Ship: Ranpha/Rakshata Fandom: Love Live Major Tags: tags omitted Other Tags: tags omitted Word Count: 563
Cyberpunk and POC girls! Rakshata is Indian, Ranpha is Chinese. They are incredibly minor characters from Love Live who don’t get anywhere near as much love as they should.
***
Ranpha’s feet are sore and every joint in her fingers ache as she finally finishes her shift. Robots have taken over most mechanical and delicate tasks, including cleaning; while this is not where she imagined her life would end up, she has to be grateful for any work she can get.
She queues up with her coworkers so the forewoman can issue the chit of payment to her ID-band; it flashes green, displaying her current balance in an easy-to-read font that even her tired eyes can make out.
Good. One more day of survival.
Once out of the factory, she pauses only to lace her boots tighter. The fancy body-conforming clothes that reshape themselves are far too expensive for her; old-fashioned boots, made of rubber and cloth stapled and sewn together, are what she can afford and they serve her well as she trudges through the city.
The streets are empty of most signs of life; robots walk the streets in orderly lines, doing basics tasks so that normal people won’t risk emerging from their sealed rooms. Mostly that means buying the ingredients for nutri-pills. Sometimes it means disposing of a citizen who has died.
Ranpha averts her eyes from a robot with a suspiciously large sack over its shoulder and runs onwards. The less time she’s out in the polluted air, the better. Her facemask’s filter has been a deep gray for the last few days and she knows she needs to replace it; once it’s black, she won’t be able to breathe through it at all.
*
“RAKSHATA’S RICE”, the neon sign above the small stall proclaims proudly. It’s hardly bigger than an old-time cubicle but it’s hers and that’s good enough for Rakshata. Shelves line all three walls, stacked with jars and home-made plates of carved plastic, and she has a mixer right in front of her. She can hardly turn around and has to do exercises in place to keep her muscles from tensing up but her stall is safely inside a large, sealed building and does a brisk business.
As one of her regulars jogs up, Rakshata smiles automatically even as she palms one of the special wrappers under the til.
“Hello, Ranpha! What can I get you?”
“Sweet curry rice with extra sweetness, please,” Ranpha says with a smile that makes the silly passphrase into an almost flirtatious statement.
Rakshata ducks her head and quickly starts pulling down jars from the shelves, dropping their contents into the mixer. The machine whirrs away, then spits out a round, hard candy-esque nutri-pill the size of Rakshata’s thumb. Once Ranpha puts it in her mouth and starts sucking, it’ll activate the parts of her brain that receive sensory information from her mouth and teeth to create the taste and mouth-feel of having a spoonful of well-spiced sweet curry rice.”
Rakshata puts it on the center of the wrapper, twists the wrapper around it deftly and hands it over. “Please enjoy!”
“I will!” Ranpha pops it into her mouth, wrapper and all, and winks. Rakshata’s cheeks heat up so she looks down, refusing to watch Ranpha stroll away.
Once the wrapper’s dissolved, it’ll upload the meeting place directly to Ranpha’s mind. The meetings of the revolutionaries are very serious and dangerous things but maybe it’ll be easier to ask Ranpha out then than when Ranpha comes for her weekly treat.
FILL: Team The Prince of Tennis, T
Fandom: Love Live
Major Tags: tags omitted
Other Tags: tags omitted
Word Count: 563
Cyberpunk and POC girls! Rakshata is Indian, Ranpha is Chinese. They are incredibly minor characters from Love Live who don’t get anywhere near as much love as they should.
***
Ranpha’s feet are sore and every joint in her fingers ache as she finally finishes her shift. Robots have taken over most mechanical and delicate tasks, including cleaning; while this is not where she imagined her life would end up, she has to be grateful for any work she can get.
She queues up with her coworkers so the forewoman can issue the chit of payment to her ID-band; it flashes green, displaying her current balance in an easy-to-read font that even her tired eyes can make out.
Good. One more day of survival.
Once out of the factory, she pauses only to lace her boots tighter. The fancy body-conforming clothes that reshape themselves are far too expensive for her; old-fashioned boots, made of rubber and cloth stapled and sewn together, are what she can afford and they serve her well as she trudges through the city.
The streets are empty of most signs of life; robots walk the streets in orderly lines, doing basics tasks so that normal people won’t risk emerging from their sealed rooms. Mostly that means buying the ingredients for nutri-pills. Sometimes it means disposing of a citizen who has died.
Ranpha averts her eyes from a robot with a suspiciously large sack over its shoulder and runs onwards. The less time she’s out in the polluted air, the better. Her facemask’s filter has been a deep gray for the last few days and she knows she needs to replace it; once it’s black, she won’t be able to breathe through it at all.
*
“RAKSHATA’S RICE”, the neon sign above the small stall proclaims proudly. It’s hardly bigger than an old-time cubicle but it’s hers and that’s good enough for Rakshata. Shelves line all three walls, stacked with jars and home-made plates of carved plastic, and she has a mixer right in front of her. She can hardly turn around and has to do exercises in place to keep her muscles from tensing up but her stall is safely inside a large, sealed building and does a brisk business.
As one of her regulars jogs up, Rakshata smiles automatically even as she palms one of the special wrappers under the til.
“Hello, Ranpha! What can I get you?”
“Sweet curry rice with extra sweetness, please,” Ranpha says with a smile that makes the silly passphrase into an almost flirtatious statement.
Rakshata ducks her head and quickly starts pulling down jars from the shelves, dropping their contents into the mixer. The machine whirrs away, then spits out a round, hard candy-esque nutri-pill the size of Rakshata’s thumb. Once Ranpha puts it in her mouth and starts sucking, it’ll activate the parts of her brain that receive sensory information from her mouth and teeth to create the taste and mouth-feel of having a spoonful of well-spiced sweet curry rice.”
Rakshata puts it on the center of the wrapper, twists the wrapper around it deftly and hands it over. “Please enjoy!”
“I will!” Ranpha pops it into her mouth, wrapper and all, and winks. Rakshata’s cheeks heat up so she looks down, refusing to watch Ranpha stroll away.
Once the wrapper’s dissolved, it’ll upload the meeting place directly to Ranpha’s mind. The meetings of the revolutionaries are very serious and dangerous things but maybe it’ll be easier to ask Ranpha out then than when Ranpha comes for her weekly treat.