CW: eating disorders, body image issues, weight, etc.
Baz. Was. Freezing.
Then again, under the present circumstances, it would have been stranger if he hadn’t been a little bit nippy.
Earlier, he’d jogged over to the gym in leggings and a crop top. Frankly, Baz felt he had no business wearing at the moment, but his secret side-account friends on Tumblr, Twitter, and Bluesky had all assured him that either: A. he looked great, he didn’t look fat at all, he remained #Goals and despite all objective evidence to the contrary, they didn’t believe that he’d slipped up and put on any weight, certainly not that he’d gained fifteen pounds; or B., how he looked right now only mattered insofar as it motivated him not to put himself in positions like this again.
Being cold, on the other hand, was the point. It made the body work harder to stay warm, which burned extra calories, which Baz clearly needed in his life. After getting in his workout at the gym and cleaning up, Baz had departed not in the same leggings and crop top, but a different crop top (pastel pink with art of several cartoon ponies—some of them unicorns or pegasi, and all of them done in varying shades of fuchsia, magenta, rose, or otherwise pink—dancing at a brightly colored nightclub, framed by the words “I’m gonna keep on dancin’”) and a pair of skimpy, black running shorts he usually saved for summer. Perfect for deliberately making himself cold and forcing his body to work that much harder, if you asked Baz.
Going from the heat of a workout to the bitter cold outside was a shock to the system. Even with the heat Baz built up by literally running home, with his gym backpack loaded up on his shoulders, he shivered while waiting at every crosswalk. So much the better for him, he thought as he got held up again, near the Asian import market that one of his neighbors liked and only a few blocks off from said neighbor’s place.
Being close to Shuangxu’s townhouse was good. It meant Baz was making good time on this run. So, he hadn’t slowed down any as a consequence of the weight he’d gained since acquiring Jayce and Gilbert as housemates. Maybe he still had work to do on himself—a lot of work on himself, no matter what his secret side-account friends told him—and maybe he still needed to prove himself worthy to Albite and Faustite (especially after certain recent debacles). But waiting in the cold made Baz feel better about that.
Made him feel so much more capable of accomplishing those goals for real.
Noir Songxxbird
Posted: Mon Jan 06, 2025 2:59 pm
Lianhua found herself spending more time than usual at Shuangxu's lately--it wasn't like she avoided her brother before, but since becoming Karakorum, she found that she really, really needed his advice and assistance in....everything related to being a Knight. His and Belial's both, really, since, loathe as she was to admit it about A-Xu, they both knew far, far more than her.
And given that Belial liekd cooking so muhc, and especially liked making anytihng A-Xu liked, stopping off at the Asian market to pick up some groceries for them seemed like an excellent way of saying thanks and also possibly manipulating Belial into cooking for her and A-Xu. How her brother had scored the ultimate malewife was absolutely beyond Lianhua, but it had clearly worked out for him, and she was absolutely going to get the fringe benefit of eating Belial's ridiculously good cooking.
So, with her shopping bags full, she wandered to the crosswalk, and was startled to see a vaguely familiar face--someone else from A-Xu's neighborhood, she was pretty sure--except that he was not dressed for the weather. In fact, he was the opposite of dressed for the weather. Tiny shorts? A crop top? At this time of year?
Dude. What the hell.
"Uh," she said, "sorry if this is a weird question, but are you good, dude?"
Baz didn’t think he was spending too much time powered up as Ilmari, really. Didn’t think he was forgetting how to exist without aura senses. But the sudden advent of Someone Talking To Him startled him enough that he would’ve been remiss if he didn’t at least consider the possibility. He kept his external reaction fairly muted—a soft half-gasp and turning to look at whomever was speaking to him; thank you, the extent to which he was already biting down on how much the cold did bother him, actually—but on the inside, the fact that Baz felt startled at all felt like one more thing that could’ve made him a liability.
A bad investment for the Negaverse to have made.
Not to mention a wretched failure and several other horrible things that he didn’t want to spend too much time thinking about.
Thankfully, the person speaking to him caught his attention enough that he didn’t need to dwell on any of the potential negative epithets that he might have recently earned for himself or could have earned in the future. Beautiful face, enviably petite, stylish but carrying grocery bags in a way that stylish people often only did when they chose to for whatever reason, and she felt familiar.…… Maybe not a neighbor, but she was waiting to cross in the same direction as Baz, so family to a neighbor? And this particular Asian import market, it was the one that Shuangxu and his beefcake housewife liked, right?
That thought, specifically about the housewife in question, made the realization hit him—
“Oh, hey, you……” Baz gestured at her vaguely, mostly needing to move his hand a little while thinking. “You were babysitting Shuangxu’s man like, the week before Christmas, right? Very responsibly talking him out of leaving Huo-Huo’s droppings on Mrs. Heinkle’s lawn, even though she deserves it?”
Which answered exactly nothing of the question that had actually been asked, and Baz knew it. But also, sue him, he hadn’t planned to run into anyone who would’ve, like, cared enough to speak to him about his attire. He needed a hot second to come up with a plausible enough explanation for this.
Noir Songxxbird
Posted: Mon Jan 06, 2025 11:48 pm
Lianhua wasn't quite expecting the poor guy to startle, but then again, if he was as cold as he looked, he was probably more focused on that then on anything else around him, so maybe it made sense that it took him a second to realize she was there.
And then, he was quiet for a little bit, and maybe he was just trying to place her, or figure out how to answer her question, or something--she swore he was vaguely familiar, though she wouldn't be able to place where without some additional clues. Neighbor of A-Xu's, maybe? Spotted jogging in more reasonable attire?
Usually, Lianhua was pretty sure she'd remember a face as pretty as his, but she had been stressed as ******** lately, so forgetting was probably totally understandable.
But when he placed her, she couldn't help but laugh, remembering the incident. "Oh, yeah, that was me. Belial's a little bit unsocialized, so sometimes I have to remind him that just because someone is annoying doesn't mean we can break the social contract and leave dog poo on her lawn. No matter how funny it would be." She sighed, theatrically.
"So, you know my brother? I'm Lianhua, Shuangxu's favorite and only little sister."
“I have noticed that about Belial,” Baz agreed, nodding mostly by reflex but with a bit of sympathy behind it. “I don’t think most of the neighbors appreciate that about him, but……?” With a soft “meh” noise, Baz shrugged. “He’s refreshingly different from the rest of them. Nice to see a new partner in the neighborhood who isn’t more of the same stuffed shirt, ‘more married to the rules than to their spouse’ nonsense.
“Anyway, I’m Baz—well. Basil, properly. But it’s usually ‘Baz.’ And I have the privilege of being Shuangxu’s neighbor and regular accomplice in hating the HOA.”
He felt a bit tense as he watched the opposite section of the crosswalk, the one going north to south rather than east to west, and watched the signal switch to a blinking red hand and a twenty-second countdown. Yet, Baz tried not to let that show, meeting Lianhua Feng with a warm smile that certainly wasn’t thinking about: 1., how he would be walking the rest of the way home, rather than running, because the other option was being rude to Lianhua, and Baz had no desire to do so; and 2., how many more calories one burned by running than by walking.
(Internally, Baz was 100% thinking about both of those things, but he didn’t need to show it off while meeting Shuangxu’s sister like this.)
“Do you need any help with those,” Baz asked, gesturing at Lianhua’s bags. The signal would change soon, and offering to help might, in turn, help keep Lianhua distracted from commenting further on whether or not Baz was okay. Plus, it would be neighborly in a very Mr. Roger sense of the term, and most of Baz’s neighbors didn’t deserve that? But Shuangxu did and thus, by extension, so did his sister.
Noir Songbird
Posted: Tue Jan 07, 2025 8:46 pm
Lianhua laughed. "Oh, trust me, I think a lot of people don't appreciate Belial's unique charms," she said. "I'm not entirely sure I do, but he makes my brother happy, and that's really all that matters. Actually, I got all this in the hopes of getting to eat at their place tonight."
She had to pause for a moment when he gave his name, but then she perked up. "Oh yeah! A-Xu's mentioned you, you're one of the very short list of neighbors he actually kinda likes. It's like, you and Granny Hernandez's knitting circle."
She really did want to ask more, because his choice of attire was seriously worrying and Lianhua wanted to be the type of person who was kind and cared about that sort of thing. Unfortunately for her, but perhaps fortunately for Baz, Lianhua really was easily distracted. Especially by people being charmingly nice to her.
"If you don't mind?" She sighed. "I have it, mostly, but I would not say no to handing over a couple bags. There's a lot in here."
“In fairness to Shuangxu, Granny Hernandez does seem to have corralled our precious few enjoyable neighbors into said knitting circle.” With a shrug and the same insistently warm smile, Baz reached out to take over whichever bags Lianhua saw fit to give him. Oh, he was so lucky today. Fate, or the gods, or whoever? They had decided to bless him with a conversation partner who was easily distracted. “Most of the others are too busy complaining that they don’t like the green carnation pride flag that Ben and Derek had up during June, or that Mrs. Hayes left a care package on the porch for ever so slightly too long while she was physically incapable of getting it herself.”
As the signal changed, letting them walk ahead, Baz let himself relax. There. Not the same as jogging properly, no, but the extra weight of carrying these groceries was good for him in its own way. Still a way of inventing more work for himself to do, just like his outfit and his habit for picking up whatever slack Team Faustite had available at any given moment even if nobody had asked. So good for Baz that he had so much practice—and today, his hard work earned him a nice chat with a delightful, blessedly distractible young lady.
