Index

Lighting Electric Candles (2/15/19)
The Involuntary Lock-In (5/29/19)
Shizune's Guide to Board Games as Negotiation Tool (7/6/19)
Studying in the Meantime (10/26/19)
Kenji and the Hangover (4/26/2020)
Mirror Me as You Walk (5/30/20)
Untitled (6/15/20)
Hours, Minutes, Seconds (12/24/23, S14)

I heard the door open and close gently. It always confused me. Not the door closing, but it closing gently. You can't be gentle to a door. Can you?

I was thinking too hard again. Thinking so hard I didn't have time to think about what I'd been thinking about earlier. He came up and wrapped his arms around me, resting his head on top of mine. I'd just been sitting for a while, watching the dry paint wetten. His touch and warmness were a nice distraction.

Funny, from this perspective it almost looked like I had arms. But if that was the case, why would I be wrapping myself in my own arms? Maybe I could come up with a reason or two.

"Hi."

Yeah, it's him. I open my mouth.

"Hi."

I lean my head into one of his arms. It's the closest I can come to hugging him back.

"How was your day?"

His voice is gentle, almost like some kind of savory condiment used for cooking. I should probably say something back.

"Medium okay-ish."

I hear him hum a sigh of acceptance. I notice he has a severed flower in his hand.

"A rose?"

I can't see his face, but I can feel him snap out of his daydream. Or is it just a dream now, since it's close to midnight?

"Oh! Yeah. Happy Valentine's Day."

I smiled, before suddenly remembering what I had been thinking about earlier.

"I have something for you to see."

I slowly got out of the chair.

We couldn't hold hands as we walked. Unless my arms grew back. But that would be weird. So we just settled for walking very close to each other. I guided him along the path to our bedroom, though I really didn't need to. He wasn't blind. I hope he wasn't.

We walked into the bedroom. The lights had been switched off. The only light illuminating the room was about a dozen electric candles I'd lit. How can you light electric candles?

There was a painting in the corner. One I'd made that day. Blueish black background, covered in hundreds of flecks of yellow and white paint. Below the stars, two figures sat, their backs to us. One had short brown hair cropped to its shoulders. Its arm was wrapped around another figure with equally short red hair. They were leaning on each other and watching the stars. A small pink heart was painted over them.

"Not my style", as Nomiya would've said. I never understood that. I always painted what I felt.

I saw him smile.

"It's beautiful."

He embraced me. When had I started crying?

I angeled my face up, looking up at him. He warmly smiled and lowered his face down to meet mine, our lips connect-

"Rin? Rin!"

Huh. This wasn't how this memory ended.

"Rin!"

I suddenly snapped back to the present.

He'd died on a Valentines Day too. Not that one, but a Valentine's Day regardless. It wasn't his heart thingy. He'd died in an accident. I didn't really remember the funeral. I just stayed with Emi and cried. Not because I'd lost my husband, or a partner, or a friend, but because I'd lost an interpreter, almost. Almost like if Shizune lost Misha. He understood me like she understood Shizune.

I looked over at Emi, standing beside me.

"We're here."

I nodded, before looking forwards again. As I gazed down, I only felt a little sadness wash over me.

"Hisao Nakai - 1989-2017"

Well. Ouch.

Okay but really this is very sweet. The sudden switch in tenses threw me at first, but it comes to make sense of course. It's a beautifully sad tale made special by Rin's rather confusing attempts to process her grief. I think that end part captures Rin quite well, however, and I'm not an expert on Rin, I'm not entirely sold on your presentation of her at the start. She comes across as very calculating rather than her, difficult to qualify, introspective and rapt personality we see in game. I think you make it work in the end, there's something haunting about this line:

As I gazed down, I only felt a little sadness wash over me.

I don't know if this was intentional, but the ending has some tense dysphoria - where Rin 'snapped' back to 'present' but continues to exist in a state of past. If that's intentional then well done, because it encapsulates that idea that Hisao wasn't a quantifiable label of Husband, lover or friend - but an interstital 'thingy' that didn't need to understand Rin, but be beside her. It's a bit of a sting then that your Rin does label Hisao, as an interpreter. But then, as I said, you make it pretty clear that Rin is lost and not handling her grief - and it does in this instance work, I think.


This was really nice - short and... well it's not sweet in the traditional sense. Happy Valentines day, I guess, thanks for making me feel sad. (That should at least prove I think this is good, honest and powerful). Well done.


Who hurt you?

ayyy congrats on what is (i think) your first KS fanfic

And a very well done effort it is! Hits the right notes to evoke a feeling of loss and melancholy. Poor Rin...

Feurox wrote: ↑Fri Feb 15, 2019 7:53 pm I think that end part captures Rin quite well, however, and I'm not an expert on Rin, I'm not entirely sold on your presentation of her at the start. She comes across as very calculating rather than her, difficult to qualify, introspective and rapt personality we see in game.

yeah, i originally wrote the story as close to her in-game personality as possible - but as it's told from her perspective it made it very hard to keep it grounded. in the end i just scrapped the first draft and wrote it normally, but tried to keep her spoken dialog as close to the in-game stuff as i could

Feurox wrote: ↑Fri Feb 15, 2019 7:53 pm I don't know if this was intentional, but the ending has some tense dysphoria - where Rin 'snapped' back to 'present' but continues to exist in a state of past. If that's intentional then well done, because it encapsulates that idea that Hisao wasn't a quantifiable label of Husband, lover or friend - but an interstital 'thingy' that didn't need to understand Rin, but be beside her. It's a bit of a sting then that your Rin does label Hisao, as an interpreter. But then, as I said, you make it pretty clear that Rin is lost and not handling her grief - and it does in this instance work, I think.

i'm glad my writing was sensical enough to get this through - my intention was to have rin quantize hisao as something that could possibly be taken the wrong way, but in context is understandable

Feurox wrote: ↑Fri Feb 15, 2019 7:53 pm Who hurt you?

good question

Hanako Fancopter wrote: ↑Fri Feb 15, 2019 8:17 pm ayyy congrats on what is (i think) your first KS fanfic

And a very well done effort it is! Hits the right notes to evoke a feeling of loss and melancholy. Poor Rin...

thanks, i'm glad you guys like it

That's lovely. It's one of those things a person might feel they should've tried to write, but someone already wrote it and the colours are right, so that's good.

I like you sgtpepper, I hope you stay here for a while.

Didn't quite get me to cry but it felt very similar to Going the Distance which did get me to cry, so applause. Stories don't usually hit me deep enough to get tears out of me, so getting me to feel like that is praise worthy from me.

NelNinja wrote: ↑Mon Mar 04, 2019 10:08 pm I like you sgtpepper, I hope you stay here for a while.

Didn't quite get me to cry but it felt very similar to Going the Distance which did get me to cry, so applause. Stories don't usually hit me deep enough to get tears out of me, so getting me to feel like that is praise worthy from me.

Thanks, man. Also, that fanfic broke me.

"Locked."

I turned to Miki, who just rolled her eyes and sighed. We walked back to the rear of the library where, until pretty recently, we'd been blissfully sleeping in the beanbags. My sternum was still a little sore where her head had been laying, and I rubbed it absentmindedly as we walked.

"You'd think someone would have the decency to wake us up and be like, 'Oh, by the way, Yuuko's about to lock you in here for the rest of the fuckin' night.'"

"Unlikely. The only person who comes back this far is Hanako, and she'd probably rather run down the hallway naked than disturb you."

Miki snorted in laughter, followed by a quiet "Damn right."

We made it back to the bean bag chairs, situated in the far corner of Yamaku's library. Miki immediately flopped back down into hers, stretching her legs out. I sat down in the other one and looked to her.

"So, what do you want to do?" I asked.

Miki seemed to think about it for a second, before smirking. "Gee, I wonder what two teenagers could do in the library. Alone. At night."

I rolled my eyes. She really did have the libido of a 15 year old guy.

"Yeah, except I don't think either of us wants to explain to Yuuko tomorrow morning why this corner of the library smells like a can of tuna fish exploded."

She laughed, her pride not hurt by my joke. I smiled, turning my gaze away from her. I stared out the window, the moonlight outside giving its soft illumination to the room. My mind wandered.

"We could always break a window."

"Woah, woah, weren't you just 'Mr. Responsibility' two seconds ago?"

"I'm just sayin'."

"Yeah, no thanks. It'd be easier to explain cumstains on the books than that."

I turned to her and gave her what I hoped was an icy glare. I must've still been smiling, though, because she started laughing again.

"You're taking this pretty well," I noted.

Her laughter tapered off, before saying, "Well, what else am I supposed to do? Can't call anyone, since someone insisted we leave our phones in our dorm rooms."

"...I'm beginning to regret that decision."

"Damn right you are."

I just sighed and held my arm up, looking at her expectantly. She took her cue and rested her head on my chest again, unfortunately in the same spot as she'd been earlier. She must've noticed my wincing, because she sat up and looked at me quizzically.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

"It's still a little sore from where you were sleeping earlier."

"Jeez, am I that heavy?"

"No, you just have a hard head." I smirked, proud of that one.

She just rolled her eyes and stuck her tongue out at me.

"Well, I was gonna let you nuzzle my chest too but now I don't feel so charitable."

In response, I slowly moved my arms until I was loosely embracing her, sliding down in the beanbag chair until I could rest my face in her cleavage.

"Bastard. You were just looking for an excuse, weren't you."

I thought about it for a second. "...Maybe."

She chuckled, bringing one hand up to lightly stroke my hair. "I knew you still had some play in you."

I lay like that for a few minutes, enjoying the sensation, before slowly sitting up. "Okay, point made. Let's actually go to sleep now."

I moved my arm up from her midsection to loosely rest around her shoulders, pulling her closer so her head rested higher up on my chest, closer to my neck. She sighed happily and let her body go lax, lazily moving one arm across my chest.

I wasn't sure how much time passed before I remembered I'd forgotten something.

"I love you, Miki."

She smiled, eyes still closed, before responding "I love you too, gaylord."

==========

I was awoken by a subdued shriek. Opening my eyes, I saw Yuuko standing in front of us, her hand patting her chest. Sunlight streamed through the window, bathing the entire library in its orangey-yellow light.

What? What was she doing here? My brain suddenly kicked into gear, reminding me where I was.

"Oh! Yuuko, sorry, I should've left you a note-"

"Ohmygod! Did I lock you in! I'm so sorry! I should've double checked back here before locking up but I thought only Hanako went this far back and I saw her lea-"

Jesus, this woman could give a speedtalker a run for his money. I held out my other arm to try and calm her down.

"No, no, it's okay. We shouldn't have fallen asleep back here. It's alright, sorry we startled you."

Her panic de-escalated into just a worried expression on her face. "O-oh. That's fine. I-I guess I'll just be at my desk if you need me." She bowed, probably out of reflex from working at the Shangai, before disappearing around the corner of the bookshelf.

A few minutes later, I'd woken Miki up, and we made our way to the front of the library. I smiled at Yuuko as we passed, and she looked at me confusedly before suddenly smiling back at me.

After we'd left, I turned to Miki. "Next time, we'll just study in my room."

She gave me a look, her mind clearly already in the gutter. "Sure. Let's do that."

sgtpepper wrote: ↑Wed May 29, 2019 12:40 pm "I love you too, gaylord."

Now this is epic

Hanako Fancopter wrote: ↑Wed May 29, 2019 1:15 pm

sgtpepper wrote: ↑Wed May 29, 2019 12:40 pm "I love you too, gaylord."

Now this is epic

pretty sure including "gaylord" in your Miki fic is in of the terms of service for the forums

That was adorable!

sgtpepper wrote: ↑Wed May 29, 2019 1:17 pm pretty sure including "gaylord" in your Miki fic is in of the terms of service for the forums

Damn, I've been doing it wrong...

Scroff wrote: ↑Wed May 29, 2019 2:41 pm That was adorable!

sgtpepper wrote: ↑Wed May 29, 2019 1:17 pm pretty sure including "gaylord" in your Miki fic is in of the terms of service for the forums

Damn, I've been doing it wrong...

Thank you!

i don't make the rules, just obey them.

I actually forgot to do it in my last one

Maybe that means I've included her in too many fics now

sgtpepper wrote: ↑Wed May 29, 2019 1:17 pm pretty sure including "gaylord" in your Miki fic is in of the terms of service for the forums

Don't feel pressured to do so. Sometimes a little originality can be more important than cramming in tired memes.

Mirage_GSM wrote: ↑Thu May 30, 2019 5:45 pm

sgtpepper wrote: ↑Wed May 29, 2019 1:17 pm pretty sure including "gaylord" in your Miki fic is in of the terms of service for the forums

Don't feel pressured to do so. Sometimes a little originality can be more important than cramming in tired memes.

All times. ALL times a little originality is more important than tired memes.

In fact, unless you're being really really clever with how you use the meme, they pretty much throw me out of the story every time. Don't use them.