After rewatching this episode in honor of its 20th anniversary I can confirm that the future is just as if not even more abysmal than this episode portrayed it to be
In the Teen Titans episode "How Long Is Forever?" Starfire gets sent 20 years into the future and discovers that her friends lives have all fallen apart without her. (Nightwing's thriving luxurious hair excluded of course)
I think that specific episode debuted in January of '04 or something, but going off the assumption that the show takes place in 2003/2004, 20 years later would place Starfire...now.
2023/2024 is the time of the bad future, we're here guys 💀
Here it is!! I promised to write this ages ago, and I finally found the time to do it. Not that easy with a five-month-old baby boy xD But here it finally is: the strawberry crepe date. I hope this can bring you some joy while we count down the days until season 2 will be there ♥
“I didn’t think you’d be here.”
“Why not?”
“You didn’t answer me for hours.”
Instead of searching eye contact, you closely examine the crunching snow under your feet and how more and more tiny flakes become one with the already white carpet covering the floor. Chishiya walks next to you, hands tugged into the pockets of his winter coat, and you can hear a huff coming from his direction.
“I was at work. Don’t expect me to keep my hands on my phone all day long.”
You feel how your face reddens, but at least you can put the blame on the cold wind. “Yeah… I know. It was just… I saw you’d read the message and…”
Chishiya pauses, which you only notice after a couple more steps. As you turn around and finally face him, he watches you with a raised brow and a more than mocking grin. “Do you really think I’d give you my number just to ignore you afterwards?”
With a shrug, you start to walk again and hear Chishiya’s footsteps in the snow as he follows. “You’d be surprised.”
In fact, you’re more than glad that Chishiya agreed to visit the teahouse once more. It’s the third time now since you bumped into him in the hospital, only that today, you had suggested meeting already at his work place to walk down the street together.
You had been surprised when he had finally answered to your message, and shortly after, you were headed towards the hospital. This man is still a mystery to you. He is reserved and calm, rarely gives away anything about him and doesn’t seem too interested in other, and yet the feeling of connection hasn’t vanished the slightest.
Even now as you walk next to him, it feels like you have done this a thousand times already. As if he is an old childhood friend that you have almost forgotten about, but now that you’re next to him, the familiarity returns. Which is weird, because you’re sure that you have never met him anywhere before. That is something Chishiya agrees to, although you’re sure he feels it too.
Carefully walking through the snow, you watch him out of the corner of your eye. He has dyed his hair since the last time you’ve met; the dark hairline is almost invisible now. The cold has turned his otherwise light cheeks into a soft red and the breath comes out in white clouds, but there is no motion in his face otherwise.
For a brief moment, his eyes flicker towards you and then back to the street, unfazed by the attention you give him. It is weird – you both have rarely anything in common. Chishiya, who is about to earn his PhD and showing barely any interests in the things you like and do, continues to agree meeting you. Maybe it’s not only the love for cheesecakes that you have in common.
The colorful storefront is already in sight, and you grin at the thought of the many cake variants, too many for just a handful of visits. You’d have to come here at least a dozen times to try yourself through all the options, and maybe Chishiya will agree to accompany you a couple of times more?
“I hope they still have their homemade mango cheesecake today. It looked pretty nice the last- oh.”
You stop right in front of the door, Chishiya doing the same next to you. The teahouse is dark, and a plain white piece of paper is attached to the door. “Temporarily closed… but they were still open yesterday!”
The grin drops immediately, and you already mourn the missed chance of trying out the mango cheesecake. You hope that it will reopen soon enough, and not stay closed forever despite saying “temporarily”. It wouldn’t be the first store to do so.
Chishiya, who seems completely unfazed by the scene in front of him, never gets rid of his ever-mocking smirk. “Someone died, probably.”
“Why so?” You blink in confusion, unsure if he has made a very morbid joke or if he’s being serious. The raised brow and the following chuckle tell you it has to be the latter, though.
“Well, isn’t that obvious?” he answers with that cold voice that causes the butterflies inside your stomach to go crazy, “restaurants and such only close in the short run because there has been a fatality inside the family.”
“It doesn’t have to be something bad! Maybe… someone gave birth to a child or married?”
Another snort. “You think they wouldn’t have known that earlier?”
“Hrmpf.” Not even caring to say more, you look down towards the snowy ground to hide your pout while you try to warm your hands inside the pockets. Walking down here has kept you warm, but now that you’re not moving, winter’s cold is hitting you with its full force. Chishiya doesn’t seem bothered by the cold, and you wonder if hugging him would keep you warm. You don’t dare to do it actually, of course. But just standing in front of a closed store is not an option either, and you fear that the mysterious blonde will leave soon since there won’t be any cheesecakes today…
“No cheesecakes this time, I suppose”, he repeats your thoughts and starts to walk further down the road, making you wonder if he lives in that direction or if he just keeps walking to avoid the cold.
After a short moment of confusion, you quickly follow to catch up with him. He walks a fast pace now, a bit too fast for your liking. “What are we going to do now, then?”
Chishiya shrugs already before you have finished that sentence.
“I can’t speak for you.”
“You know any other teahouse or bakery or something nearby?” you try to keep the conversation running, most of all because you’re really in the mood for something sweet now, but the blonde shakes his head. “No.”
What follows is an awkward silence while you try to walk next to him, Chishiya not paying much attention to you. It makes you feel like a little child begging for attention while the adults don’t want it, and you already open your mouth to say goodbye, turn around and go home to drown in shame unnoticed when Chishiya stops all of a sudden, causing you to bump into his side.
“I’m so sorry! Wh…” you start, but then you notice that Chishiya isn’t looking at you and you follow his eyes instead. He has come to a halt in front of another store, this one definitely open with lots of warm lights and beautiful decorations promising a warm and comfy atmosphere. A crêperie.
“Oh.”
It’s impossible to keep back the grin, and so many thoughts are running through your head. So Chishiya is still interested in spending some time with you, and you will get something sweet at last. Besides, this room will definitely warm you up and shelter you from the freezing wind, and – well – you can spend more time with the fascinating blonde!
Said man opens the door without any further comment, activating a bell at the ceiling. The smell greeting you is fabulous, although it’s too much at once to name certain scents. All you know is that it’s sweet and wonderful and delicious, maybe even better than the teahouse.
“We can sit there”, you nod towards one of the remaining empty tables, but Chishiya is already heading there, proving that he has seen it too. It feels wonderful to take off your coat and let the warm air seep into your cold skin, and you watch the other tables to get a feeling of what is served here.
Crepes. Lots of them. With ice cream, with fruits, with syrup. It feels like heaven.
“How come I’ve never been to this place before?” you wonder while nodding towards the waiter to thank them for the menu. Chishiya opens his carte and takes a quick look, and it seems he has made a decision long before you could even take in the whole assortment.
The blonde shoves his menu back to the corner of the table and leans back in his chair. “I guess you never bothered to walk further down the teahouse.”
“Fair!” You grin and let your eyes wander along the fabulous options. “Time to change that, though.”
Chishiya doesn’t respond and instead waits for you to make a decision on your dessert. His brown eyes burn into you, and it always makes you feel so exposed, as if it’s impossible to hide anything from him. Surprisingly, you barely care.
“Hmm…” you mumble, “the one with strawberries sounds promising. But blue berry vanilla doesn’t seem to be bad either… What about you?”
“I’ll take the strawberries.”
Whenever you’re out with Kuina and you both can’t decide on a dish, you usually take both and share with each other. Since the blonde wants to take strawberries, which is what you’d like to taste too, you say: “Oh! Maybe I can take the blueberries and we can sh-“
“No.” The answer comes quick like a shot, and you can tell he’s absolutely serious about it.
“Why not?” you ask with a pout that you can’t suppress, since you had hoped to find an easy solution to your difficulties to decide.
Chishiya raises a brow and huffs. “Don’t expect me to give away my strawberries. Take both if you can’t decide on one of them.”
“But that’s too much!” It’s not just one crepe with a handful of fruits. The plates that are delivered around you are so full that you can’t see the porcelain anymore, and one portion could suffice to satisfy three people.
“Not my problem, isn’t it?”
“You’re rude, you know that?” You stick out your tongue and seconds later the waiter returns to take your orders. And since you’re still unsure which one to take, you actually do what Chishiya has suggested: you order both. “I’ll so regret that later”, you mutter as soon as the waiter has gone.
The blonde laughs and subtly shakes his head. “You probably will. But don’t complain to me about a sore stomach.”
To pass the waiting time, you ask Chishiya a bit about his work. His answers are short, but he seems to enjoy talking about the things he can do best. How he’s had many more solo surgeries than any other surgeon his age, and that he plans to break the internal record for the longest operation. It has something to do with hearts, but you don’t really understand most of the terms he uses.
Here and there, you even tell a bit about yourself: what you do for a living, where you want to go with your life and all that. And again it feels like talking to an old friend that you haven’t seen for a long time.
The crepes are brought to your table, and you swallow upon seeing two huge plates filled to the brim with crepes, fruit and ice cream. Not enough to feed three people, but an entire country. And yet you’re excited to dive into this heaven of a dessert.
“Bon appétit”, you smile to Chishiya as you both try your crepes. Both the strawberry and the blueberry vanilla one are so delicious that you immediately feel like being in heaven, and it takes all your strength not to mourn out loud. The man sitting in front of you obviously enjoys his meal too, although his reactions are much more subtle. It’s rather a decent satisfaction in his face instead of the childish excitement that you feature.
And then, you have an idea. A stupid one, maybe, but it is your third date, so why not risk something?
You reach for his hand, careful, silently asking for permission. His skin is warm and soft, and you imagine that he takes good care since hands are a surgeon’s most precious instruments. And there it is again: the familiarity; the warmth that grows every time you look into his eyes. As if you’d been doing nothing else for your entire life.
He doesn’t stir. His eyes meet yours, frowning slightly, but he’s not retreating. Those eyes… they make you drown in them, like the endless cold of the ocean. You remember something that has never actually happened: you both lying next to each other, you stroking a strand of blonde hair behind his ear while staring into these exact eyes. It makes your stomach go crazy.
“Hm?” Chishiya hums questioningly, and you realize that you must have been staring at him intensely without saying a word for at least a minute.
It’s hilarious. You have only met this man a bit more than a week ago, and yet… yet if feels like you’ve known him for an eternity. “Oh, it’s nothing. Just…” you take a deep breath and decide to speak it out loud. “Ever since I met you, you’ve been like a very old friend. Someone who has been there for the majority of my life, and… holding your hand, I could swear that we did it a thousand times already. I know it’s ridiculous.”
“It is.”
But is it, really? What about these tales of soulmates, of lovers from previous lives who have met again? Chishiya doesn’t say so, but he squeezes your hand very quickly before releasing himself from your touch so he can return to his strawberries. It is gone so fast that you almost think it has been nothing but an imagination.
For a few minutes, you eat your crepes in silence. You rotate between both crepes but take care to eat all of the ice cream before it melts. It’s way too much for you to eat, of course, but you know they’ll give you the rest as takeaway.
The silence is not uncomfortable, though. Sure, you want to talk to him; want to hear his voice and learn more about him, maybe hold his hand again. Or even more. But there is no pressure to talk. Chishiya is here, and he won’t leave for another half an hour or so. And even then, you’re sure that you’ll meet again. For more crepes, and eventually for more closeness overall.
Remembering that there’ll be a family meeting later this day, you watch Chishiya’s features how he enjoys his strawberry crepe and wonder how it’d be to have him with you. It’s way too early for this of course, but you ask anyway: “What about we introduce you to my family soon?”
He chuckles and doesn’t even look up from his dessert. “We’re not there yet.”
“Yet?” You grin, and the tone in your voice causes his eyes to meet yours. “Does that mean we’ll be getting there someday?”
“Silly.” He shakes his head, but this time you can tell exactly that this is not what he’s actually saying. The shimmer of warmth in his eyes and the smirk on the edge of his lips is telling you all you need.
FUNKY LITTLE BALD CHARACTER POLL ROUND 3, GROUP 5: LITTLE GREEN FREAKS DIVISION
last round's contestants were both knocked out by the miniboss, but another green freak is here from the bench to challenge the yet-undefeated kappa krew! that's right, it's everyone's favorite green superhero who isn't any of the other green superheroes: BEAST BOY!
what do you mean beast boy isn't bald? get with the times, this is what he'll look like just next year! (he's also doing 30 in the slammer for pirating nintendo products. SAD.)
BALD FUTURE BEAST BOY (Teen Titans) vs KAPP'N & FAMILY (Animal Crossing) ft KAPPA (Natsume Yuujinchou)
