Bonus Round 1: Quotes

[referees]

Bonus Round 1: Quotes

SASO 2015 is over, but this round is perpetually open to new fills (no new prompts).

PLAY BALL! For this round, we'd like you to take inspiration from songs, sayings, poems, and other kinds of famous words.

Because this is our first full round, please read this post carefully before proceeding!

This round ends at 7PM on June 13 EDT. Countdown Timer.

RULES

• Submit prompts by commenting to this post with a quote attributed to a specific person or character, along with any ship/ot3/etc. from one of our nominated fandoms.
  • Example: "Hi-ho, Kermit the Frog here!" -Kermit the Frog
  • The quote can come from anywhere. Famous people, poetry, songs, books, movies, your neighbor, etc.
  • Your prompt MUST include some kind of relationship. (This is not the sports anime gen olympics.) Platonic relationships are indicated by an "&" between the names (e.g., Yachi & Kiyoko). Non-platonic relationships use "/" (e.g., Yachi/Kiyoko). Please don't say "Any pairing," either!
• Fill prompts by replying to the prompt with your quote-inspired fanwork.
• Remember to follow the general bonus round rules, outlined here.
• You cannot fill your team's prompts or your own prompts.

FORMAT

Bonus round shenanigans all happen in the comments below. Brand-new works only, please.

Required Work Minimums:

• 400 words (prose)
• 400px by 400px (art)
• 14 lines (poetry)

There is no max work cap.

Format your comment in one of the following ways:

If PROMPTING:	If FILLING:	If FILLING as a TEAM GRANDSTAND participant:
PROMPT: TEAM [YOUR SHIP] Replace [YOUR SHIP] with the name of the team you belong to, including Grandstand or Sports Teams Write it exactly as it appears on the team roster or your team will not receive points Place the prompt's relationship in the first bolded line of the comment. Including the canon isn't required, but it's nice. Visual example	FILL: TEAM [YOUR SHIP], [RATING] Replace [YOUR SHIP] with the name of the team you belong to Write it exactly as it appears on the team roster or your team will not receive points Replace RATING with the rating of your fill (G - E) Place applicable major content tags and word count before your fill (when applicable) NSFW FILLS: Post written/text fills directly to the round with clear tags. Please link to art/visual fills. You can include a small safe-for-work preview if you'd like. To place an image in your comment, use this code: <img src="LINK TO YOUR IMAGE" /> Visual example	FILL: TEAM GRANDSTAND, [RATING] Replace RATING with the rating of your fill, G - E, as explained in the rules Place applicable major content tags and word count before the fill, where applicable NSFW FILLS: Post written/text fills directly to the round with clear tags. Please link to art/visual fills. You can include a small safe-for-work preview if you'd like. To place an image in your comment, use this code: <img src="LINK TO YOUR IMAGE" /> Visual example

Posts not using this format will be understood to be unofficial discussion posts, regardless of what they contain. They, like all comments in this community, are subject to the code of conduct.

SCORING

These numbers apply to your team as a whole, not each individual teammate. Make as many prompts/fills as you want!

For prompts: 5 points each (maximum of 50 prompt points per team per round)

For fills:

First 3 fills by any member of your team: 20 points each
Fills 4-10: 10 points each
Fills 11-20: 5 points each
Fills 21+: 2 points each

All scored content must be created new for this round.

Etc.

If you're hunting through the prompts looking for what to fill, a good trick is to view top-level comments only.

Have a question? Check The FAQ first. If you still need help, feel free to contact the mods. Happy fanworking!

Comments

Re: FILL: TEAM FUKUTOMI JUICHI/KINJOU SHINGO, G

[hapaxlegomenon]

That's not at all what I was expecting but it was exactly what this prompt needed. Thank you. Of course there would be a bet involved with these two finally getting their act together, the goofs.

Re: FILL: Team Tachibana Makoto/Yamazaki Sousuke, G

[putsch]

AW ITS CUTE THO

Re: FILL: Team Yowamushi Pedal, RATING G

[putsch]

oh my god i can't believe i got TWO FILLS TYSM

FILL: TEAM FUKUTOMI JUICHI/KINJOU SHINGO, G

[catlarks]

Major Tags: None
Word Count: 728


"Is this alright?" Maki asks, her hand resting against the top of the piano without yet moving to roll the cover back from the keys.

"It should be," Umi says, as she stretches her arms above her head and bends herself first to one side, then the other. "Thank you, for doing this with me."

"It's my pleasure," Maki says, and finds that she means it.

She pushes the cover back, moving around the seat and dropping herself onto it, her fingers hovering expectantly over the keys. She isn't even touching them but she can feel how close they are beneath her hands, like she's creating that moment before the music rises and begins through her own human power.

"Are you ready?" Maki asks, glancing up at Umi again in time to see her finishing her limbering exercises.

"I'm ready," Umi replies.

She bows, a neat, precise dip where her arms and legs shift exactly so, and her mouth twitches like she wants to smile once she returns to her resting position. Maki lets her hands drop, picking slowly across the keys at the behest of the unfamiliar sheet music before her, the sound of the song Umi has chosen falling on her ears for the first time and catching her attention alight.

Beside her, Umi begins to move. She's graceful as she flows through the motions of the dance she set out to practice – something modified from the traditional Japanese dance her family teaches, Maki remembers that – but Maki can't afford to keep her eyes on Umi. She hadn't thought to ask for the music ahead of time and she's forced to constantly dart her gaze back to the sheet, following the notes on the page so she won't fail Umi in her part.

Every glimpse of Umi's dancing is only lovelier for Maki's inability to watch outright.

She reaches the climax of the piece, a rush of notes building up to something Maki feels in her bones for all that she can't yet place where it's going, and out of the corner of her eye she sees Umi execute a fluid three-sixty degree turn before she drops to her knees. Her skirts spread and Maki thinks – can't say – that she bows, before rising again like a bird taking flight.

That's when Umi's voice rises with her, adding words to the melody Maki has dutifully been providing her. It's not unfamiliar, listening to Umi's voice rise and fall with careful pitch, perfect enough to satisfy even Maki's discerning ear. But it's different, hearing Umi sing out unfamiliar words, rather than the practiced lyrics of any of the songs written for muse.

Maki gradually reaches the end of the piece, and as the last notes from the piano trail off, Umi trails off along with them. She's beaming, rosy-cheeked and eyes alight, when Maki lifts her gaze to see it.

"Oh, thank you," Umi says, voice gone louder than usual with heartfelt sincerity.

Maki's lips part, but whatever words she was tonguing at fade away before being voiced, drowned beneath the dawning realization of exactly how Umi looks when the energy from a performance is still bright underneath her skin. She's absolutely incandescent, and Maki finds herself breathless.

"I told you," she finally says, voice coming out near-soft as a whisper, "It was my pleasure to do it."

Umi smiles at her, slow and secretive, like she isn't entirely sure Maki's words are the truth. But Maki only shakes her head, too moved to push herself into convincing Umi of her sincerity.

"If you'd like to practice together again," she says instead, "I would appreciate that very much. If nothing else, I welcome the introduction to new piano music."

That causes Umi's smile to stretch just a hair wider, relaxing into something warmer and more comfortable. "There are a lot of pieces I'd like to modify dances for," she confides. "Not all of them are especially... Suited to the kinds of shows we perform as muse, but... It makes me happy to be able to practice them."

"You should feel happy, and proud," Maki says. "For creating something beautiful. And because, I think, they're something suited to you."

Umi's mouth trembles, like she doesn't know what to say, but all the answer Maki needs is that of the warm contentment lighting up Umi's eyes.

FILL: TEAM FUKUTOMI JUICHI/KINJOU SHINGO, M

[catlarks]

Major Tags: None
Word Count: 1,177

(I fear this may not be what you wanted, since the prompt makes me think "pining" and maybe you meant one half of the ship pining for the other, and here's me taking a love triangle angle. Hopefully it is enjoyable! M rating is erring on the side of caution for Sexual Tension (tm), it's more of an intense T, probably.)

-

"You should pick something out, too," Nico says, several hangers draped over her arms so that the skirts of the dresses attached to them bounce as she strides through the store.

"Mmm," Maki hums to herself, glancing at the outfits on the mannequins and the cutesy pink-and-white décor coating the entire interior. "I'm not sure if anything here is to my taste."

"Not to your taste?" Nico asks, a disbelieving note creeping into her voice. She turns back around, stopping in her tracks and leveling Maki with a greedy look like she's sizing her up, one of her hands rising to tap its first finger against her chin. "We'll see about that. I bet I can find something you'll look adorable in."

For a moment, a shiver runs down Maki's spine, at being pierced with a gaze as knowing as the one Nico holds her trapped by. Her heart stutters twice in her chest, beating out of tune as Nico's smile spreads to resemble – for a single moment – the canny look of someone else Maki knows too well.

Her cheeks burn, and she turns her face away.

"Adorable isn't really the look I'm going for, Nico-chan," she says.

"I just want to play to your best attributes," Nico says. "You have a very lithe figure, and while what's popular for your type is usually something more stately, sometimes playing with people's expectations pays off better than you could possibly dream. Trust me, I know these things."

Trust me, Maki hears again, in that sly voice that's always holding something else up her sleeve.

She feels her resolve crumbling before she even makes the decision. Her feet carry her after Nico, and she says, "I suppose it wouldn't hurt, to see what you pick out for me."

"Perfect," Nico declares, turning to march through the store with renewed determination.

She strides past each rack with eyes narrowed and brows drawn down, immediately waving off those garments that don't meet her lofty standards for her vision of Maki not yet come to pass. It's that confidence that Maki admires – that makes her want to curl close to Nico and listen to the things she says, rather than brushing off her more aggravating bluster.

Every time Nico declares her trademark "Nico Nico Nii~" and flashes that false, plastic grin, Maki's nerves fray apart a little farther at the seams. But when she says trust me, and I've got this and lets her eyes gleam bright with plans Maki can only guess at, that's when Maki wants to kiss her until her own breath comes short and shallow and her heartbeat thunders heavy in her ears.

"This is exactly what you need," Nico mutters to herself, snatching a garment off one rack, fingering the material of a skirt off another. "And, hmm, let's try this. Maki! We're ready – it's showtime."

Nico grabs her wrist, and Maki allows herself to be towed along into a changing room.

"Put these on," Nico says, shoving the hangers at her and shutting herself in the little cubicle behind Maki.

Ordinarily she would bristle at such a command, but Maki only reaches her hand out, taking the hangers and sliding the first camisole from its hooks. Nico is behind her, leaned against the door and meeting Maki's eyes in the mirror against the wall, and a slow, uncertain part of her brain tells her she should scold Nico and usher her out of the room, insist that Nico give her privacy while she's changing.

But Maki can feel the flush in her cheeks spreading hot down her neck, can feel the weight of Nico's gaze as she waits, with absolute expectation of obedience, for Maki to do as she's asked, and before she thinks better of it her fingers move to her throat and begin to unfasten the buttons of her blouse, one by one. Nico watches her, calm and confident and with her cutesy, babyish stage voice put away, and all Maki can think is that it feels like how Nozomi's gaze tends to feel, so intense that her skin feels on fire.

Her blouse comes off, her skirt comes down, her motions jerky and uncertain and for a rare moment she really feels how Nico is older than her, embarrassed to be so clumsy in front of someone who prides herself on her polish. She pulls on the camisole and the sweater and the light, airy skirt Nico picked out, hands dragging the garments on too fast, too fast, until she's standing in front of the mirror looking at herself and she realizes Nico's back is no longer against the door.

"I told you," Nico says, sounding incredibly proud of herself, so that Maki's blood burns infuriatingly hot at the presumption, before that fire in her veins cools to a slower simmer of appreciation. "I told you I could make you look cute."

"I'm not so sure it suits me," Maki says, each word carefully picked out as she slowly turns away from the mirror.

She feels fragile, like spun glass, new-blown and superheated and ready to fracture apart into pieces, but the grace with which she moves is flawless. Her eyebrows go up, baiting Nico with her casual disbelief.

"Of course it suits you," Nico insists. Her hands come up, plucking at the hem of the sweater, sweeping her hand down Maki's side to her hip. The weight of her hand is almost, almost, as heavy as Maki wants. "What part of this isn't so adorable you could puke?"

Maki doesn't know how to say, touch me more, grab me, hold onto me like a treasure you've made yours, can barely think such things without a cold, nervous shiver running down her spine. But she can grab Nico by her wrist, pulling her smoothly forward and in.

"Wasn't this a date?" she says, with her nose brushing close by Nico's.

"I didn't think you liked stuff like this!" Nico exclaims, too loud, too fast, and Maki can feel the heartbeat caught underneath her fingers wrapped around Nico's wrist.

(She doesn't, she wouldn't she won't, not normally, not in any words she'll ever admit past her lips, only when it's Nozomi, Nozomi who looks at her like a precious treasure, like a curious prize, like something other than herself but not lesser and she swears that she won't—)

"I figure it's fine," Maki whispers, pushing down all the half-formed thoughts crowding at the back of her mind, "once in a while."

She only feels slightly guilty, when she leans forward and brushes her lips against Nico's. She tells herself, she really does like Nico. It's not quite like how she longs for Nozomi with her lofty perfection, as remote and unreachable as a dream, but – she admires Nico for similar reasons, when it comes down to it.

When Nico laughs against her mouth and kisses her back with cheeky eagerness, Maki smiles against the kiss, and thinks, the dream she's made for herself is at least nearly as good.

FILL: TEAM FUKUTOMI JUICHI/KINJOU SHINGO, T

[catlarks]

Major Tags: None
Word Count: 749


"Do you think a mountain can feel it?" the person across from Miki asks. "When we carve roads into it?"

For a moment, Miki simply stares at them, lips slightly parted in perplexity. Every other boy who'd come past her to that point had begun in the same exact way – hi, my name is so and so, my age is such and such, and I work in yet another incredibly boring field you have no interest in. So what do you do?

She can't say for certain that she likes it, but at least the latest of her speed dates has a different sort of flair.

They're staring at her, gaze a little vague, like they're focusing it very intently on something just past her face and which she wouldn't be able to see, even if she turned to try and catch a glimpse of it. That's how they were when they sat down, too – slow, almost leisurely, like they weren't thinking about what they were doing. Like their body isn't the important thing in the equation at all, and sometimes they forget to fully take stock of it.

"I've never thought about it," Miki says, on a bit of a delay.

"I think about it a lot," her date replies, their eyes brightening as they warm to their subject. "Mountains know a lot of things, far more than we give them credit for. But after so many people have walked across their faces, how could they not?"

Miki is once again thrown for a loop.

She's very aware that they only have five minutes, and that her companion is rapidly eating through their time without communicating anything about themself. But she's also becoming aware that unlike with every robotic, over-prepared boy who came before them, she's actually curious what she might find out, if they only gave her some solid answers.

"What do you do?" Miki asks, ignoring the question she'd been pitched.

They stare at her for a long moment, like maybe they hadn't understood the question at all, before finally saying, "I bike."

"Professionally?" Miki asks, her eyes immediately lighting up. "What frame do you ride? My family owns a bike shop and I've been riding since I was young, though... Not in any races like my brother always used to do."

Her excitement dies back down as quickly as it came, when she admits that she's not a racer herself. Something bitter and acrid rises up against the back of her throat but she swallows it down, pushing a smile to again spread across her face.

Her date appears to have taken absolutely zero notice. "Is that really important? It's the same bike I've been riding since middle school – ah, a Look frame." They smile for a moment, with the fondness of someone looking back on a pleasant memory. "We've climbed a lot of hills together."

"You're a climber, then," Miki says, seizing upon the resumed opportunity to talk about racing. "I was never as good with climbs as with flats. But – I know someone who is incredibly talented in that way – a couple someones, actually. I always... Loved to watch their biking."

"I wonder if I've ever raced them," her date says. "Since you were talking about racing. Would you like to race sometime, onee-chan?"

Miki is momentarily thrown – again – by what they've chosen to call her. But then it sinks in that they're asking her about racing, with bikes, and absolute delight blossoms across her face like the sun coming out.

"I'd love t—" she starts to say, before the sound of a buzzer interrupts her.

"Gentlemen," a slow, bored voice cuts into the conversation, into all of the conversations happening around them which Miki hadn't noticed she was blocking out until that very moment, "If you would move to the next table."

"Wait!" Miki calls out, as her date begins to stand and move on to their next position. "You're the worst speed date here, I didn't even get your name!"

But even as the orchestrator shushes her and the next of her allotted paramours seats himself at her table, she takes a very decisive peek at the number of her mountain child, and makes a note to submit a request for a date with them at the end of the round – if not for drinks or coffee, then for a hard ride, to the top of whatever peak they want to pick out.

Re: FILL: TEAM AKASHI SEIJUUROU/NIJIMURA SHUUZOU, G

[winterstuck]

This is really cute holy shit

PROMPT: Team Sawamura Daichi/Sugawara Koushi

[swiftling]

Any permutation of Nozomi/Umi/Eli (Love Live)

Like a doctor, I learned to create
from another’s suffering my own usefulness, and once
you know how to do this, you can never refuse.

—Julia Kasdorf

FILL: TEAM FUKUTOMI JUICHI/KINJOU SHINGO, T

[catlarks]

Major Tags: canon-typical violence (for PMMM canon; it's not especially graphic at all but, err on the side of caution)
Word Count: 2,123

(I feel like sooner or later, everyone has that one fill that absolutely gets away from them. This is mine. The PMMM AU may be a little slapdash but I did my best!!)

-

Of all the girls Nico might have chosen to work with, Nishikino Maki is well at the bottom of her list.

Maki is too pretty, too perfect, always showing up at the nexus of a disturbance with the most infuriating of cool airs about her. Nico knows that this is the reason Maki has survived for as long as she has – there's no way a magical girl keeps her blood in her body around witches if she can't keep a cool head. And yet every time Nico sees lovely, flawless Maki arriving just before her to a witch's lair it absolutely makes her want to puke.

Unfortunately, there is no other magical girl in Nico's area stronger than Maki, and that leaves her with no other choice in partners if she wants to save her own skin from a threat she cannot handle alone.

"We're doing this my way," she tells Maki, when she first proposes the partnership. "I have seniority. You have to listen to me."

Maki only stares at her, with a slow, contemplative look, and replies with, "Alright."

"A-Alright?" Nico splutters. "What do you mean, just, 'alright'? Don't you want to discuss the terms we're going to be working together under?"

"Not particularly," Maki says, brushing her hair back from her neck. "You're right. You have been doing this even longer than I have. If that isn't a fact I can trust, I don't know what is."

It absolutely makes Nico's blood boil.

She makes sure she's the one to go in first, every time they face down a witch. She strides ahead, skirts bouncing with every step and chin held high, never looking back to make sure Maki is following. She tells herself it's because if Maki isn't, then Maki wasn't good enough to watch her back in the first place.

(She suspects, someplace deep down, that it's truly because she knows that Maki will not fail her.)

The first time Maki saves her, Nico can't believe it. A tendril of something rotting snaps by right in front of her face, like a whip crack, studded all over with thorns of broken glass and glistening wetly in the dim light and all Nico can think is, that would have taken my head off at the neck if I was just an inch closer.

She shakes Maki's hand off her collar and brushes her hands down her skirt, righting her clothes as if it'll steady her nerves before she again joins the fight.

When it's over, she tosses Maki the grief seed she snatched up, after ending the witch herself. "Here," she says, like it's nothing. "I reckon you could use it, since you must not have as many stored up as you could."

Maki looks at her, another one of those lingering, thoughtful looks that Nico hates so much, and slowly nods her head. "Thank you. And you're welcome."

Nico doesn't have the control to stop her spluttering.

She gets her chance to pay Maki back, jumping in front of her and into the line of fire, deflecting the missiles aimed at both of them as the very labyrinth itself shrieks all around them. Her head is on fire and her ears are ringing and even over the howling coming from every direction she can hear the pinging of each attack she slices aside as it slides off her sword. As soon as Maki recovers, she can hear Maki's return fire, too.

She can feel Maki's back pressed to hers, as Maki retreats to the same location, guarding her on one side as Nico slices forward on the other, carving a path for themselves deep into the witch's lair.

Nico makes sure to always pay Maki back, to never let Maki protect her without protecting Maki in turn. She tells herself, it's only fair, it's only making sure she owes nothing to the ice-princess she's partnered with that she cannot repay in one turn.

(She tells herself that, but she doesn't believe it, knows deep down that more than anything she's viciously protecting what's hers, hers, HERS, that after so many close calls together she's dug her teeth into Maki and is never letting go.)

"Don't stare at me," she insists one day, when they're sitting on the school lawn in between facing life-or-death perils. "I didn't say you could look."

She ignores the fact that she's the one who sought out Maki, by wandering around the grounds until that familiar red head of hair drew her forth like a beacon. She ignores that it's Maki's lunch she's mooching off of, snagging one of the red-bean buns Maki purchased and pretending she doesn't see the tiniest flicker of a smile at Maki's lips before she swallows anything like a protest.

"Was I staring?" Maki asks, tilting her head to the side and leveling Nico with an arch look. "I hadn't noticed."

"You were," Nico huffs. "It's very rude, I'll have you know. I'm aware that I'm very popular and pretty and that it must be hard for you, not to take the opportunity to look, but you should control yourself."

Maki actually laughs at her, a high, musical sound, like the pealing of bells.

"I was just thinking," Maki says. "That I know so little about you. We fight together with absolute dependence on each other, and we go to the same school, but how many real conversations have we ever had with each other?"

"I don't—" Nico starts, the protest on her tongue before she's even taken a moment to think. But she bites it off, swallowing the words down as it really hits her what Maki is saying. "There isn't a lot else worth talking about, when you're a magical girl. What are we supposed to say? Hi, how are you, how's the weather, did you have time to get your homework done in between killing a witch and washing the blood out of your clothes?"

"Maybe not a conversation like that," Maki says primly. "But a conversation where we learn something about the other."

"I know everything about you I need to know," Nico insists. "You're a pinpoint shot and you don't ever stay down."

Maki laughs, a soft little "hmph" of a sound before she's cracking a smile. "I'll take that as a compliment. By that logic, I know everything I need to know about you, too. Although I have to admit, you aren't the type of person I would have expected to fight with a blade."

"...I'm not?" Nico asks, caught off-guard enough not to posture. "Why not?"

"I can't say, exactly," Maki admits. "But you know, it's all very personal, with a blade. A sword doesn't allow you to do anything save get right up in your enemy's face and address them yourself."

"Hah!" Nico laughs. "If that's how it is, then your weapon is perfect for you. Cold and aloof, picking enemies off with bullets from a barrel. There's nothing personal about that."

"I don't know," Maki says, thoughtfully. "I always thought that there was something very personal about being a sniper – you have to pin down your target exactly, and isn't that rather intimate? Of course, we don't always have time for that sort of care. So maybe you're right after all."

Nico scowls, but she's silent. She wants Maki to be right, that they don't talk, that they don't know anything personal about each other. But when she thinks about their fighting styles, bullets and blades, about how she wouldn't have thought at the beginning that they could compliment each other only for her to work with Maki far more fluidly than she ever could have imagined... No, she still doesn't know anything personal about Maki at all.

"Of course I'm right," she says at last, forcing some of her usual pridefulness into the words. "I always am."

"You always are," Maki says, and for some reason, her agreement only sounds like Nico losing the argument.

When the day comes for them to face down a witch more powerful than any they'd yet taken on, alone or together, Nico and Maki walk into the situation shoulder to shoulder.

They both know how slim their chances are, but they have no other choice.

When they stumble back out of the witch's lair, eyes too dulled to even marvel at the unbelievable sight of their ordinary world all around them, both of their soul gems are clouded and dark. Maki drops to her knees and rolls hers out across the palm of her hand, fingers trembling so badly that it drops from her palm and rolls across the floor.

"Don't," Nico says, bent over on hands and knees and so weak that her limbs can barely hold her upright. She reaches for Maki's soul gem, and it feels like moving in slow motion, like her arm is pushing through molasses. "This is important. Do you... Have any grief seeds left?"

"No," Maki says, plucking her soul gem back out of Nico's fingers and flopping weakly onto her back.

"Me neither," Nico admits, giving in to the weakness of her arms and lying down on her front, right there on the dusty ground. She curves her body just enough that she can see the side of Maki's face – the curve of one cheekbone, the proud arch of her nose, the tiny gap between pink, parted lips. "We're really through, aren't we?"

"It looks that way," Maki says.

And that's when it hits Nico. All of her kicking, and fighting, and struggling to survive, and she's going to go out like this? On her belly, like a dog, hollowed-out and empty and unable to even rail back against a universe that had finally succeeded in cheating her?

"I won't," she bites out. "I won't let it be through, this isn't the end. Let's become monsters together, Maki, let's tear this whole place apart."

She drags herself toward Maki with the last of her strength, pushing herself up on arms that tremble and threaten to give just in order to stare down into Maki's pretty, too-composed face. She's grimacing and near-sobbing herself, ugly with the impotent frustration overcoming her under the circumstance.

"If we're going to become witches, I'll do it with you, and we'll wreck the world that put us here," Nico insists.

"But Nico-chan," Maki says, one hand reaching up to brush a few strands from one of Nico's pigtails away from her face. "Didn't I ever tell you? My family are all doctors."

"I don't care," Nico says, not seeing her point. "No one cares about them, any more than they care about us. This is the end of the road for us unless we make a new and terrible road for ourselves!"

"I know there are horrible things in the world," Maki says, staring up into Nico's face, letting her fingers gently linger against Nico's cheek. "I've seen so many of them with my own eyes. But I have always wanted to protect those things that are still beautiful."

She smiles, and it's the most hideous thing Nico has ever seen, too-sincere and cracking apart at the edges, like underneath it Maki is grimacing in pain.

"I don't want to become a witch," Maki says. "But more than that, I don't want you to become one either."

Nico realizes, she can no longer feel Maki's hand on her face. She also realizes, she can feel something cold and hard pressing up between her breasts.

"Tell me when," Maki says, eyes bright and feverishly committed. "If it's the only way I can protect you, I'll do it."

"Are you calling me beautiful?" Nico asks.

"Hmph," Maki says, and her smile then is prettier, miraculously less pained. "Maybe I am."

Nico reaches her hand down, closes her fingers around the barrel of Maki's gun just to make sure that it's real. She doesn't want to die. She doesn't want to let the universe cheat her. But most of all, she doesn't want to lose what's hers, hers, hers, and with Maki smiling at her so gently and promising to protect her, she can't find the strength left in her body to say no.

"I'll be right behind you," Maki says.

Nico takes a deep breath, closes her eyes, and whispers back, "Then do it. I'm ready to go."

She isn't expecting it, braced as she is for the bullet to rip through her, when Maki pulls her down with a hand at the back of her neck. She feels the soft press of Maki's lips against her lips, and before her eyes can spring open in surprise, the crack of the gun sounds, as the very last thing Nico hears.

Re: FILL: team Nishinoya Yuu/Tanaka Ryuunosuke Rating: G

[iwaizumemes]

omg ur welcome :))

Re: FILL: TEAM FUKUTOMI JUICHI/KINJOU SHINGO, G

[ninja_ninjin]

Kyyyaaaaa~ This was lovely. I love Maki struggling to keep up with the sheet music because she can't help but look at Umi. Thank you <3

[catlarks]

You're welcome!! It was quite fun to write, I'm glad you liked it. ;u;

Re: FILL: TEAM NANASE HARUKA/YAMAZAKI SOUSUKE, T

[elts]

ah yes, bless oblivious boys and scary girls.

i love it tons, thank you! (i actually squeaked when i found out someone filled my prompt)

[catlarks]

I love this a lot. Ishigaki's first meeting with Yamaguchi is something I never realized I wanted to see but I love how you've depicted it, and I love how just... Earnest and sincere and convicted your Ishigaki is. It hurts me to know how things end up and this is a really nice precursor to canon in that way!

[catlarks]

Doxyyyyyy this is so good!! I'm so glad you filled it, I love your Arakita voice and I love so much of your clever word choice in this (how Arakita will "sniff out" Tadokoro, "uglier beast," just a lot of the really specific language you use is so nice). I'm also really charmed that Tadokoro doesn't fight back. On the one hand, it's shaming to have such a one-sided fight, but on the other, uGH, I don't believe Tadokoro could be doing it as a deliberate humiliation thing and he's just. So good. (And the fucking last line!) I love this.

[catlarks]

Ohhhh my gosh, this hurts so good. It's such a sharp, incisive depiction of how Haruna thinks and acts and I really love it for the character meta aspect of that. And I just, am really fond of the rhythm of your prose and the phrasing you choose. Thank you so much for this.

(And yeah, we do, I definitely had several more of yours marked than I managed to get around to filling but don't you worry, I'm sure I'll make up for that in future rounds.)

[catlarks]

This is delightful! I love your little afterward and how much thought you put into applying Gatsby to the Oofuri characters because I'm actually GENUINELY really fond of The Great Gatsby (not true of the source material behind every prompt I posted, some were just Really Good Lines). I'm happy to receive such a thoughtful fill. ;u;

FILL: Team Fukutomi Juichi/Kinjou Shingo, T

[aesterismo]

Their last summer together before the Inter-High, Toudou has a Brilliant Idea – one that even Yasutomo can’t argue against.
Well, he always could.

But the longer he spends chasing after Manami and Izumida down past congested boardwalks and quiet pierside, soaking in sea brine and sunshine all through his barefoot pursuit, the longer their irregular shadows grow.

As does the road ahead.

The longer he spends chatting with Shinkai and Toudou between sandcastle building and reapplying sunblock, exchanging banter and buoyancies in equal measure, the further away their inevitable graduation fades.

And the closer he gets to sentimentality.

The more he looks at Fuku-chan while they bathe together in the resort’s renowned onsen – it’s not the first time and it won’t be the last, either – the more he. Wants. Something.

Like how midsummer heat leaves you thirstier right after you just had a drink.

Or how the sight of daybreak’s first light on a morning jog knows how to slow your sprint to a stop.

Or the way waiting three minutes feels infinitely longer than waiting three years for a sign, a token of gratitude, empty praise.

Any kind of reassurance he hasn’t wasted his time on this team and on the first person that’s ever given him a second chance.

“Arakita,” says Fuku-chan, a question to the way he says it, one that Yasutomo couldn’t refuse. “Are you alright?”

“W-Why wouldn’t I be—?!”

“It’s just,” Fuku-chan starts, stumbles on the rest. “You’ve looked. Unusual these last few weeks.”

The last time he saw Fuku-chan this uncertain was in their second year, when he came back to the tents after the award ceremony festivities ended.

Yasutomo’s mouth curls. “Unusual?”

Fuku-chan stares at him.

It’s not his usual stone face stare; it’s the look he gets when they ride past a picturesque part of a downhill slope.

The same look Yasutomo remembers from that day.

That day, where his regrets were few and far different from Fuku-chan’s.

That day, when he pretended not to see the red rims of Fuku-chan’s eyes and the remnants of tear tracks underneath them.

“Arakita,” Fuku-chan says again – only, this time, with conviction. “You look a lot brighter these days. Like you’re…shining. It’s hard to explain but I hope you understand.”

He wants to ask like hell I get what you mean when you keep talking in circles like that and maybe why would seeing me ‘shine’ do anything for you?

(It’s all wrong, Yasutomo thinks, how happy he is to hear those words.)

He blurts out, in the end, a confession of sorts: “You’re the one that’s shining all the time, not me!”

(It’s a mistake, Yasutomo thinks, to reveal something like this now of all times.)

But instead of the look of disgust he’s expecting, Fuku-chan start to smile.

“Thank you, Arakita.” The bathhouse is so quiet, Fuku-chan’s murmur echoes within it – and in Yasutomo’s chest. “I’m glad we had this talk.”

Instead of being embarrassed (even if he is on the inside), Yasutomo’s wry twist of lips turns into another expression.

“Me too, Fuku-chan.” It’s a smile that’s bizarrely warm, in spite of the temperature in here, and Yasutomo couldn’t have welcomed it more. “Me too.”

FILL: Team Fukutomi Juichi/Kinjou Shingo, G

[aesterismo]

Sometimes, when Hinata takes long bike rides along the outskirts of the city, he meets the most interesting people.

Most of them don’t stick around for long.

After all, a high schooler walking along the riverbank, bouncing around a volleyball and talking to himself? Just walk right along, nothing to see here.

Don’t look people like that in the eye, the parents say as they usher their children along, not unless you want them to start talking to you too.

Hinata shrugs off their inquisitive gazes. Like always.

If they don’t feel up to getting to know him more, that’s their choice.

He’s comfortable enough on his own, at least like this.

It’s around which point that he decides to kick the volleyball straight up in the air, sailing it so far up his eyes get caught somewhere in the sunset’s glow.

By the time Hinata sees the ball land and hears a gurgled yelp and a thump, he’s frozen in place.

He didn’t mean for that to happen—

Oh god, what if he just gave that poor kid brain damage?

By the time he’s startled into running right over to go check on the hapless kid he just smacked square in the forehead, Hinata’s sweating way worse than he ever has at the worst of Coach Ukai’s practice sessions from hell.

“Holy crap on a— you okay?! H-Hey!” Hinata’s not sure whether to shake or stare at the other teen (it takes him several once-overs to realize it’s not a ‘kid’ he’s looking at isn’t much younger or older than he is) for any signs of bruises or worse. “If you can understand what I’m saying, shake your head once!”

“Mmmgh--” Mihashi groans, sitting up and kicking his bike off his legs.

Aaaand comes face to face with a very exuberant stranger, leaning over him and arms moving frantically in all directions.

“I— I’m fine!” he shouts, scrambling to his feet and lifting up his bike, which may have sustained a few scratches in the process.

The start of a frown, and then – easing back once he sees the other boy moving about without trouble – Hinata backs off.

“Well, s’long as you’re sure.” He reaches over to retrieve his fallen volleyball, glaring at it briefly in hopes it would get the message.

When he looks back up, however, he notices something that catches his attention at once.

“Oh, hang on a sec! Is that a...baseball?” At the frightened-looking teen’s flinch and owlish stare back, Hinata offers his most disarming smile, the kind he’s used on Natsu and her little friends on their playdates more than enough times before. “You play sports too?”

Sports? Mihashi’s head perks up. Oh, right -- volleyball. He must be a player.

Mihashi fidgets with the baseball in his hand. “B-Baseball!” he says, staring up at the stranger with wide eyes. “I … I pitch!”

He stares at the volleyball wrapped under the boy’s arm, wondering how the mechanics of a bigger ball works.

“Pitching, huh...that’s where you’re in the middle of everything, throwing the ball, right?” While Hinata’s never been much for the sport, he does know the basics well enough. Baseball’s a big thing for his uncle and aunt, at least, so he’s gone to a couple of games during the season as a child. “That sounds pretty awesome! I play volleyball— oh, well.” He follows Mihashi’s wandering eyes to what’s tucked between his elbow and side, a touch sheepish. “Guess you knew that already, though.”

“Volley...ball!” he says, mouth stretching wider into a grin. “That’s really cool!”

Since there’s plenty of pauses in the conversation they’ve struck up, the redhead takes a moment to observe.

Observes, like he always does meeting new people, what’s interesting about this boy who talks like a foreigner.

Or maybe he is a foreigner? It’s not just his sandy hair or the unusual glow to those big eyes.

Observes, Hinata notices right away, his verbal tics and his soft voice gives way to wild gestures.

Observes how curious this character he’s made an acquaintance out of, but not a bad person.

As far as Hinata can tell, anyway.

“So,” the long lapse of silence turns the wing spiker to awkward speech, as he realizes for the first time in the conversation, “what’s your name, pitcher?”

In the middle of everything – Mihashi tilts his head, mouth wide. Like, the game starts when Abe gives me signs, right?

At least, that’s what he thinks: the anticipation before each pitch, the knowledge that the runners will run and the batter will attempt to connect, and then will freeze and restart all over again.

Wait, did he ask for a name, too? “M...Mihashi Ren!”

“And...” After a brief spell of bewilderment, Hinata recalls what he said earlier – beaming, because the other boy’s taken a genuine interest in what he plays. “Yeah, volleyball’s the best!”

“So,” he hums, thoughtful, as he hears a name at last, “Mihashi...-san...? Wait, are you cool with me calling you just ‘Mihashi’ or are you-- aaahhh, never mind.” One look over the panicked expression on Mihashi’s face and Hinata decides he’ll forego honorifics for now.

“I’m Hinata Shouyou, by the by. You can call me Hinata or Shouyou or...whatever works for you, I guess?” He tries that smile again, the same one that got a response out of Mihashi the first time. “But yeah, nice to meet you, Mihashi.”

“Hinata-kun?” Mihashi asks, fidgeting on either leg.

“What’s up?” Odd, Hinata thinks, how he feels all the more fidgety seeing Mihashi unable to stand still.

“So … can you … serve?” Mihashi’s eyes light up.

Oh, Hinata feels that familiar fizz of a challenge, gleaming bright beneath his diaphragm, now we’re talking.

“Sure thing.” Remembering to talk gentler this time, he finds, is tougher still; he’s excited, way past excited, to show someone outside the team what he can do.

As he steps back – a few extra steps, afterward, just in case he missteps -- he bumps the ball lightly from arm to arm while he talks.

“You want me to serve it to myself or to you?”

Amazing, Mihashi thinks, watching Hinata bounce the ball off his hands and grin.

“Y-You’re not going to … hit me again, right?”

Hinata barely catches the ball in time before his entire face falls.

“What—? OH MY GOD no, noooonono, no way am I gonna let that happen again!” Hinata hopes his anxious tone comes off as reassuring, when he places the ball on the grass briefly to clasp Mihashi’s shoulder. “I’ll serve it to you as careful as I can. And, if it looks like it’s coming at you wrong, you can move away. I won’t get mad.” A sage nod. “Promise.”

“Then – will you … show me?”

Mihashi positively glows, unconsciously throwing the baseball in his hand into the air and letting it fall back down against his palm.

“And … will you teach me?”

The first thing Hinata thinks is Mihashi’s got a good arm.

The second thing comes along with the third: he’s got an even better grip.

The revelation spurs Hinata into action, picking up the ball and scurrying further down the hill, almost to the water’s edge before he waves to Mihashi.

“Ready?” Hinata discovers the third at length, after he calls out to the pitcher from the riverside: Mihashi’s eyes are really big, but they’re big in the sort of cute way. Like a baby chick all but ready to follow whoever it’s imprinted itself upon. “I’ll serve it right to you, so just say the word!”

“S-Serve it to me—” Mihashi stutters, dropping his ball and bike and rushing down to the riverside, where Hinata is throwing the ball into the air and –

Apparently, hurdling it at his face.

Mihashi barely has the time to squeak in surprise before throwing his hands up to catch it before it reaches the tip of his nose.

“Sorryyyyyyy, I got way too excited-- that was way too hard a spike!” He knew, as soon as the ball’s trajectory flew from his palm that was all wrong. From the look on Mihashi’s face, Hinata could tell he was spooked. “You know what? Pretty sure me doing this is doing way worse to your nerves, so—”

Before the damage was irreversible, Hinata trots up to retrieve the ball and places it right into Mihashi’s hands.

Deciding that, while he’s the farthest thing from a teacher, he knows enough about volleyball to know the bare basics are where to start.

“Here! You can get me back now.” Nothing, Hinata knows from direct experience, teaches someone quite like a test in practicality. “I’m gonna go back down the hill so hit it as hard as you can, ‘kay?” Pitchers with good grips like Mihashi, the shorter teen decides, need a chance to show off their skills. “Something tells me that’ll work better, so let me see what you can do!”

“B-But!” Mihashi calls, unsure of how to balance the weight in is palm. “How do I –”

Folding into himself slightly, Mihashi raises his right arm, voice still shaking with uncertainty. A toss, and his eyes are squeezing shut and the ball –

Races downward. Toward Hinata. Nearly directly towards Hinata, flying toward his hands and whoa, Mihashi did it, he really did, and was volleyball always so exhilarating in his mind?

There are no strikeouts, no, but that doesn’t negate the fact that volleyball requires speed just as much as baseball.

It’s so sudden, in fact, that Hinata almost doesn’t catch the ball in time.

“That,” breathes Hinata, the wide-brimmed smile threatening to make his jaw ache for the rest of the evening, “was awesome! Mihashi, you totally nailed that all on your own!”

The excitable boy bounds right for his student before all but tackling him to the ground in celebration.

As for Mihashi, he’s too busy rolling in the grass with Hinata clinging to him to do anything else but laugh.

Re: PROMPT: TEAM AKASHI SEIJUUROU/NIJIMURA SHUUZOU

[bisharp]

imc rying

FILL: TEAM AOYAGI HAJIME/IZUMIDA TOUICHIROU, G

[elucidatedlucy]

Major Tags: None
Additional tags: I'm so grateful for this prompt, to the ends of the earth
Word count: 1347

Going to sport games with Miyahara was an experience, to say the least.

Kanzaki tried to spend the night mulling to herself as to whether or not she should be honest with her girlfriend, but quickly found herself at a loss as to what she would even say.

"Um ... Mii-chan?"

She dragged her hair into pigtails at the sides of her head when she stood in front of her bathroom mirror, trying to emulate the way Miyahara's stern expression would hop and twitch at the slightest mention of that nickname. Though she managed to distract herself from her worries with swishing the hair tails around her like whips, Kanzaki had to admit the truth.

She had no way to tell Miyahara that it was obvious the girl knew absolutely nothing about sports.

The first game had been pleasant, even if somewhat off-putting. She hadn't expected the reserved representative to be interested in wrestling of all things, especially with the way she shied away from the way crowds would rumble and raise along with the tides of the match, but she herself had been just as strange all her life. And it had been fun to see the excitement of spectators in a sport she'd never familiarized herself with, finding herself at home with the way people would yell at the main ring, even if she found the activities there entirely uninspiring.

"Come on, go team, go!"

"K-Kanzaki ... they aren't on teams ..."

She had paused, at the time, confused if that was the truth, from the way people tagged in and out of the ring, but she was unable to ascertain from the crowds any particular names to begin with.

"Gracious!" She had done her best to roll with the punches. "Should I join in on the threats, then? I don't want to make you uncomfortable."

Miyahara withdrew a little more, as though she could somehow fold in on herself to not have to touch anything around her, not the people or her chair or the floor. "Um ..." And she still remembered her girlfriend's crooked smile, when she began to play with her hair. "Actually, I've heard that my favorite player really likes for people to ... stomp their feet?"

It was a little specific, but nothing particularly out of the ordinary. When she stood up to hammer her feet at the climax, pulled Miyahara into it until the two of them were alternately hopping to create the most sound possible, all that really mattered was that the two of them were there and having fun. It wasn't bikes - but Kanzaki was a talented spectator and would put her all into adding to the magic of any match she could see.

The problem came more as time went on, when Miyahara invited her to another game the following week.

"I hadn't thought you'd have ..." Kanzaki chewed on her lip, staring at the field ahead, trying to consider how to finish her thought without sounding disappointed. "Such a range! Of sport interests." When she met Miyahara, even at her most unwilling to be present at such a moment as a cycling race, she had thought she might be more interested in things like museums. She'd been more than prepared for any kind of date.

"Y-yes, actually. I love ... rugby!" Her laugh was cute, as nervous as it was.

Kanzaki stared for a moment, as the small crowd rose to cheer at the first touchdown of the match. "You do mean American football, don't you?"

Miyahara was up on her feet before she had a chance to finish the question, clapping her hands in a mismatch to the beat the audience around them stomped out. "Throw the ball! Go for it! ...Don't lose."

Her sudden enthusiasm, even as it died off, was strange, but Kanzaki decided to chalk it up to yet more anxiety. It wasn't every day that someone was able to bring herself to go out with another girl, especially to an event as male-dominated as most sports tended to be. She joined in, offered to try to come up with a cheer at the side, until the two of them were throwing their hands into the air in makeshift choreography that made spectators around them scoot away.

Flustered, excited, Miyahara looked genuinely happy. Kanzaki didn't care about this sport or the teams, but that alone was enough, when she could grin wide and receive one in return.

"I'm glad I'm here with you, Mii-chan."

Her date protested the nickname the rest of the evening, calling it absurd, too soon, but the way she clung to Kanzaki's hand said enough for how pleased she was about it. Maybe it was too soon - but she'd keep it for when the two of them had enough time.

Dates grew more frequent as they grew stranger, never going to the same arenas, or even the same sports. The following Saturday found her arriving at a roller rink, and standing along the boundary of a roller derby that made Miyahara jump every time one of the skaters crashed too closely. Another Wednesday, and they were at a lacrosse match, one of the only thirty people in the audience at the small game, played by middle schoolers who had only just begun the sport. Watching was fun, just because there was little as enjoyable as coming up with charming cheers for children, but the growing suspicion began to make it difficult to avoid questioning Miyahara's ideas.

They cycled through more and more sports, clapping politely at a bowling match, buying matching caps at a softball semi-final, a game of badminton, horse-back riding, even a dog show, as far away from human sport as that began to reach.

Miyahara became more outward with each passing game, until she was able to stand and pull Kanzaki into the excitement of the crowd herself. Though her confusion had become near tantamount, making it difficult to go on the dates without becoming enveloped in just how she might break the news, there was a kind of magic that came with seeing that change, that made her happy she could have been to see Miyahara so comfortable at her side.

"Um ... Mii-chan?"

"Go! Score, you can do it!"

"This isn't a scoring match."

Miyahara froze. "Oh? I just meant ... win! You know how it is ..."

It was gymnastics, this time.

"No, actually." The two of them fell into silence, no longer disturbing the crowd lost in quiet observation, until Kanzaki leaned closer. "When I was younger ... I pretended to like someone I didn't really care for, just because I wanted to get closer to cycling."

Hair tails slapped her in the face when Miyahara whipped her head around. "Do you think I don't like you?" Her hand landed over her own, shaky, sweating. "I-if it seems like I'm lying to you, I'll try to ..."

"No! No, of course not. I'm just ... thinking, just a little bit ..." Kanzaki tilted her head towards the mat at the center of the hall. "Maybe all these dates we've been going on ... might not be what you actually wanted?"

Color rose to Miyahara's face, as she stumbled over her words, trying to find some kind of way to explain, until Kanzaki hugged her and sent her into a starstruck silence.

"Why have you been asking me out to all these games if you don't like them?"

"...I didn't really think someone sporty like you ... would like what I enjoyed, and I ... wanted to impress you. Just a little bit. I've ... never really gone out on dates before, so I never imagined that you might have ... been interested enough to stay. It's nothing much, I mean!"

Enough dates for two months of sports Kanzaki had never before seen in her life said far more than Miyahara ever would, but she grinned. "Then let's just go somewhere I like next time. That'll give you the time to decide on a place you really enjoy, right?"

FILL: TEAM AOYAGI HAJIME/IZUMIDA TOUICHIROU, G

[elucidatedlucy]

Major tags: Referential to year 2 training camp spoilers
Additional tags: Trans female character, Nonbinary character
Word count: 730

Koga practiced often and he practiced alone.

It was no gift to have to bear, but it gave him something in return, however underhanded others may have called him if he had spoken, if they had the slightest inkling to look at him and question anything he ever did. Though that was the problem. If he was important enough to acknowledge any longer, he wouldn't need such devious intent. Aoyagi did not understand, either side, but she did not burden him with criticism and doubt.

On the other hand, Teshima understood perfectly.

That alone was reason enough for them to be his singular target.

However, when he can see how Onoda looked up to their weakness - how Imaizumi desperately tried to measure up to the false standard of captaincy they have created - how Naruko secretly fumbled between specialties under their clumsy advice - it became more than just a personal reason he had to remove them. If he never acted this, the entire team would rot from the inside out, and the new generation would be left to suffer.

Not as he did, he decided long ago, no others younger would have to suffer, because the roots of mistakes and failure were left to his own generation to fix.

When their final year began, they came back to the club room, late, long after everyone else had left, long after anyone but him would have the need to be there. Teshima practiced as late as he did, but it was rare that they were foolish enough to cross the boundary wordlessly set between the two of them.

He wondered, for one regretful second, if Aoyagi had told them to confront him first. If she had sold them out, flashing through his mind in one more moment of betrayal, before he could banish the thought. Teshima stood in front of him, with their arms folded in a picture of Kinjou had mastered and what neither of them had yet to attain, entirely because it was what they had to do. He knew better. She never wanted this battle to happen, to either of them.

"Did you have a mechanical issue you couldn't take care of on your own?" Koga had long since mastered polite aggressiveness, but his former friend's creased brow made it difficult to avoid speaking his mind. They didn't have a clue, the breadth of what it would do to the team, to themself, if they went through with this.

"No." Teshima strolled into the club house as though they truly were just a visitor. "No, no. I just wanted to make sure of something." Their hand brushed along the wall, peering at it as someone unfamiliar with a room characterized by its loneliness and distance, rather than its team. They stopped at his bike, fingers not daring to fully cross the distance, just as he would have warned them if there was any more reason for the two of them to speak. "You've really fixed it up, since then."

"I am the best mechanic the club has to offer."

They laughed, far too friendly for his tone. "That and more, right, Koga?" Their head tilted up, never facing him when they spoke. "You'll always have that, at least."

It was nothing that anyone should have ever dared to be jealous over. "And you'll go on as you have, with no victories?" He was cordial, his only regret. There was so much more he could say to them, that they both knew he deserved.

They hummed a response, alongside a chuckle, alongside a whisper, "Right? What a joke of a captain ..."

He dropped a wrench in more of a clatter than he wanted, pressing his hands to his knees, in some attempt at a calmer image. "If you came here for more reason to pity yourself, then I recommend you leave. There's no room in my team," and Koga paused, his smile all the more bitter, for his team of one, "For someone like that."

They turned back to leave, never once looking to him, until they paused at the door. "There are four members guaranteed, this year." He saw the way their knuckles paled, as they clutched the door. "I wanted to make sure you knew."

But if all went as planned -

"I'm aware."

He would have a true team of his own, soon.

FILL: TEAM AOYAGI HAJIME/IZUMIDA TOUICHIROU, G

[elucidatedlucy]

Major tags: Spoilers (First interhigh spoilers, up to v30)
Additional tags: Nonbinary character
Word count: 547

Manami hadn't needed to practice in years.

"Is something wrong?"

So why they felt like they needed to, whenever Onoda Sakamichi - rode beside them, smiled at them, texted them, asked them about school, family, their feelings - they didn't have a clue.

The first time he ever asked, they only lost balance for a moment. There was no way anything could ever be a problem, for them. Nothing they were not already innately aware of, egg shells they had learned to walk over with a gait akin to gliding. Therefore the reason Sakamichi was asking had to be - nothing to do with them. He was just like them, then, strange, indirect, so they told him what was going to happen. A gift, for both of them.

It was easiest to lie to yourself when you gave to someone else.

"I was afraid I wouldn't be able to find you!"

And it was hardest when you were the one who had to accept.

Their hands were still raw from the way they'd clung to their bike, from how they had crushed their fingers in their own grasp, from how they had scrubbed away the sweat and blood and tears even though the feeling of rubbing their palms to their eyes until nothing was left refused to leave them.

Manami took the bottle. The weight made it difficult to stand straight, but Sakamichi only stood taller after handing it to them. They wondered, just enough, if it was possible he was trying to shove some wordless new burden onto them, because it felt like so much more than the Aquarius filled bottle they had handed to him those few short months ago. But it was empty - reminding them too much of their own shallow breaths. They were wrong. They had been wrong about everything, about promises, winning, and especially - him.

When they thanked him for returning it, he smiled as though he hadn't taken everything from them.

When they walked away, they couldn't help but hear his questions to Toudou, unable to pull themself to their feet from behind the bus.

"Is Manami okay?"

"Yes ... they should be fine. Not everyone can be so filled with energy after a race, Glasses. People like you and I seem to have a special gift for it!"

The two of them laughed, Sakamichi so much more hesitantly, and they never wanted to hear his voice again, especially not the way he went on. "I've just ... never seen them like that, before. I wanted to make sure they would be okay ... if they're just tired, I understand, of course! But ... I was just wondering if you thought ..."

He sounded so worried. As though they had ever given him a reason, as though they ever wanted there to be a reason, as though it was okay for anyone to be worried about them. But they had given him too much of a right, to be there, and all the fault lay at their own feet.

Manami left before Toudou had the chance to answer.

Any help that anyone could ever offer them - they would polish themself until there was no way anyone could ever find a way to make them accept it, ever again.

FILL: TEAM AOYAGI HAJIME/IZUMIDA TOUICHIROU, G

[elucidatedlucy]

Major tags: Spoilers (first interhigh)
Additional tags: Nonbinary character, manami re: fuku things is my own personal hell and I will never be able to convey how sad I get about it oh dear lord, i didnt even get into mental illness in this drabble and im so sad about it but i wanted to keep it kinda specific in terms of thought, hell hell hell
Word count: 452

Manami was full of questions for people, as full as they were of doubt and distance and discontent for sitting in a room filled with people for a practice they had no interest in following.

So though they would stare at Fukutomi as though he was not anything more than a passing curiosity, they appreciated him, as far as he went in their own affairs. If he would not yell at them for not attending practice, they were content. If he would not pressure them to fit to regimens they gained nothing from, they could feel free. And if he would ask them, why they did anything they did, and accept their answer with a nod - if he would place a hand on their back, with absolute faith, and grant them permission to take the only thing that mattered to them - they would follow his leadership to the grave.

He had an attachment to winning far different than their own, but he understood, how important it was. There was a special honesty between them, one that they would feel pointless to extend to most people, because too many had never understood how important that line was.

"Do you like the summit, captain?"

Rare training sessions, when he would observe their form, assure himself of their growth, felt like an audience with a king.

"Any line of victory is acceptable. The place is not important."

Manami laughed, gentle, passively mocking in a way he never noticed. "Sure it is! Besides, it's really pretty, even without a race. We should visit one again, some day. I could teach you all about it." They didn't actually want to, but small talk was important, even when nothing they said meant a thing.

"The way you hold your back is inefficient." He pressed a hand to their lower back, another at their collarbone, inadvertently pressing his fingers into bruises, and they had to bite their tongue to hold back a sharp wince. "If you hold your form this way, your wind resistance will better decrease in groups. You are not going to always ride solo."

"Yes, sir."

"If it is difficult, you need remember that we are the Kings. Such pains are a part of our burden."

Pain was always a part of their life, but maybe he understood that too - in some way. "Yes, sir." They had no idea how sick anyone else was and they wouldn't question him here.

Breaking anyone's reason for faith in them was the greatest crime they knew.

"Become stronger. It is your duty to retake the crown."

Any question of fault, they knew, would always lay upon their own head. It was the way of the Kings.

Re: FILL: TEAM FUKUTOMI JUICHI/KINJOU SHINGO, T

[elucidatedlucy]

I fell back and over myself so many times reading this, it's absolutely delightful!!! I wish I could say more but I love that it was from Miki's perspective, because I adore her kind of observations and thoughts about others, especially in the unique place she has as a cycling lover, and how the prompt was taken in such a genuinely fun way between the two of them. Not to mention that it's just ... oh, awkward weird speed dating, the mysteries it brings up. It's just so well-handled here, mysterious and tantalizing without being disappointing, it's the perfect kind of short piece and I loved this. Desperately much, I'm overwhelmingly delighted, thank you so much for filling my silly prompt. It's genuinely one of my favorite prompts I made and this just goes above and beyond in capturing how fun it was.