2022 writing review
Jan. 2nd, 2023 03:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
yallathis past year i wrote jackshit. i was holding out for a miracle oneshot that i could pull out of my ass before the year was over so i didn't feel quite so bad about my lack of productivity but.. that did not happen! i will defend myself by saying that it has been a very difficult time in my life wrt academic occurrences and personal events so. i have a lot of works in progress at least...? anyway let's get into it.
total word count: 12,068
total completed works: 1
drift in - enstars, arashi/kaoru
notes/commentary
this had been dancing around in my brain since i think august of last year? something like that. obviously i was thinking about arakao, as one does, and then wound up joking around with friends about inkigayo sandwiches. i'm a sucker for idols.. so i was like hmmm what would it be like if arakao dated in this kind of environment where you can't really tell who's for you or against you and you're enough of an object of the public eye that it's hard to tell what's real and what's fake - even regarding your own persona? and arashi and kaoru both have some issues there so the ideas flowed pretty easily. the writing itself was the tricky part.
i don’t know what it is about me but i’m the slowest writer to walk the earth ever and it's embarrassing but what can u do... part of this was bc initially it had been a kaoru pov but 1) i did that for ysms and 2) kaoru has not been Pilled. i scrapped that idea pretty fast but then it was a lot of thinking What would get them to even care about each other and What would happen next. a lot of my outtakes are portions that focused on explaining the situation in general wrt the industry and arashi's feelings about it, but that i realized didn't add more than they took away. namely, they dragged the momentum of the piece down way too much and came across as more tell-y than anything.. case in point:
a lot of the scrapped bits were like this. not necessarily the worst stylistically, but just didn't fit in with everything else. this one in particular makes arashi seem a lot more manipulative/conniving which was NOT my intention lmao... i wanted to put in more about the idol/fan relationship and how that often bleeds into how they relate to each other even unintentionally - because it's a part of their life like everything else! but i couldn't get that in without sacrificing the overall pace of the fic SO. [2024 EDIT] went through my doc that i put my scrapped lines in so i don't actually Delete them and discovered that i actually had a lot from drift in so i figured i should put them here instead!! under the cut bc some of these scenes are straight up lengthy. mostly the problems were the same thing as the above like it was just too bingoboarded and overwrought. but it wasn't BAD just unfocused.
Being an idol is so lonely sometimes, it’s no surprise that almost everyone in this industry has to have an unattainable crush, or a secret partner. The latter for the ones who think that wanting isn’t enough, and the former for the ones who know better. Arashi prides herself on loving easily and giving nothing—enough to have the bright, shimmery feelings and none of the heartache. The long-lasting crush on Akiomi put a glow in her cheeks and a bounce in her walk, and she never had to worry about him feeling the same way, about jeopardizing either of their reputations, so long as she never acted on it. And she knows never to act on feelings like these; there’s a sort of cold comfort in impossibility, and isn’t that what being an idol is all about?
But she has been stir-crazy lately. Her last fling was a year back and had only lasted two weeks before they’d both had had enough of her schedules and fucked-up sleep cycle. She doesn’t do real relationships, has a strict policy on being romantically unavailable, like friends-with-benefits if the benefits were sneaking out to McDonald’s in a facemask and sunglasses and texting into the wee hours of the morning. For her, she figures the benefit is the sheer idea of being allowed to date like normal people do.
Another idol could be better; it’s hit or miss depending on schedule differences, but the real problem is the romance, or the lack thereof. Arashi couldn’t date anyone in Knights. Even aside from the fact that they’re family to her, whether forced or found or some strange mixture of both, inner-group dynamics are already such fragile things. So that narrows down her prospects to the rest of the industry—not much of a culling. But some idols aren’t aware of who they are, don’t realize that they’re married to this job and that their fans are their lovers. Deny it they might, but what the industry says is what goes. She would drop anyone in an instant if being with them put her career in danger.
The last guy she’d dated had been a trainee. Almost normal. He hadn’t gotten it either. Anything of value costs something. For Arashi, it costs everything. She doesn’t want romance so much as she wants the illusion of it. Something unconditional, something golden, something tender and fragile. If only such a thing existed.
She tries to forget, most days—doesn’t want to remember how often Izumi and Leo would butt heads, how many times she wound up giving her dinner to Tsukasa and going to bed hungry. Point is, it was a while back.
"It’s about, like—liking someone so much that you want to know everything about them. Wanting to memorize their voice, or the look in their eyes, or—" Kaoru stops, huffs a little, and even at this angle she can make out the sheepishness in his expression. "Somehow, though, it’s kind of embarrassing. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about writing lyrics, would you?"
"A bit. But the King and Ritsu-chan do most of ours, these days."
Kaoru laughs, turns slightly, trying to meet her eyes without getting all up in her face. He gets like this, one moment every bit the playboy he claims to be, and the next shying away from her touch. It’s cute, so she backs up so he can turn. Under these lights his eyes look almost gray. "Rei-kun wants to get us back into self-production. Things for the image and all, you know?" He leans back, slouching in his seat. "He makes it seem so easy."
Arashi smiles, all teeth. "I could say the same of you, Kaoru-chan." It’s about seventy percent true, which is enough for him. Seventy percent is enough for her, too. "You’re good at being an idol," she says. "Doing fanservice. Setting the mood. Of course, you’re a good performer too… All that’s left is the production, then!"
"What about looks?" he ventures, and she figures it’s the one thing he’s confident about, enough to crack jokes. She can’t blame him—that flawless skin and those striking brown eyes of his are on another level.
Cool turns to nervous turns back to that affected, satisfied look that he puts on all the time for his fans. She wants to make him sweat, for the same reason some fans like to push their buttons. Curiosity and that undying desire for exclusivity. Even if it’s a negative reaction, the fact that it’s made for you and not anyone else, there’s something special about that, isn’t there?—or something equally fucked-up. But she does understand the sentiment.
"I can see why you’re in charge of visuals," Arashi says, watching how the practiced expression slips from his face, how his eyes widen, lips forming this sweet pout that she’s certain he doesn’t know he’s doing.
"Can you?" His voice gone quiet, fingers reaching up to trace the edge of her jawline.
She hums an assent. "I can."
“Narukami-san, your phone—” The new intern fumbles around with it, handing it off to her like it’s a hot potato, or a ticking time bomb, like he can’t bear to look at it. She can’t blame him, considering how many staff members have gotten into hot water by seeing something they shouldn’t have. And she likely looks terrifying to people unfamiliar with her, with this thick, rock ‘n’ roll eyeliner and hair done to emulate the shock of an electrical circuit. The photoshoot concept was far more adventurous than usual, but Arashi likes a challenge, and challenges like her.
“Thank you,” she chirps, pressing a cold water bottle to the back of her neck, the condensation chilling her as well as an ice pack. Arashi glances at the caller ID and answers with a polite, “Hello?”
“Yoohoo. Are you busy?” Kaoru’s voice is as light as usual, that tone like he’s on a perpetual vacation, but there’s a level of grain that’s messing with the sound quality—it keeps going in and out like a weak signal on a radio.
“How convenient! I’m not,” she says, putting the water bottle down on her personal vanity. There’s something in the background on his end, like rain hitting pavement, but maybe it’s white noise, so she asks, “What’s that sound?”
“It’s raining here in Osaka,” he says. “Hope it doesn’t bother you.”
“What are you doing in Osaka, Kaoru-chan?” she asks, adjusting her grip on her phone, trying to find the most comfortable position without ruining her makeup—which seems to be impossible.
“Hm? Didn’t I tell you? We were here for a…” It cuts him off and she clicks her tongue, some approximation of Izumi. The imitation is good enough that one of her managers, coming up to her with the shots they’re considering, startles. Arashi laughs to show that it’s her, motioning for the woman to come over and flip through the camera roll with her.
“You’re there for a shoot? Concept photos?” she guesses, pressing her phone against her cheek as her manager swipes through the shots. Makeup be damned. The shoot is over, anyway. Arashi doesn’t waste time mulling over the results, punctuating almost all her thoughts with absent thumbs-up gestures.
His voice is staticy in her speaker, almost unrecognizable as Kaoru’s voice at all, which doesn’t sit well with her, somehow. The closest similarity would be if someone ran his vocals through a blender and then called it a day. “What? Oh, not that. Not technically, you know? We were doing a fan meeting earlier. Ah, even though we set up so many canopies, I still got soaked… but we’re on our way back, anyway.”
“They made you do a meeting in the rain? Don’t catch a cold,” she fusses, holding her hand up so the manager keeps this photo in her sights. This one is good. Arashi doesn’t have very much say in which pictures get chosen and which don’t, but she likes to keep a mental record of her looks, angles, poses. For the sake of it. Know thyself, and all that.
A laugh on the other end. “Handsome men can’t be hurt by water, don’t you know? But thanks anyway.”
The call goes into static, and she sighs. Her manager continues flipping through. While she waits for his signal to even itself out, Arashi holds up her hand again, frowns at this photo in the camera roll, the one they’d spent so much time getting just so.
The pose has her leaning toward the camera, one hand disappearing above the scope, like she’s adjusting it for a selfie, head tilted downward while her eyes are lifted toward the viewer. It wouldn’t be anything out of the ordinary, but something about it is too sharp, and when paired with the viciousness of the photoshoot concept, it doesn’t fit with the image she’s been cultivating for years. This is one thing she’d been worried about with this gig. “Not this one,” she mutters under her breath, shaking her head.
Kaoru’s talking again, but she didn’t catch it. She apologizes and then he apologizes, “Sorry, sorry. I was asking—what are you up to?”
Arashi goes through more photos and finds that the rest of them are either acceptable or a cut above. “I'm at a shoot right now, actually,” she says, getting out of her high chair to enjoy a moment of privacy, waving her hand to signal that she’s done checking herself out.
“That’s your forte, isn’t it?” he says, his laugh like she’s hearing him through a metal bowl. Arashi wishes the reception were better. “I’m sure it’s going well, then?”
“Of course,” she says, but it comes out a half-step flat, more like a sigh. She winces.
“Hmm? You don’t sound too sure, to me… Or maybe that’s the signal talking—it’s sooo bad out here. But I think your shoot will turn out fine.”
If nothing else, at least he doesn’t pry. “Is that so?”
“I mean, you always seem so sure of yourself with those sorts of things… And of course you look pretty, too.”
“Thank you.” She bites her lip. “So, what were you calling for, Kaoru-chan? Is there something wrong?”
“Something wrong?” he repeats. One of his bandmates cries out something, and there’s the sound of a scuffle on the other end. Arashi hears a protest, the clatter of a phone falling to the ground, and Kaoru yelling shortly before speaking into the receiver, “Hello?”
“Still here,” she says, doesn’t even laugh. “Anyway, I thought maybe you’d had an emergency.” Arashi doesn’t know why she’d assume that he would call her if something happened. He has his pick of emergency contacts. But, they’re close enough, and she has more connections than he does, she thinks, a bit defensively. If something happened to Undead as a whole, maybe she would be the best option. She doesn’t want to think about it too hard.
“O-oh,” Kaoru mutters. She can’t tell if it’s the reception that splits the word up, or if it’s a stutter. “I wanted to hear your voice.”
She doesn’t know what to say to that, so she settles for a smile, even though he can’t hear it. “Well, here I am!” It’s warm on this set, so warm it feels oppressive on the back of her neck.
There’s a pause that she can’t credit to the reception, because she can still hear the hiss of rain falling to the ground. A guy tells a joke in the background, chuckles erupting. “Hello?” she asks.
“I should have called when there was a stronger signal. I can’t hear you well enough to be happy,” Kaoru finally says.
“What’s with the sweet talking all of a sudden?” Arashi jokes, because that’s easier than thinking about the heat flaring up in her face.
“I’m serious!”
“Sorry, sorry. I like your voice, too.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
He hums. The other line has gone rough again, but there’s still a hint of airiness there. “I’ll say bye now, since I’ve heard your voice at least a little. I hope your shoot goes well ~ ”
“Get back safely,” she returns. He lets her off with a last, cute “bye bye,” and Arashi is glad that it wasn’t a video call, because no amount of pixilation would be able to hide the sudden bashfulness that has gripped her. Her knuckles are pale where she’s holding her phone, and the log for the call doesn't even scrape five minutes, but it feels like much more than that. She checks her reflection, ignoring the smudged makeup on her cell’s surface, barely recognizes her expression. Arashi flinches.
How sweet. How odd. An emotion she can’t parse wells up inside her, and she wonders when it got so easy to forget herself.
Among the members, Tsukasa was the most unsure about it, but the stylists put him in all black and a smoky eye and now the camera can’t get enough of him.
Someone has to do it. Leo is funny, but he can’t always read the room. Izumi is out of the question; Tsukasa is their youngest before he is anything else; Ritsu is an equalizer, a reactive force, more than he is a moodmaker. And that leaves her.
“We don’t have to do anything,” he says. “We can just sleep.”
Sometimes it’s not about want so much as it’s about fear of want. “Next time,” she says, an empty promise. Arashi traces the tense muscles in his arms, the span of his shoulders, the firmness of his chest. He is well-built, more so than when they’d first met. Have you been working out much lately? she considers asking, but doesn’t. It feels too personal. Kaoru gets off her and settles next to her instead, still looking shy. His body runs so warm she’s beginning to feel flushed herself.
“Not if you don’t want to,” he repeats.
“Well, what about what you want, Kaoru-chan?” Arashi asks, trying to be sweet about it, casual, but some harshness seeps into her voice anyway. Must be this insufferable heat. It makes her so irritable.
He’s pressing his cheek against the pillow enough that his voice is slightly muffled when he replies. “I just want to be with you. Doesn’t matter if we… you know. Fuck, or whatever. I just—I like being around you.”
She pulls the comforter over them even though it will make her sweat, thinking that she has no idea what she’s doing, and his breath is hot on her face. She grabs the collar of his shirt, twisting it in her fist like she’s trying to wring something out of him. “Arashi?” Kaoru asks, the uncertainty palpable.
No matter what happens, all the cruel comments, the dislikes, the threats—they will direct themselves toward her. Like electricity to a lightning rod. She wouldn’t care, but she is not a soloist; she is Knights. And so anything involving her involves them, too.
“Probably. I have to ask him.”
“This isn’t about him, Naru-kun—”
“Undead is barely established, it was still Rei Sakuma and friends until this year, do you think I’m going to let him go down like that—”
“This is about Knights, don’t be stupid,” Izumi says sharply. “It doesn’t matter what happens to him.”
“Nacchan,” Ritsu says quietly. “Don’t worry.”
On the other end, Kaoru laughs, and Arashi is torn between being annoyed at how well he’s taking this, and being endeared. She settles for something right in between, which doesn’t do anything to soothe her nerves. Outside the glass windows of this office room, in the foyer, she’d seen the weather report on television. Rain showers and fog this weekend.
“You shouldn’t worry too much,” he says. She doesn’t like it. “They’ll forget about it soon enough.”
Because he’s irrelevant, some part of her thinks, but Arashi grabs the thought and pushes it down till it’s nothing, gritting her teeth because it’s a cruel thing to even consider.
"Because I like you," she says without much thought, alcohol taking the weight off the words.
Arashi wonders if he even gets it, if he understands what all this means to her.
I like you a lot, she thinks. I like you so much. Kaoru doesn't say anything because why would he? He can't read her mind. She’s thankful for that.
Her name, the appellation in his mouth, doesn't sound right, not because she hates it but because it's unfamiliar in its overt familiarity, feels like she’s at a fansign instead of her place. But a part of her thinks it's nice. It's nice, she thinks. He finally called her Arashi-chan.
How could she even think of putting all this, all the stage lights, the fansigns, the interviews, to the side, throwing it away just for him? But she knows how she could—there’s the way his expression gives way to gentleness, the hopeless way he touches her, as if she’s real. lt scares her. Kaoru's hair is soft in her fingers, the smell of it comforting; it’s her shampoo under the scent of his hair mousse. "You're pretty, Kaoru-chan," she says softly.
When Kaoru isn’t with her she wonders how she could even think of something like that, but when he’s next to her like this Arashi knows how—there’s the way his expression gives way to gentleness, the way he touches her, like he sees the girl without a heart and loves her anyway.
His mouth at her pulse is a prayer, fingers tracing the skin of her stomach like rolling the beads of a rosary. Like she’s holy.
Kaoru looks at the phone in her hand, the way her knuckles go pale as she grips it, and then looks at her. He talks with his eyes, now, maybe even more than he does with his mouth. She moves his hair out of his face, noting how warm his cheeks are when her hands brush against them, how his eyelashes flutter. Wonders if she’s reading him right. Hopes that she is.
turning to favorite quotes!
sorry i really love proxemics. a reader said that they learned something new bc i mentioned it and it made me so happy like hehe... i rlly enjoyed writing this moment bc in my mind i was like Ugh. kaoru implying that whatever is going between them isn’t a Fling to him. arashi picking up on that and getting almost scared bc she’s never been vulnerable like this.
sorry i heart the game thing. i just liked writing these portions and i think they slay a little. if i'm being nitpicky, both excerpts are a BIT trite. there’s a place for the tried and true but in 2023 i really want to work on writing uniquely - i keep thinking of this thing that was like Kids write uniquely because they’re not trying to make something sound like something else. like they’re just working with what they got, they don’t care about the simile doing iambic pentameter or whatever. they’re so eloquent with such a limited lexicon. i was reading sula last year and at one point toni morrison writes something about a sleep being “more tranquil than the curve of eggs” LIKE WHO THINKS OF THAT??? it's such a simple phrase and sentence within the story but it's like. the combination is so striking so beautiful.. it’s sooooo crazy and i need to be able to write like that!!! but also i don’t want to try so hard that i can’t get anything out so it’s a hard sweet spot to find but i'm intent on finding it.
i just feel like my writing style has stagnated. i think it has improved a lot in some areas (i've not published anything from 2015 but i was writing then and boy. that shit is rough) but i feel like it's not. stylish enough. like not really about level of description (although i do need to work on more vivid detail!) but like. just style. bc neither baldwin nor morrison have especially flowery passages but there's always a sort of poetry about their writing. i can't parse it or convert it to my own, though, which is a source of trouble for me LMFAO... so this year i want to get it to a place where it's more distinctive and lyrical but that doesn't sacrifice substance for style...!
OKAY BACK TO THE FIC... overall i can't say that i dislike it bc i try to be nice to myself generally and i think it was the best that i could put out at the time + it counts for something that this wc is like double all of 2021's fics combined and it's not a bad read overall!!... but i dislike that it's the only thing i managed to publish all year and it's flop ship 2697 ENSEMBLE STARS EDITION. at the same time, it's close to my heart and i'm glad i was able to get it out of my system bc it's like part two of arakao thesis to me. i hope this upcoming year i can write (and publish!!) more though!!!
off point lotus / 2.2k, est. wc 5k (enstars, reikao relationship study, non-linear narrative, canon-compliant)
i have made noooooo progress on this but i'm going to grind while i have the chance bc i need to get this out sooooo bad. partly bc i made a promise to write rk at some point but mostly bc i think that this is necessary. just in general. the relationship between rei and kaoru and belief.. i think that undead is basically powered by the earnest belief in boyband mythos and that it's sooo interesting bc adonis and koga both believe it (and despite everything, rei believes it too, even though he thinks he's only acting that he believes it), but what about kaoru? what does he believe? and in the end, i think he believes in rei. writing is rough but i will survive!!
carved into days dyed white / 7k, est. wc 15k (enstars, arashi/kaoru, pacific rim fusion)
i've posted this snippet so many fucking times but the rest is cagey dialogue, boring worldbuilding, or actual implied sex. another arakao to hang on my wall.. no idea how long this is going to end up but i am guessing 15k.. though it could go above or below. i just know it's not going to be brief bc inevitably i will have to do arakao relationship strengthening so the suspension of disbelief will not be insane crazy fucked-up. basic plot summary is that kaoru is a washed-up cadet with no partner no dreams no future, and arashi is a returning pilot looking for a new partner bc her friend died. and they have hang-ups over everything, get along despite everything, and also fuck once. and kaoru is transfem but doesn't know it yet. rlly looking forward to getting this one out even though i don't expect it'll be finished till late in the year BUT I'M OPEN TO SURPRISES @ ME...
the heat haze, clad in sorrow / 1.1k - est. wc 5k (project sekai, polyneed, pacific rim fusion)
pacrim l/n estranged childhood best friends-ism with the canon-typical high stakes. i love shiho and leo/need and themes of drifting away from people you care about (and the the phantom pain associated with that) dearly, so this is almost something of a love letter. title taken from a line in jimmythumb-p's reboot which tells you a lot about the inspiration for this one. but i think they can be so sweet once they get past the heartbreak... no idea when this will be finished but i'm shooting for the first half of the year!
morning comes with no place to die / 0.7k - est. wc 2k (buried stars, inha/juyoung, canon-compliant)
the ethical idolverse grown women gl... i still haven't finished bstars (im trying...) but i just really love their dynamic and i think survival show dynamix are soooo interesting especially in this canon i don't even have to make anything up like WE'RE EATING GOOD TONIGHT... i might even be able to get this out this month if all goes well ^^)b
i'm the type of guy who has a million and a half wips all the time so i'm not going to list them in detail here bc i cannot guarantee that all of them would come into fruition at any point LMFAO... but if anything not on this list is published it is most likely to be any sort of arakao oneshot with a side possibility of prsk..
overall, what i want to focus on this year is being more prolific and tightening up my style!! which i think will go hand in hand (smth smth make a lot of shitty pots). here's to 2023!
total word count: 12,068
total completed works: 1
drift in - enstars, arashi/kaoru
notes/commentary
this had been dancing around in my brain since i think august of last year? something like that. obviously i was thinking about arakao, as one does, and then wound up joking around with friends about inkigayo sandwiches. i'm a sucker for idols.. so i was like hmmm what would it be like if arakao dated in this kind of environment where you can't really tell who's for you or against you and you're enough of an object of the public eye that it's hard to tell what's real and what's fake - even regarding your own persona? and arashi and kaoru both have some issues there so the ideas flowed pretty easily. the writing itself was the tricky part.
i don’t know what it is about me but i’m the slowest writer to walk the earth ever and it's embarrassing but what can u do... part of this was bc initially it had been a kaoru pov but 1) i did that for ysms and 2) kaoru has not been Pilled. i scrapped that idea pretty fast but then it was a lot of thinking What would get them to even care about each other and What would happen next. a lot of my outtakes are portions that focused on explaining the situation in general wrt the industry and arashi's feelings about it, but that i realized didn't add more than they took away. namely, they dragged the momentum of the piece down way too much and came across as more tell-y than anything.. case in point:
Cool turns to nervous turns back to that affected, satisfied look that he puts on all the time for his fans. She wants to make him sweat, for the same reason some fans like to push their buttons. Curiosity and that undying desire for exclusivity. Even if it’s a negative reaction, the fact that it’s made for you and not anyone else, there’s something special about that, isn’t there?—or something equally fucked-up. But she does understand the sentiment.
"I can see why you’re in charge of visuals," Arashi says, watching how the practiced expression slips from his face, how his eyes widen, lips forming this sweet pout that she’s certain he doesn’t know he’s doing.
a lot of the scrapped bits were like this. not necessarily the worst stylistically, but just didn't fit in with everything else. this one in particular makes arashi seem a lot more manipulative/conniving which was NOT my intention lmao... i wanted to put in more about the idol/fan relationship and how that often bleeds into how they relate to each other even unintentionally - because it's a part of their life like everything else! but i couldn't get that in without sacrificing the overall pace of the fic SO. [2024 EDIT] went through my doc that i put my scrapped lines in so i don't actually Delete them and discovered that i actually had a lot from drift in so i figured i should put them here instead!! under the cut bc some of these scenes are straight up lengthy. mostly the problems were the same thing as the above like it was just too bingoboarded and overwrought. but it wasn't BAD just unfocused.
Being an idol is so lonely sometimes, it’s no surprise that almost everyone in this industry has to have an unattainable crush, or a secret partner. The latter for the ones who think that wanting isn’t enough, and the former for the ones who know better. Arashi prides herself on loving easily and giving nothing—enough to have the bright, shimmery feelings and none of the heartache. The long-lasting crush on Akiomi put a glow in her cheeks and a bounce in her walk, and she never had to worry about him feeling the same way, about jeopardizing either of their reputations, so long as she never acted on it. And she knows never to act on feelings like these; there’s a sort of cold comfort in impossibility, and isn’t that what being an idol is all about?
But she has been stir-crazy lately. Her last fling was a year back and had only lasted two weeks before they’d both had had enough of her schedules and fucked-up sleep cycle. She doesn’t do real relationships, has a strict policy on being romantically unavailable, like friends-with-benefits if the benefits were sneaking out to McDonald’s in a facemask and sunglasses and texting into the wee hours of the morning. For her, she figures the benefit is the sheer idea of being allowed to date like normal people do.
Another idol could be better; it’s hit or miss depending on schedule differences, but the real problem is the romance, or the lack thereof. Arashi couldn’t date anyone in Knights. Even aside from the fact that they’re family to her, whether forced or found or some strange mixture of both, inner-group dynamics are already such fragile things. So that narrows down her prospects to the rest of the industry—not much of a culling. But some idols aren’t aware of who they are, don’t realize that they’re married to this job and that their fans are their lovers. Deny it they might, but what the industry says is what goes. She would drop anyone in an instant if being with them put her career in danger.
The last guy she’d dated had been a trainee. Almost normal. He hadn’t gotten it either. Anything of value costs something. For Arashi, it costs everything. She doesn’t want romance so much as she wants the illusion of it. Something unconditional, something golden, something tender and fragile. If only such a thing existed.
She tries to forget, most days—doesn’t want to remember how often Izumi and Leo would butt heads, how many times she wound up giving her dinner to Tsukasa and going to bed hungry. Point is, it was a while back.
"It’s about, like—liking someone so much that you want to know everything about them. Wanting to memorize their voice, or the look in their eyes, or—" Kaoru stops, huffs a little, and even at this angle she can make out the sheepishness in his expression. "Somehow, though, it’s kind of embarrassing. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about writing lyrics, would you?"
"A bit. But the King and Ritsu-chan do most of ours, these days."
Kaoru laughs, turns slightly, trying to meet her eyes without getting all up in her face. He gets like this, one moment every bit the playboy he claims to be, and the next shying away from her touch. It’s cute, so she backs up so he can turn. Under these lights his eyes look almost gray. "Rei-kun wants to get us back into self-production. Things for the image and all, you know?" He leans back, slouching in his seat. "He makes it seem so easy."
Arashi smiles, all teeth. "I could say the same of you, Kaoru-chan." It’s about seventy percent true, which is enough for him. Seventy percent is enough for her, too. "You’re good at being an idol," she says. "Doing fanservice. Setting the mood. Of course, you’re a good performer too… All that’s left is the production, then!"
"What about looks?" he ventures, and she figures it’s the one thing he’s confident about, enough to crack jokes. She can’t blame him—that flawless skin and those striking brown eyes of his are on another level.
Cool turns to nervous turns back to that affected, satisfied look that he puts on all the time for his fans. She wants to make him sweat, for the same reason some fans like to push their buttons. Curiosity and that undying desire for exclusivity. Even if it’s a negative reaction, the fact that it’s made for you and not anyone else, there’s something special about that, isn’t there?—or something equally fucked-up. But she does understand the sentiment.
"I can see why you’re in charge of visuals," Arashi says, watching how the practiced expression slips from his face, how his eyes widen, lips forming this sweet pout that she’s certain he doesn’t know he’s doing.
"Can you?" His voice gone quiet, fingers reaching up to trace the edge of her jawline.
She hums an assent. "I can."
“Narukami-san, your phone—” The new intern fumbles around with it, handing it off to her like it’s a hot potato, or a ticking time bomb, like he can’t bear to look at it. She can’t blame him, considering how many staff members have gotten into hot water by seeing something they shouldn’t have. And she likely looks terrifying to people unfamiliar with her, with this thick, rock ‘n’ roll eyeliner and hair done to emulate the shock of an electrical circuit. The photoshoot concept was far more adventurous than usual, but Arashi likes a challenge, and challenges like her.
“Thank you,” she chirps, pressing a cold water bottle to the back of her neck, the condensation chilling her as well as an ice pack. Arashi glances at the caller ID and answers with a polite, “Hello?”
“Yoohoo. Are you busy?” Kaoru’s voice is as light as usual, that tone like he’s on a perpetual vacation, but there’s a level of grain that’s messing with the sound quality—it keeps going in and out like a weak signal on a radio.
“How convenient! I’m not,” she says, putting the water bottle down on her personal vanity. There’s something in the background on his end, like rain hitting pavement, but maybe it’s white noise, so she asks, “What’s that sound?”
“It’s raining here in Osaka,” he says. “Hope it doesn’t bother you.”
“What are you doing in Osaka, Kaoru-chan?” she asks, adjusting her grip on her phone, trying to find the most comfortable position without ruining her makeup—which seems to be impossible.
“Hm? Didn’t I tell you? We were here for a…” It cuts him off and she clicks her tongue, some approximation of Izumi. The imitation is good enough that one of her managers, coming up to her with the shots they’re considering, startles. Arashi laughs to show that it’s her, motioning for the woman to come over and flip through the camera roll with her.
“You’re there for a shoot? Concept photos?” she guesses, pressing her phone against her cheek as her manager swipes through the shots. Makeup be damned. The shoot is over, anyway. Arashi doesn’t waste time mulling over the results, punctuating almost all her thoughts with absent thumbs-up gestures.
His voice is staticy in her speaker, almost unrecognizable as Kaoru’s voice at all, which doesn’t sit well with her, somehow. The closest similarity would be if someone ran his vocals through a blender and then called it a day. “What? Oh, not that. Not technically, you know? We were doing a fan meeting earlier. Ah, even though we set up so many canopies, I still got soaked… but we’re on our way back, anyway.”
“They made you do a meeting in the rain? Don’t catch a cold,” she fusses, holding her hand up so the manager keeps this photo in her sights. This one is good. Arashi doesn’t have very much say in which pictures get chosen and which don’t, but she likes to keep a mental record of her looks, angles, poses. For the sake of it. Know thyself, and all that.
A laugh on the other end. “Handsome men can’t be hurt by water, don’t you know? But thanks anyway.”
The call goes into static, and she sighs. Her manager continues flipping through. While she waits for his signal to even itself out, Arashi holds up her hand again, frowns at this photo in the camera roll, the one they’d spent so much time getting just so.
The pose has her leaning toward the camera, one hand disappearing above the scope, like she’s adjusting it for a selfie, head tilted downward while her eyes are lifted toward the viewer. It wouldn’t be anything out of the ordinary, but something about it is too sharp, and when paired with the viciousness of the photoshoot concept, it doesn’t fit with the image she’s been cultivating for years. This is one thing she’d been worried about with this gig. “Not this one,” she mutters under her breath, shaking her head.
Kaoru’s talking again, but she didn’t catch it. She apologizes and then he apologizes, “Sorry, sorry. I was asking—what are you up to?”
Arashi goes through more photos and finds that the rest of them are either acceptable or a cut above. “I'm at a shoot right now, actually,” she says, getting out of her high chair to enjoy a moment of privacy, waving her hand to signal that she’s done checking herself out.
“That’s your forte, isn’t it?” he says, his laugh like she’s hearing him through a metal bowl. Arashi wishes the reception were better. “I’m sure it’s going well, then?”
“Of course,” she says, but it comes out a half-step flat, more like a sigh. She winces.
“Hmm? You don’t sound too sure, to me… Or maybe that’s the signal talking—it’s sooo bad out here. But I think your shoot will turn out fine.”
If nothing else, at least he doesn’t pry. “Is that so?”
“I mean, you always seem so sure of yourself with those sorts of things… And of course you look pretty, too.”
“Thank you.” She bites her lip. “So, what were you calling for, Kaoru-chan? Is there something wrong?”
“Something wrong?” he repeats. One of his bandmates cries out something, and there’s the sound of a scuffle on the other end. Arashi hears a protest, the clatter of a phone falling to the ground, and Kaoru yelling shortly before speaking into the receiver, “Hello?”
“Still here,” she says, doesn’t even laugh. “Anyway, I thought maybe you’d had an emergency.” Arashi doesn’t know why she’d assume that he would call her if something happened. He has his pick of emergency contacts. But, they’re close enough, and she has more connections than he does, she thinks, a bit defensively. If something happened to Undead as a whole, maybe she would be the best option. She doesn’t want to think about it too hard.
“O-oh,” Kaoru mutters. She can’t tell if it’s the reception that splits the word up, or if it’s a stutter. “I wanted to hear your voice.”
She doesn’t know what to say to that, so she settles for a smile, even though he can’t hear it. “Well, here I am!” It’s warm on this set, so warm it feels oppressive on the back of her neck.
There’s a pause that she can’t credit to the reception, because she can still hear the hiss of rain falling to the ground. A guy tells a joke in the background, chuckles erupting. “Hello?” she asks.
“I should have called when there was a stronger signal. I can’t hear you well enough to be happy,” Kaoru finally says.
“What’s with the sweet talking all of a sudden?” Arashi jokes, because that’s easier than thinking about the heat flaring up in her face.
“I’m serious!”
“Sorry, sorry. I like your voice, too.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
He hums. The other line has gone rough again, but there’s still a hint of airiness there. “I’ll say bye now, since I’ve heard your voice at least a little. I hope your shoot goes well ~ ”
“Get back safely,” she returns. He lets her off with a last, cute “bye bye,” and Arashi is glad that it wasn’t a video call, because no amount of pixilation would be able to hide the sudden bashfulness that has gripped her. Her knuckles are pale where she’s holding her phone, and the log for the call doesn't even scrape five minutes, but it feels like much more than that. She checks her reflection, ignoring the smudged makeup on her cell’s surface, barely recognizes her expression. Arashi flinches.
How sweet. How odd. An emotion she can’t parse wells up inside her, and she wonders when it got so easy to forget herself.
Among the members, Tsukasa was the most unsure about it, but the stylists put him in all black and a smoky eye and now the camera can’t get enough of him.
Someone has to do it. Leo is funny, but he can’t always read the room. Izumi is out of the question; Tsukasa is their youngest before he is anything else; Ritsu is an equalizer, a reactive force, more than he is a moodmaker. And that leaves her.
“We don’t have to do anything,” he says. “We can just sleep.”
Sometimes it’s not about want so much as it’s about fear of want. “Next time,” she says, an empty promise. Arashi traces the tense muscles in his arms, the span of his shoulders, the firmness of his chest. He is well-built, more so than when they’d first met. Have you been working out much lately? she considers asking, but doesn’t. It feels too personal. Kaoru gets off her and settles next to her instead, still looking shy. His body runs so warm she’s beginning to feel flushed herself.
“Not if you don’t want to,” he repeats.
“Well, what about what you want, Kaoru-chan?” Arashi asks, trying to be sweet about it, casual, but some harshness seeps into her voice anyway. Must be this insufferable heat. It makes her so irritable.
He’s pressing his cheek against the pillow enough that his voice is slightly muffled when he replies. “I just want to be with you. Doesn’t matter if we… you know. Fuck, or whatever. I just—I like being around you.”
She pulls the comforter over them even though it will make her sweat, thinking that she has no idea what she’s doing, and his breath is hot on her face. She grabs the collar of his shirt, twisting it in her fist like she’s trying to wring something out of him. “Arashi?” Kaoru asks, the uncertainty palpable.
No matter what happens, all the cruel comments, the dislikes, the threats—they will direct themselves toward her. Like electricity to a lightning rod. She wouldn’t care, but she is not a soloist; she is Knights. And so anything involving her involves them, too.
“Probably. I have to ask him.”
“This isn’t about him, Naru-kun—”
“Undead is barely established, it was still Rei Sakuma and friends until this year, do you think I’m going to let him go down like that—”
“This is about Knights, don’t be stupid,” Izumi says sharply. “It doesn’t matter what happens to him.”
“Nacchan,” Ritsu says quietly. “Don’t worry.”
On the other end, Kaoru laughs, and Arashi is torn between being annoyed at how well he’s taking this, and being endeared. She settles for something right in between, which doesn’t do anything to soothe her nerves. Outside the glass windows of this office room, in the foyer, she’d seen the weather report on television. Rain showers and fog this weekend.
“You shouldn’t worry too much,” he says. She doesn’t like it. “They’ll forget about it soon enough.”
Because he’s irrelevant, some part of her thinks, but Arashi grabs the thought and pushes it down till it’s nothing, gritting her teeth because it’s a cruel thing to even consider.
"Because I like you," she says without much thought, alcohol taking the weight off the words.
Arashi wonders if he even gets it, if he understands what all this means to her.
I like you a lot, she thinks. I like you so much. Kaoru doesn't say anything because why would he? He can't read her mind. She’s thankful for that.
Her name, the appellation in his mouth, doesn't sound right, not because she hates it but because it's unfamiliar in its overt familiarity, feels like she’s at a fansign instead of her place. But a part of her thinks it's nice. It's nice, she thinks. He finally called her Arashi-chan.
How could she even think of putting all this, all the stage lights, the fansigns, the interviews, to the side, throwing it away just for him? But she knows how she could—there’s the way his expression gives way to gentleness, the hopeless way he touches her, as if she’s real. lt scares her. Kaoru's hair is soft in her fingers, the smell of it comforting; it’s her shampoo under the scent of his hair mousse. "You're pretty, Kaoru-chan," she says softly.
When Kaoru isn’t with her she wonders how she could even think of something like that, but when he’s next to her like this Arashi knows how—there’s the way his expression gives way to gentleness, the way he touches her, like he sees the girl without a heart and loves her anyway.
His mouth at her pulse is a prayer, fingers tracing the skin of her stomach like rolling the beads of a rosary. Like she’s holy.
Kaoru looks at the phone in her hand, the way her knuckles go pale as she grips it, and then looks at her. He talks with his eyes, now, maybe even more than he does with his mouth. She moves his hair out of his face, noting how warm his cheeks are when her hands brush against them, how his eyelashes flutter. Wonders if she’s reading him right. Hopes that she is.
turning to favorite quotes!
Kaoru sits on the edge of the mattress, his back to her, the line of his shoulders blocking out the light of her bedside lamp. She doesn’t touch him, the proxemics too delicate, like a field riddled with landmines. After a moment Kaoru turns off the light and crawls next to her, his knees knocking into hers.
sorry i really love proxemics. a reader said that they learned something new bc i mentioned it and it made me so happy like hehe... i rlly enjoyed writing this moment bc in my mind i was like Ugh. kaoru implying that whatever is going between them isn’t a Fling to him. arashi picking up on that and getting almost scared bc she’s never been vulnerable like this.
He doesn’t say anything this time. Probably doesn’t know the answer himself, so he closes his eyes, pretending that he didn’t hear it, that he’s fast asleep. Gold all over his skin. Arashi wonders if she could reply at all if the same question were directed toward her. Wonders which is supposed to give her the winning spot for this game they’re not playing—yes or no.
sorry i heart the game thing. i just liked writing these portions and i think they slay a little. if i'm being nitpicky, both excerpts are a BIT trite. there’s a place for the tried and true but in 2023 i really want to work on writing uniquely - i keep thinking of this thing that was like Kids write uniquely because they’re not trying to make something sound like something else. like they’re just working with what they got, they don’t care about the simile doing iambic pentameter or whatever. they’re so eloquent with such a limited lexicon. i was reading sula last year and at one point toni morrison writes something about a sleep being “more tranquil than the curve of eggs” LIKE WHO THINKS OF THAT??? it's such a simple phrase and sentence within the story but it's like. the combination is so striking so beautiful.. it’s sooooo crazy and i need to be able to write like that!!! but also i don’t want to try so hard that i can’t get anything out so it’s a hard sweet spot to find but i'm intent on finding it.
i just feel like my writing style has stagnated. i think it has improved a lot in some areas (i've not published anything from 2015 but i was writing then and boy. that shit is rough) but i feel like it's not. stylish enough. like not really about level of description (although i do need to work on more vivid detail!) but like. just style. bc neither baldwin nor morrison have especially flowery passages but there's always a sort of poetry about their writing. i can't parse it or convert it to my own, though, which is a source of trouble for me LMFAO... so this year i want to get it to a place where it's more distinctive and lyrical but that doesn't sacrifice substance for style...!
OKAY BACK TO THE FIC... overall i can't say that i dislike it bc i try to be nice to myself generally and i think it was the best that i could put out at the time + it counts for something that this wc is like double all of 2021's fics combined and it's not a bad read overall!!... but i dislike that it's the only thing i managed to publish all year and it's flop ship 2697 ENSEMBLE STARS EDITION. at the same time, it's close to my heart and i'm glad i was able to get it out of my system bc it's like part two of arakao thesis to me. i hope this upcoming year i can write (and publish!!) more though!!!
off point lotus / 2.2k, est. wc 5k (enstars, reikao relationship study, non-linear narrative, canon-compliant)
All in all, it doesn’t matter how much of an act the vampire thing was to start out with, because all Kaoru needs to know is that now, Rei sleeps in a coffin, can’t stand the sun, and needs the occasional sip of blood to keep himself alive. It doesn’t matter how this started out, how much of it was a sham, because all Kaoru knows is that he will not let Sakuma Rei go. Not now, not ever.
i have made noooooo progress on this but i'm going to grind while i have the chance bc i need to get this out sooooo bad. partly bc i made a promise to write rk at some point but mostly bc i think that this is necessary. just in general. the relationship between rei and kaoru and belief.. i think that undead is basically powered by the earnest belief in boyband mythos and that it's sooo interesting bc adonis and koga both believe it (and despite everything, rei believes it too, even though he thinks he's only acting that he believes it), but what about kaoru? what does he believe? and in the end, i think he believes in rei. writing is rough but i will survive!!
carved into days dyed white / 7k, est. wc 15k (enstars, arashi/kaoru, pacific rim fusion)
When Arashi touches him, his synapses come to life, everything in him so unused to direct contact that now it feels like a match burning down to the tips of his fingers. There’s a reason Drifting requires a medium and a barrier, thick plates of metal armor separating their bodies, helmets covering their heads. The only times copilots touch under Academy watch is to spar with each other. Kaoru’s theory is that everyone would go insane with the sense of proximity, so the only way to deal with it is through the act of violence, whether feigned or real. Moments like this, her hands under his shirt, fingers spread out to cover as much neural ground as possible, so unlike how they were during the neural handshake, or even in the Kwoon Room, only provide more evidence to that theory. He’ll go insane.
i've posted this snippet so many fucking times but the rest is cagey dialogue, boring worldbuilding, or actual implied sex. another arakao to hang on my wall.. no idea how long this is going to end up but i am guessing 15k.. though it could go above or below. i just know it's not going to be brief bc inevitably i will have to do arakao relationship strengthening so the suspension of disbelief will not be insane crazy fucked-up. basic plot summary is that kaoru is a washed-up cadet with no partner no dreams no future, and arashi is a returning pilot looking for a new partner bc her friend died. and they have hang-ups over everything, get along despite everything, and also fuck once. and kaoru is transfem but doesn't know it yet. rlly looking forward to getting this one out even though i don't expect it'll be finished till late in the year BUT I'M OPEN TO SURPRISES @ ME...
the heat haze, clad in sorrow / 1.1k - est. wc 5k (project sekai, polyneed, pacific rim fusion)
Shiho sometimes wonders what life would be like if they’d made that band—she’d been so serious about it, planned to go pro one day; she had hoped, somewhere deep down, that the rest of them would join her. It had to be all four of them, no matter what. After they’d decided to become pilots, she’d hoped that maybe by the time they were old enough, the tech would be advanced enough to put four pilots in a single jaeger. All four, fighting Kaiju, saving towns, cities, the world—
But in the end, the dreams don’t really matter anymore. Neither of them came true.
pacrim l/n estranged childhood best friends-ism with the canon-typical high stakes. i love shiho and leo/need and themes of drifting away from people you care about (and the the phantom pain associated with that) dearly, so this is almost something of a love letter. title taken from a line in jimmythumb-p's reboot which tells you a lot about the inspiration for this one. but i think they can be so sweet once they get past the heartbreak... no idea when this will be finished but i'm shooting for the first half of the year!
morning comes with no place to die / 0.7k - est. wc 2k (buried stars, inha/juyoung, canon-compliant)
Some of it is projected regret, to be sure, that strain rising in the back of her throat whenever the topic of team leaders is brought up. But Inha is not Beloved, couldn’t be anyone but Oh Inha.
the ethical idolverse grown women gl... i still haven't finished bstars (im trying...) but i just really love their dynamic and i think survival show dynamix are soooo interesting especially in this canon i don't even have to make anything up like WE'RE EATING GOOD TONIGHT... i might even be able to get this out this month if all goes well ^^)b
i'm the type of guy who has a million and a half wips all the time so i'm not going to list them in detail here bc i cannot guarantee that all of them would come into fruition at any point LMFAO... but if anything not on this list is published it is most likely to be any sort of arakao oneshot with a side possibility of prsk..
overall, what i want to focus on this year is being more prolific and tightening up my style!! which i think will go hand in hand (smth smth make a lot of shitty pots). here's to 2023!
