Class Project
Choosing the movie to watch always takes longer than watching the movie.
Modern AU, OP Marines in a film class together.
Koby happily took a deep breath of mostly clean air as he left the subway, a smile lighting up his face as he took in the soaring skyscrapers interspersed with tall brownstones, old architecture and new all mixed together. A bus pulled into its stop, doors hissing as they opened, people spilling out the back while new riders entered the front.
There were people everywhere, eating at the cafes and restaurants across the street, strolling down the sidewalks, making their way down the steps towards the subway. All ages, all sorts, just going about their lives. He loved downtown Marineford. "God I hate downtown," Helmeppo muttered as he came up the last few stairs to join Koby on the sidewalk.
Koby turned to him as they began walking west down the street, on their way to Hina's apartment building. "Really? I love it! All the people and interesting places, and things to do," he grinned as they passed a small clothing store wedged between an Alabastan food place and a gym, all three on the ground floors of soaring multi-story buildings, apartments stretching high above them. He wished he lived in one of them, maybe once he finished college and was able to work full-time.
"Maybe it's because you grew up in the middle of nowhere Koby, but the city always smells, it's always loud, and it's cutthroat," Helmeppo grumbled. Koby laughed as they turned the corner, weaving around city dwellers with shopping bags and children, dog walkers and lines for food. They were about to walk past his favorite building, a spite house made of Goa wood and brick, hemmed in on either side by modern era Elbaf style skyscrapers. The architecture student in him felt a spark of joy every time he saw it, a tiny bit of the East Blue thriving here, in the big city.
He grinned as they crossed the street, a breeze blowing the hair off his forehead. "At least we didn't have to drive here, parking would have been a nightmare," Helmeppo eyed the traffic with distaste as they reached the towering glass skyscraper where Hina lived. "I don't want to know how much money she makes to afford this place," Helmeppo muttered as they walked into the lobby, nodding at the doorman. Koby agreed but supposed it made sense for a criminal defense lawyer. The lobby was far quieter than outside. The two of them walked over to the elevators, the security guard watching them with bored eyes.
Just as Koby pressed the button to summon the elevator, someone called his name as the doors to the street opened. He looked over, a grin lighting up his face as Tashigi, in street clothes as opposed to her normal uniform, walked into the building, a large container of something held in her outstretched arms. She smiled back, took a step forward, and immediately tripped much to Koby and Helmeppo's horror.
A hand shot out from behind her, and grabbed the back of her coat to steady her. "Jesus, Tashigi, watch where you're stepping, idiot!" Smoker's irritated growl echoed throughout the lobby, making the security guard flinch. Koby breathed out a sigh of relief as Tashigi righted herself, turning her bright smile on Smoker instead, thanking him. Smoker spotted them over Tashigi's head as the elevator dinged, Helmeppo stepping inside and making sure to hold the door as their classmates joined them.
The elevator doors shut, and they began the ascent to the 33rd floor. "What's in your bag Tashigi?" Koby asked as Smoker nodded to him and Helmeppo. "Oh, I made muffins for tonight," she said brightly. "Oooh, chocolate?" Helmeppo asked. "I was going to make just banana-nut since Hina likes those, but I don't know if everyone likes nuts in their muffins, and Smoker," she jerked her head at the taller man behind her, "likes chocolate, but I don't think Drake likes chocolate, so I made some plain ones too," she said, nearly dropping the bag as she went to adjust her glasses. "Wow...that's a lot of work Tashigi, I'll be sure to try all of them," Koby told her as he reached out to steady the bag in her hands.
"Hey Smoker, how much do you want to bet that Drake will be late again?" Helmeppo asked, nudging him with his elbow. "I'll bet you 1000 beri that he's already there," Smoker stated as the elevator came to a stop with a ding, the doors sliding open.
Helmeppo grinned and agreed to it while they stepped out on Hina's floor. She lived only a floor below the penthouses at the top of the building, in one of the bigger apartments. The four of them walked quickly down the carpeted hallway with abstract art placed at intervals on the walls to Hina's door. Koby knocked.
After a few moments, footsteps could be heard on the other side of the door, and a second later, the handle turned and the door opened. Hina in a pair of blue jeans and a white blouse smiled at them, gesturing for them to come in. She looked nearly the opposite of Smoker, clean and pristine while Smoker looked like he had been working on his motorcycle all day. The fact that the two of them were good old friends despite Hina being a lawyer and Smoker being a detective made Koby smile. Hina had been the one to convince Smoker and Tashigi to take some community college classes for fun with her which was how they all met. The four of them filed past her, making for the living room and Koby smiled. He liked Hina's apartment a lot, very bohemian with bright pops of color as accents, a comfortable integration of open space and practical furniture.
Books lined her living room wall opposite her big windows overlooking the buildings and streets below, a comfortable couch set sat in front of a large television hanging on the wall. And sitting on the couch, was Drake, who turned to look at the group with a little wave. Helmeppo cursed, digging out his wallet. Tashigi followed Hina into the kitchen to set down her muffins, chattering about something.
Koby grinned at Drake as he watched Helmeppo hand Smoker money with some confusion. "How was the subway? I made the mistake of taking it during the evening rush on my way over from the zoo, had to stand in a packed car like a sardine for the whole thing," Drake asked him as he looked away from the other two, Smoker pulling off his leather jacket and flopping onto the couch, Helmeppo interrogating him about how he knew Drake would be there.
"Just normal for us, though we take a less popular line since we live in the lower east end," Koby picked up the remote and turned on the TV, scrolling through Hina's apps until he got to SnailFlix. Drake muttered something about him being lucky as Hina and Tashigi joined the rest of them in her living room, a plate of muffins in Hina's hands.
She placed them on her reclaimed wood coffee table and settled on her couch in between Smoker and Drake, Tashigi taking the other side, between Smoker and himself. Helmeppo flopped on his other side.
Finally, everyone was here. Now for the hard part.
Choosing the movie they needed to watch and analyze for their community college film class. They needed to pick something decent too, because they were required to write an essay and from experience, it was much easier to write about something good rather than a B movie and all their failings.
Drake cleared his throat, "Okay, I vote for-" "Jurassic Park," everyone answered for him. "I was going to say something science-y!" he spluttered.
"Right, sure," Hina smirked at him. He turned pink and muttered something under his breath. Drake had requested it at nearly every weekly movie night since they had been placed into this group together at the beginning of the semester. It had fast become a running joke though they had yet to actually watch Jurassic Park.
"Hina would like to watch something with decently choreographed action sequences or tasteful cinematography," she stated, crossing one leg over the other. "I don't want to sit through another artsy film, Hina," Smoker grumbled. She turned to him, "Because the last one made you cry?" He glared at her.
"I thought it was Logan that made you cry," Tashigi looked at him with surprise. "Oi!" He yelped. "You cried at the end of Logan?" Drake leaned past Hina to stare at Smoker, whose ears were turning red. "Shut up!"
"I did too, I mean Wolverine dies, how is that not sad?" Drake shrugged.
"Spoilers! Geez!" Helmeppo cried.
"Shit, sorry, my bad," he rubbed the back of his head, a lock of his brown hair slipping out of his ponytail.
"You really need a haircut," Hina said.
He turned to her. "You think so? I kind of like it long…"
Koby coughed pointedly, hoping to keep everyone on track. He knew that if they began to deviate into other topics, they would be here all night. As much as he wanted to do that, he had drafting lab early in the morning. Hina and Drake flashed him guilty smiles. "I would like a movie that has decent female characters, or swords," Tashigi jumped in. "We just watched Kill Bill last time," came Helmeppo's voice. "Kill Bill has a sequel," she stated with a definitive nod. "I vote for something with a happy ending!" Helmeppo called out, choosing to ignore Tashigi's comment.
Smoker looked at him, "You always want something with a happy ending."
"And you always want something with a "deep philosophical meaning" or "complicated politics"," Helmeppo rolled his eyes as Smoker shrugged.
Koby sighed as he stared at the list of films on SnailFlix, noting with some level of awe that there were eight Tremors movies. As for what he himself wanted to watch, he was looking for some kind of adventure film. "I'm up for an adventure story, and if you're looking for good action and cinematography, Lord of the Rings is a good option, it has politics, and cool female characters!" he called out, hope sparkling in his eyes.
"Yeah, but it's magic, not science," Drake pouted. Koby turned to him, he knew Drake liked Lord of the Rings almost as much as he did, they just saw it a month prior together at a rerelease showing. "Really, you're turning down The Fellowship?" he said, betrayed. Drake opened his mouth but Tashigi interrupted him. "It only has Arwen and Galadriel as minor parts," she frowned. Okay, she had a point there. "Also, Fellowship doesn't really have a happy ending," Helmeppo looked at him askance. While a valid point, he was turning him down on it too?!
That was fine, the third one of the trilogy had both strong female characters and a happy ending. "Well, we could watch Return of the King instead," Koby nodded, feeling pretty confident that he had just solved the problem. "Hina hasn't seen the first one," came Hina's voice. Well, there went that plan. "Wait, you haven't seen The Fellowship of the Ring?" Drake looked at her, vaguely horrified.
She rolled her eyes, "It's long, isn't it?"
"That didn't stop you from watching The Godfather," Helmeppo said as he leaned back against the couch to look at her over Koby's shoulder. "That's a deep and complicated crime drama that fit with Hina's caseload at the time. Hina has court early in the morning," she stated. "Tashigi and I work the late shift tomorrow, so something less than three damn hours long would be good," Smoker rumbled, picking up a chocolate muffin and taking a bite out of it.
Tashigi's eyes sparkled as she looked at him. "Is it good? Did I underbake them? Is there enough chocolate? Did I overbake them?"
"They came out fine Tashigi, have some faith in yourself," Smoker grumbled, mouth stuffed with muffin. Everyone else grabbed a muffin, Koby snagging a plain one. "Right, so not super long, has a happy ending, action and decent cinematography, not crap female characters, adventure, and science-y…" Koby listed off. "Add political or societal intrigue too," Smoker shrugged. Koby gave him a look while Hina chuckled.
"That's a really tall order guys," Koby mumbled, scrolling through the premade lists on Snailflix as the rest of the group started throwing out films they knew and then shooting them down for one reason or another.
Kill Bill Vol. 2 was out because Smoker felt the plot was lacking in real world commentary which made Tashigi look put out. The Martian was out because of a lack of good female characters, which made Drake slump back against the couch. Blade Runner was out because only the director's cut was good and it was super slow, with very weak female character representation, which made Smoker roll his eyes. Children of Men was out because it definitely did not have a "happy ending" making Hina sigh, AND Back to the Future was out because once again, lack of good female characters. Helmeppo crossed his arms, as everyone sighed. Koby grabbed his second muffin, chocolate this time.
He scrolled through the adventure movies section as they all began arguing behind him once again and sighed. This is how it always went, they'd seemingly argue over which movie to watch for longer than it actually took to watch the movie.
Films scrolled past, Koby passing each one for not meeting the picky criteria of his classmates when he froze, staring at the screen. You had to be kidding. He held up his fingers to make sure. Action and decent cinematography, check. Not crappy female characters, check. Science, check. Political and/or societal commentary, check. A happy ending, check. And, for his own preferred criteria, this definitely was an adventure film.
"Guys," Koby called out, but his voice went unheard over Smoker and Hina arguing over whether Ocean's Eleven counted as a crime drama or a comedy, while Tashigi was trying to explain to Helmeppo that Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon while uplifting in its portrayal of strong women ultimately disappointed because neither female characters achieved their goals and their lives ended up revolving around the men they loved, while Drake had his head in his hands.
"GUYS!" Koby shouted. Everyone froze and turned to look at him. He pointed at the screen.
"Godammit," Smoker muttered. "Yes!" Drake cheered as Koby grabbed a banana-nut muffin and pressed play on Jurassic Park.
Notes:
This was written for the OP Dreamin' On 21st Century Zine. I had a lot of fun coming up with movies, and writing all of them together. I maaaay love the OP Marines a lot. Maybe.
Let me know your thoughts!
As always, thank you for reading and you can find me on Twitter at buggyisbest.