the morbid to the nerdy. It doesn't matter to her that Rhea doesn't feel quite right wearing a skirt, and she’s no less pretty when she’s got her hair gathered up in a bun for soccer practice than she is before she heads out on a date with Dom.

Iyo only knows what that looks like because Rhea always takes pictures to show Iyo, wanting some kind of feedback that isn't just you are so pretty. That’s all Iyo can give her though. It’s the truth, at least partway.

Come the crack of dawn, Rhea feels no better and heads home to rest in private, unable to sleep in Iyo’s bed. She thanks Iyo anyhow, tells her how much she needed that, but leaves no opening for Iyo to follow.

Iyo has failed at erasing the hurt as easily as she hoped.

It’s frustrating, so she writes it out, same as always.

Why does she want anyone else’s opinion? Everyone else wants her to be someone different. I don't. I just want her to love me back.

I wonder how she’d react if I told her for real? Maybe she’d believe me more if she knew, even if nothing else works out. I think she’d at least give me a chance, especially right now with everything going on.

I think I might

“Iyo-chan!” Kairi calls. “Breakfast!”

Iyo pauses, pen frozen in the air. She’s incredibly tempted to keep writing, shaking the soft, heady thoughts out of her head until the impulse is gone. But her stomach growls, and she remembers that she had skipped out on dinner in favour of comforting Rhea the previous night. For Rhea’s comfort, she’d scooted her dresser over in front of the door, so even after the third time her sisters called, they wouldn't be interrupted.

She wonders if Rhea’s appetite has returned enough to be eating breakfast right now. Even if it hasn’t, she’s probably munching on some dry Froot Loops to appease her own family.

“Iyo!” Asuka calls, more harshly, from right outside. “If your door is locked again -”

Iyo leaves her journal where it is and rushes to her feet, swinging the door open breezily. “I don't know what you mean,” she grins playfully, pushing past to settle her stomach of at least one ache.

Behind her, Asuka stares carefully through the open door. By the time Iyo finishes eating, every one of her journals has been stolen.

[achillesinhighheels]

[azaablue]

the best fanfiction you've ever read was written by a woman in her 40s before she made dinner for her kids. it was written by a teenager after school when they should've been studying for a history test. and a barista came up with the idea while they cleaned the espresso machine and busser fact-checked it on their break and the post-doc edited between writing grant proposals and the nurse apologized for typos in the notes after a long shift and behind every drabble and one-shot and multi-chapter fic there is a person with a wonderful and interesting and chaotic life and it is such a privilege that we get to be apart of it because they decided to do this thing we all share, for fun.

[blazestarr-deactivated20230220]

[metamorphesque]

In Praise of Boredom, Joseph Brodsky

[bloodmoonscall]

thoughts. i dont rly use tumblr a tonne these days but between fic posts wonder if throwing the occasional wrestling/writing reblogs in would be a terrible PITA.

thinkin could just throw a #not-fic tag on them and call it a day

[bloodmoonscall]

White Crosses 1

Rating: Teen Pairing: Rhea Ripley/Iyo Sky CW: High School AU, Closeted Characters, Homophobia, Abusive Family Dynamics Wordcount: 5.5k

Summary: Freeze, Iyo thinks. Do not look at her, do not touch her. Do nothing.

If she's very, very lucky, Rhea will let it be. If not, she'll wait until they're in the warm dark, shoulder to shoulder under the covers of Rhea's bed, and the younger girl will turn to her, and push.

Maybe Iyo can handle this kind of closeness again, so long as she's careful about it.

playlist / AO3 Crosspost

Every morning, Iyo and Rhea meet at the corner of the old corn field.

At least, they call it old because no one ever tends it. It just grows and grows, never being harvested, but surely someone must own it. During the winter, none of the corn seems to fall to the ground to rot or germinate. If it does, Rhea doesn’t notice when she weaves her way through the field. Or something spirits it up when they’re not looking, and replaces it by the time they’ve looked back.

It’s weird, they decided. But they don’t actually talk about it much, because it is just a corn field after all, and there’s more interesting things to discuss while waiting for the bus to arrive.

Like how, over the past summer where Iyo didn’t see Rhea, the girl managed to shoot up four inches in height. She’s a year younger than Iyo, just entering her first year of high school (not that there’s enough students around for them to have separate schools - so, call it like it is, tenth grade). Unfortunately for Iyo, Rhea was already taller than she was, so life’s not really fair.

Iyo startles when she sees Rhea moving through the corn, because between that and the black hair, she looks like a stranger. A stranger that gives the same warm hugs, albeit with Iyo now at chest level. Iyo thinks to complain about that too, before realizing how awkward that would be to point out.

So instead, once they’re on the bus and everyone else is done fawning over Rhea, Iyo dramatically tilts her forehead against the streaky window. She watches the fields start to break into old timber frame buildings that have been there for longer than Iyo cares to keep track of, pockmarked by sprawling suburbs around them that were thrown up without care through the 80s. What an ugly town.

Rhea lasts through ninety seconds of silence before nudging Iyo. “You know I’m bad at apologies.”

Twenty seconds. Then Iyo lets out a long, forlorn huff, all drama.

“I’m sorry, okay?” Rhea attempts. Then, she leans over, wrapping her arm around Iyo’s shoulder, worming her hand between the window and Iyo’s face to pull her back over for another hug. This time, Iyo closes her eyes before she meets a faceful of band tee.

She smells good. Damn, Iyo’s lost her mad-at-Rhea nerve already. And just like Iyo knows exactly how many seconds it takes for Rhea to pack it in, Rhea knows exactly when she can pull back without Iyo going frosty again.

“You said you would tell me before you did it.” Iyo gestures to the younger girl’s hair, which is now the same colour as Iyo’s, more or less, and also longer. Now, if Iyo cuts off a foot of her hair and bleaches it, it’s going to look like some insane reaction to what Rhea did, and not like a team shock-their-town effort. Bitch. Okay, she’s mad again.

Rhea looks very different, but her eyes soften and crinkle at Iyo the same as always. “Impulse, you know how I am. Should’ve let you know. I can come over this weekend and help you with yours?”

Iyo sighs, this time less frosty and more world-weary. Rhea knows that coming round her place is a bad idea. Once upon a time, Asuka had liked Rhea just fine, but over the last three years, she’d soured on the girl. Iyo knows why, and Rhea doesn’t, so this kind of discussion is always hard. Besides, Iyo supposes whatever fallout there would be from fucking up her hair would be best handled solo, so that way her eldest sister can’t blame Rhea’s influence again.

“You know you can’t.” Mumbling it doesn’t help, actually, but Iyo’s incapable of denying Rhea at normal human volume. During their rare fights, it’s all either shouting, or regretful whispers while Iyo stares at her hands.

“Yeah.” Rhea clicks her tongue, hurt. She looks across the aisle through the opposite window, but she doesn’t try to ask again why she’s hated.

A hundred and fifteen seconds. The bus pauses at a four way stop next to the corner store.

“I got my license over the summer,” Iyo says. She’d meant to surprise Rhea by picking her up once she actually has a car to drive. At least another month for that, though. Her parents, on Asuka’s recommendation, thought it best to make sure she’s able to keep up with her junior year workload before they throw any promise of freedom her way.

Rhea, turns back, eyes gleaming in amazement. “My dad got the Chevy to run last weekend.”

There is nothing that sounds more terrifying to Iyo than to driving her best friend’s dad’s old beater truck around without her own family’s knowledge or permission. If Asuka sees them…

“I’ll meet you at your place tomorrow at 7,” Iyo agrees.

-ˋˏ ༻⋆⋅❁𖤓❀⋅⋆༺ ˎˊ-

It pisses Iyo off how nice and normal Rhea’s family is compared to hers.

“There’s my favourite liveaway daughter,” Rhea’s dad greets her per usual, then lobs a leather keychain at her with not one, but two keys on it. Iyo stares at it until he explains, “House key. So you can park it in the garage.”

She already knows where they keep the spare, but having a dedicated copy is a bit different. Iyo thanks him, talking down to her hands again instead of looking his way. To save her from awkwardness, Rhea drags her off to her room, sitting crosslegged on her bed while she tries to shove all her things into her bag. Iyo lays down right next to her, knowing this will take at least five minutes.

“Iyo, have you eaten?” Rhea’s mom pokes her head in unexpectedly. Iyo startles, moving to stand and put some distance between them. Rhea looks at her weirdly. Rhea’s mom doesn’t seem to care either way.

Even if she hadn’t, all they eat is sugary cereal, which only fills Iyo’s stomach for about ten minutes. It’s so expensive, too. Iyo really doesn’t get why anyone bothers. “I am fine. Thank you.” She bows instinctively, earning a slap on the thigh from Rhea. The older girl winces, even though it didn’t hurt much, and rubs at the spot to bury the strange, out-of-place warmth.

“A drink before you go then? Coffee, tea, juice?” She’s just trying to make Iyo feel at home. That’s their thing. Especially once Iyo stopped staying over, like that had anything to do with their hospitality and not - well, whatever. It’ll hurt their feelings if Iyo rejects them, so she nods, and agrees to tea.

“You gotta stop acting like an arsonist with a can of kerosene in your hand around them,” Rhea chides once her mom’s gone, trying to find a place in her bag to shove her sketchbook. It fit just fine yesterday. Iyo doesn’t know what the hell she did. “They think they like, did something.”

Did I do something? Rhea doesn’t ask. She knows she’s the actual issue, or close to it, but when it’s only the two of them alone, it’s fine. They’re in a Schrodinger's cat situation, basically. But Iyo will not let Rhea open the box to find out the truth.

Instead, Iyo walks over to Rhea, dumps out her entire bag on the bed, and says, “Let’s just start over before we’re late.”

-ˋˏ ༻⋆⋅❁𖤓❀⋅⋆༺ ˎˊ-

This year, Iyo’s spare block (that she didn’t tell her parents she opted for) lines up with Rhea’s art class. Basically, that means Iyo can act as a plus one. The art teacher doesn’t mind so long as the tagalongs aren’t disruptive or distracting. She’s never the former, but some of the time is the latter. Iyo can normally tell when Rhea’s in one of those moods though, and plan accordingly.

Like today, when Rhea texted her in the middle of four different classes, complaining to differing degrees that Liv has gotten back together with Rhea’s first sort-of-boyfriend. Three year old drama, here to haunt Iyo again. She’s going to have to sit through an earful on the way home anyway, so at minimum it’s best to keep Rhea out of trouble, even if she will act scorned over Iyo dodging her.

If they’re going down memory lane, they may as well do it properly. Iyo stops by her locker and leafs through the years’ worth of journals she safeguards there, stopping to grab out the one from eighth grade with no small amount of trepidation. She does reread these with some regularity, but this one always sucks.

It’s mid-October, but still relatively warm, so Iyo settles out in the schoolyard under a half-bald tree to read. There they are, right around Halloween, when two back-to-back entries signal the flip from Rhea-and-Iyo to Rhea and Iyo.

First:

People make new friends. That’s normal. Just because I’m not, doesn’t mean I should be upset that others are. Besides, you can like new things without becoming bored with the old things. It doesn’t have anything to do with me. They’re the same as always.

Why am I doing this? “People”? “Others”? “They’re”? I only have one friend. It’s Rhea. Everything I have to say is about Rhea. What’s the point of pretending otherwise?

So. Rhea’s friends with Liv now, I guess. Am I bitter about it? Yes. Why? I don’t know. Well, I guess I sort of do. She stopped eating lunch with me.

That’s not exactly true. She did invite me to sit with them once, but it felt uncomfortable, so I blew her off after that for a week, until she stopped asking. Last week, she looked over at me once and I felt like throwing up, so I’ve been eating outside the computer lab since. Not hard to hide from her, or ignore texts, surprisingly. Guess we’ve been attached at the hip for so long I assumed she’d have spidey senses by now.

Mostly we’re at the not-mentioning-it stage. She tried asking over the weekend when I was sleeping over next, but I acted like I didn’t know what she was talking about and did the whole, “I’ve been really focused on this project that’s due soon” runaround. I’m bad at lying to her. But I think she didn’t know what else to say to me, and I hated the way she was looking at me, so I made a mistake.

I asked her about Liv.

She smiled. Like nothing, like suddenly she wasn’t bothered at all about the last couple weeks we’ve spent sort-of not talking. That sick feeling came back. But I forced myself to listen.

“She’s so chatty, I’m not used to it. She’ll just be talking and I can’t get a word in, not that I even care because she is so damn pretty.”

I didn’t say anything at all, and eventually she noticed, and stopped talking. Then she put on one of those gory movies I hate on purpose so I’d be too scared to walk home alone.

After, when I was laying in her bed, too scared to sleep, and also too scared to reach out for her, all I could think was that Rhea has never called me pretty.

I still don’t know why that bothers me.

Emotionally, Iyo knows she’s tearing open a set of stitches before they’ve actually had time to knit shut. Unfortunately for her, it’s bound to happen one way or the other. Rhea hasn’t keyed in to Iyo brushing off her texts yet, but she will. The years have sharpened her instincts to Iyo’s strange periods of withdrawal, and all the walls that erupted between them during that time.

She reads on to the second:

No sense in beating around the bush. Rhea has a boyfriend now.

I shouldn’t be surprised. She’s always been pretty, but lately…

Even here, I feel like I shouldn’t be thinking like this. I have to say it somewhere though, it feels like it’s going to tear out of me during the worst quiet moment between us. Every time she looks at me lately through the dark, I think, “I could. Right now, I could.”

There’s a difference between someone being pretty and finding someone pretty. I used to not care about how Rhea smelled, or think twice about changing in the same room as her. We held hands all the time, and she could kiss me on the cheek and I wouldn’t care. When I looked at photos of us, I remembered where we were and what we were doing. Now, I remember her, and that’s it, because she’s all I pay attention to.

If I were Dominik, I’d ask Rhea out, too.

He hasn’t done anything that wrong, but I hate him anyway. He kisses her in the hallway, and she doesn’t even flinch even though I know she doesn’t like that kind of thing. We’ve talked about it. She’s told me everything about the kind of boy she’d like to date. She likes someone who keeps their feelings precious between them. I even made fun of her for being so sappy.

If I were Dominik, I wouldn’t kiss her like that.

Why do I want to kiss her?

I’ve never, ever in my life wanted Rhea to be hurt. But I can’t stand seeing him look at her. I need it to be over, even if it ends up breaking her heart.

This is all my fault for pulling away from her. If I didn’t, maybe he never would’ve approached her. And if he did, I’m sure she would’ve cared more about spending time with me than falling for his lines. I never should have let things get this far.

Please forgive me for what I’m about to do. She’ll never love me if she finds out, but …

Well, she’ll never love me like that anyway.

Iyo shutters the memories away, grabs her phone, and texts Rhea back even though she knows there’s a good chance she doesn’t have it on silent, and it’ll get confiscated.

Let’s talk after school, okay? 💖

-ˋˏ ༻⋆⋅❁𖤓❀⋅⋆༺ ˎˊ-

Iyo calls Kairi hurriedly after the last bell rings to let her know she'll be out with Rhea. They're always honest with each other, at least as much as they can be with their eldest sister hovering over them like a hawk. She doesn't like putting Kairi in the in-between spot, but it's that or not telling anyone at all. And she’s already keeping a pretty substantial secret about the truck.

Anyway, Kairi's gotten pretty good at breaking the news of Iyo's minuscule rebellions to everyone over the last few years, so by the time she's back home Sunday evening after hiding out at Rhea's place for all the time she can manage, things will have calmed down. Probably. She's sure she'll still get grounded once Asuka's done laying out all the ways Iyo's a reckless screwup to their parents, but that will be after the weekend’s over. They can't yell at her on a Sunday without being hypocrites.

Even though Rhea’s still lamenting her ex-best friend (not Iyo) dating her ex-boyfriend (again, not Iyo), by the time they’re sitting on the curb outside the ice cream shop, half a scoop of rocky road down, the righteous inferno she’s feeling has reduced to an annoyed simmer.

Iyo nudges the toe of her chucks against Rhea’s vans. “I think this calls for a sleepover.”

Things get oddly quiet for a second. If not for the buzz of the ice machine out front, Iyo would wonder if she’s gone deaf. All that actually happened was that Rhea stopped breathing. She turns to Iyo and exhales, the shakiest thing Iyo’s ever heard, and grins crazy. “Goddamn right it does.”

She doesn’t question why, after three careful years of not doing that, Iyo’s suddenly inviting herself over. Maybe it doesn’t count as inviting herself now that she has her own keys. For a second, though, Iyo stalls, wondering whether things will be any different. Will Rhea set her up to sleep on the couch, like at group sleepovers? Then, she realizes she doesn’t have a change of clothes at all, and can’t exactly go home unless she’s sneaking in, because then she won’t be let go.

“Um,” Iyo says, already wondering if there’s a way to back out of it.

Rhea punches her in the shoulder, hard. Iyo winces. With the extra height also came a lot of strength that the younger girl still doesn’t seem aware of. “Do not.” That’s as close to addressing the elephant in the room as she gets.

“Sorry.” Iyo spoons some mint chip into her mouth to distract from her brain’s less reasonable thoughts. When she licks the back of the spoon off, Rhea watches her carefully. Weird. “Do I have some on my face?”

Rhea blinks, looks away and then back like she hadn't just been regarding her. "A bit." She gestures at the side of her mouth. Iyo swipes at it with the back of her hand, but must miss it, because Rhea leans forward and goes, "No, like... just hold still." Her thumb brushes across the edge of Iyo's lip, distinctly on the opposite side of her face.

Freeze, Iyo thinks. Do not look at her, do not touch her. Do nothing. From an outside perspective, her eyes must be like dark saucers, true deer-in-the-headlights, staring blankly down the road towards an empty intersection where nothing's happening. She stays like that until she feels Rhea pull her hand away. "Thanks," she says to no one.

Iyo doesn't have to look to know that Rhea's expression has collapsed into something horribly torn. She's summoned it up before by turning cagey, many times.

If she's very, very lucky, Rhea will let it be. If not, she'll wait until they're in the warm dark, shoulder to shoulder under the covers of Rhea's bed, and the younger girl will turn to her, and push. That, beyond any physical proximity or familial pressure, is why Iyo stopped staying over. Not tonight, though. It's about Rhea tonight, and a broken heart Iyo promised to herself she'd always be there to mend.

She does something else she hasn’t done in a while to distract from it all. Like trailing a carrot on a stick, Iyo grabs Rhea’s hand and entwines their fingers. “Once we’re out of town, you want to try driving us back without burning out the clutch?”

That does the trick. Rhea all but pulls her back to the truck, breaking apart from Iyo only long enough to clamber in. Once they’re buckled, though, she’s placing her hand over the gearshift, giving Iyo no choice but to place hers overtop. Innocent, but it feels domestic enough for Iyo's stomach to do all sorts of cartwheels.

Maybe Iyo can handle this kind of closeness again, so long as she's careful about it.

-ˋˏ ༻⋆⋅❁𖤓❀⋅⋆༺ ˎˊ-

Rhea does stall them twice, with thankfully nobody around to judge. Once they’re back in the driveway, she balks at the prospect of driving into the garage next to her dad's other, not-shitbox truck. So she hops out, and Iyo slides over to the driver's side to park it. From outside, Rhea gives her an appraising two thumbs up like that was somehow more difficult than street parking in town is.

Leftovers are waiting for them inside, since they did take their sweet time getting home. Iyo's family would kill her if she missed dinner, and then ran away with two plates of reheated food to her room, but Rhea's family does nothing of the sort. In fact, even when her liveaway father raises his eyebrow at Rhea, she only has to say, "Iyo's staying the night," for him to go back to watching soccer with a nod and a smile his beard does little to obscure.

Used to be that Iyo being around on Friday night at all implied she'd be staying over. For a while after Iyo stopped, she's pretty sure that Rhea's folks assumed she still was, and just dipping out early. At least until she stopped coming over on Fridays at all to avoid Rhea asking.

Once their food is eaten, and Rhea's spirited the plates away to be washed, she turns back to Iyo with a newfound, steely resolve. "So." She looks at the ajar door to her room for a second, and then, very slowly, closes it. Iyo doesn't react to that. Rhea walks toward her and takes a seat next to her on the bed. She doesn't react to that, either.

Rhea looks at her the same way she looked at Iyo on the curb. Then, Iyo freezes.

She reaches out to brush Iyo's long, dark hair away from her face, hand cradled against Iyo's cheek. Her thumb strokes across Iyo's cheekbone, unbearably soft. "Are we finally turning you into a punk rock superstar this weekend, or what?" Rhea asks, tone low and fond.

Ah. Not what Iyo expected. The blush on her cheeks spreads down her neck. Misreading cues is the hardest bit of dealing with Rhea, since she has such a tendency to make everything feel intimate. "Guess so, I'm already going to get killed once I'm home."

Rhea rolls her eyes. Even she knows that Iyo's being dramatic about that. "Well, if you're gonna die, you may as well die hot. I have two boxes of bleach and a bunch of toner in my bathroom with your name on it." She lets her hand fall away, but Iyo catches it and pulls it into her lap before Rhea can get much further.

For some reason, Iyo feels like she should be dangerous. "I'm not hot already?" she asks, looking through her eyelashes at Rhea with all the bravado she can muster.

There's that conflicted look on Rhea's face again, soft lips parted. "Well, yeah, but. For other - you know what I mean," Rhea amends, explaining nothing. Iyo does not know what she means, but if she prods, Rhea's bound to prod right back. That is a contest Iyo will always lose. "You still wanna be all skunk striped? I might have some coloured dye around, too."

Semi-permanent red, Iyo remembers from last Christmas break. Rhea elected not to keep it once she saw how quickly red turned pink on her hair. The bleach had been from then, too. They had to get Rhea to nearly white blonde before the dye let go. Impressive that it didn't end up damaging her hair more, it still looks just as silky as it did before. Iyo wonders if it feels the same.

"Mhm," Iyo answers. Depending on how badly this goes, she would like to try something bright, but for now they may as well start with something she can dump black dye over, worst-case. "Can you give me an undercut like you used to have?"

Rhea makes a low, considering noise. "Yeah. Back, sides? I’ll give you whatever you want.” When she looks at Iyo again, her voice breaks a little, realizing late how the words might land.

Iyo snorts. Typical for her to flirt without meaning to. That's how she keeps ending up with admirers chasing after her that Iyo has to steer away on her behest. "Before we get ahead of ourselves," she chides, "I meant to mention earlier. I didn't bring any stuff over with me."

"Oh." Rhea looks momentarily confused. "You still have a drawer, you know. I never got rid of it."

She gestures to the lowest dresser drawer. Curiously, Iyo slides off the bed and pulls it open to investigate. Everything is right where she left it, pajamas and a spare set of jeans, band t-shirts Rhea had outgrown but liked too much to throw out. Even a hairbrush that looks like it's been cleaned.

"Well. I did throw out your toothbrush, but you can steal an extra," Rhea elaborates. "...You're basically the same size as you were, right? But if anything's small now you can steal a sleep shirt or whatever you need." When Iyo glances back over her shoulder, Rhea's fidgeting with the edge of her bedspread, looking at the floor.

If Iyo was her, she would've thrown this all out or shoved it back at her ages ago. That's what Iyo had assumed happened, anyway. To think that it's just been sitting here this whole time, waiting for her to reclaim her role in Rhea's life. Her chest twinges.

"You're sweet," she says, earning nothing but a nonchalant shrug from Rhea.

Iyo grabs out her favourite of the old stolen shirts, a ratty Dragon Ball Z muscle tee that hangs to Iyo's mid-thigh. More factually, it's Rhea's favourite, which makes it Iyo's favourite by proxy. She shakes it out, earning back Rhea’s attention. Predictably, her eyes light up like beacons.

But then the uncertainty surges back in between them. Rhea stands and hovers. “I’ll set up in the bathroom once you’re done changing?” For every one piece of familiarity, there’s twice the number of changes between them. Small bubbles of privacy and space are the worst but most necessary of all.

So much of Iyo wants to go back to the simpler times, when she’d tell Rhea she can stay. But she swallows it down, and turns away again.

-ˋˏ ༻⋆⋅❁𖤓❀⋅⋆༺ ˎˊ-

Two feet of hair, a bit of a buzz around the ears, and all of the bleach Rhea’s got stocked up later, the taller girl locks eyes with Iyo in the mirror. Iyo likes it a lot. They ended up going for a bit more than half-and-half, the untouched bits only really there to frame Iyo’s face and obscure the inevitable roots - Rhea’s idea, there.

The taller girl winds her finger in a newly blonde strand. “Damn, I really should’ve waited. We could’ve taken pictures of you out-blonding me.”

Iyo regards her in the mirror. Lip tucked between her teeth, blue eyes looking all the bluer for the long, dark hair curtaining her. Her Rhea, still, kind and fragile, and definitely comparing where she shouldn’t. “You’re beautiful.”

That’s the type of thing that Iyo shouldn’t be saying anymore, but not saying so would only hurt Rhea. The opposite of Iyo’s intended goal.

Rhea’s face colours a little, but she ignores the compliment, since she’s never learned how to take those gracefully. She combs her fingertips through Iyo’s hair again, drawing her bangs back out of her eyes so they can better evaluate. Iyo’s not looking at herself whatsoever. It’s good. It’s just…

Rhea’s tongue flicks out to wet her mouth, says, “No, you,” and goes back to worrying her lip.

-ˋˏ ༻⋆⋅❁𖤓❀⋅⋆༺ ˎˊ-

Enchanting is the first word Iyo scrawls across the day’s journal page. They’re sitting up on Rhea’s bed now - why sleeping on the couch was ever a thought in Iyo’s mind, she doesn’t know - while they both decompress in different ways.

For Iyo, that’s writing it out privately, within her sacred domain only one person has ever violated. Rhea keeps her soft, lovely eyes to herself as always. Besides that, she’s a bit busy speaking out her angst.

“Is it weird to have not dated anyone in over a year?” She rambles, picking at a thread on her sweats. “Not that I’ve wanted to, but guys have stopped trying to ask. Am I, like-”

Iyo pauses in the middle of writing, She’s started to see the empty places in me that I used to keep love in, and says, “No. And no. I think that one time just deflated a lot of cockiness, so it’s only like, the real serious guys now.” She twiddles the pen in her hand, thinks, then writes, And I keep breaking more of me open to fill her sorrows, even though she doesn’t begrudge Rhea that.

They both stop, thinking back to Rhea awkwardly stuttering excuses as to why she couldn’t go to this random, uninteresting guy’s house to watch a movie - even if his parents were out of town. Especially if his parents were out of town.

There’d been even more gaps between her and Rhea, then. Iyo wasn’t usually seeking her out between blocks for snippets of once-cherished company. So, Iyo wandering by to see it happen was purely down to chance. Moon-bright eyes met hers across the busy, gossipy mess of hall, pulling Iyo like the tide to her side.

No. That’d been all. One firm word, accompanied with the angriest, steeliest look Iyo had ever mustered - according to Rhea, anyhow.

He’d curled his lip a bit, off-put at having an entirely different girl deny him on behalf of the first. Almost opened his mouth to say something, until he caught the way Rhea reached out to pull Iyo in front of her by the belt loops, curling her arms around Iyo’s waist and burying her nose against the crown of Iyo’s head. Confidence-boosting enough that Iyo had repeated the word, firmer, hoping that Rhea wouldn’t realize the only reason he turned tail was because he assumed something of them.

That hope had held Iyo through the following year. She stayed on being Rhea’s voice, until almost everyone quietly came to the same untrue conclusion that Rhea remained ignorant to.

Or so Iyo has to assume, considering how the younger girl melts bonelessly into her comforter, face smushed up in softness. “Maybe I should go on one,” she mumbles.

I’d give her anything. But there’s some things that are beyond me, Iyo writes in place of a sign off, and then tucks the journal and pen away on the bedside table so she can devote her full attention to whatever is about to happen here. It’s easier to suppress the acid burn of jealousy that way.

“Do you want to?” she prods gently, slipping down beneath the covers alongside Rhea. There’s about a half-foot between them, far enough to maintain sanity without looking strange.

Rhea looks at Iyo, just eyes and eyebrows. From that, Iyo can read everything. She doesn’t, there’s no part of her that is interested in anyone, but she fears the silent judgment of their peers. So idealized, the perfect girl to most, but under a microscope for it. Iyo feels bad that people think they’re something they’re not, and she doesn’t even tell her so. Ultimately though, Iyo’s too scared of Rhea’s reaction to the prospect of dating her to spell out the rumour that goes on behind their backs.

Under the sheets, Iyo nudges Rhea’s cold foot to get her to spit the real worry out. But she keeps her peace, dropping the blanket away from her face and saying, “No. Nevermind, stupid of me.” She forces on a smile, but beneath it, for the third time that day: the look.

-ˋˏ ༻⋆⋅❁𖤓❀⋅⋆༺ ˎˊ-

An hour or so later, when they’re properly tucked in, room dark and the space between them reduced to the point of mild discomfort for Iyo, Rhea rolls onto her side towards Iyo. Knowing without needing to check that Iyo isn’t asleep yet.

“It’s just been so long that I feel like I’m gonna like, forget how to kiss. Yknow?”

Iyo squeezes her eyes closed, wishing she was a better liar in many ways. Maybe then, she could nod and agree that she gets the concern, that she has experience she doesn’t, and that her heart has ever belonged to anyone except one person. “I don’t.”

The soft sound of Rhea opening her mouth to say something, and then closing it again. There’s literally no reason Rhea would ever have to think about Iyo kissing anyone, so her forgetting isn’t a big deal, and it doesn’t hurt.

Until she says, so incredibly regretfully, “Ah… sorry.”

Iyo’s throat burns, stomach flipping over and over with the request she’s denied herself for three whole years. She won’t let the sacrifice go to waste. She says nothing, and hopes that will be it.

For a while, it is.

“Hey, Iyo?” Rhea breaks the silence again after long enough that Iyo now could safely pretend she’s fallen asleep.

Six seconds. Iyo’s nerves are shot, what-ifs running frantically about, feeling still the warm radiance of Rhea’s form beside her, and the weight of her insistent gaze tracking every micro-movement of Iyo’s face. She can’t be caught lying. “Yes, Rhea?”

Again, nothing. The will seeping out of Rhea as a liquid thing. “...nevermind.”

Twenty two seconds pass before curiosity kills Iyo, and she turns to Rhea, eyes opening to see the younger girl, way too close, way too nervous. If she doesn’t ask, it’ll eat them both forever. “No. Tell me what.”

They’re near enough that Iyo can feel the fall of Rhea’s exhale. She looks over Iyo’s shoulder instead of at her, clears her throat, and works out two words. “We could…-”

Iyo’s heart thuds so hard Rhea must hear it, and must sense the way Iyo’s vocal chords have seized shut with the strain of hoping.

“-go on a double date, or something, if you want.” Rhea finishes after a further three seconds of hell, immediately flipping onto her back to stare up at the ceiling instead.

Small mercies, shameful moisture springing up along the edges of Iyo’s eyes in sweet, unobserved peace. She, too, turns away. After a minute that Iyo doesn’t track, she trusts her voice enough to deny Rhea. “I’m ok, thanks.”

It never does get any easier.

[bloodmoonscall]

FUCKKKKKK the asuiyo piece is sooo good... love the little tidbits of real history sprinkled throughout 🙂‍↕️ oh asuka you are such a resentful woman... hung up over a teeny tiny rascal who mostly thinks of you only in the past... 🫂

i adore how you write iyo's growth into her current character through asuka's eyes, so deliciously distant and yet distraughtly wanting

especially love this sentence: "Iyo escapes, immortally unscathed, and is once more alone." Wow. Parallelism?

anyway, thanks as always for your writing, zhan.

thank you.

moulding the (at times, completely nonsensical and inconsistent) kayfabe into something that works from a wider angle is such an interesting task. i love doing it, but its difficult as hell sometimes! does asuka as a character even deserve the mildly positive ending? no. but asuka the person does, so gotta bridge those gaps.

my thought w asuiyo is that iyo's a self-fulfilling prophecy to asuka. the harder she tries to fight against who iyo's become, the more iyo grows up and away from her reach.

course, asuka also misses all the little hints that iyo is learning from her all that time. they're mirror images for sure, colours all muddled and swapped but with all the same structure underneath.

[bloodmoonscall]

into the light

Rating: Teen Pairing: Iyo Sky/Asuka; side Rhea Ripley/Iyo Sky CW: Abusive Relationships (Verbal/Emotional/Physical) Wordcount: 6.9k

Summary: When Io thinks back on their time in Triple Tails, she'll be able to blame the woman she can replace, instead of the one she can't. playlist

The kid doesn’t fold her gear.

These Makehen girls… Kana can’t believe them sometimes, the amount of things that no one taught them how to do. She’s not about to lash them the way she would’ve gotten it, but really. When they started getting sent to WAVE regularly, Kana did not think it would lead to her teaching a sullen kid the ins and outs of laundry. Shouldn’t this fall under Mio’s purview?

As though sensing her critical thoughts, Io raises her tanuki-coloured head and catches Kana’s stare. Her hands are still holding the crushed-up silver and gold costume, her expression unchanging, but Kana can practically hear the thoughts whirring in her head.

“Is something wrong, President Kana?” she finally asks, her tone light and nonchalant. What a little punk, sometimes. She's lucky she doesn't have to regularly deal with a promotion full of women who would eat her alive for far less than the playful sass she brandishes against Kana.

Which is exactly why she's here, in the semi-independent realm, unknowingly cradled under Kana's wing. Her personal life is her own, so the details are foggy to Kana, but Io's a clear example of one of those people who gets into trouble the second she doesn't have something to occupy her attention. A good heart underneath, yes, but that won't earn her mercy from anyone else.

Kana puts her hands on her hips and takes a moment to really look at the kid, letting the silence stretch. Okay, so kid's not the right word for her. She's outgrown that sort of cuteness, or at least has started pretending she's beyond it. A tiny thing, especially in comparison to her lankier sister. Fox and tanuki, that's how they style themselves, and it fits. Io's still got a bit of that baby fat in her cheeks that makes her look like a teenager, and that mischievous look in her eye that Kana can't help but be fond of, even though she's tried a hundred times to get her to tone it back.

"Give it to me," Kana huffs, holding out a hand.

Io hesitates.

"You'll make us all look bad if you start showing up in wrinkly, stretched-out gear. When's the last time you washed this?" Kana demands.

Io's cheeks turn pink and she looks away. She does, however, stretch her arm out to hand the bundle of cloth over to Kana. It's still damp with sweat. 

They're gonna have to go through Io's bag and clear it out of any other gross bad habits. Thankfully, Mio's not this bad. But then, she had a little bit of time to grow up and be an adult before they started up their wrestling careers, instead of diving in headfirst.

So no, Io's not quite a kid. But she's certainly never figured out how to be an adult.

//

Throughout her life, Kana’s worn a lot of hats. She doesn't think about it much; to her it all either falls into the category of hobbies, or careers destined for failure that she decided to set aside before they could.

Some things Kana likes to talk about, and others she’s embarrassed by. Mio’s got the picture. Io doesn't. It’s all worth interrogating to her.

Like right now, where she’s sitting in the chair at Kana’s salon, bleach doing its silent work, and asking a million questions about her previous work. “Did you do any art for Professor Layton?”

At least they’re not in front of the other women this time. The only mercy they show Kana over things like this, is waiting until Io’s gone to really put her through the ringer, barbed comments lancing through her about everything from her commitment levels to her too-broad skillset. It might be better if the girl saw their behaviour for herself, so she’d take Kana’s stories about those sorts of dynamics seriously. But that would also mean saddling Io with guilt that she’d given them ammunition.

She can keep the cute innocence, at least for now. 

Kana entertains the question, wracking her brain. The thing about being a freelancer in life is that her work is broken up into snippets. A bit here, a stint there, a match she thinks won't matter until it turns into ten, and then one day she’s being asked by Mio over a beer, what if we formed a team? 

Like anyone sane, Kana assumed that meant a two person tag team. What about your sister? she’d asked worriedly back, wondering if the kid was giving up like she once had, or was being left in the dust. Mio had looked at her like she had a centipede on her face. 

Triple Tails. They're not ready to debut the stable formally yet. There’s loose ends Kana has to tie up first, strained partnerships to be violently dismantled. Women that terrify her who she has to be sure don’t associate her acts of rebellion with the Shirai sisters. Then they can open the new chapter. 

Needless to say, it becomes difficult to keep it all straight. It’s easier for Kana to obsess about tomorrow than spend time reflecting. She doesn't recall doing any design work for a game like that, though. 

“No,” she stands, walking over to Io to regard her scalp. Healthy as ever. If there’s one thing she’s learned from Kana lightning quick, it’s hair care. The bleach looks like it’s about ready; she waves the colorist back over and stands a couple steps away. “It’s not the exciting stuff, you know? I worked on user interfaces a lot.”

Io closes her eyes while the hairdresser works. She doesn't like to see the result until the end. “I still think that's cool. The posters you make are really good, too. There’s nothing you can't do, Miss President.”

That stupid nickname again. It makes Kana feel so much older than she is. This time, though, Kana knows Io’s trying to show respect in her own weird way. In private, she skips out on honorifics altogether, thinking that regarding Kana as a friend means more than her word choice. Kana’s never corrected her.

The thing with Io is, she’s different from Kana. Whereas Kana feels like she’s tried out everything there is to in the world, Io’s interests are… simple. Athletics, animals, food, sleep. Apparently, puzzle games.

She ought to encourage when a new one rears its head. They’ll be a team soon enough, after all. “Do you want me to teach you how to design a shirt?”

Io’s eyes shoot open, lightning quick, a grin following like thunder.

//

The venue they're in has wifi access, which doesn't matter much to Kana, but apparently means everything to Io. She’s set herself up on a folding table, and has been glued to her laptop since. 

Meanwhile, she and Mio dart around setting up all the chairs and double-checking the ring ropes are tightened adequately. At first, Mio had looked mildly annoyed, like the kid’s slacking. But Io’s got her game face on, looking just like she does when the lights focus down on her. So Kana shakes her head at Mio, just once. Their universal silent way of communicating, lay off. Io’s better at tearing down than setting up anyway, with the way she tends to get quiet and tense before matches.

When Kana slips behind Io to grab some bottles of water to stage underneath the apron, she glances at what she’s up to. There’s a website open, sparkly pink, and a rich text box nearly full to the brim. A photo of the three of them catches Kana’s eye. 

She leans down to get a closer look. “What are you doing?” 

Io jumps. She spins around in her folding chair, clutching at her heart. Oops, Kana thinks, right as she catches a glare coming from Mio. She didn't mean that to sound so -

“Is that your blog?” she tries again, forcing a smile. Poor thing still looks like she’s halfway to a heart attack. Maybe part of the arrhythmia issue, or maybe Kana really is scarier than she thinks she is. Either way, she feels guilty.

Io reaches for one of the bottles of water. Kana lets her take it, leaning down to scroll the trackpad while she gulps down a bit to soothe herself. They need to work on some breathing exercises sometime. 

In the mass of text is date, time, location, a personalized briefing of the night’s event, the photo of the three of them, and one Io had taken of herself some time before. Looks like Kana interrupted her in the middle of her signoff, pricing interspersed with wishes to see their prospective audience there. 

“Last minute promotion,” Io explains, “The advance ticket sales seemed a little low, so I thought-”

Kana ruffles her hair. “Good job.” 

For all of Io’s weird little quirks, she is a hard worker. It’ll serve her well, especially in today’s world. Sometimes even Kana has trouble keeping up with the constantly shifting methods of fan engagement, and she’s supposed to be the experienced one of their bunch. Honestly, the writeup reads as exceedingly professional too. Io’s got a way with words.

“Show her the one where you call her voluptuous!” Mio teases from near their ramshackle merch stand. More and more these days, she takes the opportunity to tease Io like that. Whether it’s about her taste in men - which Kana privately agrees is unconventional - or … well. 

Io goes bright red, dimming the laptop screen to near-black. “I was talking about an impersonator…” she clarifies. Mio laughs chirpily, since that explanation doesn’t dismiss her point any.

Maybe later on, Kana will check in to see who's telling the truth between the two sisters. But maybe not. Everyone deserves to have their secrets, even the poorly veiled ones.

//

More and more moments like that sneak in. Sometimes it’s a harmless bit of fanservice that Mio suggests in an attempt at humour. If it had been anyone else, maybe it would be. Not that anyone is made uncomfortable by it, just that… Kana knows Mio well. She’s starting to know Io well, too.

Things are complicated when a fan, a young woman of Io's age, approaches her at an after-show mixer. Kana watches the interaction in her periphery, the same way she always does when she senses someone’s interests in Io are more than strictly friendly. Normally the kid is godawful clueless, too stuck in her ideals of what romance is to engage with it, always setting things up for failure right from the get go. 

Clueless is the right description of this time too, because Io doesn’t seem to know she’s being flirted with, and doesn’t know she’s flirting back either. The drink in her hand’s empty, and being refilled past where Kana knows she can tolerate it. 

She excuses herself from the older gentleman she’s talking to. He’ll take no offense if he sees her walk off towards Io and another woman, but she doesn’t want to draw any more attention in that direction than she needs to, so she calls over one of their guests to take her spot first. 

After this, Kana will owe Miyuki some kind of explanation. She’ll cross that bridge when she gets to it.

Kana steals Io’s drink from her seamlessly, introducing herself to the other woman with the same polite detachment she does everyone. Io’s face flashes with poorly contained irritation, then resignation, as the virtual stranger makes her own excuses in response to Kana’s interruption. 

“Why did you do that?” Io’s brow furrows up in the cute, indignant way it does.

Do what? Kana thinks about asking, to see if Io can even put words to it, yet. If they were in private, she would. But they’re not, so she says, “We should be getting you home, soon.”

Io bristles even more at that, because she hates being seen as the tag-a-long kid sister, even though that is exactly what she is. Always will be that, until one sister gets fed up with the other and the whole thing collapses around them. “I can make that decision myself.”

If only she had that backbone everywhere and with everyone, Kana wouldn’t worry about her so much. She looks around briefly, catching that Mio’s got the whole world in the palm of her hand, as per usual. She’ll be alright if they manage to get away for a second.

“Come outside with me,” Kana doesn’t wait for Io to agree, because she won't. But she’ll follow.

And she does. Her cheeks are puffed up like an angry chipmunk’s, going red with a combination of anger, embarrassment, and the chill of evening air. Kana turns and leans against the brick wall of the building. Io hovers, then joins her, standing straight up. Then Kana hands her back the drink she'd all but confiscated, a sip or two lighter than it had been to begin with.

"When you're ready to talk about it, please come to me." Kana says simply. She can't say what, exactly, she's referring to, if Io still doesn't know yet. 

The younger woman isn't dumb by any means. A bit head-in-the-clouds, yes, idealistic and naive, but still exceedingly critical of herself and everyone else. Io’s moral compass is strong enough that it will get her in trouble one day when someone prods at her, expecting soft submission and getting an undergrown punk's barbed tongue instead. To that end, Io already knows what she's about, it's just whether she's lined up all the dots into a picture.

Io opens her mouth to give Kana one of those tongue lashings, but then closes it and looks away, taking a long drink to hide her expression.

"You can't tell her." She finally manages, voice quiet.

Kana's heart breaks a bit, because she can provide no reassurances there. Family is one issue she's not sure of herself. Despite everything, Io's a diligent daughter, and tries her best to be a good sister, yielding in a way she isn't with Kana. "That will always be your choice to make."

"I had a chance, huh?" Io says, her breath coming out in little puffs, coloured by the bar's outdoor lighting. "With that girl."

"Yeah," Kana admits, "You did."

Io nods and slumps back against the building, leaning her head on Kana's shoulder to share what little warmth there is to give.

//

They all knew when they got into this stable that it wouldn't last, but it went by way more quickly than Kana assumed it would. For that matter, the way the end unfolds is a little surprising, actually.

Io’s out. 

For the last bit, the sisters had seemed to be drifting apart. Kana anticipated it. One sister outgrows the other, and decides to go her own way. She just didn't think it would be Io that cut ties.

A singles career is a respectable thing to want, but it’s not like Kana’s work starts and ends with Triple Tails - Io could do both things as a freelancer if she wanted to. 

This isn’t that, though. She’s headed into the lion’s den.

“You can't trust anyone there,” Kana says in the middle of Io explaining the offer she was given. Once the words are spat out, she realizes she's angry. 

Until then, she’d been the neutral ground between the sisters. Always patient with Io, and always Mio’s confidante. For the first time, she’s not the halfway point, she’s standing in opposition. Three independent forces, all pulling their own way. 

Mio startles, her own irritation flagging as she sizes up Kana. She grips Kana’s wrist and tries to get her to sit back down from where she’s suddenly standing. 

Kana tears herself loose. 

Io’s moon-eyed. Did she think that Kana wouldn't react this way? There’s been so many stories she’s shared of the difficulties she’s gone through. Burdens she’s shouldered and then broken away from. And her doesn't-even-know-it protege is saying, to hell with your way, I like being the world’s whipping dog fine. Your pain means nothing to me.

She won’t last. Io’s not got the nerve to defy, nor the courage to endure long. They're going to chew her up and spit her out, and this thing Io’s become good at will turn into nothing but a failed career to look back on, and cringe at when some well-meaning young woman asks all her questions and then says that this painful portion of Io’s life was cool. 

Kana can’t let it happen to her, the righteous fire in her veins stoked molten. Her hatred and pain misplaced, erupting and aimed right at the woman she wants to protect. “You’re not cut out for that world.”

Mio stands then, knowing where this is about to go, wheeling a few steps back right before Io loses it, the punk kid finally let run rampant. 

Never, ever tell her she can’t, Mio had told Kana once way back when. All it does is turn her into a terror, and then … the crash after isn’t pretty, either. Positive reinforcement only.

Exactly why Io won’t be able to handle the likes of Stardom.

Io’s nose to nose with Kana, drawn up to her full height and bolstered by her boots, yet still a hair short. “Don’t be a bitch to me just because you failed.”

Kana doesn't flinch. Her gaze doesn't waver, remaining focused on Io’s nose as she paints on the war face she used to be accustomed to. All that does is make Io madder, seeing how Kana looks down on her. She always will, no matter how many times Io tries to prove herself, because the kid hasn't lived Kana's life. Fine then, to let her go, and drown in her own mistakes. Once Triple Tails is over, the Shirais will still remain sisters. But Asuka? All she'll be is a bad memory to this kid.

Kana smiles unfriendily. “Just a teaser of what you'll get out there.”

“You two,” Mio tries to get in, but she's ignored. “Settle down.” 

All of the little things that led Io to this decision are forgotten, replaced by this fight and the will to resist. Baby bird, thrust out of the nest to crash on broken stones below. Kana turns on her heel, not caring to look back.

When Io thinks back on their time in Triple Tails, she'll be able to blame the woman she can replace, instead of the one she can't. 

//

It feels like no time at all before the kid lands herself in trouble, proving once more that she is a kid. Or at least, an easily played young woman, who has chosen to dash away the company of someone who cares about her, and cater to someone who does not. 

That, at least, Kana sees coming. Just as Io’s completely clueless with women, she’s undiscerning with men. Kana might’ve told her once they have their own locker room dramas, but she didn’t stress that theirs didn’t come to the fore with subtle, behind-the-scenes abuses and sabotage. Men are dangerous in a much louder way, such that even their conspiracies turn to absurdity. 

Kana watches the press conference from afar, pain roiling through her at the sight of Io’s desperate tears. She maintains her innocence the whole time. No sane onlooker believes her. Nobody who knows Io intimately disbelieves her. It’s a conundrum. Kana herself lands firmly in the second camp. That’s not Io’s kind of trouble, first of all. Second of all, she’s not that goddamn stupid. In a painting, of all things?

Still, it doesn’t look good.

Io insists she’s not considering leaving the industry, but then, it’s not really her choice. Best case, Kana figures, she’ll manage to avoid being prosecuted but have her contract dissolved for the trouble. 

Maybe then, Kana will reach out, offer her condolences, tell Io that she believes her, and help her find work elsewhere. Some office job, maybe, though Io would go stir crazy. Something else then, on her feet, working with her hands - the salon. Io’s good enough with her own hair. As far as Kana’s concerned, she’d have a permanent role there. 

Kana won’t even bring up that she warned Io. It’s cathartic enough to see the younger woman’s watery gaze as she declares, firmly, that she has ended her relationship. 

That is Kana’s kind of justice. 

//

He never does defend Io. But her pleas do their work on one person of import, and soon enough it’s almost like it hadn't happened.

Io’s career goes on, but Kana’s frustration frosts over into dead silence; she’s not the only one to ice the woman out this way. Hell, it seems she doesn't even notice the difference when it comes to Kana. 

Late at night, after Kana has hung her gear out to dry and dressed whatever wounds she might've sustained from seeing her life’s work through, she wills Io’s failure. Wills, at least, her apology to those she’s wronged with this embarrassment. 

Let them return to how things were. Truly alone in a place where she shouldn't be, Io will see the truth of it soon.

//

The day Stardom tears itself apart is one Kana watches with the rapt attention of one observing a train derailment. Kana’s evaluation of the differences between women and men is wrong, after all. The grim spectacle of violence can be delivered by their kind, too. An abyss forms in her stomach, sucking in the first surges of fascination and righteous excitement, leaving behind only the mute throbbing pain of fear. 

A young woman is hurt, and badly. That should be enough to turn her to nausea. Something in Kana must be broken, though, because that’s not what tips things over the edge. That woman could've been Io.

More than anything, Kana wants to be sure Io is alright. Surely now, she’ll see Kana was right. Surely now she’ll leave.

Io answers the call with a weary sigh. It’s the first time they’ve spoken in years. “Hello, Kana-sama,” she says politely, strained as it is.

“She is involved, isn't she?” is out of Kana’s mouth before she can help herself.

Io says nothing. The silence answers for her. 

Another version of Kana, stripped of years and pain, would apologize for opening that way. This one keeps her silence too, for two long minutes, until Io ends the call.

The strange thing is, four years ago, Io would've yelled at her first. When Kana attempts to call back, she gets sent straight to a factory set voicemail. Her Io wouldn't have blocked her, either.

Time really does change people. 

//

Asuka’s too busy defending her title to keep up with what’s happening a world away. Her reputation means little, so she makes it a point to defend as much as she can. Even though that's not the way they do it here; days matter more than the number of matches do. 

If days mattered, and if Asuka were paying attention to those who are dead to her, she might take note of the reign which started three months and nine days before hers, keeping pace with her number of defenses. 

A year comes and goes, records gone to dust, while Asuka remains the exception. The ones who came before her are only memories. This is her own path, her way, and her world to endure alone. 

Things aren't so different, in some ways. Her accent goes misunderstood in two languages instead of one. Most of the respect she earns comes through stoking animosity, first. She isn't one of the group. Asuka is, as Kana was, at the top of her own mountain, even when some of the hatred turns to admiration over the course of her immortal run. 

Her days of being President are long over, her future is as Empress.

Loneliness doesn't matter. 

Five hundred days, and Four hundred. Asuka has to surpass it.

She’s jeered even now. The patience that intrigue brings fades into disdain for her legacy. They're tiring of this game. Asuka tires of it too, until the days float through her head, taunting her. Things she’s never done caught in her periphery. 

Maybe that woman is just as maddened by the contest. Asuka hears rumours of contracts and tryouts. She can't be the only one watching her rival at work. 

Five hundred and nine.

Contract offer. Asuka’s blood goes cold. She hears it from Mio first, mercifully.

Io has to drop the title soon.

Five hundred and forty-six. No more.

Odd she did so before the tournament even took place. Mio calls again.

“They took it back,” she explains, a few days before Asuka and the rest of the world should know. 

Confusion licks through Asuka, a million questions summoned at once. Why revoke a contract offer like that? Why let go of the title? Doesn't Io care to keep their contest going, in absence of the rest of their chase?

“It’s her neck,” Mio keeps on when she realizes Asuka can't bring herself to voice anything that isn't frustration. “She’s stopping to fix it.”

“They just paused the offer, then.” That makes more sense. Rehabbing can't take long. Looking at how Io moves, it’s clear the injury isn’t retirement level. They’ve all seen that; Mio’s experienced that. Her voice doesn't carry that kind of weight. Io might miss the tournament, but she doesn't need it to show this side of the globe what she’s made of, anyway. 

“No,” Mio says, head shaking across so many kilometers, but Asuka can still hear it. The Shirais have a particular way of sounding annoyed with her. “The offer is gone. She just won't take no for an answer.”

Asuka goes stormy quiet. Some kind of righteous anger emerges in her again, but at who, this time, she can't say. 

“Why tell me, then?” she bites. It’s not been all smooth sailing between her and Mio, either. In the end, it’s business, and business gets between everyone. 

The aggravated tch on the other side of the line makes Asuka’s skin crawl. Everyone expects something different from her. Hasn't she shown them enough times she’ll defy anyone to prove she needs no one? 

Asuka grits her teeth and is about to really start up a fight when Mio rips the blinders off of her. “Because she asked me to.”

//

The next month goes by in a blur. Asuka’s not used to Io’s voice through the phone anymore as is, but the firm, determined tone she has is unfamiliar too.

Their conversation is brief, once the awkward pleasantries are out of the way. Io congratulates Asuka for her successes the way a kohai should. Asuka says nothing of Io’s. Stardom has been Io, but the root of all of Asuka’s disdain goes unaddressed, so those accomplishments aren't worth anything to her. This woman is almost a stranger, with how smoothly she talks, and how little she rises to the subtle slights Asuka levies her way.

Not her Io. This one asks for a favour. Asuka’s got no reason to care at all, but for the memory of times past.

For her Io, she will make sure Kairi is cared for.

//

Five hundred and ten, and then it ends, but not through defeat. 

She’s eked Io out by a single defense, though Asuka will really never accept that, when she knows the calibre of competition is less consistent. Even if she can't bring herself to say that she respects what’s happening back in Io’s Stardom, Asuka can be objective about that.

Some of her criticism lessens once she properly meets Kairi, anyhow. It’s not right to degrade Io like that in front of one of her friends. That’s what Kairi calls them. 

Half of Asuka finds she’s jealous, the other half finds she’s relieved. She’s heard and seen things that suggest the stranger inhabiting her old kohai’s body has figured out how to flirt at last. Io spends her time now poking at other young, awkward women who are as clueless as she used to be.

Kairi’s charming, in her own way. It helps that they don’t have the chance to cross paths as competitors, and despite holding some accolades that Asuka never will, Kairi is everything Io is not. Quietly kind, respectful, heeding all of Asuka’s stories with rapt attention and taking only what she offers of herself. She doesn’t make Asuka feel annoyed.

Asuka finds it all a bit boring. Once she’s healed up, she’s unleashed onto new pastures, still undefeated. But the fights aren’t what she’s after. No one moves like they know her inside and out. Their words don’t touch Asuka, either. 

She won’t admit what it is she wants. 

But she listens when Kairi tells her news from home, the ambition in her reigniting when the gentle woman says the words, all clear.

//

At first, the more space that Asuka builds up between herself and Io, the more comfortable she feels. She’s got no qualms about having indirectly taken Io’s tag team partner from her. Kairi doesn’t know she’s a pawn, and Asuka does care enough about her feelings to let that bit go unacknowledged. 

They still don’t speak directly, no matter how many times Asuka catches Kairi on the phone with Io when they’re on the road, and hears, “Io asks how you’re doing”. She wonders if Io gets the opposite side of that, even though Asuka has never once asked.

She does wonder, though. It’s starting to feel like Io’s stagnating. Maybe Asuka was wrong; Io might not see her as a rival to chase behind, motivating her as it motivates Asuka to stay ahead. 

The small bits of admiration that Asuka had let grow wither. Io’s not even alone the way that Asuka was. There’s no excuse for failure, even if the world has started to close up around them, taking the cheers that Io thrives on with it.

Again, Asuka is reminded that Io is nothing but a stranger to her.

When she finally sees the fire light in Io again, it has nothing to do with the grand slam Asuka’s achieved. She barely even acknowledges it, because she’s too busy staring up in defiance at some young, disrespectful punk that doesn’t care in the least that Io is her elder. All over again, it’s like Asuka is hearing the soft click of a line gone dead.

Io wins gold again; Kairi leaves them both behind. In her absence, Io no longer asks how Asuka is doing.

Maybe she never actually did.

//

The overgrown punk ends her run. Io, yet again, has done something Asuka cannot.

She’ll never forgive either of them.

//

Iyo Sky truly hates Asuka. She has to, if she’s willing to follow obediently in Bayley’s footsteps, but not hers. 

It’s like rubbing salt in the wound to choose that loudmouth. Not a single thing about that woman is genuine. Not when she was an overeager, faux-positive hugger, and even now that she seems to be speaking her mind, there’s still something quietly insidious behind the immature insults. 

Iyo’s never been a stupid woman, so for her to align herself with Bayley has to have a point to it. Since Asuka can make sense of things no other way, she rationalizes it’s a personal slight against her. 

All evidence points towards it. She partners up with a bitter rival in Dakota, keeping gold away from Asuka and besting her at seemingly every turn. Even when Asuka gets one back on her, it’s a bitter pill. She’s beaten into submission at WarGames only to be carried off by Rhea - because of course, of course she can manage to laugh and smile with everyone but Asuka. 

And still, she carries herself as though she doesn’t see the snakes around her, even when Bayley and Rhea start to make blatant they don’t value Iyo’s loyalties in the least.

Asuka watches, beaten and battered from outside the ring while Iyo chases down yet more gold of hers, briefcase in hand. When she sulks off to the back to lick her emotional wounds, Iyo spares her only a glance, eyes a storm that Asuka can no longer read at all.

//

For some stupid reason, Kairi thinks Asuka should attend her re-housewarming. 

“They’ll be there.” Over the last months, Asuka’s stopped pretending to be anywhere close to on good terms with Iyo, even for Kairi’s benefit. That damn woman does everything she can to get under Asuka’s skin - even now, stealing her tag team partner away for Iyo’s damn faction. 

Damage Ctrl is Iyo’s now, no matter how Bayley stalks along the edges, loudly proclaiming different. Every achievement they have is tied back to Iyo Sky. If she doesn’t see the knife that’s about to be buried in her back, that’s her fault. And how Asuka will watch gleefully as it happens.

Kairi doesn’t raise her voice any, her voice as neutral and placid as a quiet lakeshore. “Of course. They’re my friends. Iyo is family.”

Acid coats Asuka’s throat. Family. She doesn’t think Iyo ever considered Asuka that. So much of her wants to inflict pain, to take everything away from Iyo. Allies, friends, family, accolades - all of it, flaying bit by bit back until she’s left as bare as Asuka feels under her withering gaze. 

Kairi’s eyebrows tilt up and her lip shakes a little. “Please, Asuka-chan.”

She’s going to kill Iyo at this thing.

//

When Kairi asks Asuka for help in the kitchen and Iyo’s nowhere to be seen, her duo of loudmouths happily barking away in the living room, Asuka knows she’s being conned. Kairi’s not got a killer bone in her body, so it can’t be a violent trap. Even Iyo’s not cruel enough to mislead the Pirate Princess like that. 

She’s ready for a fight of any kind, though, when she steps in. Iyo’s right there at the island, expression as guarded as usual. Behind Asuka, she hears the door click - turning to see Kairi’s slipped out and shut it behind her. Asuka scrambles to push at it, expecting only to be fighting Kairi’s body weight, but finding instead the thing is locked. 

That’s the last time she underestimates Kairi Sane. 

She swivels back on her foot, hands coming up to guard, a litany of shouted curses ready on the tip of her tongue. 

Iyo slips past her arms like water, pushing her back against the door with a hollow thud. Her hand clamps down over Asuka’s mouth, eyes flashing at her in that addictingly defiant way they haven’t in a decade.

“I need your help, Kana,” she hisses into Asuka’s ear, no honorific to be spoken of despite the urgency of her plea.

Everything in her goes liquid and hot. At last. She nods, the movement stiff and exaggerated under the tightness of Iyo’s hold. While Asuka could have gotten out of it if she truly wanted to, the effort is impressive, much improved from the last time they’d grappled it out in the ring. 

Iyo eases her hand off of Asuka’s mouth, but otherwise makes no other move. She’s staring carefully up at her, like Asuka is the snake to be cautious of. 

Asuka grins deliriously, thinking already of how beautifully Bayley will fall to ruin.

Their Damage Ctrl, now.

//

For one, perfect moment, they were back on top of the world together. Just like before, it’s gone in a flash, before Asuka can remember to fear the end.

She watches from across the ocean as Iyo, alone, sets everything to ruin. Every title gone, and every further opportunity lost. The woman is mad with the responsibility of it, swivelling between broody frustration and destructive fallout. That’s the Iyo she so carefully avoided summoning, the one Mio always warned her carefully about, but Asuka never truly saw firsthand.

She’s a delicious mess.

It’s too bad that Kairi and Dakota are stuck without a stable figurehead to follow behind. They love Iyo, that much is clear. When her moods finally settle into something like peace, they move with her, as though the last years of trickery meant nothing. Loyal kohai… something Iyo still doesn’t know anything about cherishing.

Time flows. With it, all the killer instinct drains into cheerful complacency. Friendship seems to be enough for those three, results continuing to escape them. 

Then comes the hurt. Once, then again. Iyo escapes, immortally unscathed, and is once more alone.

In absence of happiness, she returns. The one that Asuka knows, and loves so. She might let herself savour it, if not for that fire once more being summoned up by the woman that Asuka can’t stand above all others. Rhea Ripley. 

Gold dangles from Iyo’s grip on the grandest stage possible. Asuka is almost proud, until she remembers with the abruptness of hitting a retaining wall that she was supposed to stay ahead of that undergrown punk. 

Iyo’s not just caught up, she’s surpassed. And it’s not Asuka who is her rival, the reason for the fire in her gaze. Nor is she the reason it turns back to tenderness in no time at all, falling into the arms of the very woman who had already taken so much from Asuka. 

//

Ruining Rhea is a pleasure in itself, but hearing her cry out for Iyo takes whatever glee she feels away. 

Damn her, Iyo doesn’t even seem to care that she’s lost everything. Her faction, her title, even Kairi. All she cares about is that accursed woman, and all that accursed woman cares about is Iyo in turn. They’re fools, and Asuka hates that the one thing they have is the one thing she can’t have.

“Asuka-san, would it be so bad if we let Rhea-” Kairi begins, and ends with the blow of the older woman’s palm across her face. 

Over her dead body, will she accept Rhea Ripley into their family as Iyo’s… she can’t even bring herself to think it. The next misting will be worse. She’ll make them both regret ever letting love bloom where it won’t for Asuka. Don’t they know what a hideous thing pride is? 

They ought to be ashamed, and fearful, like Kairi is. If they won’t learn, then this woman will in their stead.

“I’m sorry, Asuka-san,” she mumbles, hand cupped along her split lip. If Asuka closes her eyes, she can imagine Iyo saying so, too. “I just want us to be happy again.”

For how clever Kairi can be, she can also be so incredibly dense. “You idiot,” Asuka laughs, seeing all the years of envy and pain roll by, sapping the colour from her life. “I was never happy.”

//

She could be, maybe. If only she could go back to that first time she was cruel, and snuff the anger out. But she can’t, so it must continue.

//

Even when Rhea leaves Iyo, the woman still remains steadfastly loyal. It’s then that all hope that this will ever change slips through Asuka’s fingers like sand. 

Kairi notices the change immediately, the careful new rules she’s learned to live by shifting underfoot. Suddenly, all Asuka wants to do is talk about Iyo and the precious few memories they have together. No longer is her name a curse, but a sad, forlorn conclusion. Teach a woman to defy, and she will elude forever. 

No amount of punishment will crumple Iyo. Not at Asuka’s hand. Every condemnation calcified her will, each and every moment of silent rebuke formed into a wall that keeps Iyo - the real, true Iyo - out of harm’s way. In her darkest moments, she’s learned to endure, carefully waiting for her openings while Asuka has frothed impatiently for war. 

Her cheerful smile hides a world of carefully considered plans, having learned that the dangers in plain sight are easier dealt with than uncertainty. 

Asuka hates who Iyo has become, but wasn’t it Asuka who made her that way? Isn’t it Asuka’s traits, mirrored in Iyo, that she detests the most?

A stubborn woman, forging her own way.

Shame floods Asuka, trapping her in a hateful moment of self-reflection. For years, all she’s wanted is to be needed, not realizing that she’s unneeded only because Iyo had already taken everything from her she could have all those years ago. All that’s left is to see the final test through. 

“Kairi,” Asuka begins, not knowing how to undo what’s been done. “I don’t know who I am anymore.”

Kairi’s eyes are soft, and sad, and Asuka can see every thought within them. Guilt overcomes her, because she doesn’t see any hatred for her at all within them. 

“Neither do I, Asuka.” Kairi leaves it at that, tracing her cool fingertips along Asuka’s jaw before she stands, and turns away for perhaps the last time. 

When Asuka thinks back on this moment, she’ll only have herself to blame. But, if she drops into the catatonia of pity, that’s all she’ll ever have: a last, feeble memory of the people she loves most.

“I’m sorry,” she says to Kairi’s back. She’ll have to say it so many times more before it means a thing.

//

This time, when Asuka turns away from Iyo, it’s with the belief that her kohai is capable of carrying the world on her shoulders, and the faith that one day, they’ll meet again under even brighter lights.

[bloodmoonscall]

Youve been visited by the jester

well damn. the jester should leave kudos.

[bloodmoonscall]

Took a job at the head of old macdonalds farm

Im now the CIEIO

when mercedes mone and liv morgan love each other very much...

no but what is this and why lmao