SASO Referees (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
referees) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
sportsanime2015-05-30 08:51 pm
referees) wrote in sportsanime2015-05-30 08:51 pm
Entry tags:
Bonus Round 1: Quotes
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!
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)
Format your comment in one of the following ways:
| If PROMPTING: | If FILLING: | If FILLING as a TEAM GRANDSTAND participant: |
PROMPT: TEAM [YOUR SHIP]
|
FILL: TEAM [YOUR SHIP], [RATING]
|
FILL: TEAM GRANDSTAND, [RATING]
|
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!
FILL: TEAM IWAIZUMI HAJIME/OIKAWA TOORU, T
3408 words (I lost all control, but this prompt was so great, so I hope I did it justice!!)
i.
The last thing Manami remembers about his life before this one is darkness. There’s a tiny flicker of light, but that moment of brightness is soon extinguished as quickly as it appeared.
For what feels like an eternity after that, darkness, loneliness is all he knows. It’s then that he’s able to piece together what had happened. Death.
It really is an unexplainable thing, and suddenly it makes sense as to why people make it out to be such a taboo.
Even though death itself is a memory he’d rather keep out, would rather shine a light on to keep the cold and darkness away forever, it stays with him. He lives it, and for however long it was—maybe only a minute, maybe hours, maybe days or even years—he thinks that this is all that will come after is this inescapable darkness, being alone and unhappy.
But he’s wrong. Instead of being stuck there or moving onto whatever comes next like most people expect, something even more unexplainable happens: staying in this world, no longer alive, but dead.
Manami Sangaku is a ghost. He’s not normal, and doesn’t think that he ever really has been, though, even when he was alive and human, made of flesh and bone. Always a sickly child, he never really had been able to live his life to the fullest, had always been lonely and searching for something to make him feel more alive.
Ironic, that when he had thought he found it in cycling, in climbing hills and feeling his heart pump and adrenaline overpower everything else, he died anyway.
(Sometimes they say that happiness has an effect on what happens to you after death. That if you die happy, you move on; that if you die feeling empty or sad or scared, you don’t always get so lucky.)
Maybe that’s why he’s not entirely existent, not fully part of neither one world nor the next. But if that’s the reason, then he wants to find happiness. He wants to feel alive again, part of something rather than just a shadow, a silhouette cast on a world that he’s not entirely sure he can or will be part of again.
ii.
Manami first meets Toudou Jinpachi in an online chatroom about cycling.
After a childhood filled with videogames he doesn’t like, he vows not to play them again, turning to the internet instead to entertain himself. Or maybe just to try and relive any feelings of feeling alive through riding a bicycle since he can no longer do that.
Normally, he wouldn’t make contact with anyone on there, would just browse through pages and videos. But something about Toudou’s posts on the website catch his attention.
In them, he finds someone who he relates to, someone he comes to respect and admire. So he responds to them, not expecting much out of it, but secretly hoping for something.
Toudou does respond to him, though, and strikes up conversation between them, a back and forth about cycling, which they quickly bond over. Toudou’s stories and explanations make Manami smile and remember his own experiences, not with bitterness that he can’t have them anymore, but with fondness as the familiar feeling he felt when he lived through them comes back to him.
Toudou is easy to talk to, fun. He’s enthusiastic, maybe a little overdramatic, but talking to him makes a slowly passing eternity of loneliness feel like it doesn’t exist anymore. Manami smiles when he reads Toudou’s responses, laughs at jokes passed between them, appreciates that Toudou loves cycling and climbing as much as Manami does.
Their chats that had been initially about cycling and climbing become more than just that. Manami learns about Toudou’s life, hears all about his friends, his likes and dislikes, his goals, his dreams.
Manami tells him about his life too, leaving out the being a ghost part, of course. That could get awkward very quickly, so he never makes any mention of it, doesn’t want to lose Toudou, the first one who makes him feel something again ever since he did die, over that.
Brief conversations turn to longer ones. They lead to exchanging of emails for weeks, and eventual skype messages and calls.
Manami feels different when he talks to Toudou, feels happier than he has ever since he died. Sometimes, he forgets that he’s not really part of this world in the first place. Talking with Toudou is like an escape from the reality of the situation he’s quite literally stuck in, is a relief from thinking about that.
Sometimes, he thinks he feels more alive than he did when he actually was.
iii.
The first time they try something different, an actual video call where they’ll be able to see each other face-to-face, Manami is so excited his hands shake when he logs onto his laptop. Sometimes when he gets too excited, he flits in and out of existence, parts of his body disappearing all together for a short period of time.
(Once, when he had talked to Toudou his hand disappeared for over an hour until it finally materialized back to its normal there, but not able to touch or feel, state of being.)
He makes sure to control the excitement and racing of his heart, though, because Toudou seeing his limbs disappear probably isn’t the best thing that could happen. But he can’t help the bright smile, impossible to hold back when he sees Toudou’s face on his computer screen, the other leaning back against the headboard of his bed.
“Hi Toudou-san!” he says cheerfully waving at him. “It’s nice to see you.”
“Manami.” Toudou is frowning at him. “You look really pale. Are you eating properly? And sleeping well?”
He laughs, waving his hand a little, lying with a smile on his face. “Yes, yes. I’m fine. It’s probably just the lighting of the computer.” He quickly switches the subject. “I’m happy to see you.”
The smile on Toudou’s lips is breathtakingly beautiful. If his heart was still beating, Manami thinks it’d be racing like he’d just ridden his bike for miles. “It’s nice to finally see you too, Manami.”
Manami has never been in love before, and he never thought he’d understand the feelings that people would always go on and on about—falling in love with someone, feeling your heart pound, your hands sweat, anticipation and desire coursing through you.
Manami can’t physically feel any of those things, hasn’t been able to since his heart stopped beating. But when Toudou sends him even the simplest message, something as small as talking about his day or asking Manami about his own, he thinks he knows what those physical feelings may be like. He wants to feel them.
He thinks that maybe he’s fallen in love with Toudou Jinpachi.
One night, after months of corresponding like this, they spend hours on call just talking. Manami doesn’t even really remember everything they say, just knows that it feels natural and comfortable to be like this. That he feels real again, alive.
Toudou’s voice is laced with sleep as he continues to tell a story about something that happened at school that day with his friends. Pauses and yawns are much more frequent and break up the words, but Manami still enjoys listening to him talk anyway, hangs onto every word he says.
“Hey, Toudou-san,” he murmurs after there is a longer pause than usual.
“Hmm?”
A surge of bravery overcomes him in that moment, and maybe he’ll regret saying this later, but it’s something he wants to. Something he can’t hold back. “I think I love you.”
“Mmm, yeah, I love…” There’s a pause, and then rustling in the background, like Toudou is suddenly moving. “Manami! You can’t just say that when someone is half-asleep! What kind of way to be romantic is that?!”
He laughs. “Um… sorry?”
“I can’t believe you!” Toudou suddenly sounds very awake, but after a moment his voice gets quieter. “Well, I guess it can’t be helped. I love you too.”
This, this feels better than anything he’s ever felt before.
FILL: TEAM IWAIZUMI HAJIME/OIKAWA TOORU (CONTINUED), T
I want to meet you.
They’re five simple words that would probably make most people happy, but are something Manami fears. Every time Toudou has brought it up, Manami has just brushed it off. Except now he’s serious. Really does want to meet him.
And Manami would like nothing more than that. Would love to meet Toudou in person, see him and talk with him face-to-face instead of just typed messages or video calls over a computer screen.
But doing that would mean Toudou would find out about him, would know that he’s not human, not alive.
And why would he want to be with someone like that? Why would he want to love someone that doesn’t exist and could even disappear?
He’s afraid to throw away any happiness or that exhilarating feeling that he hasn’t felt in so long away. He doesn’t want to. Meeting can risk that, and even if it’s something he wants more than anything, he knows that reaching for that could send everything he wants and has obtained since death crashing down in one instant.
His reply is vague, but he’s not sure what else to say:
I’m not sure that I can.
Why not? Don’t you want to?
Yes, but it’s complicated…
They go back and forth about it for a little bit until Manami finally logs off, so he can think of something more concrete to say. Either a better excuse or an explanation. He has to make some sort of decision, and soon.
“Still daydreaming, Sangaku?”
“Ah, sorry, class rep.” Manami smiles at her, pushing his closed laptop aside. “You know me.”
“I do.” Miyahara’s smile is not sad, not like it used to be when they first conversed like this after his death. And there’s no longer a look of disbelief in her eyes or the musings that she must be dreaming when they talk like they had when they were children—her on the balcony, him sitting on his bed. They’ve both grown used to this, and besides him no longer being alive and completely there physically, she can still see him and speak with him. Just like always.
After a moment of silence, she sighs softly. “You look like you do whenever you’d be thinking about bicycles in class.”
“Ah… I was just thinking about something that came up.” He rubs the back of his head a little sheepishly.
“Is this about your friend online? That boy you told me about?”
It’s a little surprising that she knew that. He hadn’t been expecting her to. “Why would you say that?”
“Because I’ve only ever seen that look on your face when you’re thinking about bicycles or him.”
The words really aren’t surprising because Manami knows that Toudou makes him feel the most alive, the happiest he has since he was living and able to ride a bicycle, but the fact that she notices it does surprise him for a moment. Maybe it really isn’t so surprising, though. Miyahara has been his only friend when he’s had no one, probably understands him better than most people do, even now.
It’s nice to have someone there, to not be alone.
“He wants to meet,” Manami says softly after a moment. “But I’m not sure how to explain this… or me.”
“You want to meet him, don’t you?” Miyahara rests her hands on her hips, leaning forward a little. “That would make you happy, wouldn’t it?”
“Yes. But I’m not sure—”
“The Sangaku I know is never afraid to try something,” she says softly. “You always face whatever it is head on. Remember when you rode that bicycle for the first time?”
He looks at the ceiling, illuminated by the setting sun, a little fondly as he thinks of the memory. The feeling in his chest back then, the way he felt truly alive for the first time in his life—it’s unforgettable. And he had worked to feel that same way again, to get better and obtain that kind of happiness. He had vowed to back then.
“Yeah, that was fun.” He smiles, suddenly feeling nostalgic. “I wish we could have ridden together again. I wanted to beat you.”
She laughs a little, a fond one. “You would have. I know it.” A pause. “You’ve always been so far ahead of me, after all.”
He opens his mouth to respond, but she continues quickly, hands gripping the railing of the balcony tightly as she leans forward. “Chase after what you want, Sangaku. Go after that feeling, even if it means doing something that’s difficult or you’re afraid of. You deserve it, and I’ll be angry if you hold yourself back!”
Manami laughs, standing up and moving to the window. The space between them isn’t that much, enough that he can easily get over there.
She jumps in surprise when he’s suddenly next to her, sitting on the railing. “Sangaku—!”
“Thanks, class rep.” He smiles, reaches down and touches her hand. Even though neither can feel the normal sensation of a human touch shared between them, he knows she’ll understand what he means. “And you’re really not far behind me at all. You never have been.”
She pushes up her glasses, cheeks a little red. “I can never tell what you mean, Manami Sangaku.”
“Thanks.” He leans back from his seat on the railing, hanging from it upside down as he looks up at her. “Thanks for everything.”
“You make it sound like goodbye.” Out of habit, she reaches out to pull him up, even though her touch will pass right through him. “And don’t hang from there!”
A quiet laugh before he sits back up again. “It’s never goodbye, you know. Even if I do disappear.”
“I’ll catch you, one day,” she says in a determined voice, one he’s grown so used to in the years they’ve grown up together.
“I’m the one who has to catch you, remember?”
“I won’t forgive you if you don’t, then.” She smiles again, leans a little closer to him. “Go after what you want. Be happy.”
He smiles back, leans closer too. “I will.”
Later that night, he sees that Toudou has sent him a message.
Hey, Manami, if you don’t want to meet yet, that’s okay. I’m happy just talking to you like this until you’re ready.
After a moment, he replies:
It’s not that I don’t want to. It’s something else…
What?
He hesitates for a moment, knowing that he has to say it, that he wants to, but still is afraid of how Toudou will respond if he just says it outright. I’m not who you think I am.
Toudou’s reply comes a little slower than usual. Oh, so you’ve been lying to me over the internet? Ohh. scary. Also, not unheard of. So, what’s the big secret? Your name? Your age? Don’t want to tell me where you live or something?
It would be easy to lie. Easy to continue this and remain the way they have been. To stay back and feel only remnants of that feeling of being alive instead of reaching to experience it fully rather than go after it again.
But he thinks of Miyahara’s words, what she said about being happy. Truly happy. And maybe trying to reach that means that Toudou will want to avoid him and he’ll go back to being stagnant and alone and lonely like had had before. Maybe it even means he’ll eventually disappear if he finally does get that. But trying is what matters. He has to push forward. He has to try.
I’m dead.
Nice joke!!
It’s not a joke. I died a while ago. I’m a ghost.
He pauses, considers waiting for Toudou’s response, but just ends up typing another quick message and then closes the laptop immediately after, too afraid to look at what Toudou will say right away. I’m sorry for lying to you for so long.
Later, he gathers up the courage to check for a response, and sees that Toudou has sent him a few messages back.
Hey.
Hey, Sangaku.
I’m not mad, if you’re wondering. I don’t really understand, though, so it would be nice if you didn’t leave someone hanging and get offline after a revelation like that. It’s pretty rude, you know!
You don’t have to worry. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t change anything.
I still like you…
I still love you.
I’m online if you want to talk. Whenever you’re ready, okay?
He logs back onto skype soon after reading the messages. Toudou is online, just as promised, even though it’s late at night by now.
He presses the call button, and waits, figuring that actually talking about this would be better than instant messaging. After a moment, the call connects, and Toudou’s face is on the screen. His hair is slightly mused, probably from sleep, and his eyes look tired. But his face seems to light up when he sees Manami, the beginnings of a smile on his lips.
“Well, if it isn’t Mr. ‘I’m not who you think I am’!” Toudou laughs a little at his own joke, sounding a little sleepy still. It makes Manami smile. “It’s nice to see you again.”
“It’s nice to see you too.”
Toudou hums softly, as if he’s agreeing with Manami’s words. “So, you ready to explain?”
“Yes, but I don’t really know where to start…”
Toudou shifts on his bed, and pushes his bangs off of his face. “Wherever you need to. I’m listening. I’m here.”
The words are both encouraging and a little terrifying. “Okay. Thanks, Toudou-san.”
And after a moment of comfortable silence that he uses to find his words, Manami finally explains the truth to him.
Tomorrow, then?
Okay… but Toudou-san, are you really sure…?
If I wasn’t, I’d tell you. You know that.
Okay. Tomorrow, then.
v.
Seeing Toudou, really seeing him for the first time, makes Manami feel the closest to when he did when he was alive than he ever has—if not more so, the joy and adrenaline reverberating through his veins when he catches sight of Toudou walking toward their designated meeting spot.
“You still look pale. It’s definitely not the computer lighting’s fault. Liar.” Toudou smiles, although looks a little unsure of what to do next, lifts his hand and then drops it. “I’m happy to see you, though.”
“Me too.” Manami smiles, bright and genuine, the happiness he feels overwhelming.
“Whoa, you’re fading a little!”
“Oh…” He looks down at where his hands and wrists have become a little less visible than the rest of him, more transparent. “Yeah, that happens when I get excited or happy sometimes. Sorry.”
Toudou laughs. “No, it’s cute.”
They’re silent for a moment, just stand there looking at each other. It’s not an uncomfortable silence, not at all. Instead, it feels like this is how it should be. How it’s meant to be.
Manami reaches forward, touches Toudou’s hand, entwines their fingers together like he would if they could share a touch like this for real, where they could both feel it instead of Toudou just feeling cold air brushing against his skin.
“Cold,” Toudou mutters, but smiles at the touch. “Kind of like the wind at the end of fall.”
“I like the wind,” Manami says with a laugh.
Toudou laughs too. “I know.”
After a moment of silence, Manami continues, “Hey, Toudou-san… I’m glad I met you. Thanks for making me feel more alive than I ever have before. Thanks for loving me.”
Even though they’re not really touching, it feels like they are. And the way Toudou is looking at him, the loving and fond look in his eyes, the slight blush on his cheeks makes it feel real. Makes him feel real again.
“Of course. Just don’t go disappearing on me now that I’ve just met you. I wouldn’t forgive you, if you stood me up on a date like that!”
The overwhelming happiness he feels right then is better than anything he’s felt before, and he laughs. “I promise I won’t.”
Maybe being a ghost, stuck between two worlds isn’t something bad after all. Because honestly, he feels just as alive as any living and breathing human would. Maybe even more so.
Re: FILL: TEAM IWAIZUMI HAJIME/OIKAWA TOORU, T