DISCLAIMER
Welcome to an entirely self-indulgent project that had me distracted for over three months. It began as a plot bunny that came to life in the late hours when I was editing chapter 24 of Honor and Will with my beta reader. And, as plot bunnies tend to do, this one just ran amok.
This has Cullen Rutherford and Tharin Trevelyan find each other in an alternate universe's Japan in 2021. The COVID-19 pandemic never happened, and the 2020 Tokyo Olympics has taken place as originally planned. Happy days all around!
Once again, I express my profound gratitude to MoonCrisis (*FFN*/u/1538943/MoonCrisis), the best beta reader anyone could ask for. They have constantly encouraged my creativity and provided me with countless ideas for when I was stuck. Thank you so much!
Obviously, I do not own the rights to any characters or materials directly derived from the Dragon Age franchise, which all belong to BioWare. I do not, and will never, profit from the publication and the distribution of this fan fiction.
Also, please be advised that this is a work of fiction. Names, characters not derived from the Dragon Age franchise, places, and incidents described here, except for transportation infrastructure and well-known public landmarks, are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
I will post first two chapters on Sunday, May 2 and Sunday, May 9 at 2 pm (U.S. Eastern Standard Time). After Honor and Will resumes on May 16, I will post new chapters every two weeks on Sundays at 2 pm.
This is a heavily censored version of the fic that meets the ratings guideline for FFN! I highly recommend that the readers check out the uncensored version at AO3. For those willing to venture forth, I will post links to AO3 on every chapter that has been censored.
A series of careless and emotional decisions led Cullen Rutherford to ask Tharin Trevelyan out on a date.
It was all supposed to be about language exchange. Nothing more, nothing less. Cullen was an Electronics Technician Second Class in the United States Navy, currently stationed in Yokosuka, Japan. Or, more precisely, assigned to the USS McKee, an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer that hailed Yokosuka as its homeport.
He had been in Japan for three months and had yet to receive formal education on the language beside a few hours at the Reagan Ranch and some time spent by himself on the Navy-sponsored language program software. Some people around him at work could speak fragments here and there, but it was oftentimes in an effort to titillate themselves with bad jokes or to pick up women off base.
He genuinely wanted to learn to speak Japanese, and he was sure there were men and women out there who wanted to practice their English.
So, after retiring to his barrack room after another day of grueling work on the ship, he opened his laptop, ran a VPN, pulled up the Internet browser, and searched for "language exchange site."
Cullen clicked on the first result without reading its description, which was an irresponsible act that his computer-savvy brain would have screamed in protest if he weren't too tired. The browser went blank momentarily and then was filled with a picture of smiling people of multiple races enthusiastically chatting. Whatever they were talking about must have been absurdly funny. They sure seemed happy.
He signed up quickly without thinking. When the site asked for a profile picture, he chose the only decent photo of him in Navy Service Uniform. A couple years old, but he hadn't changed that much in those years.
Normally, he would have skipped that step, as he valued guarding his privacy on and off the Internet, but his tired brain was on the fritz. He answered every single question, not because he was diligent or careful, but because he was reckless from all the fatigue.
But even his exhausted brain could not overcome the military values instilled in him. And the military definitely frowned upon its members fraternizing online.
Social media sites like Facebook and Reddit were not banned, but people were generally advised to steer clear. God forbid if he were to seek companionship through Tinder. And as for apps like Grindr, Scruff, or Jack'd (rather popular in Asia, according to one of his friends), well, let us just say the Navy was not the most tolerant place in the world.
Cullen was bisexual. At any rate, he was bi to the best of his knowledge. Not that he'd ever actually dated or been in a relationship with another man, but it became patently obvious to him in high school when he couldn't get thoughts of other boys in his swim team out of his mind.
What now seemed like ages ago, before he was in the Navy, he had one of these "gay" apps installed in his phone as well as Tinder to cast a wider net. He'd managed to snag at least a few drunken one-night stands courtesy of these apps.
Discretion could not win over youthful libido, and he had indulged in the hedonistic rituals of college just like everyone else. Nothing to be ashamed of, and he certainly did not judge those who engaged in these practices.
But now, things were different. He was living a regimented life within the structural confines of the U.S. Navy. He was trained to follow and respect orders as well as the unspoken institutional rules. And the unspoken institutional rules inculcated in him were wagging their fingers at him disapprovingly as he considered joining a language exchange program.
He hovered the cursor over the registration button for a couple minutes, dithering. Did one-on-one language exchange count as social media? Was he in danger of embarrassing himself and, more importantly, embarrassing the Navy? He pushed down the feeling of impending doom and clicked the okay button.
And a whole other world opened up to him.
There were hundreds of pages of forums dedicated to individual exchanges. There seemed to be so many active ones that he did not even mind the mid-2000s design of the website, all black outlines and gray fillers. He clicked on the link for Japanese-English exchange and created his own thread.
Title: Looking for a Japanese buddy
Content: I'm an American guy currently located in Yokosuka. I would like to find a Japanese friend to practice my Japanese. We can speak in English as well if you would like. Prefer online, email exchanges.
After posting his thread, Cullen stretched and yawned. It was late. The laptop's clock was saying 11:06 pm. Twenty-four minutes before his bedtime.
He went to the bathroom sink he shared with one other roommate and began to brush his teeth. As he did, his eyes gradually lost focus and everything became an off-white blur. He stayed that way while he brushed, sleepy and running on fumes. He quickly gargled mouthwash and returned to his bedroom.
He was about to close his laptop and go to bed when he noticed something. There was a blinking light at the bottom of the language exchange website saying he had a message from someone.
Uh oh.
He hadn't realized the website had a chat function. Did this mean it counted as social media? He swiftly closed the laptop and put it on his bedside table. After plugging his phone to a charger and putting it on top of the laptop, he flopped onto the bed and rubbed his face vigorously while groaning loudly. Well, it was too late to retract that now.
He turned and glowered at the laptop for a few seconds, wondering if he could delete the membership and pretend what he had done actually didn't happen. But he was tired. He could think about it tomorrow. Yes, tomorrow was better.
Cullen floundered around attempting to take off his undershirt while lying down. When he finally managed to, he crawled under a thin linen top sheet and turned off the lamp next to his bed.
He fell asleep almost immediately.
The next day was busy too, which meant Cullen had nearly forgotten about the language exchange site debacle.
Of course, when he came back to his room in the evening, he couldn't ignore his laptop sitting on his nightstand. With its power light flickering menacingly, it had been patiently waiting for his return, and he remembered everything.
Cullen shook his head and brought his laptop onto the bed. He opened it, logged in to Windows and the VPN, and pulled up the insufferable language exchange site. He went directly to the help tab, in which the site designers had made it humanly impossible to track down the deactivation button. But he persevered and found it eventually.
When he was about to click on the deactivation button and end this whole ridiculous saga, he saw the number seven next to his username. Curiosity got the better of him – like it did yesterday – and he clicked on it instead.
Predictably, he found seven new messages. He went down the list but found no one who stood out or was particularly interesting. Or actual people, the bare minimum requirement for successful language exchange. The Internet seemed to think there were lots of frustrated and unfulfilled Japanese housewives dying to talk to friendly foreigners like him.
Except for one. The first chat message that alerted him to the fact that this was, in fact, a social media site. He opened it and found two short messages from a user named quizzy1203.
First was a brusque but quippy one-liner from them: So, am I gonna fall for a scammer?
Ah, someone who was aware of the scams proliferating on social media sites lately, of those who pretended to be in the military to defraud people out of their money. Cullen regretted making the photo of himself in uniform as the profile picture. Well, he regretted having a profile picture at all.
It probably didn't help either that he was logged on to a VPN, displaying his location as anywhere but Japan.
The first message was followed by the apologetic second the next morning: Sorry, I only meant to be funny. I'd like to be your Japanese buddy, as long as you don't mind a mouthy American like me.
Cullen clicked on quizzy1203's profile and was greeted by a photo of a beaming brunet on a fishing boat holding up a sizable fish. Even from a smallish profile picture, he could tell that handsome was an adjective that did not do the man justice.
A smile floated on his lips unawares. His heart began to beat faster as he quickly typed out a message.
After giving it some thought, he erased it entirely, and then typed it out again exactly the same way. Still debating whether this was a proper response or not, Cullen hit the enter button: No worries. At some point, I will definitely ask you to send me $1,000 for drugs the military wouldn't provide.
Cullen knew there was only a slim chance of the man being online at the same moment he was. Still, he waited.
The radio silence seemed to stretch on for eternity. After the minute mark, when the last digit on the laptop's clock changed, he began to sincerely regret making light of it all. Perhaps that was the wrong thing to do.
After the two-minute mark, he lost all hope of continued communication. It was too bad because the guy was exactly his type, jet black hair and blue eyes, enough muscles to make him look slightly ursine.
He closed the laptop, moved it aside, and padded to the bathroom to brush his teeth and get ready for bed. Same thing every day, rinse and repeat. Rinse and repeat.
As he lay in the bed ready to go to sleep, Cullen let his thoughts wander around freely. It wasn't really that he wanted to date. At least that's what he half-consciously told himself when he was looking intently at quizzy1203's picture before.
If Cullen were to date, however, he was certain he would be in demand, at least at first. It wasn't to say that he was vainglorious, but he knew he wasn't ugly. With profound amber eyes, straight nose, flaxen hair cropped short and slicked to the side, and a five o'clock shadow that refused to leave him despite how hard he tried with a razor, his look was on point.
And the deep scar above his upper lip only accentuated his attractiveness. It gave the impression of mysterious danger that appealed to those who liked to brand themselves as rebels, those who thought they were defying authority figures by dating him. Not that that was true since he would characterize himself as a law-abiding person.
Above all, he was a military man. There had to be some allure to that fact. Some people were into that, right?
Well, none of this mattered because he wasn't in the market for dating.
Turning his thoughts to the prospect of making a new friend, he reminded himself that at least one person was interested in being his language buddy this early on, which was an encouraging sign.
But then Cullen was also sure that once the said language buddy discovered his serious and boring personality, he would run for the hills and cease all contact. He wasn't holding out much hope in that regard.
Anyway…
It would have been a patent lie if he argued that his motive for messaging quizzy1203 was entirely platonic. Dating and sex were, in fact, on his mind. He was a healthy, in-shape thirty-year-old male. A man in his prime. While his busy schedule in the Navy precluded an active love life, a part of him still wanted to venture forth and meet someone. A part that often went unheeded, he realized.
Christ, was he ever going to find someone?
Just like yesterday, he had crawled under the thin linen top sheet and had turned off the light. He had his hands gathered directly on top of his solar plexus and sighed.
Maybe he was lonely. That thought hadn't occurred to Cullen before, but it certainly made sense. He was not all that personable to begin with, enough to go for days without talking to Rylen, his own roommate.
People he encountered in the Navy seemed to like him well enough, and he had become close acquaintances with quite a few people. But there were some things about himself that he would never divulge to these people, one of them being the fact that he was bisexual.
Don't Ask, Don't Tell was in the process of being repealed and reversed in all branches of the military by the time he enlisted, but stigmas surrounding LGBT+ had been slow to perish in the U.S. Navy. Cullen just didn't feel comfortable being that open about his bisexuality. He would watch those who were open about their queer sexualities and non-binary genders with awe and respect, since he did not think he had the guts to be.
Hence existed a barrier he'd erected to keep his acquaintances out, but it definitely made him feel like his career in the Navy was a lonesome one.
So, to summarize, he was stranded in a foreign country with no family and no close friends he could talk to. Of course, he was lonely.
As his thoughts turned bleaker and bleaker, he decided to check on the chat one more time. Just one last time. He swiftly turned toward the bedside table and juggled the laptop, almost dropping it to the floor in the process. When he opened the laptop, he saw a blinking light once again and felt preposterously glad.
quizzy1203 had typed, Haha, you are a funny, funny man. There was a crying laughing emoji attached to the end of the sentence.
And then another message popped up. So, I guess you are in the military? What's that like?
So began the back-and-forth that lasted for about two hours before Cullen realized he had to go to bed if he had any hopes of getting through the next day in one piece.
Through these messages, Cullen learned that quizzy1203 was in fact a twenty-three-year-old English teacher named Tharin Trevelyan. He worked at a junior high school in Kawasaki. Well, it was not Yokosuka, but Kawasaki was on his side of Tokyo Bay at least, Cullen thought.
quizzy1203: Yeah, I got super lucky. I studied Japanese in high school and college, studied abroad in Kyoto, and my advisor was kind enough to recommend me to try out for the JET Programme.
yokosuka_c_guy: What's that?
quizzy1203: It's a program sponsored by the Japanese gov. It recruits recent college grads from English-speaking countries to come and teach here.
yokosuka_c_guy: Nice! So, you must be pretty much fluent in Japanese by now.
quizzy1203: Haha, idk about that. I'll say that I have no trouble getting around, which is an enormous help when you're trying to blend in. Not that I ever do. I mean, you must've seen my profile pic. I'm usually the only white guy around for miles.
Cullen couldn't come clean about the fact that he was rapidly flipping between two tabs, repeatedly going back to ogle at the larger size of Tharin's profile pic. The last thing he wanted was to come across as a creep. Yet, he had to admit to himself that he was mesmerized by the young man. Enough to attempt to flirt, a natural conclusion point.
yokosuka_c_guy: Hey, at least you've got a real nice profile pic. You really do look great in it.
quizzy1203: Aww, tyvm. So do you. I'm sure scammers the world over are dying to pretend to be you on the Interweb.
It wasn't entirely clear whether Tharin got the message. Still, getting a compliment from the young man, even if jokey, was enthralling.
As the chat progressed, Cullen found himself increasingly antsy with anticipation. It wasn't at all like him to be antsy about something, let alone someone. But there he was, antsy, nonetheless. Eventually, he brought up the subject of dating in the most nonchalant way he could, hoping to glean what Tharin's preferences were.
yokosuka_c_guy: I've seen one sailor date a Japanese girl so he could practice Japanese. So… how bad is it to date someone just to improve your language skills?
quizzy1203: Uh… I'd say, really bad? I wouldn't know. Does that happen often?
yokosuka_c_guy: That guy is an outlier. Most people don't care enough to make an effort to learn Japanese. They expect the Japanese to speak English.
quizzy1203: Ugh, that's just shitty. I should commend you for joining a language exchange site, then, haha.
yokosuka_c_guy: Hey, who says I didn't join just to find dates?
quizzy1203: Lol, true that.
There was a sudden lull. Messages stopped. Cullen waited for half a minute, but nothing new came. Feeling stuck, he rested his chin on the palm of his left hand and tapped his right forefinger on the laptop. He felt the bristles of his stubble grate against his skin.
Tharin did not seem to catch on to the fact that Cullen was driving the conversation toward the subject of dating. Or if he did, he was ignoring it. Cullen decided to press on gingerly, hoping Tharin would notice and not notice all at the same time.
yokosuka_c_guy: I mean, I suppose you date someone for different reasons. But dating to practice your Japanese seems a little dubious. Not that YOU would need to do that. I bet you don't need to date anyone for that, if you're dating someone.
Barring his spelling out his intention directly, Cullen could not have been more obvious. Fortunately, the response was quick.
quizzy1203: Haha, nope. I don't need to, and I wouldn't. And no, I'm single. Let's see… The last time I was with someone was back in America. So, a year ago.
It was as if Cullen managed to pry open the door to a secret treasure trove. But he realized he had better suppress the urge to inquire for more details. He could come off as boorish.
yokosuka_c_guy: Oh, yeah?
Yet Tharin was generous enough to provide the details right away.
quizzy1203: Yeah. I broke up with a guy named Dorian before I left for Japan. He was a nice dude too… Really funny and smart. But we both agreed, it was for the best.
Ah, so Tharin was gay, possibly bisexual like him. This excited Cullen more than it really ought to have. In fact, it excited him enough to try his hand at dropping more transparent hints.
yokosuka_c_guy: Sorry to hear that. Anyone caught your eye over here?
quizzy1203: Nah. Besides, it's been a busy year for me. Adjusting to a new environment, a new job, all that crap. You?
yokosuka_c_guy: Um… It's actually that people aren't interested in ME. For some reason, being an in-shape sailor isn't enough of an incentive to date me. Plus, dating within the Navy feels a little like trying to date your siblings. At least for me, that's how it feels.
Unfortunately, it didn't really inspire much of a response from the other side.
quizzy1203: That's a crying shame. You deserve someone awesome.
But still, Cullen was feeling motivated. He decided to be even more forthright.
yokosuka_c_guy: Yeah. Maybe you can introduce me to someone, haha. I like both men and women.
There was a long pause. Cullen waited with bated breath.
quizzy1203: I wish I knew someone, but the only adults around me right now are middle-aged female Japanese teachers. I mean, I can introduce you to them if you don't mind being their side piece, lol. All of them are married. Your Japanese will greatly improve, I suspect.
yokosuka_c_guy: I should… pass on this, right? Haha, it's been a while since I've dated and I'm feeling slightly, just slightly desperate.
Cullen definitely did not want to let go of this particular thread of conversation that centered on love and dating. He racked his brain for an idea, which then obliged with an outrageous one.
He had three-day-long liberty coming up on the last weekend of this month. And he was fairly certain Kawasaki was within 50 miles of the base… He double-checked on his phone, and by car it was about 15 miles.
Cullen could not believe he was about to do it, so he typed the next message quickly and stared at it for a while. The text cursor never stopped blinking.
We should meet up. Are you free on May 30?
Knowing he did not have enough courage to send it with his eyes open, Cullen squeezed them shut and pressed the enter button.
When he opened his eyes back up cautiously, he saw a short message dripping with skepticism and suspicion.
quizzy1203: You do realize we've been chatting for like an hour, right? Doesn't that seem premature to you?
yokosuka_c_guy: I know, but… We gotta start somewhere, and I'd very much like to meet you in person.
Another long pause. Cullen could not stop himself from typing out another sentence, even though it felt like he was digging his own grave.
yokosuka_c_guy: I promise not to rob or kidnap you. How's that?
quizzy1203: Oh, dude… Cullen, someone should really teach you how to crack a joke. An emoji of an annoyed face with a bead of sweat rolling on the side.
yokosuka_c_guy: Maybe you could when we meet. Cullen even tried applying an emoji to his message, which he had never done before. A mischievous emoji with a tongue sticking out. That should do it.
Two long minutes passed before a smiley emoji came from Tharin.
quizzy1203: Alright, I suppose there's no harm in entertaining a lonely sailor such as yourself. It's a date.
Cullen blushed, several lurid thoughts flashing in his brain at the word entertaining.
But Tharin said it was a date. That was more than enough to make him wave his left fist in the air and whisper to himself, "Alright!"
END NOTE
Don't blame Cullen too much. He's just an eager boy!
Next up, the first "date."
If you liked this fic, please check out the other fics in the series: An Ace Up His Sleeve (彼の切り札) and A Bittersweet Memory of Leigh (リーのほろ苦い思い出)! You get a glimpse into Tharin and Cullen's future.
Comments, reviews, and critiques are always welcome but never obligatory! Thank you for reading!