doubtful this will reach anybody of note here since my tumblr is basically dead, BUT hey it's worth a shot!!
i am finally caving and looking around for a beta for some of my work, mainly because some of my pieces have blown so large out of proportion that i need the help for final revisions... ^^'
feel free to shoot me a message if you're interested. primarily, i need a beta for three different pegoryu works, 2 of which are currently in progress (these are 'smaller' projects) and lastly i need a beta for a VERY VERY long mass effect work that has not been posted anywhere as of yet.
over 18 only, if you're familiar with my work that should be obvious hahaha. and tbh willing to pay a bit if you've got skills... i need the help LOL
blarg blarg here are some outtakes from early drafts of playing for keeps CH2 (read here!: https://archiveofourown.org/works/74577456/chapters/194741961#workskin)
i was waffling a lot on how i wanted akira to react to what happened at Crossroads, so i wrote up quite a few different scenarios before i landed on something that felt both in-character and plausible. dropping these here cuz they're interesting and i can safely delete them from my draft doc without mourning their loss.
(A/N: pretty sure this is draft... two? i believe there was a third, but instead of keeping it i think it just ended up morphing into the final. Akira was a little too panicky in this one, and I didn't like how fast the scene moved. I wanted him undressing to feel both ritualistic and a little sensual, like he's mourning having to become himself again just a bit.)
Akira Kurusu is used to not recognizing himself when he looks in the mirror.
This time, he does, wide-eyed and terrified as he stares at his own reflection. Behind Kei’s golden contacts and thick, cakey makeup is him.
And he is freaking the fuck out.
He thought Ryuji knew it was him! Thought, maybe, he'd found out about all this somehow, came to Crossroads to mess with him - but, no, the longer their interaction stretched on, it became abundantly obvious that he had absolutely no clue.
“Fuck,” Akira swears, white-knuckling the vanity. Why the hell didn't he say anything?
Why did he go along with it?
Ryuji's his best friend! And - yeah, okay, maybe the feelings are kind of complicated there - but Ryuji is his straight best friend who has no idea about anything having to do with this world. With Kei. With him. It wasn't fair of him to just -
His hands are shaking. Akira’s pretty sure he's hyperventilating.
C’mon, He shakes his head, staring hard down at the scratched porcelain of the bathroom sink. Get your shit together.
His phone rings on the counter. Akira damn-near chucks it across the room.
“Hello?” He sounds much more out of breath than he'd like. That's what he gets for sprinting off the train.
“Hey, Akira,” Ann’s singsong voice trills out of the little speaker. Oh, Ann, thank god. “Are you at work right now?”
Precious few people know about this particular little moonlight of his. Ann is one of them - it's a long story, she found out by accident, but she never seemed to particularly care even if Akira really likes holding this part of his life close to his chest. She respects that boundary, and he appreciates that. If he told her what actually happened tonight, though?
“Nah, I got cut.” Better than telling her that he blew off the rest of his shift before he absolutely freaked the fuck out behind the bar. “Why?”
“Oh, okay,” Ann lets out a breath of relief. “I just heard Ryuji had a date there. He texted me saying he was pretty sure he got stood up? I figured you might want a heads-up.”
Akira’s breath catches.
“Akira?”
“Um - yeah, no, I. Left.”
Ann’s a little oblivious sometimes, but she's not an idiot. In fact, she can be alarmingly perceptive. “You ran into him, didn't you?” She asks worriedly.
“...Yeah,” Akira lifts his head, looks at himself in the mirror again. His makeup is running from the sweat beading on his forehead, his eyes reddened and dry from wearing the contacts too long. “Maybe a little more than just ran into him.” Fucking hell, Ann gets one word out of him and it's like she unplugged the dam. “I, um. Escaped.”
“Oh my god?” Akira hears her gasp over the receiver. “Did he recognize you?”
“I…” Akira deposits his false lashes onto the counter, trying to focus on the task at hand instead of the rapid beating of his heart. “I thought he did, I swear. Thought maybe he was just trying to be positive about it, and was playing along or something? I don't know.”
Ann is quiet for much longer than he is comfortable. She's putting the pieces together, Akira knows it, and it's freaking him out. Still, he forces himself to scrub his face clean.
“Akira,” She says apprehensively. “What happened?”
“I don't wanna talk about it,” He replies as he unclips his extensions. One by one, they are set neatly on the counter.
“Akira!”
He can't help but snap at her a little. She's so goddamn persistent sometimes and he's not sure if he can handle that right now. “I just don't, okay?”
“Did you fool around with him?”
Fuck.
Why is Ann so good at figuring him out?
He must be quiet for a beat too long, because Ann makes a strangled sound. “Akira!”
“It all happened so fast!” He says defensively. He's peeling himself out of the dress, now, tugging off the fishnets. “I don't know - it didn't really click that he didn't know who I was until we were already in the room, and then he had a boner, and-”
“Okay, okay, stop. I really don't need the details about his junk.”
A long silence stretches out between them. Akira looks in the mirror and it's just him. Bags under his eyes, lips swollen and chapped and bruised just enough to remind him of what he just did less than an hour ago. He looks down at the mess he's made - the clothes, the cosmetics - and crouches down to fold the former as neatly as he can, stuffing them into his work bag.
“...What do I do?” He says, voice small.
“I mean, you should tell him,” Ann says, “...But I understand if you don't want to.”
Telling him feels completely out of the question. As close as he and Ryuji are, that sounds like a very fast way to ruin their friendship. Like, yeah, they're ride or dies, they really are, but there's a line, and Akira’s pretty sure he just crossed it.
God. He should just forget this ever happened. No harm done, right? What Ryuji doesn't know can't hurt him.
Except for the fact that he invited him back.
He probably won't, right? Akira saw him staring. He was practically shell-shocked, like he'd completely forgotten that there was a dude slobbering all over his dick.
“I don't want to,” Akira finally says, sweeping the rest of his things into his bag and zipping it shut with an air of finality. “I don't know what he'd-”
“Hey, I get it. Ryuji's… weird, about that stuff.”
She's not wrong, but it's also not really his fault. At least, Akira doesn't think so. It feels more like a complex sometimes than a simple ignorance.
“You can't tell anyone about this.”
“My lips are sealed,” Ann sighs. “But I’m gonna put it out there that I think not telling him is a bad idea. I thought you were going to tell him about Crossroads at some point?”
Well, he was. How does he come out with that now?
“Maybe I could…” Akira’s eyes dart around the room. Kei isn't his only persona, just his favorite, and with that a plan begins to hatch in his head.
Is it a good plan? Absolutely not. Frankly, he's banking pretty hard on makeup skills he does not have. At least the bar is dark. Ryuji probably didn't get a very good look at his face. Maybe he can still salvage this somehow. Maybe he can -
He remembers the way Ryuji looked at him, like he was almost disgusted by what happened, and Akira promptly forces those hopeful thoughts deep into the ether of his subconscious. No way in hell that would ever happen.
But he also can't stomach the idea of completely fucking over the best thing that's ever happened to him.
“Akira, whatever you're planning -”
“I gotta go,” He says, tugging his sleep clothes on and hiking his bag over his shoulder. He's gotta hide this stuff before Ryuji gets home. As for the rest? He can deal with it tomorrow. Or, the day after, because he doesn't work at Crossroads tomorrow?
Fuck, he doesn't know. He'll deal with it.
---
(this was draft one. it felt way too angsty for starters, and felt a bit too much like akira had already accepted his feelings for ryuji and was at peace with nothing coming of it. in the final, i leave this a bit more ambiguous - I want Akira to feel like he's at odds with his inner self a bit, not willing to admit his feelings because it could destroy the life he's built with his best friend. Also, i wanted to leave Akira's personal feelings about Kei a little more ambigious. There is definitely something to be said for how I want Akira to feel about gender in this fic; he definitely feels like he resides somewhere in the in-between, but it's not something he may ever want to label or define.)
Akira Kurusu is used to not recognizing himself in the mirror.
It hasn't really weirded him out until today.
Crossroads is just a side gig, of which he has many - of course, he loves LeBlanc, but living in Tokyo isn't exactly cheap. Second, third, fourth jobs make ends meet. This job has always just been…
Kei stares back at him in the small bathroom, with her exotic, golden eyes. Pounds of makeup. False lashes. Extensions. She is as real as Lala’s sweet nothings to their most dedicated regulars. Read: as real as she needs to be. Money’s money. He likes paying rent on time and having the cash for a little more than cheap convenience store meals.
Akira runs a hand over Kei’s face. Makeup smudges into his palm, cakey and dry after such a long wear.
“What the hell happened tonight?” He says softly.
He thought Ryuji knew.
It became abundantly obvious as the seconds stretched on between them that he did not.
But Akira - Kei - couldn't help himself.
He should feel guilty, right? A part of him should, he reasons, be ready to plant his ass on the couch and tell Ryuji the truth as soon as he comes through that door. But that would be complicated, and everything about his friendship with Ryuji is so wonderfully simple.
He's never not liked this part of himself. And Ryuji is important to him. Akira isn't an insecure person.
But damn, he’s never felt more like a two-bit hooker than when Ryuji's eyes zeroed in on his crotch tonight. Felt gross, like that one part attached to him was the dealbreaker in this whole exchange. His best friend's said some not-so-tasteful things before. Never really serious, it always felt like he was parroting something his dad said way back when, but it's never felt good.
Not telling him just felt like the right thing to do. Ryuji'd come around eventually. Stop making some comment every time he saw two guys holding hands in public.
Well. It's gotten better. Mostly thanks to Makoto and Ann getting on his ass for it. Akira never really had the balls.
Why didn’t you tell him? Akira asks himself as he scrubs his face free of Kei. His skin is dry and oily at the same time; his eyes burn as he plucks his contacts out. Would he have been okay with it if he knew it was you?
Akira really doesn't like that thought.
Slowly, he begins his transformation. Becoming her feels both like a costume and like emerging from a chrysalis. Right and wrong at the same time, strange and different but fake. Taking it off feels nice, like he's becoming himself again, but the longer he does this the more that the him without the makeup feels like a lie.
He's done enough self-reflection to know that Kei isn't what he wants all the time. Mostly, it's hard hiding this from his friends. A precious few know; they bother him often about telling the rest, but he's never been good at being straightforward. Subterfuge and veiled truths have always been more his style. The flirting. The snark. The long extensions he unclips from his hair.
Soon, all that is her is laid out neatly on the vanity. He's Akira again, nude in the bathroom and carefully packing everything away into his work bag before stepping out to place it neatly in his closet. Thankfully, Ryuji's not one to rifle through his stuff. At least, not yet.
Akira wonders if he suspects anything.
Anxiety leaps into his throat; best not to think about that now.
He showers, scrubbing the scent of Crossroads from his skin. Spilled booze, sweet perfumes. After what happened tonight, he's very ready to smell normal. Like cheap men’s deodorant and less cheap shampoo. Ryuji was still at the bar when he left - he's probably not far from home now, though.
Comfortable in his sleeping clothes, he settles himself on the couch and checks his phone.
A billion texts from Ryuji, as usual. At first, panicking about the girl who stood him up. When Ryuji approached him at the bar, Akira had panicked for a second, wondering if he'd been found out - though, he seemed into it, so he figured either way it was fine. Seems he got stood up. Good riddance. That girl was kind of a bitch anyways.
The texts abruptly stop around the time they were fooling around. Then, they start back up again about ten minutes later.
[10/24 11:24] Ryuji: hey that girl never showed so im on my way back now
So… is he just not going to tell him?
Ryuji deserves his privacy, Akira reasons, trying to shove down the ugly feelings that come with that realization. He's allowed to not tell him things. Even if he normally tells Akira just about everything.
God. He needs to stop brooding over this. He backs out of the conversation, scrolling through his short list of contacts
[10/24 11:35] Akira: hey
Ann, as always, responds right away.
[10/24 11:35] Ann: hey!! done with work?
[10/24 11:36] Akira: yeah today was exhausting. some dude wouldn't leave me alone
[10/24 11:36] Ann: oh no! what did you do? was he being a creep?
[10/24 11:38] Akira: yeah. i slapped him
[10/24 11:38] Ann: OMG
[10/24 11:38] Ann: serves him right!!
[10/24 11:40] Akira: hey
[10/24 11:40] Ann: yeah?
Akira’s fingers still against his phone screen.
[10/24 11:42] Ann: hello?? what is it?
[10/24 11:42] Akira: did you know ryuji had a date at crossroads tonight
[10/24 11:43] Ann: wait, what?? was he THERE??
[10/24 11:43] Ann: did he see you? did you tell him??
[10/24 11:43] Ann: i keep telling you he probably won't care!! you're his best friend, he's not gonna judge you
She's still typing. And typing. And typing. Akira is quickly beginning to feel overwhelmed with this situation.
Without thinking, he chucks his phone onto the couch like a live grenade, trying to get as far from it as possible. When it continues to buzz, he darts his hand out to silence it and shove it between the cushions.
Yeah. No more thinking about that today.
He's just turning on the TV when Ryuji slips through the door.
“Hey, man,” Ryuji sounds pretty dejected, actually. Akira’s usually pretty good at telling when he's lying, so it's kind of scary that he seems genuine. Either he's gotten a lot better, or that whole situation really tripped him out. He'd be clicking his heels and shouting it to the rooftops if it had been a real girl sucking him off in that private room. “How was work?”
“Exhausting,” Akira groans. “How was your date?”
“Nonexistent. Didn't you get my texts?” Ryuji chucks his bag into the couch; Akira dodges it easily, years of experience telling him exactly where it'll land.
“Yeah, skimmed them. You text a lot when you're nervous.”
“Well, I was, okay? Girls are terrifying.” He kicks the ground, hands shoved in his pockets as he trudges out of his shoes, immediately beelining it to the fridge. Akira hears the clink of glass bottles; he extends his hand automatically and is rewarded with Ryuji placing a cold beer there.
“For what it's worth,” Akira raises the bottle in his direction, “I didn't like her.”
Ryuji scoffs, taking a healthy swig. “You never like the girls I'm into.”
True. Neither do any of their friends, though. Ryuji has a tendency to attract the crazy ones. “All I'm saying is - you think you can fix her?” Akira sips at his drink. “You can't. Trust me.”
“Ugh,” Ryuji groans, collapsing beside him on the couch. He looks markedly different than he did back in high school. Less scrawny, more bulk - when he finally came to terms with running being over for him, he took to strength training instead. It shows. Might be a small part in why he typically only attracts gay men and shallow women. Both enjoy their men… meaty. And maybe a little naïve.
But god damn does he make that T-shirt look like the seams are about to pop. Especially when he slings his arm up and over the back of the couch. Isn't that thing from high school? Jesus. Akira didn't even notice back at the bar. That's probably a good thing, though, because if he had he might have been bold enough to try and take it all the way…
“Uh, you gonna drink that?”
“Hm?” Akira swirls the amber bottle before taking another sip. “Yeah.”
“You seem out of it, dude.”
“Just a long day,” He sighs, shoving that blooming anxiety down deep. “I probably should drop one of these side gigs sooner or later.”
“Why are you workin’ so much, anyways?”
Akira shrugs. It's true that two jobs, really, would be all Akira needs to make ends meet - but he likes to be prepared for anything. “I like having a cushion, I guess. I got pretty cleaned out moving back here, y’know.”
“Yeah…” Ryuji's face falls a little. “I know. But I'm glad you did, man. When you'd come visit, you looked…”
Dead. That's the word he's not saying out loud. It's an open secret that Akira's parents are pretty fucking terrible. Leaving them behind was the best thing he did - though, honestly, he's just waiting for the other shoe to drop. What if they try to come after him somehow?
Hence the savings, he supposes. Always better to have money than to not. It's all he can really do, anyways.
Ryuji scoots a few inches closer. “Wanna watch a movie?”
Akira feels his shoulders slump, his jaw unclench. Being in Ryuji's bubble always seems to chill him out. He's grumpy and abrasive, but he's still got this childlike whimsy about the world even at twenty-three that's downright infectious. To him, their living together is like just one grand, long-term sleepover.
Akira can't lie that it makes him pretty happy. Ryuji was the first person in Tokyo that made him feel like he'd found home. They're both weird little misfits - a delinquent and a criminal - so it's no surprise they found each other. A whole lot’s happened between then and now (second year, he thinks, was pretty insane in hindsight), but Ryuji's still his best friend. In the daily monotony of his life, that's what really feels the most important.
“Yeah,” He nods. “Your pick. I'm cool with whatever.”
Ryuji pumps a fist. “Yesss. Lemme see.”
He grabs the remote. In minutes, they're slouched across the couch watching some terrible 80s B-film. It's noise more than anything; a comfortable drone in the background as they just enjoy each other's company. Usually, Ryuji would talk about his day, and Akira would listen (admittedly, one of his favorite things to do). Today, he's pretty quiet, but Akira’s okay with that, too. It's easier not to talk about this stuff. Whatever hangups Ryuji has, whatever he might be trying to compensate for, leaving those things unsaid keeps them close. And safe. And friends.
Ann's probably freaking out, but Akira can't be assed to pull his phone out of the couch. Their night is wonderfully normal without her questioning - they watch movies until the early hours, and eventually they're collapsed atop one another in a tangle of limbs. At some point, the cat comes out from his hiding place - Morgana, with a soft meow, hops up on the couch and settles himself on the arm, a silent sentry who keeps an eye on them as they sleep.
Ryuji snores. Akira got used to it a long, long time ago.
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