Sapphire – pet peeve and who annoys them the most with it.
“Alright, three, two, one...”
“STOP! Stop!” Ziv shouted over the Director just as the cameras were about to click on, taking off their sunglasses and pinching the bridge of their nose. They took in a sharp breath before throwing their hands in the air and looking around, all the backup dancers and stagehands looking confused.
“Who is keeping up that rigorous tapping?!” They finally said after a moment, the entire studio silent and exchanging glances with one another.
“Oh, please, now I look crazy.” They murmured, sliding their hand down their face before putting their shades back on.
“Mx, nobody’s tapping anything. Are you sure you aren’t just...” The director stammered, Ziv looking toward him with an eyebrow raised.
“Tim, Timmy, Timothy, we’ve worked together for what— Six, seven years now? You know I’m not making this up. I have places to be after this shoot, I wouldn’t delay it by making up some—”
Tap, tap, tap, tap.
“See! There it is again!” Ziv immediately put up an accusatory finger, slowly pointing around the room with narrowed eyes, “There’s a culprit in here. Whoever’s doing that better stop it! I’ll make you pay for your own lunch!” They said proudly, a hand to their chest before they frowned.
“Well, no, I won’t. But the threat is still there!”
The studio was silent. Save for that tapping.
“Come— Come on, everyone. Who’s tapping? Tapping their foot? Clicking their pen? Anything?” Tim said nervously, gesturing around the room with a pleading glance. Everyone stayed silent. Ziv stood with their arms folded and eyebrows furrowed, usually white coat and pants phasing between shades of teal, yellow, and red subconsciously.
“First Spinjitzu Master— We haven’t all day!” Ziv threw their hands in the air before walking back toward the green screen they’d been in front of moments ago; lifting their arms back above their head and throwing their head back dramatically, striking the pose they had wanted to start in, “Roll the cameras, Tim!” They said demandingly, Tim sighing quietly as he signaled for the recording to resume again.
-•-•-•-•-•-
Later that day, the crew and Ziv had gone into one of the larger common areas in the building they usually filmed in to have lunch. Today, by popular request, Ziv had ordered everyone but themself Chen’s Noodles; they instead had a lunch-wrap and some sparkling water. They sat alone at one of the tablets, feet kicked up and scrolling on their phone— until they heard that tapping again, just as their director Tim sat down across from them.
“You’re the tapper!” They suddenly sat up, pointing a finger at Tim with eyebrows furrowed, “Why’d you do it, Tim? You know I hate that! I—”
Tim lifted his hands up to show he wasn’t tapping anything, and Ziv quickly glanced under the table to ensure he wasn’t tapping his feet. No, no, he wasn’t the tapper— then who—
“Ziv, look at your foot.” Tim said nonchalantly, Ziv scoffing before they looked back down to their own shoes to see one of their feet subconsciously tapping it’s heel against the floor. Normally, this wouldn’t be a problem, but they always wore heels to work.
Their face immediately flushed bright red with embarrassment. Did everyone see THEY were tapping their foot when they had been blaming everyone else? Oh, they felt so stupid.
“Oh, oh.” Ziv muttered as they blinked, moving to cross their legs to get the tapping to stop. They were their own annoyance.
“Yeah.” Tim shrugged, arms folded on the table, “I think you’re the Tapper.”
Ziv only buried their face in their hands, Tim offering a chuckle as he began to eat his own lunch.
Oh, yeah and maybe write about Akiko...? I'm not obsessed with her I swear. Just very curious about her. *runs away into the void*
"A song of Two voices"
Her fingers, light on the strings, her shamisen resting on her laps as she play the song her grandma taught her.
she looks at the scores, hand wrote them herself, it took her easily four to five hours.
As she get into the second pages, her fingers start to tremble, her eyes watering and her sharp gaze softening. She shakes so much that she mises a notes.
"Always at this moment. Tch. Worthless like usual. I can't even get past the second part !"
In a fit of anger she trows her shamisen away from her. She watch as it falls a few meters away from her and...
And next to her grandma's picture...
Her eyes start to swell up, tears rolling down her cheeks, she slowly let herself lay on the floor, sniffing as she rest there, looking straigth at her grand mothers' face.
They shared the same face and nose, though her eyes were this beautiful faded gold instead of the harch green that Akiko possesed...
"I'm sorry. I must be such a dissapointement to you. I can't play our song anymore... I'm really worthless..." She Whisper, covering her face with her hands, trying to hide away.
Away from the grief, away from the pressure. Just, away.
"Akiko, darling ! It is time for dinner, come down" she hears voice call her.
She panics, wiping her tears away while getting up, almost falling over again.
"A-Ah ! Yes Mother ! I'll be down there soon !!"
She picks up her shamisen, positioning it in It's case, filled with red velvet.
As she does so, she looks up at the small shrine, her grand-mother's picture placed there, surounded by candles.
Tears start to come back, but she stop them. It's not the time. Her mother is waiting for her in the kitchen.
She walks out of the room, taking the stairs and joining her mother downstairs.
There she was, all bright and looking tired but still so alive. Sometimes, Akiko feel like she lacks that humanity, that little push of life in her eyes.
"Akiko !" Said her mother, a gentle and soft smile on her lips has she put her eyes on her daughter.
Akiko didn't look like her mother that much, she always looked like her dad, her mother's golden eyes shined with love and attention, her dusty pink hair being braided safely, even if a few strand of hair got out, probably during a stressful emergency during her work.
"Oh, dear, your eyes are red ! Did something happened to you ? Are you hurt ?!" Her mother panicked, cradling Aiko's face in worry.
She chuckles, her mother was always so anxious about things...
"I am fine mother, i just got a bit overwhelmed while playing my shamisen earlier, don't worry. Let's eat !" She reassured, a smile on her smile.
In her bedroom, Rosa Lupin sat on her window-bed wrapped up in a purple and blue quilt blanket and stared out of the circular window at the swirling blizzard outside. It was so snowy that she couldn’t even see the bright Christmas lights of the rest of the village across the fields.
A crack of thunder rumbled across the sky.
Rosa shivered.
She wasn’t normally afraid of the weather, no matter how bad. It was the weather on top of everything else that she was worried about. The mountain of homework that she and Gabo had between them, her mother currently working a night shift at the hospital while her father was away on a business trip, Robin with his messed-up family, Noah being bullied at school and needing to find a solution before the Christmas holidays ended.
She knew that even before Noah had started school in September, the meaner people that they met on the streets would whisper about the ‘dumb baby brother’, who was rumoured to ‘not be all there’. It was true that he seldom spoke a word around people, so many people thought that he’d simply never learned to talk. It was true that he hadn’t started talking until he was almost four, but when he had, it was in full, clear sentences with none of the baby preliminaries. He was definitely not normal, but not because he was dumb, quite the opposite. Noah Lupin was quite the most intelligent 4-year-old in the history of the world, or at least Thistledoor, but when he went to school and started to reveal some of that strange intelligence, he would be mocked and scorned, told that he was lying or that someone had done the work for him. His first day of school, he had started talking about the mitochondria that live in our cells because that was what he’d been interested in at the time, and the teacher had put him in a time out for lying.
Rosa could hear the wind whistling down the chimney, making a ghostly noise. Gabo and Noah were fast asleep, although how was another matter entirely. Rosa decided that the thing to do was to go downstairs and make herself some hot chocolate and a sandwich to calm her nerves.
Rosa threw the quilt off and stood up; the wooden floorboards were chilly yet grounding against her bare feet. She shivered slightly in her oversized yellow pyjamas, but the fire downstairs should still be hot enough for her to put a small log on.
In the little kitchen, a light was already on, and Noah was sitting at the round table, munching on a marmite sandwich. He looked very small as he sat there on his own, his blue pyjama clad legs hanging a good few inches above the floor.
“Hi.” He said cheerfully as he caught sight of her, “I’ve been waiting for you. I thought we could have some hot chocolate, so I’m warming up some milk. It should be almost ready.”
Rosa looked over at the hob and saw that there was indeed a saucepan of milk bubbling away on a low heat.
“This is quite a lot of milk, Noah, are you sure we can drink all that?”
“Mummy might like some too when she gets home.”
“What about Gabo?”
“He was up with a book all night last night, better let him sleep. Let’s be exclusive. That’s my new word for the day, by the way. Do you like it?”
“Yes, it’s a very good word.” Rosa walked over to the wood-burning stove in the living room and put a log on to warm the house up a little bit. “Why didn’t you come up to my room?”
“Because I knew you’d be down.” he replied simply, taking another bite of his sandwich.
How on earth did Noah do that? He always seemed to know about her, what she was feeling or thinking. He never knew, or seemed to care, what Gabo or Mrs Lupin were thinking, it was just Rosa’s mind that he probed with frightening accuracy.
“You’d better check the milk.” Noah said, “You know you don’t like it when it gets a skin on top.”
Rosa took the saucepan off the heat and got the fancy caramel hot chocolate tin down.
“Should we put marshmallows in?” she asked, standing on her tiptoes to peer into the treats box.
“Depends if mummy lets us.”
“Lets you do what?”
Rosa and Noah looked over to see their mother, wrapped up in her big winter coat and covered in snow, standing in the doorway.
“Hi mummy. We’re making hot chocolate; would you like some?” Noah asked.
“That sounds lovely.” Mrs Lupin replied, taking off her coat and coming over to sit at the table. Rosa couldn’t help but notice how tired she looked and the dark circles under her eyes.
“So are you done for the holidays now, mum?” Rosa asked, hiding the hint of concern by turning away to get the marshmallows.
“Afraid not, dear.” Her mother sighed. “The boss wants me back in the lab in a couple days, says that biochemists are too valuable an asset to get holidays like you lot. But your dad should be back from his trip by then, so you won’t have to worry.” She said this last part with a wink in Rosa’s direction as she turned around holding the marshmallow bag.
“Worried? I-I’m not worried?”
“Petal, I can tell when you’re lying because your nose twitches. Relax, everything’s fine.”
Rosa huffed as Noah passed her their mugs and she started pouring out the hot chocolate.
“Everything’s not fine, though. Noah’s still getting bullied at school, Gabo and I have a million homework assignments to do, the wind is trying to blow the roof off, and do you know how many times Robin’s turned up to school with a bruise on his face in the last two weeks? Three. And he still flat out refuses to admit that his mum is doing it to him even though Gabo and I have known for two years now!” she slumped down defeatedly in her chair. “I mean, I kinda understand his whole ‘don’t want everyone to make a fuss and put them all in foster care’ reasoning, but it’s like he’s trying to make me worry even more than I already am sometimes.”
“I get ya there, sis.”
They all looked round to see a bleary-eyed Gabo standing in the doorway, fumbling to put his glasses on.
“Hey Gabo.” Rosa smiled as he pulled up a chair next to Noah. “Want some hot chocolate?”
“Yeah, thanks.”
Mrs Lupin poured him a mug and started dishing out the marshmallows.
“Please don’t worry about my school, Rosa.” Noah reassured her gently. “I can manage all the teasing and getting told off as long as you all know I’m telling the truth.”
“Yeah, and we can do all of that homework easily, most of it’s science anyway.” Gabo added. “It’s far too late to do any worrying now.”
“Exactly.” Mrs Lupin agreed. “But I’ll tell you what, I’ll invite Robin and his siblings over tomorrow evening and we can have a sleepover, sounds good?”
Rosa grinned. “Sounds good.”
Good thing Rosa’s family knew how to calm her down when she was worrying.
***
If you want to read some of my other OC stories or my very detailed description of them, I’m using a tag with my username to get them all together.
