Oh god, guys, first pairing of the competition and I feel like I'm going to lose D: SuFin…. I've never written SuFin before! (And, if you've read Blackout, I am not particularly a fan of SuFin….)
Welp, I guess we'll see how it goes. Good luck to everyone else, too! I'm excited to read your works!
SantaisCool[11:32:08] It is most definitely the most disgusting thing you will ever smell!
K0nkr3r0fth3B4lt1kC33s[11:32:35]: No Surströmming is worse
SantaisCool[11:33:01]: Asafoetida is THE worst thing in the world!
K0nkr3r0fth3B4lt1kC33s[11:33:14]: Surströmming all the way
SantaisCool[11:33:28]: Prove it!
K0nkr3r0fth3B4lt1kC33s[11:33:51]: I would but you can't smell through IM can you?
SantaisCool[11:34:04]: lol
SantaisCool[11:34:14]: Well it is on opinion anyway
K0nkr3r0fth3B4lt1kC33s[11:34:20]: Nope
SantaisCool[11:34:32]: What? How is it not?
K0nkr3r0fth3B4lt1kC33s[11:34:54]: Because I'm right
SantaisCool[11:35:21]: Oh now you're just being mean xD
SantaisCool[11:35:45]: My opinion is Asafoetida smells WAY worse than Surströmming
K0nkr3r0fth3B4lt1kC33s[11:36:00]: Your opinion is wrong
SantaisCool[11:36:10]: No its not!
SantaisCool[11:36:12]: xD
K0nkr3r0fth3B4lt1kC33s[11:36:20]: I win
SantaisCool[11:36:46]: Yah and your prize is a slap!
SantaisCool[11:37:05]: -Slap Slap Slap-
SantaisCool[11:37:12]: There!
K0nkr3r0fth3B4lt1kC33s[11:37:14]: :)
SantaisCool[11:37:21]: Haha xD
K0nkr3r0fth3B4lt1kC33s[11:37:42]: You got on early by the way
SantaisCool[11:37:57]: Yeah I know
K0nkr3r0fth3B4lt1kC33s[11:38:08]: Finish your homework?
SantaisCool[11:38:24]: Of course I did!
K0nkr3r0fth3B4lt1kC33s[11:38:26]: Even math?
SantaisCool[11:40:16]: Well…
K0nkr3r0fth3B4lt1kC33s[11:40:45]: Last time you failed a class your parents took your laptop away
SantaisCool[11:40:58]: I know
K0nkr3r0fth3B4lt1kC33s[11:41:12]: When im on break, I want to talk to my wife
SantaisCool[11:41:23]: B!
SantaisCool[11:41:31]: I told you to stop calling me that!
K0nkr3r0fth3B4lt1kC33s[11:41:34]: You are my wife
K0nkr3r0fth3B4lt1kC33s[11:41:43]: Ever since you said yes
SantaisCool[11:42:56]: ... You make it sound like you proposed
K0nkr3r0fth3B4lt1kC33s[11:43:07]: Didnt i?
SantaisCool[11:43:22]: You asked me to date you
SantaisCool[11:43:29]: I agreed to date you
SantaisCool[11:43:36]: I said yes to dating you
SantaisCool[11:43:45]: Not marrying
K0nkr3r0fth3B4lt1kC33s[11:43:57]: Girlfriend wife same thing to me
SantaisCool[11:45:32]: B…
K0nkr3r0fth3B4lt1kC33s[11:45:34]: T
SantaisCool[11:45:56]: I dont even know your name and you call me your wife
K0nkr3r0fth3B4lt1kC33s[11:46:12]: I don't know your name either. Makes us even.
SantaisCool[11:46:25]: We probably don't even live near eachother!
K0nkr3r0fth3B4lt1kC33s[11:46:37]: That's okay I can wait
SantaisCool[11:46:46]: Until when
SantaisCool[11:46:48]: ?
K0nkr3r0fth3B4lt1kC33s[11:48:21]: That doesn't matter
SantaisCool[11:48:43]: B…
SantaisCool[11:50:12]: I want to meat you
SantaisCool[11:50:21]: meet*
K0nkr3r0fth3B4lt1kC33s[11:50:35]: What
SantaisCool[11:50:43]: Give me your address
K0nkr3r0fth3B4lt1kC33s[11:50:56]: Dont know it
SantaisCool[11:51:03]: You DO! Haha
SantaisCool[11:51:11]: Please?
K0nkr3r0fth3B4lt1kC33s[11:51:15]: K
SantaisCool[11:51:25]: Really?
K0nkr3r0fth3B4lt1kC33s[11:51:26]: Chatroom 342
SantaisCool[11:51:34]: That's not what I meant!
K0nkr3r0fth3B4lt1kC33s[11:51:42]: Why?
SantaisCool[11:52:03]: Because you're funny and cool and sweet and you're my boyfriend and I want
SantaisCool[11:52:13]: clicked enter sorry
SantaisCool[11:52:11]: I want to meet you and actually BE with you
K0nkr3r0fth3B4lt1kC33s[11:52:35]: Thats just online
SantaisCool[11:52:47]: That doesn't matter
SantaisCool[11:52:54]: You're still the same person
SantaisCool[11:53:01]: Right?
SantaisCool[11:53:23]: You're not some 50-something pedophile?
K0nkr3r0fth3B4lt1kC33s[11:52:35]: heh no
K0nkr3r0fth3B4lt1kC33s[11:52:43]: Last time I checked no
SantaisCool[11:53:15]: Well then at least send me a pic of you
K0nkr3r0fth3B4lt1kC33s[11:53:28]: No
SantaisCool[11:53:44]: Why not?
K0nkr3r0fth3B4lt1kC33s[11:55:46]: Maybe
SantaisCool[11:55:55]: Really?
K0nkr3r0fth3B4lt1kC33s[11:56:14]: Maybe
K0nkr3r0fth3B4lt1kC33s[11:56:23]: I'll think about it
K0nkr3r0fth3B4lt1kC33s[11:56:34]: I'll tell you after work
SantaisCool[11:56:44]: You're leaving now?
SantaisCool[11:56:52]: Aww
K0nkr3r0fth3B4lt1kC33s[11:57:13]: I'll be back at five
SantaisCool[11:57:30]: ok ok I wanted some yogurt anyway
K0nkr3r0fth3B4lt1kC33s[11:57:52]: Maybe I'll see you there
SantaisCool[11:58:23]: Oh what you work at a yogurt shop now? Haha you're definitely a 50 something pedo
K0nkr3r0fth3B4lt1kC33s[11:58:32]: You're not going to get a pic like that
SantaisCool[11:58:49]: Aww! I was just kidding! Please I want a pic!
K0nkr3r0fth3B4lt1kC33s[11:59:02]: I'll think about it.
K0nkr3r0fth3B4lt1kC33s[11:59:13]: Do your math homework before you go
SantaisCool[11:59:24]: Okay mother
K0nkr3r0fth3B4lt1kC33s[11:59:31]: I love you T
SantaisCool[11:59:39]: Love you too B
K0nkr3r0fth3B4lt1kC33s[11:59:45]: Be back at five.
SantaisCool[11:59:54]: Yeah yeah :)
SantaisCool[12:00:01]: You better send me a pic!
K0nkr3r0fth3B4lt1kC33s[12:00:10]: ha
K0nkr3r0fth3B4lt1kC33s[12:00:13]: :)
K0nkr3r0fth3B4lt1kC33s logged out[12:00:15].
He sighed and pushed himself away from his monitor, rubbing his eyes under his glasses as he stood. Sometimes Berwald wondered what would have happened if he had met T in reality, if things would have been different.
Don't get him wrong, though. He's so happy he could die with a printed log of his and T's chats sprawled across the floor, the sweet and the questionable ones. In fact, if he could, he would probably just marry T online when he came back from work.
But that wouldn't be the kind of life he would want. For him or his potential wife. No, he would want to wake up beside T every morning and kiss him every night. Sometimes more, like what they had narrated so carefully in their private chatrooms late at night when neither of them could sleep. Those small and usually short yet brilliantly arousing conversations that were slightly inexperienced with the real deal served the two young adults of ages neither of them released to one another a kind of easy path to relieving their stress and sexual tensions.
And those other nights where T would complain for hours and hours about that particular group of kids from school that just would not stop picking on him, or the times Berwald would have a small disagreement with his thirty-something year old boss at the Yoghurt Express, just to fall back to binary coded arms that would tell him it would be okay and that he would always be there for him. Those would be the nights Berwald would want to spend with his wife, if he ever actually met T.
The reason why he questioned the way they met, though, was because he wasn't entirely sure if he would want to meet T in the real world. Ever.
Sure, Berwald may be a somewhat kind and understanding young man at heart who could be a little anal about things like grades and money and trust, but his outward appearance never really gave him a chance to show a stranger the heart of him. The part that mattered had been buried deep inside a tall, well-built, intimidating, and stoic man with a cold stare and a low voice that rumbled with almost every word, no matter how few they were, that slipped past his lips. Which is why, if he was to meet T at any point in his life, he was about eighty-seven percent sure that the poor man would run away at the sight of him.
Ten percent goes to the possibility of him fainting on the spot.
Two percent to the possibility of him mistaking Berwald for someone else and never approaching him.
One percent that the very idea that this hulking, P.O.'d-looking man was his B.
Which was why, while Berwald pulled on his white, cotton button-up shirt that brandished the logo of Yoghurt Express on the back in bright pink and yellow stitchery, the seventeen-year-old blond with ice-blue eyes decided that he would not, under any conditions, allow T to see him. At all.
In his mind, it was all he could do to keep the man from running away from him. Keep him blind to the monster in the closet that he had been chatting up, and there won't be an issue.
As he decided this, though, that ever-determined one percent sang at the back of his head, reminding Berwald that, so far, T had not been like most others Berwald had met. Online or in reality. And while he biked his way to his job to suffer through another shift of no customers and a boss who just refused to work properly and instead frolicked with that kid who buys nothing, that lonely percent raised high and started inflating the thought of meeting with T and living out the rest of his life with the man who would, by then, be his wife. Berwald's happy apple pie-eating family living in a white picket fence house with two or three children that ate healthy and played with their white dog in the backyard would just piece itself together if he were to just meet T and trust that their conversations would keep his online boyfriend not to cut and run upon sight.
After locking up his bike right outside the store, Berwald began wondering if there would be any consequences to sending his picture to the man he never met but loved like no other. The one percent kept crying out no, urging him to snap a picture with his phone and send it to him immediately just to see his reaction to having both Berwald's picture and his phone number, but the other ninety-nine percent screamed at the small speck of an idea to shut up and to stop giving Berwald bad ideas.
The seventeen-year-old sighed and stepped into the shop, greeting his boss before clocking in and assuming his position behind the register, staring down at the linoleum white floor as his mind debated with itself. Facts were thrown, suggestions, possibilities, bad points, good points, disregards, inevitabilities, et cetera et cetera. Berwald had been so preoccupied with his attempts to come to some sort of stalemate that he barely registered the soft chiming of the bells that rang as the door opened. He lifted his head to greet three boys that had just entered, but never said a word to any of them. They were talking with one another in somewhat loud voices, and Berwald was able to recognize them from the school they went to.
Berwald kept his eyes on the trio, the three of them talking about a movie they were going to see and school work and math. The tallest one, a blond young man with glasses that dulled his green eyes, began scolding the shortest one, a timid little thing who was probably still in junior high who couldn't stop the everlasting tremor in his petite body. He, too, had blond hair, but it was just slightly curlier and bouncier than the taller one. He began apologizing as the tallest started preaching about the importance of math and its practical uses in real-life situations.
The medium-sized one who was also blond, unsurprisingly, turned to the other two and laughed softly. He adjusted the white beret on his head, which seemed to draw Berwald's attention most. It was just so bright and clean, not unlike the man's laugh and accusations that the tallest one, Eduard, had a fetish for equations and expressions. Berwald really liked that beret.
"Ah, Tino," Eduard called out, getting the medium-sized one's attention, "Did you do the report for science?"
Berwald felt his chest pound at the name, but he quickly pushed it away. Ever since T revealed the first letter of his name three months ago, Berwald's heart leapt whenever he heard a name beginning with the same letter. It was ridiculous and it made Berwald feel like a desperate stalker, but he couldn't help himself. He just wanted to meet him so bad.
"Oh, I forgot about that!" The shortest one gasped, plucking a yoghurt cup from the counter across the room from where Berwald stood, "What was your topic? I had to study the worst tasting dessert with Toris…"
"Tino and I had to study the worst smelling… well… anything. We already finished researching ours." Eduard answered, getting his own yoghurt cup and filling it with banana yoghurt.
Berwald let out a slow, quiet sigh at the mention of the project. He had to do it last year with a student named Mathias. Mathias was an overly-energetic boy who was stubborn and loud and refused to do any work. He, too, had to research the foulest smell in the world.
"Well, what's the verdict?" The smallest one asked and Tino begun filling his cup with strawberry yoghurt.
"Surströmming." Tino answered, getting a confused look from his partner and Berwald's complete attention. The small one frowned and tilted his head to the side, giving Tino a questioning look. Tino smiled and explained, "It's fermented fish in a tin. It's a Swedish dish."
Eduard then intervened, shaking his head with a nervous smile on his face, "I thought we agreed on Asafoetida?"
"Well, I changed my mind." Tino said with a simple shrug, going over to the toppings section of the store with both boys at his heels. Berwald's eyes followed him, too, his mind trying to determine whether or not his T could be this short, somewhat round but not unattractive man in his yoghurt shop.
The one percent left over from the previous battle in his mind started suggesting sending a picture to him, to see if it really was him or not. He imagined sending the picture over IM and T reacting with shock and happiness at the fact that they kind of knew each other and that they lived really, really close by. Berwald started feeling extremely happy. If this really was T, he wouldn't mind. The high school student was cute. Small and bubbly, and his beret was just so nice.
Berwald then decided that he would, in fact, send T his picture when he got off of work. Then he would watch things play out. He was so excited, but he contained it well.
"What made you change your mind?" Eduard questioned, sprinkling some dried fruit on his yoghurt. Tino shrugged again, then gasped when the smaller one accidentally bumped into him, sending one of the scoops flying along with its contents.
"Raivis!" Tino scolded lightly, almost motherly to Berwald, and the brownie bits scattered across the linoleum. Berwald sighed and bent beneath the counter, taking the hand broom and going to the mess. When he knelt down, he felt the three staring at him. One of them whispered something and Raivis, the small one, got pushed forward, getting Berwald's attention.
He looked up at the shivering boy, noticing the small beads of tears in his eyes, and the blond quickly stammered out, "I'm s-s-s-sorry!"
Berwald stared for a minute, then sat back on his knees and stared some more. On his knees, he was up to Raivis' chest, and the boy kept fidgeting and ringing the hem of his shirt, his eyes darting all over the place except for Berwald.
This might have been considered a 'death glare' to a stranger, but this was honestly Berwald's thinking face. He had learned from birth that if you want to say something, you should always think about the best way to say it before actually doing anything. But, even for having a higher IQ than most, he was pretty slow at coming up with a 'good' way of saying "It's okay."
The longer he stared, though, the more nervous Raivis got, until finally Berwald came to a solution.
He turned towards the brownie bits once more and resumed sweeping, grunting softly.
If you can't say something properly, don't say anything at all.
Raivis stood there for a few more seconds, still shaking. He went back to Tino and Eduard when Berwald had finished cleaning up the mess and returned to the register. The three finished topping their snacks and went to the register quietly, occasionally glancing at the employee.
After ringing them up, Berwald grunted out the cost, making the three flinch for no reason whatsoever. After they paid, Berwald started putting the money away, finishing the transaction as they walked out the door. Just as the door swung closed, he heard one of them whisper, "That man is so scary!"
Berwald froze, final dollar still held in his tightening fist. He felt his earlier elation start to dwindle, and now his expressionless face really captured his emotion. He felt nothing.
The seventeen-year-old Yoghurt Express worker finished the transaction and closed the register slowly, letting out a slow breath afterwards.
He was definitely, not ever, going to send his picture to T.
"Oh, shoot." Berwald heard as the door chimed once more. He looked up from the register to see the medium-sized young man, Tino, reenter the shop with a distraught look on his face. Berwald glanced towards the glass door to see Eduard and Raivis standing there, glancing nervously between him and Tino. When the two and Berwald made eye contact, the other quickly looked away, looking absolutely horrified. Berwald got a little upset at this, but snapped out of it when Tino approached him nervously.
"Um… I put the wrong topping…" He said, pointing down at the strawberry yoghurt with brownie bits in it. Berwald stared down at the cup, then glanced up at Tino's face, not missing his eyes dropping down to the cup quickly. Why was he so terrified?
Berwald waited for a minute, not completely sure why Tino was back. He was sure Tino would just give up with whatever he was trying to do and leave. He was pleasantly surprised when Tino spoke again, "I was wondering if I can just replace this one? I only took one bite…"
Berwald's brows rose when he understood what Tino was asking, but to Tino and his two friends outside, it looked like he was about to turn him down.
"It's okay, I'll just-"
"Okay." Berwald interrupted him, not having to think about a 'proper' way of saying this one word. Tino looked up at Berwald in shock, then smiled a little, still looking a little intimidated.
"Uh… Thanks…" He puts the rejected yoghurt cup on the counter in front of Berwald and goes to the other side, taking a new cup and filling it with more strawberry yoghurt. When he went to the topping station once more, he examined each topping carefully. When he looked at the brownie bits, he frowned a little and looked at Berwald, who was watching him once more.
"Oh!" Tino gasped out, averting his eyes quickly, but Berwald didn't stop staring, "I mean… I'm sorry about the brownie. It was my fault, anyway… So, don't be mad at Raivis, okay?"
Berwald quirked a brow, then started thinking again, not taking his eyes off of Tino. He was making the blond uncomfortable, and he could tell. He let out a slow sigh and answered softly, "No harm done."
Tino looked up at him again, starting to get more comfortable around the hulking man through their short conversations. It was as if he had met him before, but, then again, he had been here multiple times before. When he properly topped his yohurt with the dark chocolate brownie bits, he went to the register and said, "I can pay for this."
Berwald shook his head immediately, making Tino pause as he reached for his wallet.
"My treat." Berwald mumbled, his gentle side being exposed ever-so-slightly. Tino looked even more surprised, and he smiled widely.
"Um, thank you." He said, and Berwald nodded silently, expecting the young man to leave now. He flinched back a little when Tino suddenly leaned forward, his brows bunching together and his eyes squinting. His lower lip poked out a little, then a surprised look came onto his face.
"Your name is Berwald?" He asked, a small note of hope ringing through his voice. The man in question glanced down at his shirt, where his nametag was, and nodded slowly. When he looked back up at Tino, their eyes connected and stayed, both of them staring at one another curiously. Tino looked like he wanted to say something, but he didn't. Instead, he took his new yoghurt cup and turned his head away, heading for the door once more.
"Thank you!" He called out, exiting quickly.
Berwald stared after them as they walked away, blinking a few times when they turned the corner. He looked down at the rejected strawberry yoghurt quietly, then took out his phone and entered T's IM name before adding some text.
K0nkr3r0fth3B4lt1kC33s[02:34:54]: Hey
SantaisCool[02:40:15] Arent you working?
K0nkr3r0fth3B4lt1kC33s[02:40:24]: Yeah
K0nkr3r0fth3B4lt1kC33s[02:40:47]: I wanted to ask you a question
SantaisCool[02:40:49]: why are you messaging me at work?
SantaisCool[02:41:05] oh ok sure
SantaisCool[02:45:32]: B?
K0nkr3r0fth3B4lt1kC33s[02:45:53]: Yeah im thinking.
SantaisCool[02:46:13] okay take your time
K0nkr3r0fth3B4lt1kC33s[03:23:14]: Do you like strawberry yoghurt?
SantaisCool[03:54:17]: :)