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Letting go of the hug, Vin felt more refreshed than ever. Turning around, he found his friends waiting right behind him.
"Alright, I see you're all here," Griselda spoke, her professionalism retaking her, "Lint, can I leave this to you, while I take these one's home? It's been a long day for them."
Lint struck a salute, "Aye-aye, you got it."
"Thank you," Griselda nodded, before turning back to the group, "Come now, we've organized a transport to get you all back to the dorms."
There were no cries of resistance uttered from anyone on the team, as they all picked up their bags, and followed Griselda, beginning their trek to their ride home, all of them plenty full of the mall for one day.
It had been early nighttime by the time they arrived back home in their underground dorms, everyone trotting off to their rooms in order to put away their new stashes of items. As for Vin, he was no different, yet as he began to put away his new clothes, a strange sensation began to overtake him.
As he rummaged through his wardrobe, he couldn't stop his eyes from roving down to the box that housed his old family's photos. A source of tears and heart-wrenching pain for him, and yet, he still felt such a strong compulsion towards them in that very moment.
Initially choosing to ignore it, Vin continued to put away his clothes, until at long last, the feeling reached such a peak where it was impossible to properly ignore it.
Hands shaky with anxiety and trepidation, Vin slid the box out, running his hands over it's lid, before cracking it open, and drawing a random frame from the stack. Eye's closed, in fear that whatever he saw was going to inspire another host of negative emotions.
When he finally opened his eyes however, he wasn't met with the same suffocating feeling he felt when initially arriving at the dorms, but rather, he was overcome with a sense of fond nostalgia. Sure, there still was pain that stirred deep in his chest at the sight of his old family, but it was heavily outweighed by Vin's acceptance of what happened. Guess hanging out with Jafar caused some of his accepting, serene nature to rub off on Vin, that, or he really just needed that hug. Probably both.
Vin gave a small smile at the framed photo, before walking over to his desk, and neatly propping the small framed photo up against the back wall, as he gazed down at the photo with a sad, nostalgic smile on his face.
Hey, I'm back!
First off, HOLY SHIT, WE'VE HIT ALMOST 6,000 VIEWS! You guys are fucking incredible. Thanks for every drop of support you all show, it never fails to bewilder me.
I've been pretty busy as of late with a whole tidal wave of university work, including a number of essays, which has kind of left me with very little time to write. But ultimately, I was able to get this one out in line with the other chapters, but I… really don't expect that to last for very long. Truth is, I'm running out of time to write, especially with my classes in their last month before the winter break. Still, I'll try posting when I can, but just expect the updates to slow down a little. Following or favoriting should help work around that problem for you guys, since you'll know exactly when I update.
Anyway, I just wanted to get that off my chest real quick before we delve into the chapter notes. Now, let's go over the notable details in this chapter. I'm going to try a slightly different format for the notes, just so it doesn't seem as dense and wordy to read.
Chapter Notes/Details:
[Mall Shopping]
First of all, yep, we got another slice of life chapter! What can I say, I'm a little bit of a sucker for writing chapters like this. I genuinely enjoy taking a small cast of characters, placing them in a mudande and sometimes arbitrary setting, and seeing how they would act around it. In this case, clothes shopping at the mall, because let's be real here, I don't think that any of the DxD girls have more than four outfits, and one of those is either the Kyoh Academy school uniform, or a battle costume. And hell, sometimes both… I feel so bad for Xenovia and Irina...
So yeah, I wanted to both give an excuse for some new clothing for the girls, and also, it makes for a very fun setting. I got to draw upon the years upon years of childhood trauma (for legal reasons, that's a joke guys) from sitting on a mall bench out front of a women's clothing store as my mom took forever trying stuff on. I know that some of you may relate a lot to that as well, so hey, these chapters for you guys out there.
Also, a slightly unrelated fun fact, but the layout for the mall I used in my head while writing this chapter was based on a combination of two malls in my area that I go to every once in a while. You probably wouldn't be able to understand that from reading the chapter, but it certainly helped when coming up with the setting while writing.
["It's a little on the nose…"]
It's a throwaway gag line that I included. The whole point of the joke was that the pearlescent decals on the shirt that Vanessa picked for Vin was an obvious reference to the color of his crystals. The little action that Vanessa does with her fingers during that moment is meant to be a not-so-subtle signal that it was about the rings. Maybe some of you got it, or you didn't. Either way, now you know, and the joke has been officially ruined.
[The Goon Squad]
The group of armed terrorists, who I affectionately refer to as the 'Goon Squad': a term that I've been using to describe teams of incompetent bad guys long before Space Jam 2 stole it. These guys are as basic as they come for villains, and that's sort of the point. They may seem nonsensical, I mean, they have no actual motivation, but hey, that doesn't really matter, because I just wanted an excuse to have a little bit of an action scene to break up the tone set by the last chapter and the beginning of this one.
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