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 Posted: Sat Jul 06, 2024 11:09 pm
Yuki wrinkled his nose and let himself frown more deeply. “Y’know, I’m really glad you’ve already decided to commit to ‘No romantical manhandling until you do some more work on yourself and your life with Dr. Mjoli.’ I get that all of this is important to you, ********, but you are way too tightly wound about this. And you’re not exactly beating those ‘overthinking it to a genuinely bad for you extent’ charges anytime soon, just so you know.”
Out of a flash of idle curiosity, Yuki tilted his head and glanced down at ******** notebook. This did nothing to help him smile again. “Also, you wrote ‘Ask your boyfriend if you’re so interested’ for your ‘Skills’ answer. You doodled the stupid kissy face with a heart emoji next to it. You’ll be fine if you just write down some things you’re good at without caring whether or not anybody else thinks they’re impressive. Ego te absolvo and all that Catholic perfectionist ******** that he wanted to incentivize Unhelpful ******** Nonsense, but going too hard on him had a distinct possibility of backfiring. Hopefully, the kiss Yuki pressed against his boy’s forehead landed softly enough to cushion some of the blow. “I give you permission to write whatever you want. None of these people are paying your bills, so how about you just do you and shake them off if anybody tries to give you s**t over being yourself? And if it helps, we can workshop your draft before you actually put it in the app. We can, like—”
A loud, squealing whistle cut Yuki off. With a sigh, he stood up. “Write down whatever you think you’re good at,” he said. “I’ll make the tea.”
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Posted: Sat Jul 06, 2024 11:10 pm
Yuki’s indulgence of his antics always had limits, and generally, Kiyoshi tended to appreciate that. Gods knew, somebody in his life needed to stand up to him when he was being stupid and give him pushback when that stupidity was damaging his own happiness. But sometimes, it led to Kiyoshi—and formerly Reiki—getting cut off in the middle of some pointless dramatics, just to make him handle things like an adult instead of getting in his feelings and just working the mood for a little while until he calmed down.
Being fair, that did sound like a distinctly good plan for dealing with Kiyoshi. Didn’t make Kiyoshi any less pouty as he put his henshin pen back to paper, using it as an actual pen once more. By the time Yuki came back with two mugs of tea set up to steep, Kiyoshi had the notebook ready to push in his direction, with at least something written down:Quote: Skills:A b***h can talk your ear off.
No, like, seriously. I don’t shut up.
Will do so with sass and style.
Will read a b***h to filth as necessary.
I have terrible taste in boys.
No, really. “Terrible” is a generous understatement.
Throwing bricks.
Running in heels.
Getting high on my own drama.
I’m a big, tough girl, I tie my own sandals & everything.
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Posted: Sat Jul 06, 2024 11:10 pm
At some point today, ******** had gotten himself into A Mood™ about all of this. That much had become exceedingly apparent in how much he’d wound himself up over the honestly fairly simple process of writing a bio for his shiny new magical girl social media app. It was sort of cute, how much he cared about his senshi stuff and how much he wanted to be a good magical girl. Getting so wrapped up in the opinions of a bunch of senshi and Knights he didn’t even know, though? Distinctly less cute, and clearly making him miserable.
Yuki wasn’t sure what he expected when he picked up ******** first draft list of skills other than the stupid joke about sleeping with the hypothetical reader’s boyfriend. An actual, useful list might’ve been nice, but given the Mood™ right now, ******** being pointlessly mean to himself felt Very Him. This was just part of his approach to everything. No, his drama of the day might not have been particularly enjoyable. No, his drama of the day might not have been particularly constructive. Yes, his drama of the day might have been self-detrimental and/or very irritating, especially when you knew good and goddamn well that he knew better. And sooner or later, ******** would come back around to actually helping himself.
You just had to let him be dramatic first—or so he often insisted.
Silently, Yuki glanced sidelong at his boy, watched for a moment as ******** capped and uncapped his magical girl henshin pen. Whatever all was going on inside him right now, Kiyoshi slouched more than he usually would’ve done. He pouted like he wanted to project the image of a spoiled brat who didn’t get a Jaguar for her Super Sweet Sixteen, but something about it didn’t have the energy that he could put into selling an act. Moreover, the emotional vibes coming off of ******** did not line up with his posture at all.
“Okay, so, this certainly is one of the lists of all time,” Yuki said, doing his utmost to keep his voice calm and even. “I know I’m not your Obaasan, but I’m gonna try to channel all her workshop questions for you anyway. What are you trying to accomplish with this list of skills? Like, yes, it’s part of the bio form on the app, we know this. But you are, specifically and personally, making your own choices about how to answer this prompt. What do you think you are trying to say by listing off that you can read people down, that you have questionable taste in guys—present company excluded, obviously—and that you are somewhat of a drama bomb?”
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Posted: Sat Jul 06, 2024 11:11 pm
This was what Kiyoshi got for opening up the possibility of workshopping his stupid-a** answers for this bio. Of course Yuki would take him up on it and ask completely fair and valid questions that just so happened to make Kiyoshi’s stomach turn, and make him flop back onto the table. His head fit so comfortably on his forearms, and truly, sitting up like an adult did not feel like something he wanted to do anymore.
Underneath the table, Cersei mirrored Her Person by lying down on top of his feet.… Good baby. Best baby. Her warm, soft, heavy presence curling up against his ankles made Kiyoshi feel less like the question itself might come to life and eat him.
“I don’t know,” Kiyoshi said, throwing out the first three words that came to mind. He hummed, lifting his head enough to rub one of his eyes more easily. “I mean, the whole point of the bio and profile is to make people take an interest in me? Or, well, anybody who uses the app but this isn’t about them.” Groaning softly, Kiyoshi shifted up again so he could drop his cheek into his palm. “So, like, the point of getting on the app is to try and meet more people? And make them even want to meet me? Which—statistically speaking, the odds should be in my favor? A handful of shitty, aggro assholes aside, I have pretty good luck with Order senshi and Knights overall?”
An unspoken “but” hung heavy in the air, like a cartoon anvil waiting to snap the string keeping it aloft. Unfortunately, trying to think of what came after that “but” made Kiyoshi’s brain slosh around in a gruel-haze, as if it had melted at some point in the past twenty seconds.
“Trying to make people like me feels ******** weird, though,” Kiyoshi went on, when his mouth finally recalled how to work right. “And it shouldn’t, because yeah, I do it all the time? In the same way that pretty much everybody does because it’s an unspoken truth of most forms of social interaction? And when people don’t follow those unspoken rules, we generally get all pissed off at them?” Unless one was Kiyoshi specifically and the rule-breaker was a troubled but cute Chaos-aligned boy who probably had a lot of pain and trauma. “But something like this s**t feels so much more…disingenuous, I guess? Not to mention feeling manipulative as ********, at least it does when I do it.”
He grumbled and slouched further, leaning harder into his hand. “Like, at least two princesses are on this app, right? Cybele and I have met; she knows I’m a ******** mess. But what if Miss Princess Ganymede logs on and saying that I’m good at things creates an expectation that I can’t live up to? What if I let a <******** princess get some ******** up and wrong idea about me, and then we do meet each other, and she’s all glamorous and awesome with her perfect bone structure and cool with her ten-plus years of competence, while I’m just me?”
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Posted: Sat Jul 06, 2024 11:12 pm
“As long as you don’t lie about your skills and talents, you should be fine. Also, there is no such thing as being ‘just’ you. You’ve never been ‘just’ anything in your life, don’t lie to me and Saint Divine like that.”
But the positive reality check did not make ******** immediately stop being silly and write up an actual good list of his skills instead, so…… “Okay, fine, I’ll bite,” Yuki conceded. “What possible expectation could people come up with that you might fail to live up to?”
Reaching over to where he’d set it down earlier, Yuki prepared the spray bottle. If his boy wanted to say some nonsense, then Yuki needed to counter it however he could.
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Posted: Sat Jul 06, 2024 11:12 pm
“I mean, pretty much anything about me having my s**t together—and like, anticipating your objection?” Kiyoshi held up his free hand as if in surrender. “Nothing about having skills at anything inherently means that I have my s**t together? But like, people could still read me being like ‘I sew most of my own clothes, I can do a spinning jump into the splits and land on the exact right beat, I never miss a word when I lip-synch Megan Thee Stallion, I’ve thrown bricks at youma while defending myself before, blah blah blah blah blah’? They could read all that and get it in their heads that I have anything remotely together, or that I’m competent and cool instead of what I really am, which is just some dumb loser who didn’t read the fine print or even ask if there was—”
Kiyoshi cut himself off, flinching as a spritz of water rushed into his face.
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Posted: Sat Jul 06, 2024 11:12 pm
“No,” Yuki told his idiot firmly. “You had no reason to suspect that Elsa would get you involved in anything with fine print. You are literally the only person of any significance to this conversation who thinks you are a dumb loser. Rephrase the statement so you get through it without talking s**t about my favorite boy.”
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