Aqua Utopia｜海の底で記憶を紡ぐ
occasionally subtle
taylor price
Xuebing Du
ojovivo
Sweet Seals For You, Always
cherry valley forever
★
almost home
Misplaced Lens Cap
Sade Olutola
PUT YOUR BEARD IN MY MOUTH
No title available
No title available
tannertan36
untitled
titsay
Claire Keane
Game of Thrones Daily
The Bowery Presents
seen from Chile
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Brazil
seen from Brazil
seen from United States
seen from Iraq
seen from Bangladesh
seen from Greece
seen from Singapore
seen from United States
seen from Vietnam
seen from Vietnam
seen from Uzbekistan
seen from Azerbaijan
seen from Singapore
seen from United States
seen from Malaysia
@sakamaki-subaru
She paused in the middle of chopping up the chives, and turned, slowly, ears straining to hear his voice. Once it was clear he was done speaking, she set the knife down.
"You okay there?" she asked, concerned.
The sound of her chopping stopped, but he didn't look up, rather focused on staring at his own hands.
"--I'm fine," he replied, still looking down. A meal could not hurt, and then she would leave. No English lesson today. "Tch. I'm tired. Can you hurry it up?"
"Lamb chops, I guess? Nothing fancy. Lamb tastes pretty good as lamb."
This time, she had a fairly good idea of where utensils and ingredients were stored, and the skillet was tucked away where she’d found the pots and pans. She placed it on the stovetop.
"This’ll take like… ten minutes, I guess?" Ducking back into the fridge, she found herself some chives and garlic. That was one vampire myth anticlimactically debunked.
She seemed so at home in the kitchen, something that he couldn't nearly claim to be. It was almost uncomfortable. The first time, it wasn't so bad because he had largely been distracted, peeling potatoes, but his time, he sat down, watching her movements, the feeling of intruding heightened.
Maybe this was just the wrong day in general to be doing this. Maybe he should have just stayed in his room. The feelings welled up inside and his stomach was doing flips, unable to cope.
"...on second thought, I--"
He had found his voice much softer than intended, and surprised by it, he had stopped talking, instead choosing to stare down at his clasped hands resting on the table.
"How can I tell… that it’s lamb?" She tilted her head to one side, pondering the question. "The way the meat looks and the… the cut. The part they took and the size of it."
"Ahh." He nodded sagely, placing the packet of lamb on the counter. Still, his mind was on the question of how to pose his request--but while dancing around it, he once again decided against it. It was dumb, after all.
"What are you making with this?"
//kisses you (/ v \)
"Meat is tastiest. I will look for meat." Nodding to herself, she wandered over to the fridge and pulled it open.
As before, it was almost completely full; meat, fruit, vegetables and cheeses of all kinds were neatly stacked, some of which being completely foreign to Mia. Reiji, she assumed, knew a lot more about the culinary arts than her. She scanned the contents once more, closely, until her eyes fell upon something she hadn’t even thought of.
"There is lamb in this fridge," she commented, turning towards Subaru, as if asking for permission. Clams were one thing, but surely the bespectacled vampire would care if an expensive cut of lamb were to suddenly go missing. Who would he blame, anyway? Did anyone but him know how to cook in this place to begin with?
He couldn't argue with that logic. Meat was, sort of, the tastiest thing out of the things in the fridge. This was, however, Reij's domain, and Subaru really didn't know his way around, anyways.
Walking to her side, he peered into the fridge with her. Somehow, it was amazing that all this manage to turn into something edible. "How can you tell?" was his only response, reaching to take the packet, as it was on the uppermost shelf and perhaps a little bit out of her reach.
"What kind of thing would you like?" she asked, keeping pace behind him. "Do you like meat?"
"I don't know." Words clipped, he walked into the kitchen, sitting down. Couldn't possibly ask her. "Anything. Make it tasty."
The moment he spoke, her eyes lit up, but she tried to play it cool. Things had gone about as well as she could have hoped, but she wasn’t in the clear yet; if she annoyed him, he might change his mind.
She nodded solemnly. With his hand still on her head, it looked rather silly.
"Okay. I will make you food."
"...something else this time," mumbling this quietly, he shut the door behind him, wary that she had seen what sort of havoc he had wrecked. Almost guilty. It was strange, but he didn't say anything, starting to walk, steps a little fast, as though telling her to keep up or she would be left behind.
”Pardon me!” Sin called out to the back of a person walking past her. “Excuse me, but you dropped something!” Or so she thought. She looked up from her phone just in time to see an object hit the pavement as they had been passing by. So, it had to be theirs right? It seemed reasonable enough.
No response. They only continued to walk ahead without any acknowledgment. While cursing her quiet voice, Sin put her phone in a pocket and followed after them with the object in hand, hardly paying it any mind. “Excuse me!” she said once more, but louder this time in hopes they would hear.
"Pardon me!" Wasn't it obvious from the way he kept walking that whatever fell down wasn't his? It belonged to the man who sped ahead of him, unaware he had dropped something.
Shoving his hands into his pocket, Subaru continued to ignore the voice, dead set on returning home as soon as possible, having decided after one class that school was not worth his while today.
Even so, the voice called again, this time louder, clearer, "Excuse me!" and this person obviously couldn't read social clues, so he spun around. "What? Are you really so stupid you can't tell who dropped something and who didn't?"
She had no doubt in her mind that he could, easily. But the way he said it made it seem more like a throwaway line than anything else, a product of his current anger. Thinking this did little to help her, but at least she didn’t fear for her life… at the moment.
"We’ve gotten along just fine before. And we like eachother’s company, when you’re not destroying furniture. And we’re both grumpy. And your hair is fluffy and mine is smooth, which sets a good balance. I can cook. But I am not very strong. I think I’m opposite strong. So combined, we’re about as strong as a single pretty strong person, who is also decent at cooking maybe? This person seems very reliable."
She paused. This had gotten long, and more than a little ridiculous. Not knowing how to wrap it up, she simply shrugged.
He was surprised, most of all, by the way she approached his question. Really, Subaru had not expected her to give him a concrete answer. For a moment, when he listened to her speak--it didn't seem like her speech was going to end--he could almost laugh, the corners of his mouth threatening to smile.
"You're stupid," he replied smoothly, rolling his eyes. Reliable, huh. Well, he could not say that he minded having her around. Taking a step closer to her, he reacted in a way he only knew how from watching her, and placed his hand on her head. "You're really stupid, but I'm hungry. So. Let's go to the kitchen."
His words stung slightly, though she understood why he said them. For all she knew, she could be the only one who has ever tried getting close to him— at least, this persistently. There was no doubt an attitude like that would at least put off anyone casually interested.
Her expression lightened somewhat as she turned her gaze back to the carpet. “I just wanted to be friends. And I don’t think there’s anything wrong with needing people.”
Brothers who were not brothers. Mother who was not mother. Father who was...who knows who he was, except that she did not love father--and in extension, him. Even if it was her he resembled.
"...friends, huh." His lips set to a thin line, he moved from the doorway towards her, glaring down. "You want to be friends with me? Are you fucking stupid? What makes you think we could be friends? I'll kill you."
Her frown deepened, and this time she looked up at him.
"I never said you were lonely. But why else would you have said yes to me teaching you English? Even if you’re not, you had to have liked the company." She didn’t bother responding to his last comment; it would go nowhere, anyway.
"Tch." She was so nit-picky about words. He shut his eyes and looked away, not wanting to deal with the way her face looked. It was bothersome. It was even beyond bothersome. It made him a little angry, and he tightened his grip on the door frame, the wood giving just a little. "I needed to brush up on it. Anyways, it doesn't matter why. I don't need you or anyone anymore. What were you expecting? Thanks? Gratitude? Don't fuck with me."
Mia frowned and looked at the floor. This time, she had a response, though she didn’t know how well it would go over.
"Because… being alone and doing nothing and having nothing happen every day all the time is boring and sucks." A pause. "And Raito is creepy and dresses like an alien who was just told about clothing."
"Hah? You think I'm lonely?"
That was a funny thought. Him. Lonely. As if that sort of thing could happen. He placed one hand against the doorway, staring down at her, not knowing how to respond, deciding he would not respond to her invitation. It was hard enough dealing with this day every single year--he didn't need another nuisance on his back.
Yeah. That was what she was. A nuisance. A very, very noisy nuisance who was looking to be something more than she was worth of being. "I'm sure he'll like you more than I do, and I'm sure you'll like him more than I do. They always do."
Her mouth opened but no words came out, her eyes quickly darting from him to the room behind him. It looked a bit… worse for wear. And judging from the noises she’d heard a moment earlier, Sakamaki Subaru had not experienced an unfortunately-targeted burglary.
Her brain struggled to come up with an adequate response, looking for something that wouldn’t set him off. I see your English is coming along fine would be far too rude, and Is everything okay? was probably the last question in the world that needed to be asked. In the absence of anything suitable, she blurted out the first thing that came to mind—
"Would you like me to make some chowder?"
He noted her eyes looking from him to his room a little too late, but even so, he moved a bit to block her view, defensive.
"I don't understand why you can't just leave me alone. How fucking hard is it to find someone else to bother? Raito would love your persistence." He hissed the name of his brother, but he didn't comment on her offer.
Part of him wanted to retreat back into his room, hide away in the little space of his coffin and sleep until the night passed him by, like it did every year before this. He even made a motion to go back in, before looking at Mia through his bangs. "Give me one good reason."
Mia walked quietly up the large staircase, glancing around every so often. It was rare for her to come this late at night— a vampire’s midday, basically— and she was wary about bumping into anyone she didn’t know. Or, in the case of a certain bespectacled killjoy, someone she did. The floorboards creaked under her weight as she arrived at the landing, and it occurred to her that caution would probably do her little good in the face of superhuman senses. They could probably smell her, anyway. But they were either preoccupied or away, as she met no resistance on the journey to his bedroom. Was Subaru even there, she wondered, before glaring at his door, as if it might answer in its fear. It didn’t. She hesitated before knocking; was little more than a week sufficient time for him to cool down? Were vampire moods as long-lived as they were? Would he even bother to answer her? As the door offered up no new information, nor any sign of sentience, she sighed, and finally knocked.
This day had been spent the same way in many, many years. So many years, in fact, that Subaru couldn't quite remember spending it differently. If it were not for the uncomfortable pressure on his chest, he would not have thought about this day any differently than the next at all.
Even though he had promised himself last year he would not feel this way, he found himself staring into the space, alternating between counting squares in the windows and slamming his hand against the nearest solid object.
It was frustrating, the way this seemed to bind him--the way it would continue to bind him, years and year from now, because he could not face the white woman in the tower.
Bam! The poor table offered no resistance against his abuse, two legs finally snapping, and if he had not been a vampire, the noise would have completely muffled the knocks on his door.
His first thought was Reiji, coming to complain about the noise, but it only took a moment to recognize who stood in front of his bedroom door. Hadn't he told her to leave? Hadn't she bothered him enough? She thought that she could just barge into the mansion like she owned it--and that wasn't even the most irritating part about her.
The door was nearly ripped from its hinges, but opened anyways. "What the fuck do you want?"
Her eyes narrowed at the shove, and she gave her shoulder a light tug. What did she look like she was made out of, anyway?
Still, she didn’t let her annoyance get the better of her. “I don’t understand why you’re so resistant to everything, but I’ll be back in a couple of days. We can move on to the next lesson then, I guess.”
"Does it look like I'm joking?" Subaru kicked the table where they had been sitting at only moments earlier, sending it skittering back. Reiji would definitely have something to say about this, but it wasn't like anything that came out of that prisspot's mouth really mattered.
Turning to look at her, he gritted his teeth, narrowing his eyes, leaving the consequences of her presence in the mansion hang in the air. "Leave."
His reaction shouldn’t have been surprising, but the sudden movement and resulting noise was enough to make her visibly start. By the time her heart rate began to slow back to normal, she was on her feet, his fingers digging into her arm.
"I can’t," she replied flatly.
He could feel her heard drum underneath his fingertips, and he swallowed, eyes darkening as she replied. It occurred to him, just briefly, that she couldn't leave if he was holding onto her, and so he let go, giving her a shove as he did so. "Leave."
"I don't understand what sort of fascination you have with danger, but don't come back."
Without a word, Mia leaned over, scanning the contents of the pages. It still wasn’t pretty, and she very much doubted her 6th grade teacher would have been impressed, but at least there was some consistency, and none of the S’s were backwards.
"Alright. Good work, Subaru-chan."
...chan?
"Oi!" He slammed his hand down onto the desk, standing up. She wasn't as short as most of them, but she was still shorter, and...well. Scary angry vampire a good friend does not make. "You're getting a little too comfortable, aren't you?"
Roughly, he grabbed her arm, pulling her up. "Just because we..." For a moment, Subaru hesitated, tightening his grip. the did have a lot of lessons, and maybe they were both getting too comfortable with each other.
"...leave."
