#flenserfics

“Suga, you’re up!”

There’s a burst of giggles from the girls, but Suga doesn’t mind. He beams at them, tossing a curl of hair out of his eyes. He weaves his way through the crowd of athletes, students, nervous girls who’d agreed to walk the runway. One of those girls had been the one to ask him to participate, turning to him during class with a smug smirk. But Suga was never one to back down from a challenge, and he’d accepted her invite before she even stopped speaking.

One of the organizers stands at the curtain with a clipboard. Suga’s greeted with a wink and a grin when he scurries up to his side, careful of the outfit he’s been dressed in. “Looking good!” he says. He’s one of the athletes, maybe on the baseball team. Suga can’t remember his name, but he’s thrilled by the little slice of attention, of flirtation. It fills him with fluttering excitement.

“Alright, you’re up.” Suga’s ushered forward, past the curtain and onto the stage. A cheer rumbles up in the crowd, whistles piercing the applause. Suga can’t help but smile and strike a pose. He’s happy to help with the athletics’ silly benefit fashion show, but he’s honestly having fun, delighted by the attention and the thrill of the unfamiliar. He marches down the runway, trying to channel every fashion show video he watched online in order to prepare. The crowd hoots and laughs, and Suga rides the raucous energy all the way to the end of the catwalk. He pauses at the end, popping his hip out, striking a pose but laughing halfway through it. He swivels, eyes scanning the crowd for the familiar faces of his classmates, stopping dead when he recognizes someone.

There in the second row is an all too familiar face, staring at him with an intensity Suga can feel. A heat blooms over Suga’s cheeks, a rush of memories from high school flooding over him. He falters, probably for a moment too long, as he stares back at Kageyama Tobio, the surprise keeping him rooted to the floor. But Kageyama nods his head, and the bass of the music thunders in Suga’s chest, and he blinks himself out of his shock. He tries to smile again, to shake himself out of his distraction. He turns abruptly and walks back towards the curtain, waving and blowing kisses to the crowd. He slips behind the curtain quickly, giving one last wave as he disappears.

And behind the privacy of the curtain, Suga lets out a huge breath. His excitement has turned to nerves, distracted little butterflies bouncing around his insides. The last time he saw Kageyama had been a fumbling disaster; something about Kageyama, all grown up now and just as intense as he ever was, kept Suga on edge, like he could never quite gather his wits about him. It’s a surprise, certainly, to see him now.

There’s a buzz of movement near the door on the far side of the room. Suga doesn’t pay it too much attention; people have been coming and going all night, mostly organizers or their friends trying to sneak a peek at the models. Suga’s preoccupied with changing and trying to wipe some of this glitter off of his face, distracted with his own thoughts. And so, when he turns around and finds himself facing Kageyama’s broad chest, he’s completely unprepared.

“Kageyama!” he shouts, nearly tripping backwards. He catches himself on the edge of a table, one hand pressed over his leaping heart. Kageyama appears unbothered.

“I didn’t know you were here,” Suga says, clearing his throat.

Kageyama’s gaze darts over him, and the frown on his face softens into something more embarrassed. “I didn’t know you were here either, Suga-san. My teammates invited me.”

“That’s nice, that’s uh. Hm. Ah, did you enjoy it? The show? It’s still going on, you could be watching.”

“You look nice,” Kageyama blurts out. Suga stares at him, until Kageyama gestures with his finger to the edge of his cheekbone. “I like the glitter,” he says.

Suga touches his cheekbone, the tiny heart-shaped piece of confetti one of the girls had stuck on with eyelash glue, covering the mole perched under his eye. He smiles, a little unsure, a little nervous, a little hopeful. “Yeah, it’s fun,” Suga says, “this whole experience was fun. I’m, um, glad you came. Glad I got to see you.”

Kageyama nods, and then shifts out of his ramrod straight posture. Hands stuffed in his pockets, he ducks his head, finally breaking eye contact with Suga. “Yes,” he agrees. “Um. Can we talk?”

“Like, privately? Is something the matter, Kageyama?” Suga asks, concern suddenly washing over him.

Kageyama shrugs, scuffing the toe of his shoe against the ground. “No, I just. Want to talk. To you.”

Suga stares.

“We can get food or something.”

Suga blinks. Understanding dawns on him. He blinks some more. “You wanna go now?” he croaks out.

Kageyama looks up sharply, like he can’t believe what he just heard. “We can go now,” he agrees.

Tagged by: @flenserfics Tagging: anyone who sees this and wants to do it! seriously! I TAG THEE

Total number of completed stories: (going off of ao3 for this one) 8

Total word count: (again, on ao3) 54,344

Fandoms written in: haikyuu!!, free!, yowapeda

Looking back, did you expect to write more fics than you thought you would this year, less, or about what you’d expected? i think i wrote more fics that i actually published than i had expected to. i wrote a ton of drabbles that i’m not counting for this particular question, but posting 8 out of 12 total fics on ao3 in one year was a lot for me! 

What’s your own favorite story of the year? yours is the light | the shinkai/toudou drabbles

i’m trying not to repeat stories on this list, so yes, i am acutely aware that yours is the light shows up again, but i really, really like that story. i love the concept of myth in the modern world, the hazy line between reality and dream, and the mix of humor and drama. and the shintou drabbles because i love me my rarepairs, and i also love the warmth and joy those drabbles all have.

Did you take any writing risks this year? not really? i tried some new styles and wrote a bunch of pairings i don’t like for lazy fills, but i wouldn’t say those were risks. maybe working on things i’m actually excited about posting on ao3, since i don’t do that often, but i don’t know if i’d call that a risk either.

Do you have any fanfic or profit goals for the new year? i’ve started a list of fics i intend to work on this year, which i hope will help keep me interested in what i’m writing, so that those nasty doubt thoughts don’t creep up on me. for profit goals: i’ve thought about doing commission stuff, but i a) don’t know if i would generate enough interest from people to do that and b) don’t know if i’m at the point where i could do that. writing can be a very circular process for me, and i just don’t know if the added pressure of commissions would work efficiently.

Best story of the year? personal opinion: the iwasuga one shot where oikawa noses around trying to figure out who iwa’s dating. i suspect myself of subconsciously basing this off of one of @lemedy ‘s headcanons, which was funny, because i posted the story and then prowled through the iwasuga tag months later and re read lem’s headcanon and it was like reading my story in a different format. but yeah, this was a fun one. i always love writing from iwa’s perspective, and i always love some best friend interaction.

Most popular story of the year? the perfect stranger | the tsukkiyama prompt that was about porn stars but i didn’t fill it that way

these both make sense lmao

Story of mine most under-appreciated by the universe, in my opinion:

THE KENHINA + HEAT LAZY FILL. oh my gooood i can’t believe there wasn’t more reaction to this. i mean, it’s short, so i get why, but maaaaaan. it’s a tiny tease, a little hint of sticky sensuality between two characters who i rarely see in any situation that isn’t 100% innocent.

Most fun story to write: yours is the light. god, this was a joy to write. the idea clicked together, the rest of the fic flowed so smoothly. i wrote it in like five days, pulling like 2,000 words a day. man was that fun.

Story with the single sexiest moment: I’ll be yours + you’ll be mine

i chose this one because i wrote it with the intention of making it sexy. there are a couple other drabbles i can think of that fit the bill, but hey, let’s throw in some more pedal fic. Sweetest story: anything having to do with cat dads | daisuga daddies one shot

basically, give me adults turning into fools over pets or kids, and i’m gone

”Holy crap, that’s wrong, even for you!” story: UH.

i don’t really have stories like that? i wrote kagesuga fucking the shower and breaking oikawa’s door………that’s about the best i got

Story that shifted my own perceptions of the characters/Most unintentionally telling story: I’M CHEATING & I’M ALSO DOING WHAT I WAS TRYING TO AVOID.

yours is the light.

alright, first of all, the characters: i love this kuroo. i love him. i love him as a big hippy witchcrafty spiritual type of character, i love him with a deep perception of other people, i love him with seeds of kindness in him. i love seeing the clash between iwa and oikawa, but also seeing them repair the rift between them (kind of). i love the internal workings of oikawa’s mind. i love it.

and the telling stuff: there’s a lot of personal stuff in this fic, feelings and thought processes and behaviors. i don’t know if other people got as much from the story as i did, but i’m counting it i don’t care.

Hardest story to write: HMMM

i think brain robbers from outer space. it was a gift that i had no prompt for, and i was in one of those funks where i couldn’t think of what i wanted to write, so i kept starting over and over. i think i was on the third or fourth rewrite when i finally settled on the story, so it was kind of a frustrating experience, but i really like how it turned out. so that’s cool.

Biggest disappointment: ah, i think the one shots i did for rare pair weekend? none of those seemed to garner a lot of attention/feedback (which, rare pairs, i understand) but i still really liked all of those, so it was kind of a letdown to be all excited about them, and then just. not. get noticed much for them. 

There’s an envelope in her locker.

She hasn’t touched it yet; she’s only been staring at it. For ten minutes.

She’s never gotten an envelope in her locker before. Akiyama-kun did once, in middle school, but Akiyama-kun had to go home sick the day the envelope showed up in her locker, and that was the last time anyone had seen her.

Hitoka stares harder at the envelope.

Yachi Hitoka, is says on the front, in messy, but clear enough penmanship. It looks like someone rushed her name, when they were spelling it out, like they had been in a hurry, or on the move, or-

Yakuza.

Hitoka squeals in alarm, slamming her locker shut, then looks around when she remembers she’s still in the hallway. She scurries off to class, where she unsuccessfully keeps the envelope out of her mind

She worries through the entirety of practice, so much so that she almost gets hit with a loose volleyball, her mind too clouded to pay attention to her surroundings. It leaves her a little shaken, but she laughs it off, and hands the ball to Yamaguchi, who looks at her a little funnily. 

She helps the first years clean up, trying to force the thought of that envelope from her mind with busyness. It works, kind of, for a little while, but once everything’s put away, her nausea coming back full force as she tries to casually glance around the gym, looking for any tough-looking men in suits who’ve come to collect her for a crime she doesn’t remember committing. Did she water the plants this morning, or did she forget? She helped an old lady pick up spilled groceries this morning, but did she squeeze an orange a little too firmly, and damage the fruit? Did that old lady have yakuza connections? Did she-

“Yachi-san, are you okay?”

She doesn’t scream, but it’s a near thing when Yamaguchi taps her on the shoulder. She tries to laugh off the awkward moment again, but it’s shrieky, the kind of laughter that borders right on the edge of hysterical.

“Yamaguchi-kun! You startled me, aha, oh my gosh.”

“Yachi, are you okay?”

“I’m fine! Yep, I’m fine, I’m totally fine. How are you, Yamaguchi-kun? Are you fine? You look...fine.”

“Uh, yeah, I’m good. Um, but I did want to ask-”

Oh god, he’s going to ask her to leave the club. Can he do that? He is the captain. He can probably do anything. Captain is a much more powerful position than manager. He’s-

-”letter? Uh, Yachi?”

“What?” she says, in a very tiny voice.

“I asked if you got my letter,” he says again, pulling at the hem of his shirt in a way Hitoka recognizes as a nervous habit.

“You mean...you left that envelope in my locker?”

“I did.”

“Not yakuza?”

“Uh, what?”

In a rush, all the worry of the day seeps out of her. She feels like she can breathe, for the first time since that morning, but then.

Then, she picks up on the way Yamaguchi is watching her, expectant, pink-cheeked, and it clicks.

First of all congrats on get married!

Oh my god. I have the biggest grin on my face right now, because this right here is my jam.

“I know you’re staring.”

Suga makes a good show of pretending to be scandalized, scoffing in that purely affronted way of his, but if Daichi were to turn around right now, he’d catch Suga with pink cheeks.

“I am not.”

“You are.  I can tell because I don’t hear any painting from you.”

The noise of Suga’s brush, the soft, slow sweep of wet bristles against the wall, picks up abruptly, and Daichi cracks a smile.

“It’s alright.  I know my ass is fine.”

“Oh my god…”

Daichi does turn around at that, sets his paintbrush down and turns around to see Suga with his face in his hands, the kind of half-hearted embarrassment that always makes Daichi laugh.  There’s a blot of rich blue paint in Suga’s hair, same as the new shade that’s going up on the walls, their walls.  The newness of it, their apartment, their things, their lives together, turns Daichi’s stomach to flutters, makes him giddy in a way he hasn’t been in a while. 

“It’s okay, Suga, honest.  I didn’t wear these jeans for nothing.”

Suga looks up at him then, tiny little scowl trying unsuccessfully to hide his smile.  Daichi very slowly, very deliberately turns around again, climbs back up on the ladder and curves his back in a way that has Suga sighing behind him.